Beau

I could have sworn she wasn’t real.

She came to me almost every night that summer. It was 2011, I was 25, and I still looked like I was 17. My dad’s best friend had hired me to work on the beat-up trucks that his neighbors paid him to fix. I never really felt needed there, and honestly, I was more disrespected. They were all farmers and referred to me as their “son.” I was 25, and I never liked being called “son,” anyway. We lived in a little country town in Wisconsin, where all farms were for corn, which is probably the easiest crop to grow. Every time they called me “son,” I wanted to tell them the stories of when I grew potatoes out in South Dakota after I graduated college. There wasn’t much to do in South Dakota except grow potatoes, but there was more to do than work on Ram trucks in a random garage.The first dream I had was June 19th. I didn’t think much of it the first time, but she was probably the first girl I had seen in a couple months. Not many girls (at least ones I would be interested in) lived on potato farms in Wisconsin. In the dream, she was sitting across from me at a library. It looked like the one at the University of South Dakota, you know, the one I probably went to a total of three times in my five years there. Her nose was stuck in a book. I don’t remember the title, but it had a shirtless man with long brown hair on the front. When she looked up at me, she smiled without showing her teeth, and the left corner of her lips lifted higher than the right. Her glasses slipped down her nose and a few of her auburn hairs fell into her eyes. 

The next night, we were at the beach. I didn’t realize it was her at first, because this time, her hair was a bright red, but her smile was still crooked, and her glasses still didn’t fit her face right. After that, we spent my dream running around museums, kayaking down the Mississippi River, and we even jumped out of a few airplanes. Her hair changed colors every time. Sometimes it was black. Sometimes it was bleach blonde. Other times it was green with purple streaks. My favorite was her dirty blonde curls. They framed her face perfectly, but never took away from the beauty of her uneven smile.

Every morning, I woke up in a sweat. I slept almost ten hours every night, but I was always so groggy that it felt like only two. I had to be at work by 8 A.M., and I usually rolled out of bed at 7:47. I wanted to spend every possible moment with her, and I had never even heard her voice. I didn’t even know her name. Days went by slower than I ever thought was possible. My final exams felt like they passed in two minutes compared to what I experienced that summer. When I was finally let go at 5, I got in my own Ram truck and drove back to my dad’s house. We talked for a little bit and sometimes we grilled hamburgers together for dinner. Our conversations consisted mostly of him asking, “How’s work with Dan going? He says you’re quiet.” Or he will just repeat, “Weather’s been great for the crops lately.” I found any excuse to get up early, even though I wasn’t going to be able to fall asleep for a couple more hours. He was just insufferable to talk to for more than twenty minutes. At least he stopped calling me “son” years ago. 

One night, I went through my routine like I had exactly the same for the past three and a half weeks. I brushed my teeth, washed my face with Dove bar soap, and climbed into bed. I closed my eyes and waited for sleep to take me. All I wanted to do was see her. When I opened my eyes again, I found myself in the middle of the forest. I turned around as fast as possible to look for her. I immediately smiled when I saw her running towards me. Her light brown hair was cut short, so it didn’t get caught in her face anymore. I took off towards her and wrapped her in my arms, lifting her in the air. When I put her back on the ground, something felt off. She was looking at me, but she didn’t see me. It was like I was invisible. Finally, her mouth opened.

“Beau…” She whispered. I stumbled backwards and onto the ground, instantly waking me up. 

It was 3:16 A.M. when I woke up from that dream. Why did her voice scare me so much? Was it actually her voice or was it hearing my actual name? My name fell off her tongue like a drop of honey. Her voice was sweet and soft. It wasn’t at all concerning. So, why did I peel away from her? I kept reminding myself, it was just a dream. But it felt so real? Every time I had held her, it had felt so real. What even was her name? My head was turning at a hundred miles per hour. My stomach started to churn, and I ran to the bathroom as my mouth began to salivate. I leaned over the toilet and vomited. Once I was finished, I laid back against my wall and began to cry. My sobs came uncontrollably. I didn’t quite know why these dreams had been getting to me so much. No girl had ever made me cry. Not even Olivia McAdams from sophomore year of college, who told me she loved me then cheated on me with my fraternity brother, Jack O’Donnell, in the basement of the Delta Tau Delta house. Olivia cried a lot, and I felt like I was worthless when she tried to apologize. But I never cried. Why was I crying now? Over a girl I’ve only met in a subconscious world.

I didn’t sleep the rest of the night. I laid on my bathroom tile until 7:30 and got to work early for the first time in my entire life. When I walked in, Dan looked at me with a face of pure shock.

“Rough night?” He asked.

“Something like that.” I replied and picked up a few wrenches before getting to business on a 1998 silver Toyota Tacoma. Honestly, I had no idea what I was doing that day. A few weeks later, I heard poor Henry Stone’s Tacoma broke down on the side of the road. 

She didn’t come back for six nights. It was a lonely six nights. To try and comfort myself, every morning I woke up and told myself that she was there, but I just couldn’t remember the dream for some reason. And maybe that was true, but I actually think my reaction to her voice scared her away for a little. She just needed time like how I needed time before I started smoking cigars again with Jack after he had sex with my girlfriend on the same couch, I passed out on later that night.

After those six nights alone, I fell asleep and woke up outside a graveyard. She was standing next to me.

“I--” I tried to apologize, but she cut me off.

“Why did you pull away from me?” 

