Another love story (Part 4)
-- PART FOUR --
On the way home, Ray thought about his dreams hoping that he would have one that night. Ray always looked forward to his dreams at night. And even though he didn't dream about the woman in the orange dress that night or any night in the following week, he still felt close to her. When she requested for him to stay with her in that last dream, he took it, not only as an invitation of him into her life, but also as a commitment of herself into his life. He believed that there was a reason that he dreamed those dreams...but what was the reason? Did they represent Sheila or one of the previous girlfriends he had before he met Sheila? Was she someone he might have met if he had not married Sheila or will they meet in the future? And if she was someone he would meet later, what would happen with Sheila? He had questions but no answers. And though he had no intentions of cheating on Sheila, especially after what he went through when he was unfaithful before, there was still the attitude that all of those dreams meant something. And he would soon find out what they meant.
The next Saturday found Ray, with muscles sore from lifting boxes and old furniture the previous night and all that day, back at the nightclub with Duane. Earlier that evening, their wives had told them that they were not going out with them. So Duane rounded up a couple of other guys, Roosevelt Turner and Louis Boswell, to fill up the table. These were guys that knew Ray when he was excited about Jesus during his college days. (They were surprised to see him going to the nightclub and drinking alcohol.)
Early evening was spent talking over old times and recounting their respective careers and love lives. Late night was spent making and taking dares of drinking and trying different pick-up lines on the women at the club. After midnight, Roosevelt and Louis decided to go home and left Ray and Duane at the table drunk. When things in the club began to settle down for the night, the mood of the place began to change. People began to pair off into couples and romantic interactions started happening all over the building. As Ray watched the lovers come out, it provided him with the inspiration to imagine that he was with his dream girl on a date there. And though he was still drinking, he seemed to be getting more sober as he thought about her. Then, the singles-turned-couples started leaving the place and Ray took Duane home. To keep from waking Marzie, Ray left him on his couch and went home just before daybreak Sunday morning.
Ray was planning to stick to that same weekend schedule for a while. Sheila started asking him to go to church with her some Sunday mornings but he knew that he might be arriving home too late from Saturday night partying to do that. In fact, with the attic cleaning job being finished in a couple of weekends, he thought that he might add Friday night to his schedule of going out with the boys. He didn't tell any of that to Sheila, though; he just assured her that he would go sometime.
The next weekend, the four guys met together again at the club. But Louis brought a date and therefore sat at another nearby table. As the evening progressed, other ladies came around the two tables and invited the guys to dance and mingle among their other friends in the club. Later, when the romantic mood started to take over the place, conversations began to get more suggestive and intimate. Duane and the other fellows seemed to be willing to let nature take its course. Ray, on the other hand, decided to do more drinking and less talking. He felt that the less he said, the less he would be sorry for later. When the woman that he had been talking with decided to go to the ladies' room for a minute, he signaled to the fellows that he was calling it a night. Though everyone tried to talk him into staying a little longer, he bade them good night and left the club. Ray didn't know whether he might have ended up being unfaithful to Sheila if he had stayed that night, but he did feel that it would not have been worth it. His fantasy girl was back in his thoughts again and since his wife still didn't know about that, he wanted to keep it that way.
The next weekend, Ray finally completed his task of cleaning out the attic. The only thing left to do was to put up the books that Sheila wanted to keep and to box up the things that they planned to throw away. Since Sheila's choices of things to be thrown away was a lot less than Ray's choices, there were many boxes which Ray had filled with trash that ended up being empty. As things from the past were shown to Sheila, she was like a child at Christmas, savoring the memories that each item brought. After finishing the job of cleaning out the attic, Ray checked the time. Since it would be several hours before nightfall, he decided to take a nap on the couch. It was only wishful thinking that he might dream about the woman in the orange dress again. The dreams that had rekindled such passions, revived such fantasies and awakened such desires were now just memories. But the things that they aroused within him were still alive in his mind and heart. The nightlife that he had begun to have did little to satisfy his fascination with romance, especially since he had decided not to actually cheat on Sheila. But he felt it would be better than nothing. Even watching other people express their romantic attention and attraction provided a strange means of gratification for him. Never did he want to return to the dreary, ho-hum, business-as-usual existence that he had known for all those years and let all of this die. He was looking forward to his Saturday night entertainment with the boys. He planned to sleep until about 9 pm so that as soon as he woke up, he could start getting ready for his evening adventure.
