Free The Transformation of Things by Jillian Cantor

entering into REM sleep. It’s working.”
    I cleared my throat. “I don’t think you quite understand,” I said. “I had a dream last night about a person that I met today.” And I wanted to have sex with him. Or Kat did, and I was her, I silently added.
    “Jennifer, dreams are a representation of our subconscious. You must have seen this person before somewhere, even if your conscious mind didn’t register it.”
    “No,” I said. “I don’t think I did.” But she sounded so sure that I started to doubt myself. Had I seen Grant before?
    Grant’s picture must be in the back of the magazine, the same way my picture had been when I’d written for it, and I still got the magazine in the mail each month. I probably had seen it, seen him, without even knowing it, even realizing. “I guess you’re right,” I said. “It’s just—it felt so real.”
    “This is all good news, Jennifer. Deep sleep is good. Very good. Deep sleep cleanses.”
    “Okay,” I said. “Sorry to bother you.”
    “No bother. Keep on sleeping,” she said. “Namaste.”
    “Namaste,” I replied. As I hung up, I thought, Shit, I really do have to Google that word when I get home.
    I did some window shopping in the city, and by the time I made my way home it was after six. Will’s car was in the garage, and Will was already on the couch, his shoes and his belt hanging over the armchair, ESPN on the TV. “How wasyour day?” I asked, thinking for a moment about his telephone call, and that maybe now everything was going to be different between us.
    “Fine,” he said, not looking up.
    I waited for a minute, and then said, “Do you want to talk about it?” He didn’t answer. “Will?”
    “Jen, I’m trying to watch something here,” he snapped.
    “Fine.” I sighed and went into the kitchen to find myself something to eat: more canned soup, a quick dinner for one. I’d been stocking up every day at the grocery store.
    As I sat there at the table by myself and ate it, I stared blankly at the newspaper, hearing the sound of the TV buzzing in the distance, a hum of white noise. I spooned soup into my mouth, not even registering the taste, feeling nothing at all like the way I had this morning, tingly and excited, but instead so much like Lisa in my dream, numb and empty.



Ten
    W ith Will at work, I didn’t feel the incessant need to get out of the house, so I started cleaning out closets. I came across some recent copies of City Style, and I flipped to the back to look for Grant’s picture. Sure enough, there it was, his handsome, chiseled face smiling back at me. So Ethel had been right, I thought. My subconscious was smarter than I’d thought.
    After a few days of cleaning and packing up trash bags of old clothes for Goodwill, I started to feel tremendously stircrazy. I missed tennis, as much for the social interaction as the exercise, and I hadn’t been back to Pilates either, because half the women in the class were also in the Ladies Lunch Club. I needed to do something, something to make me breathe hard, to make my blood flow. So one morning, exactly a week after Will had begun work, I decided to go jogging.
    I drove to a beautiful wooded park, not too far from Kelly’s house in Oak Glen, that had nice, winding trails. I started out running, slowly at first, my body feeling heavy and out of shape, sluggish, as if I were trying to move through something thick and unyielding. But when I was finished, after I lapped the multitudes of unfamiliar women pushing strollers along the meandering trail, I sat down on a bench and hung my head between my legs. I heard the pumping of my heart echoing in my ears, felt the blood rushing to my face, and then I did feel a little more alive.
    When I got home I took a shower, and for the first time in a week I blew my hair dry with my big round brush and attempted to straighten it. Still it looked awful, so I distracted myself by trying to curl under the ends with my curling iron. Then I