She was so well-spoken. Her words flowed so easily, it reminded me of the river we kayaked down that one time in the beginning of July.

“Where are we?” I asked her.

“Don’t deflect the question, Beau.”

“I don’t know. What’s your name?”

“Follow me.”

She turned and started walking towards the gate of the graves. When I didn’t follow, she turned around and stared until I took a step towards her. We walked for probably five minutes through the tombstones then she halted. I came to her side and turned to look at her. But she wasn’t looking at me, she was looking at a name carved into the stone in the ground.

It read, Elizabeth “Fanny” Rose Jones (April 11th, 1967 - September 22nd, 1986), or my mother. I started crying again. Did this girl just want to see me hurting? I wanted to yell at her. I wanted to make her cry.

“You--” I whipped my head around to face her, but she already had tears in her eyes. My body hit the cold ground again, but I didn’t wake up in my bed this time. She knelt in front of me and placed her cold hand on mine. My eyes met hers, and I felt comfort in her crooked grin. Somehow, I knew that was it, and the next thing I knew, it was 7:47 A.M. and I had to be at work in thirteen minutes.

She never came back again. A couple days later, the leaves began to change from green into orange and brown. My dad and I started preparing for his fall harvest that September, and I decided that was going to be my last season in Wisconsin. There was nothing left for me there. She wasn’t even here. My mom didn’t even stay a full day here after I was born. No one stayed in this stupid town. I tried to leave years ago, but I just ended up in crippling student debt. I was still in debt, but I had enough. I didn’t care. I was leaving.

 That November, I packed up my entire life and threw it in the bed of my own truck. I was never going to take it back to Dan’s garage for an oil change. Instead, I decided to sign up for AAA. I also decided never to eat an ear of corn again. My dad understood why I wanted to leave. There were more opportunities in Denver. I had a business degree anyway, not an agriculture one. I somehow got a job with some insurance company that I had never heard of. I didn’t care what the job was, all I cared about was leaving. 

***

I spent about three years in Denver. The job paid well. I even met a girl named Sammy after seven months in the line at a Chipotle, and we went on a date a couple nights later. We quickly became exclusive, and I was sure I was going to marry her one day. We moved in together after 6 months and for the next two years, we had a healthy breakfast of avocado toast together every morning. I went to work at the insurance company, and she went to sit at her easel with her acrylics. I loved seeing her artwork, I was always so proud of her when she sold a piece. 

In July of 2013, a few coworkers and I decided to go get coffee in the Starbucks that was downstairs in our company’s building. That weekend, Sammy and I were supposed to go to her parent’s house in the Rocky Mountains. I let my coworkers order first, since I had to answer a few emails from clients. When it was finally my turn, I stepped up and started to order, “Hi, can I get--?” 

No. No. 

It was her. She was looking right at me, through her round glasses, like she had every night that summer before she left. Her hair was dirty blonde and her curls were perfectly framing her face, but her smile was still as beautifully imperfect as I remembered. I looked down at her name tag, Reaghan. 

Reaghan’s smile slowly started to fade. I didn’t blame her, it probably looked like I was distracted by her chest.

“I’m sorry. Can I get a tall hot vanilla latte?” I finished.

“Of course, can I get a name?” She asked as I handed her a five-dollar bill.

“Beau.” I prayed that she didn’t say my name back to me.

“Alright, Beau, it’ll be out in a few minutes.”

I felt a lump start to form in my throat and I turned around to go stand with my coworkers. None of them noticed anything was wrong. I bet Dan would have noticed.

That night when I got home, I went straight to the shower. (Sammy wasn’t home, she had a meeting with some art curator. I never really understood the business she was in.) Her name was echoing in my mind, Reaghan. Reaghan. That was definitely her. Her glasses were the same, and so was her smile I loved so much. She was real. She wasn’t just a figment of my imagination.

I broke up with Sammy when she got home that night. I told her that I realized I wasn’t in a place where I could be in such a serious relationship. She was angry, and that was okay. What wasn’t okay was when she cut all of my suit ties in half and flushed my cell phone down the toilet.

A couple weeks later, I sold the house that Sammy and I were living in a town right outside of Denver. My dad had mentioned to me a few months prior that Henry Stone was selling his 428-acre corn farm down the road. I decided to buy it. I still wasn’t an agriculture major, but I had been farming since I was in 5th grade on my dad’s farm. Plus, I farmed potatoes in South Dakota. Corn would be a breeze.

The first day I was back in that stupid town in Wisconsin, I drove to the cemetery that we buried my mother at back in 1986. It was the first time I had been back since the last day with Reaghan. And it was the second time I had been there since the funeral a week after my birth. 

I cry a lot now, and I’m not embarrassed to say that. I hang out with my dad most days, but I know his time is going to expire soon. I probably will have to take over his corn farm too eventually. Sometimes I wish Reaghan was still with me. I could always go back to that Starbucks in Denver, Colorado, but I doubt she is still there. I hope she isn’t still there.

I hope Reaghan is at a library in New York City, reading every book there is. I hope Reaghan is hiking the Appalachian Mountains, stargazing every night. I hope Reaghan is surfing in Hawaii, feeling the sun on her back and bleaching her hair. I hope Reaghan is experiencing all this disappointing world offers. Maybe she will make her way to Wisconsin one day. But until that day, I will be here. I go to sleep, praying to see her again. I wait and pray to hear her say my name once more, “Beau.”