"Ray, honey. Get up, please, and help me put these old books up."
Sheila had made some room in the bedroom closet for a few of the novels, college workbooks as well as high school and college yearbooks that they had. So Ray got up after napping for about an hour to help her put them up. When all of the books that her space could hold had been put up, Ray returned to the couch in the living room to see if he could resume his journey toward nightfall in the land of slumber. After lying on the couch for about 15 minutes, he realized that his wife's interruption of his nap a few minutes earlier had robbed him of any further sleep for a while. He then decided to go down memory lane by looking through one of their old yearbooks. Since Ray met Sheila in college, the college yearbooks had pictures of people, places and things that they both knew. He spent a few minutes revisiting people and places from those days. After that, one of Sheila's high school yearbooks caught his eye and he began to go through it. It was the one she had when she was a sophomore in high school. He had never seen it before and he wanted to see how she looked when she was in the 10th grade.
"Hey, how old were you in this picture?” Ray asked Sheila when she came into the room again.
"My goodness...it looks like I was five. Ha, ha, ha, ha. I cut my hair when I became a senior. I was so tired of that long hair."
"I don't think I have ever seen this picture of you before and yet it seems so familiar to me."
"I guess I was about 16. I wasn't a very popular girl though...Christians in high school don't get accepted by most of the other kids."
"Yeah, but didn't you have a lot of your kind of friends at school...you know, other Christians?"
"Sure, there were a lot of us but we were spread out in different classes and we didn't get to see each other except at assembly meetings and ball games."
"Where are some of your friends' pictures?” Ray asked as he kept turning pages. "Were you in any of these school clubs?"
"Yeah, let me see that for a minute. Here's a glee club picture...and oh, there's Mandie, Rhonda and Sam."
"Sam? There are only girls on this picture...you don't mean that one of your friends was a..."
"The name 'Sam' is short for Samantha. I don't know where she moved to after we graduated but we were close friends. Let's see, uh...here's our book club picture. Our school participated in a novel reading promotion where they got about 50 books for us to read and sent four of us as a team to a big contest at the beginning of the year. We would have to answer questions about the books we read and try to win the trophy for our school. I went during my sophomore year. There was Rhonda, Mildred...she didn't like me for some reason, oh and Callie. Dear sweet Callie...she died in a car accident our senior year. I still miss her.”
"Any other pictures of you and your friends?"
"Yeah, look at the Home Ec group and...uh...the pep squad. I'll be right back."
"Hey, Sheila,” Ray yelled toward the bedroom. You girls dressed up in formal dresses just to take this picture for the Home Economics club?”
"Those were not just formal dresses.” Sheila yelled back. "We made those dresses ourselves and we were so proud that we wanted to have our pictures made in them."
Ray continued turning through the book until he got to the Pep Squad picture. And when he did, he saw her. There she was right in that yearbook right before his eyes! It was the woman from his dreams...but how could that be? His heart rate accelerated as though something had frightened him. His mouth and throat felt dry and he had to move his tongue around to get moisture for them. When he did, he moistened his mouth and lips, then swallowed hard and took a deep breath to regain his composure. The smooth skin, the short, orange dress, the long hair and the pensive expression were just like it was in his dreams. But more amazing was the name of the student in the picture...Sheila Wright, his own wife! It was his wife he had dreamed about...not as an adult but as a sophomore in high school. And though his dreams showed a woman at Sheila's present age, her physical features were of that sophomore in the picture that he was staring at.
