Dreams of Hide-and-Seek

Come in! Open 24 hours!

The bell jingled cheerfully. Edana, dinner in hand, made her way out of the convenience store and past the empty parking lot. The pavement was slick from the rain that had been going on until just about half an hour earlier. It was dark, shiny and cool. Edana dipped into her grocery bag for one of the hotdogs she bought.

When she was young, she recalled playing in the streets at a time like this. She'd drag her brother Adrian out with her ("What about the card game?" he'd ask) and play hide-and-seek.

Edana always hid first. Adrian would face the door and count to 10 while Edana found the darkest, scariest spot she could and crouch behind something. She'd hear Adrian call out, "Ready or not, here I come!" Edana would sit in her corner, stare at something nearby and wait. Eventually, she'd hear Adrian coming and she would crouch even lower, her knees and hair covering a sly smile that spread on her lips.

She'd hear Adrian's breathing coming closer. Her body would tense. When Adrian's foot finally came into sight, Edana would jump out and wake up the whole street with a blood-curdling scream.

Adrian never did get a chance to hide, Edana recalled, swallowing a bite of her hotdog. Not ever. She looked down the street she was crossing and imagined two silhouettes moving around in the dim street lights. One was shivering and limping. The other was clutching her sides with laughter. Edana took another bite and walked on.

She passed a 24-hour sushi bar at the corner, and she gave it an odd glance. Who would think of opening a 24-hour sushi bar? There was a sharp snap in the silent evening air as the electric fly trap hanging over the counter once again demonstrated the ingenuity of a purple light and a bunch of wires.

One of Edana's biggest curiosities when she was young was electricity. She used to go to a tutor after school with her then-best friend Nessa. On the way to their tutor, they had to pass two intersections. On the corner of the second was a massive electric wire running from the concrete to the top of a big old wooden pole. For about fifteen minutes of every after-school afternoon that year, Edana would spend her time with Nessa skirting around that wire, ducking under it and reaching out almost close enough to touch it. Neither actually touched it, though. Edana and Nessa liked to call that wire the free X-ray machine.

Edana had a big falling out with Nessa a couple of years after that. She couldn't quite remember what for. She remembered frowns cast across the classroom, fights during recess and whispers about the end of a long friendship. She never could remember why.

She had finished her hotdog. Edana spotted a conveniently positioned wastebasket sitting by the sushi bar counter. Lazily whipping around, she tossed the wrapper with a flick of her wrist. It bounced off the rim and landed on the sidealk. Edana sighed, and the sleepy sushi guy leaning behind the counter flashed her a curious look.

In high school, Edana had been a proud member of the varsity basketball team. She loved her teammates, and for a long stretch of time, Edana could solemnly swear that her team was indeed her life. The team never stopped after the game; they did everything together. She remembered hiking in the mountains and trying to set up a tent with the other girls. She had gotten drunk that night and ended up puking all over her sleeping bag. Everyone loved her for it.

Among all her friends in the team, Edana had bonded closest with Alli. Christened Alli-Marie, Alli had been delighted to meet someone who had a similarly odd name. Alli was the girl who got all her jokes and finished all her sentences. Alli was the one to call when she was depressed. It was Alli who had goaded her into "one more beer" that night when they went hiking in the mountains. After she threw up, Alli had taken her picture.

Edana heard a stray dog barking, its mournful wails echoing into the night. She was trailing her finger along a wet store window, enjoying the cool bite of the water on her fingertip. Writing her name on wet store windows had been a habit she had never quite broken. This window was dark. Edana wiped a spot dry with her hand and looked at her reflection.

She saw a tired-looking young woman in the dark store window. Her short hair was limp and slightly wet. Her eyes were narrowed. Edana brushed off a bit of mustard that had been left on the corner of her mouth.

Her watch read 12:30. Edana dug in her bag for another hotdog and looked for a comfortable bench.

Edana and Alli had gone to different universities, but they never failed to keep in touch. At first it was a phone call every evening to compare classmates, professors and comfort rooms. That gradually turned into every other day. They shifted comfortably to once a week and stuck with it. The schedule wavered for a few months when Edana had found herself a boyfriend (Alli had despised the guy), but they resumed contact with no hard feelings after the breakup.

The guy's name was Jeremy. He was the intellectual college-type who liked obscure poetry, unknown rock bands and comic books. He took Edana to a rock concert on their first date, where they had awkwardly held hands to avoid losing each other in the throng. It turned out that neither had much experience with rock concerts, and Edana had ended up dragging him to a bar for a glass of iced tea and a plate of complimentary nachos. Edana knew that bar well. Two years earlier, she had been dancing on the bar counter with Alli as the live band played on. With Jeremy, she tried to smile and make small talk.

The end of the relationship had to be one of the most nothing breakups ever. Edana remembered answering the phone one night when she was studying for a final.

"Dana."

"Hey," she said with her mouth full of potato chips.

"We haven't been seeing each other."

"Busy," she answered while trying to swallow at the same time.

"What do you want to do about it?"

"I don't know. You decide."

Edana heard him slowly clear his throat. "Movie this weekend."

"No."

"Want to take a walk?"

"I'm studying."

"Should we just forget about everything? End it all right now?"

After the "sures," "fines" and "I'll miss yous," Edana hung up. She called Alli after that and they talked all night. "You know what? The bastard never took me out dancing. Not ever."

Edana was halfway through with her second hotdog. She toyed with a pebble on the ground with the tip of her shoe. What had happened? She had landed a plain vanilla 9 to 5 job. She was earning a nice salary. She lived in a nice apartment. Edana knew what had happened. She had ended up on the road to apathy.

She wanted to play hide-and-seek again. She missed the thrill of leaping out from behind a dirty trash can and scaring the life out of her brother. She wanted to reach out and grasp the free X-ray machine. She wondered how Nessa was doing. In her mind, Edana pictured her basketball team as they had posed for the yearbook. She wanted to talk to Alli. Alli-Marie was somewhere in Central America digging up fossils.

Edana was waiting for a sign. She was waiting for a barrage of fireworks to explode in the horizon, illuminating the night sky with the word EXIT and a large arrow pointing out where she should go. She finished her second hotdog and stuffed the wrapper in her pocket. Looking up from her spot on the bench, Edana saw that she was sitting by a bus stop. What a pretty picture she should make for someone who happened to pass by.

She heard a motor in the distance. Headlights came into view. As if on cue, a bus had arrived, chugging along with its empty load. It was probably the last bus of the evening.

Edana suddenly had a crazy thought. She saw herself climbing into the bus, dropping a coin in the slot and sitting down on the right side -- she didn't like the longer left hand seats which tended to get more crowded during rush hour. The bus would take her as far as it could go and Edana would debark into a strange and wonderful new land of sunlight, butterflies and pastel colored houses. She would be happy. She should always have been happy.

Edana shifted her weight on the bench. She reached for her purse. The bus slowed a little it passed the bus stop. Edana looked at it curiously.

Her eyes followed the bus as it rolled on past her. She had made her choice. Her future was painted in the drab gray of disillusion. There were no pastel colors down the road waiting for her -- only lonely walks, 24-hour sushi bars and dreams of hide-and-seek. Edana watched the bus disappear around a corner.

She unwrapped her third hotdog and stood up to go home.