Joy doesn’t wait for us.
She didn’t want to hear Charlie tell me who Luis is. She didn’t want to experience again, I assume, the feeling of seeing Justin have another child but her. Not that it was an actual child. As Charlie explained to me, Sandra dreamed that she and Justin were married and that they had a child called Luis. He wasn’t a real child, but a child in the dream. And yet, Joy is a child in the Dream, and whether she came from a dream or not, she is real and human and Luis is not.
Charlie and I play catchup. I do not use the jetpack often, but I do make it to the elevator. We go up the elevator and into the sea of Shrooms.
Joy and Master Mind are nowhere to be seen, which means they already went into the tunnel of Sandra’s dream.
“That one,” Charlie points out to a Shroom just above us and to the side. “Can you do it?”
He looks at me with concern. I try not to show any of the fear and uncertainty I feel, pushing the button and smiling.
I rise into the air, and he joins me.
I land roughly, but I don’t break anything. He lands beside me.
We go in through the opening in the stem, down the tunnel, and to Charlie’s elevator at the end of the tunnel of this dream.
“That’s Sandra’s apartment,” Charlie tells me as I look down at the dream. “Joy touched it and made it real.” He means ‘permanent’.
Charlie presses the button and we go down. I can’t see anyone.
“You think they’re inside?” I ask Charlie.
“Yuh-huh.”
We leave the elevator and walk towards the apartment. In the same way that Suzy’s and my apartment in Justin’s dream is torn from its original place and put on an island, this is clearly a single apartment of an apartment building, without the rest of the building.
As we get close there’s a lot of yelling. I hear Justin’s voice.
Charlie lets me go through the door first.
“Get out, get out, get out! How many times do I need to tell you?” Justin is yelling and is exasperated.
Master Mind stands to the side. Sandra Ortiz (as I would later find out her full name) stands next to Justin. She has black hair, is pretty, and is probably around thirty like Justin - I can see the two of them together.
“This! Is! More! Important!” Joy yells back at Justin, standing in front of him with legs slightly spread and looking up with determination.
“This is my private time, Joy. My private time!” His voice rises to a level of frustration and exasperation I’d never heard in him.
Master Mind steps between them. “Pirate,” he speaks and there is fear in his voice. “It appears that you are about to become violent. Although I have never seen you violent towards the Little Pirate, and although you can easily kill me, I must step in and protect her just in case.”
Justin and Joy suddenly fall silent.
“He’s never going to hurt me, Master Mind,” Joy says, her tone different.
Justin looks at Master Mind and his tone changes, too. “Good job, Master Mind. I wasn’t going to do anything, but good job!”
He is also calm now. Master Mind steps aside. “What do you want, Joy?”
Joy moves and gestures at Charlie. “Charlie remembers me when he wakes up.”
Justin is taken aback. “No, he doesn’t.”
“I do.”
“No you don’t.”
“I do.”
“Joy, he’s kidding. Did you put him up to it?”
“Joy’s Dad, I tell people about Joy all the time! No one believes me! They think she’s my imaginary friend!”
Justin stares at him.
“Are you serious?”
Charlie nods.
Justin appears shocked. He snaps out of it after a few seconds. “Sandra,” he touches her shoulders. “I have to go. It’s an emergency. I’ll come back as soon as I can.”
She shakes her head. “I don’t understand.”
“I promise I’ll be back as soon as I can. We have to go.”
(To be continued…)
—Told by Grampa Walt