Episode 6. Jovina's Dream

Like young women everywhere, Jovina had already had many dreams in the night. Where she entered more elite company was in the day, a large portion of which she also spent dreaming. Such a multitude of dreams had passed her way, with such a variety of pageantry both common as dirt and exotic as moon rocks, that she would have found it impossible before last night to have called any one of them 'the' dream. Her dream. Jovina's dream.

Last night, however, she had had such a dream, one that she knew would stand alone among them all no matter how long she lived or what adventures she had. Because in this dream, she had been beautiful. Famously beautiful. Sought after for magazine covers. Adored by television viewers, even those who normally hated commercials. Of course in the dream there was no time for all of that to happen. It was only the reputation that she knew she had, and the reason Scherezade Larsen, that most famous female photographer of females, had sought her out for a special shoot.

Other models might have objected to an hour of posing in nothing more than a green bikini on a freezing day at the end of winter when there were still pockets of snow all around and the granite under her bare feet was so cold it sucked the heat from her body like a vampire and the spray from the waves crashing ashore at her back was still glazing the rock face with ice. Even the hardiest of models might have demanded a break every few minutes to sit huddled in a coat by a portable heater. But not Jovina. Because in the parking lot across the way, she could see the young film star they called Sonny Boy, see him sitting in his electric blue sports car with the top down and his binoculars fixed on her. Somehow he had found her there and somehow seeing him watching her filled her with warmth, so much so that for the entire hour she performed tirelessly and without the slightest shiver, striking pose after pose and directing them all with every ounce of her amped-up sensuality at the electric blue car.

When she awoke, the sheet beneath her was wet with her sweat and the sheet she had drawn over her head had collapsed over her nose and mouth and she was gasping for air. She was so shocked that she brushed her teeth with suntan lotion and put pepper in her tea. But she was not unhappy. Far from it. She knew she had had 'the' dream and that her life would forever be changed. She knew it meant that she was beautiful no matter what, no matter who made fun of her and called her fat. And she knew it meant that Sonny Boy and her would meet. He had not stood her up at Keyhole Rock, she was certain of that. A determination arose to find out what indeed had happened. She was excited. She dressed and left the house, out the back door and across the backyard and through the wooded lot as usual, and then she went down to the docks where she had seen him working as a fisherman.

He wasn't there. But the boat she had seen him on was, and the men she had seen him with too. They had finished unloading the day's catch and were hosing down the boat when they saw her and started sniggering and pointing their fingers at her.

Filled with an anger that surprised and amazed her, she marched over and asked them what they found so funny, and when they told her of the joke that they had played on her by pretending to be Sonny Boy and inviting her to a rendezvous at Keyhole Rock, she picked up the beer that one of the men had set down on the dock and she spit into it. "Now, you tell me where he is, by God, or you'll be sorry!" she said. And her ferocity struck them dumb. And then they told her that they didn't know, that he had packed up his handful of clothing and left the shed where he stayed in the night with no warning or word of farewell.

And then she went home feeling somewhat elated. Her life had acquired a new meaning. She had someone to find out about. And to find.

They called him Sonny Boy.


28 March 2019
Texas Jim
Peggy's Cove, Nova Scotia
www.granitecoast.ca