Free How the Dead Dream by Lydia Millet Page A

a deft and glancing humor, and from the tops of the stools the skin of their knees touched briefly.
    In the privacy of the bathroom, where he removed himself for a pause, he felt giddy, liberated and captive both. The bathroom was a confined space but he was hardly confined; nothing was tawdry around him, nothing filthy despite its superficial patina of dirt—or rather he forgave it for its tawdriness. The peeling stickers on the wall, graffiti, wet floors with patches of wet toilet paper adhering—surprising for an upscale establishment but then bathrooms were the main tell when it came to restaurant management, not what came out of the kitchen. All these elements were part of the story, the grounded earth before the flight. This was the instant of exulting, and even the grimy walls could not dull his exhilaration.
    The room was a holding pen, a split moment. Outside the room was the rest of his existence. For years he had been detached and now in a stroke of time he was not. He would move, he would touch—no one would think to impede him, they would see him go and be glad—he could be anything. Do not embarrass yourself, he told himself strictly, but could not help smiling. There she was at the bar: their faces met before he got there.
    This was how he lost his autonomy—he had moved along at a steady pace and then he was flung.
    Around midnight she agreed to let him drive her home in her car. She had a low tolerance for alcohol and was slurring her words despite the fact that all she had drunk was watery Mexican beer with slices of lime. But his building was nearer than hers, and once in her car they decided to go there instead. He drove with one hand on the wheel and the other along the back of her seat; she curled in her seat to watch him as he drove. Music coursed through the car and both of them, he was sure, felt the uplift of the new. A bright panic filled him.
    But when they pulled into the parking garage there was his mother—sitting, her suitcases around her, at the base of the stairs that led up to the lobby. She was darkly tanned and smoking a thin cigarette. A few feet away stood a man in a white suit, also tanned and smoking.
    “I can’t believe this,” said T., and turned to Beth, who dipped her head to look past him out his window. “I’m sorry,” he said.
    “I’m back!” sang out his mother gaily, and stubbed out her cigarette on the concrete step. She stood up and spread her arms. She had lightened her hair. “And this is?”
    “Beth. Our first date,” said T. “So don’t say anything I’m going to regret. Beth? My mother. She’s been on a cruise.”
    His mother was down the steps and flinging her arms around him in a wild embrace.
    “Not just a cruise. I took buses . I stayed in these fleabag hotels. Chichén Itzá! Where they sacrificed the virgins? Hello, dear. Pleased to meet you. And T.! Do you even recognize your old mother?”
    “You look great,” he said dutifully.
    “This is Terry,” she said. “A friend. Terry is Lebanese!” “Pleased to meet you,” said T., and they shook.
    “I tell you what,” said his mother, “why don’t you just let us in and you kids can retire, or do whatever. We just flew in. We need to crash.”
    He did not recall the word crash in her vocabulary, nor had she called him a “kid” in recent memory.
    “I can’t believe you’re smoking,” he said, as they lugged her cases into the elevators and through his front door.
    “I picked up the habit,” she said. “Filthy, I know. So, have you heard from your father?”
    Less than a minute.
    “I haven’t talked to him,” he answered, evasive. “A letter? Anything?”
    “He hasn’t written to me. Let’s wait another day to discuss him.”
    He drove Beth to her apartment, since the mood was shot. He walked her in and called a cab and kissed her until it came.
    Waiting to fall asleep afterward, his mother and Terry installed awkwardly in the next room, his thoughts of her attained a