The Mothers of Voorhisville by Mary Rickert Page B

says, “They’re going to meet us there.”
    We are such stuff as dreams are made on.
    I pour hot water into the thermos and the light begins to fade and we leave out the back door, cutting across driveways and yards until we are on the road walking past the crooked house with the roses that smell so sweet, going up the hill to the graveyard, which is glowing. Mickey says, “You’re sure you’re not afraid?”
    I say, “We are such stuff as dreams are made on.”
    â€œDid you make that up?”
    Before I can answer, Larry is standing there and Mickey says, “Where’s Ryan? Where are the guys?” Larry says, “He couldn’t come. Nobody could come.” He looks at me and nods and we trudge up the hill, weaving through the graves, past the angel, back past where all the dead babies are buried. We spread out the blanket and drink hot chocolate with peppermint schnapps. I feel like one of those body diagrams in science class. I picture a red line spreading to my lungs and my heart and into my stomach as the hot liquid goes down, and I think, We are such stuff as dreams are made on. The fireflies are blinking around the tombstones and in the sky, which is sort of purple, and that is when I realize Mickey and Larry are totally making out, and just then she opens her eyes and says, “Elli, would you mind?” So I get up and walk away, weaving through the headstones and the baby toys, the stuffed animals on the graves. I head up the hill to where the angel is, and that’s when I see him sitting there, and he smiles at me, just like he did at the library, and I am thinking, We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and I must have said it out loud because he goes, “Yes.”

    I thought I saw a light shining out of him, like a halo, but let’s face it, I was wasted and everything was sort of glowing—even the graves were glowing. He didn’t try to talk to me and he didn’t ask me to come over, I just did. He didn’t ask me to sit down beside him, but I did, and he told me I had beautiful bones: “Slender, but not sharp.” I never saw wings, but I thought I felt them, deep inside me. He smelled like apples, and when I started crying, he whispered over and over again, We are such stuff as dreams are made on. At least, I think he did.
    I passed out, until Mickey was standing over me going, “Jesus Christ, Elli, I thought you were dead or something. Why didn’t you answer me?”
    â€œDid you do it?” I asked.
    â€œHe didn’t bring any condoms.”
    â€œBut you still did it, right?”
    â€œWhat are you, nuts? I don’t wanna get AIDS or something.”
    â€œLarry isn’t going to give you AIDS.”
    â€œCome on, I feel sick. Let’s go home. You all right?”
    â€œI had the strangest dream.”
    She was already walking down the hill, the blanket trailing from her arms, dragging on the ground. I looked up at the angel and said, “Hello? Are you here?”
    â€œShut up, Elli. Someone’s going to call the cops.”
    I felt like a ghost walking out of the graveyard. “Hey, Mickey,” I said, “it’s like we’re ghosts coming back to life.”
    â€œJust shut up,” Mickey said.
    Dogs barked and lights came on the whole way back to her house, where the two wineglasses were still there but the purse was gone. Mickey dropped the blanket on the floor and said, “I am so wasted.”
    I said, “Nobody even knows we are here.”
    Mickey rested her hand on my shoulder and said, “Maybe you shouldn’t drink so much.”
    I followed her up the stairs into her room where we went to bed without changing our clothes. It wasn’t long before Mickey was snoring and I just lay there blinking in the dark, and it kept repeating in my head, over and over again: We are such stuff as dreams are made on. I fell asleep thinking it and I woke up