Ewan McGregor sat inside the Mercedes SL 500 next to me as we waited for the green light. He wasn’t taking much caution to hide his appearance, but after considering his vehicle, maybe recognition was what he was after. I focused on the red light and tried not to gawk like some starstruck tourist, but when our glances did meet, I silently nodded to indicate I know who you are but I am sure you would rather not be bothered. He returned the nod and just as I turned my attention back to the light he smiled that boyish trademark grin of his, the one he's dazzled audiences with in nearly every movie in which he's appeared.

When I looked his way again he motioned at me to roll down the window.

“Hey there, is that a six or an eight under your hood?”

“Supercharged six,” I replied.

He nodded. “Nice. I wish the German boys wouldn’t load this car down with a V-10, but I like it too much.”

He was fishing for a compliment, so I obliged. “It's a beautiful car. They do know how to make ‘em, don’t they?” I responded.

“Indeed,” he said. “I wouldn’t trade it for the world.” The light turned green and before speeding off he nodded again, this time bringing his forefinger to his forehead. I could hear the roar of his Mercedes many car lengths ahead as he shifted from gear to gear.

For the past few weeks, whenever I needed time alone to think I would grab the keys to my father’s convertible Jaguar, put the top down and go for a drive. Most of the time I found myself on Pacific Coast Highway at the edge of Santa Monica, driving the stretch extending from the McClure Tunnel to the Palisades near Pepperdine University. When I was younger my father took me for weekend drives along this same path. It was his idea of together time, and I was allowed to talk about anything I wanted without fear of the information being passed on to other family members. I used to talk about classmates I hated and ways in which my brother and sister pissed me off. When I hit puberty we talked about the uncertainties and awkwardness of being a teenage boy, and during my high school years we discussed the responsibilities that went hand in hand with becoming a man. Along the way my father learned of my women troubles – both the times when none would give me the time of day and the times when I had to beat them off me with a stick. He listened as I complained about my sister Alexis pushing my buttons; when I nervously rationalized what colleges to apply to; what career path to take; and general criticisms about daily life. He never judged and he never tried to assert his opinion or belittle mine.

The one constant of the weekend drives was the music. My father played the same album without fail – Brian Wilson’s solo debut – first on tape cassette and later on CD once tape decks became passé in cars. It was a good album, released in 1988 after Wilson emerged from many years in seclusion under a psychiatrist’s care. The song hooks were catchy, and the harmonies everything you would expect from a Beach Boy. As a matter of fact, the album was essentially a Beach Boys record with less surf guitar and more cheesy 80s synthesizer. But my father loved that album and in time I grew fond of it as well, and so to fully recreate the mood I played the CD whenever I pulled his Jag on to Pacific Coast Highway.

As “Melt Away” ended and the first notes of “Little Children” began, I came to the stoplight where Sunset intersected PCH. The midday sun brightly pierced the clouds and I reached for the tortoise-shelled sunglasses hanging from the rear view mirror. What was I going to do with myself? I wondered. Where did it all go from here? I hadn’t started looking for work. I didn’t know if I wanted to continue a career in advertising. As much as I liked what I had done so far, I was uncertain if I could stay in the field for the rest of my working life. The light turned green but I failed to notice, so the Lincoln behind me honked impatiently. I sped off towards the original Gladstone’s that sat on the Malibu shoreline thinking of how I could productively use this downtime. Perhaps I could return to school to earn a masters’ degree. Higher education was in my family’s blood. My father had earned a masters and a doctorate, while my brother had a masters and a law degree. My sister would have gone to graduate school had she not settled down with her husband first, and he himself was a PhD. But what field of study would be the ideal one for me? And what would I do with it? It was a decision that required more thought and much wider investigation.

I turned the Jag around somewhere near the Malibu Colony and started towards home just as the pitch bending keyboards of “Meet Me in My Dreams Tonight” came through the speakers.

Tonight I'll drive home all alone
And maybe later we'll talk on the phone
But it takes a little more to get me through
If we can't get together here's what we'll do
Hold on, and meet me in my dreams tonight

“Ain’t that the truth,” I muttered. As sappy as the lyrics and sentiment were, they couldn’t be any more on the money. The dreams that started in August had continued, although the subject matter had become less about stumbling through graveyards in the dark and talking to the dead and more about a different, singular topic: Carolyn. My dreams had become totally consumed by her and the random memories my brain had stored away. Most of the time the dreams began as genuine moments we shared, but then my imagination took over, creating conversations and moments that never happened. Maybe it was wishful thinking. Perhaps it was some sort of longing or regret. Regardless, it was an overactive imagination and I was losing sleep as a result. On a good night I was lucky to get three to four solid hours.