'How could I have dreamed about this picture when I have never seen it before?’ Ray wondered. 'How is it that I got every detail about her so right without knowing what she looked like back then?'
"It was so funny...they only took pictures of the front of those dresses because none of them had zippers in the back.” Sheila said when she reentered the room. "Ha ha ha ha ha...We couldn't quite get the zippers in right by the time the pictures were made."
"Sheila...” he said hesitantly while gazing at the picture.
"This is you, isn't it?"
"Uh...yeah...and over there is Arletta...and there's Sam again, and..."
"Yeah but...this...is you."
"Uh-huh. Now this was taken when we played the Keeston High Wildcats. We yelled and shouted that night until we couldn't talk."
"I thought I would never...and it was you all this time,” he said as he fought back tears of gladness.
"Yes, honey, that's me.” Sheila said curiously. "Ray...honey
...what is it?"
"Sheila...” he said lifting the book to his wife's face.
"She's gorgeous...I mean, you're gorgeous."
"Gorgeous? Pretty, maybe...but not gorgeous?” Sheila objected. "In fact, none of the guys in my classes seemed to think I was even pretty.” she said taking the book from his hands.
"Oh yes...they thought so.” he said as images of his dreams filled his mind.
"If I can remember correctly, no guy even talked to me that year except about homework or something like that.” she said looking at the pictures in the yearbook. "When it came to the gorgeous or beautiful girls, it was always Sarah Richardson or Mona Cher Walters."
"When you walked across the campus, when you walked through the halls, whenever you walked by...they noticed you.” he said still thinking of the dreams he had about her.
"Ray, are you okay? You sound like a 16 year old guy in love with a 16 year old girl.” she said. "And in case you forgot, you are a lot older than 16."
"Such grace, such elegance...” he said taking the book out of her hands. "They were just so awed by your beauty...those guys probably didn't know what to say to you."
"So awed by my what? Now look, lover boy, don't forget that you are married to me, not her!” she said snatching the book from his hands. "I can't believe I'm hearing all of this. You got all of this attraction, love and passion for her...what about me?"
He finally realized the purpose of his dreams. They were not given to him to arouse some sense of youthful infatuation nor to send him running after passionate fantasies. They were given to him by GOD to awaken his love for his wife and to let him know that GOD had given him a desire for her before he ever saw her.
"But baby, I am talking about you. How I could have been so blind? I've been living with the woman of my dreams all this time... how could I have let our lives become this... dull and ordinary?” he said as he stood up and began walking toward her.
"You look like Ray...and your voice sounds like his, but what I am hearing you say...I just can't believe.” Sheila said as she slowly backed away from his advances.
"By the time we got married years ago, I had already given up on many dreams. Just do like everybody else, get a wife, get a job, get a house, get a car. But now, after all of these years...it has taken me this long to see...to really see what I got.” he said while continuing to walk toward her. "You've been wondering if I was in love with somebody. Oh yeah! I got a dream lover...and it's you... baby, I don't need another one... I'm so in love with you, Sheila."
"Ray...please darling, help me understand all of this. Did a 25-year old picture of me do all of this to you, or is it...” Sheila asked in complete amazement as she backed into the corner of the den.
"Unh-uh, GOD did this one before I ever met you. Sheila, I love you so much.” he said planting continuous kisses on her face.
"Baby, I'm sorry that I took you for granted all of these years but...I didn't know what I had. I just didn't know what I had right here at home...so GOD had to show me. But now that I know... things will never be the same between us. You'll never have to wonder how I feel about you again as long as I live."
Ray lived up to his word and they both lived up to the dream. But Ray wanted to know real love and not just youthful lusts; so he renewed the relationship with GOD that he began in college. Then, he wanted to experience true fulfillment in his life and not just fantasies; so he sought to be filled with GOD's Spirit. And they both renewed their marriage vows because he wanted to tell the world that he was going to obey the scriptures and love his wife as Christ loved the church.
-- THE END --
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