The entire way home, from the McClure tunnel to the Santa Monica freeway to Wilshire Boulevard, I could think of nothing else but Carolyn: The bounce of her blondish-brown hair, her ever-present smile, and the even more ever-present camera hanging from its strap on her shoulder. I smiled and thought about the last time we messaged each other:

T.O Caro: I was thinking, if we are supposed to get on with our lives without each other, how come we somehow find our way back to each other?
Myfavoritereeder: We keep leaving our toothbrush at each others’ place?
T.O Caro: I’m serious, Reed. How can I get past you if I can’t over you?
Myfavoritereeder: I don’t know. I know you think I have an answer for everything. I don’t. Not this time.
T.O Caro: I wish it could be something as easily solved as me coming to see you, or you coming here. But every time we do that, there’s something to separate us once more. And each time I think I’ve learned to deal with the distance it becomes a harder thing to handle.
Myfavoritereeder: Separate lives, separate wavelengths.
T.O Caro: Yes despite what the heart wants, we are both too smart to know this can’t work. The circumstances have the best of us.
Myfavoritereeder: And two people who pride themselves on being cool and in control are just the opposite.
T.O Caro: That’s why it’s so hard to deal.

When I returned my mother was on the living room sofa reading, Sofia firmly entrenched at her feet. The dog didn’t even move when I entered. Lately she had turned her attentions to protecting my mother instead of me. The pecking order had gone matriarchal.

“Darling,” she said as I entered the room. “Come, sit down, I want to talk to you about something that’s been on my mind.”

“Give me a minute,” I replied as I disappeared into the bathroom that was attached to her bedroom. During the last few miles of the drive a stinging sensation started above my right eyebrow and hadn’t stopped until just before I reached the driveway. I looked into the mirror, frowning and crinkling my forehead muscles in the attempt to reveal a hidden bump or bruise beneath the skin. No luck. As I turned to leave the bathroom I noticed some of my mother’s prescription medicine bottles on the counter. Two of them were empty: Melphalan and Chlorambucil.

“Your Melphalan and Chlorambucil medications are empty,” I said when I returned to the living room. “How come?”

“They are? I guess I lost track and didn’t call in time for a refill. I’ll take care of it later.”

“These are important, Mom. You can’t put off getting a refill.”

She nodded. “I know, thank you for your concern. Now come, sit down.” She patted her hand on an open spot of sofa. I sat beside her and reached down to scratch Sofia along the scruff of her wrinkled neck. The dog didn’t even flinch.

My mother leaned back into the sofa cushions and took a deep breath before she began. “I am not judging you, and I am not prodding you, but with all this free time and no responsibilities at hand, have you thought about what you are going to do with your future?”

“All the time, several times a day. The problem is I can’t decide.”

“What thoughts have you entertained?”

“I considered whether or not I want to continue working in advertising. I like it and all, I just don’t know if it is a career I can make 40 or 50 enjoyable years of. I am at loggerheads there.”

“Are there other careers you feel qualified to enter?” she asked.

“Maybe, I don’t know for sure. I enjoy writing, but could I make a career of it? Probably not. I enjoy music, but to work for a record company right now is suicide – they’re a dinosaur too busy trying to make sense of the new ways in which music is delivered and marketed. And when they aren’t doing that they’re busy firing people left and right for not knowing who to sue over copyright piracy. I think it’s too volatile a field for me.”

She adjusted herself on the sofa and reached for her glass of ice tea. “Have you considered any other options?”

“I’ve considered returning to school.”

“Really?” She responded, very interested in the turn the conversation had taken. “In what capacity?”

“Grad school,” I replied. “A masters of something, in something. I haven’t worked that out. I barely started looking at schools and requirements.”

My mother stood up slowly and started towards the kitchen with her now empty glass of ice tea. Sophia got up and provided her an escort into the other room.

“What schools interest you?” she asked from the kitchen.

“I imagine I should keep it local so I can be near you,” I suggested.

When she returned the dog was still locked in step. “Don’t limit yourself like that.” She sat down on the sofa and Sophia reclined again at her feet. “We are talking about your future and you cannot bind your hands like that.” She tucked her feet under herself. “Besides, I won’t always be around, and you are good for another forty years at least.”

“I am not going to stop looking after you,” I said.

She grinned. “I know you’re not, you take that job very seriously. And I am not asking you to. You must think about the bigger picture, however. Think of yourself and think of where you want to be, where you want to go. Then think of how you can get yourself there.”

She stood up and the dog quickly rose to her feet in unison. My mother reached forward to pet Sophia and the dog aided her by arching her back to meet my mother’s touch.

“That’s a good girl,” she said as she stroked the dog’s back. “I think I’ll call in my prescription refills and then take a nap.” They usually need an hour or so to fill the order anyhow.” I walked with her into her bedroom and made sure she had everything she needed before shutting the door. In the living room Sophia sat, waiting for me, and as I approached her tail uncurled and began whacking the carpet loudly.

“Oh no, it’s too late for kissing up you little Benedict Arnold,” I told her. I walked over to the patio doors and threw them open. “Go work it out of your system,” I said, adding a sweeping hand across my body and towards the door to indicate I wanted her to go outside. Sophia waited a moment, then hung her head and sulked out the door and into the back yard.
_________________________________________________________________

“I can’t believe it, you’re here! You even took a plane to get here. You hate planes!”

“I do.”

“That means so much to me! I’ve been waiting so long for this!”

“For what?”

“For this moment. You and me, just like this.” Carolyn leaned into me and kissed me deeply as she stood on her toes and wrapped her arms tightly around my neck and shoulders.

“You know this isn’t real,” I said.

She put her forefinger to my lips. “Shhhh. Not a word. Don’t spoil the moment. We’re going to go back to my place and close ourselves off from society. Only you and me, that’s all that matters.” She removed her finger and replaced it with her lips, planting another long and soulful kiss upon my lips. She smelled good, and her lips were soft. I wrapped my arms around her and she did likewise, and our bodies entwined like a vine with feelers and extensions shooting everywhere.

When we broke our embrace she leaned in closely to my ear. “If you only knew how much I love you.”

My eyes shot open and I flipped over in bed, hoping to find Carolyn asleep next to me. The bed was empty. I had been dreaming again. The clock atop the dresser across from me read 4:05 AM. I tossed and turned for another twenty minutes, but much like the past few times I’d awoken in the wee hours of the morning from a Carolyn dream, I couldn’t get back to sleep. The gym opened at five; I probably needed a good workout.
_________________________________________________________________

I was having lunch at the Beverly Center when I found myself in the middle of a battle of the sexes over what I thought was a harmless comment I threw out in an innocuous oh by the way manner.

It began with an equally harmless question. “So, your friend Carolyn…anything left to pump from that well? I mean, with the distance involved the odds have to be stacked against you for anything successful to come of it, right?”

The question was asked by my friend Michelle, who added a sheepish grin as if to say ‘I’m not asking to be the nosy girl I am, it’s really out of genuine concern. Really it is.’

I took a bite of my shrimp tempura before responding. Michelle was the type of woman you could fluster just enough to blow her cover. “My my, somebody is nosy today. Or is it jealously in action?”

“Pfft, I know how to deal with your little mind games a lot better than you give me credit for,” she responded.

“…but this isn’t small talk,” I maintained.

“Maybe, maybe not,” Michelle said with a flirty grin. “You planning to see her anytime soon?”

“No. As you said, the well has dried up. Not from a lack of desire, mind you - we’re too geographically undesirable for each other. We also have career tracks that would drive an even bigger wedge between us.”

“Too bad,” she replied curtly while winding a pasta noodle around her fork. “Oh well, it’s not like you have ever had a shortage of women. You’re an old dog, so I’m sure you'll settle back into your old tricks in no time.”

I shrugged and took another bite of my shrimp. “You know, she told me she loved me.”

Michelle put down her bite of pasta and looked up. “She did what? That’s big Reed, that’s…”

“Let me qualify the statement before your woman meter blows off the chart. She did not say the three little words in the way you think. She wrapped it into some other context by saying things like ‘I love the way you make me laugh,’ or ‘I love how you’re always thinking of me,’ or ‘I love how passionate you get about the Dodgers.’ Not ‘I love you.’”

“It’s one in the same, Reed. It’s a girl trick of ours to veil it in something else but we mean the same thing. You doofus, you claim to know our inner working so well but when it comes around you let it fly right over you!” Michelle calmed herself and blotted the edge of her mouth with her napkin before continuing. “So, what did you tell her?”

Before I could answer Devin decided it was a good time to inject himself into the conversation. “Whoa dude, tell me you didn’t say it back to her!”

Michelle turned in her chair to face Devin. “What is that supposed to mean? If he felt the same way why shouldn’t he say it?”

“Listen Michelle, you never say it, especially when they haven’t told you point blank ‘I love you,’ or ‘I’m in love with you.’ You never ever say it before they do. Otherwise it’s game over man. Game over.”

Devin turned to look at some women walking through the food court but Michelle stuck her fingers in front of his face and snapped them repeatedly to turn his focus back to the conversation. “What kind of bullshit rule is that?” she exclaimed. “That’s even more dumb than the three day moratorium on calling a girl after you get her phone number.”

I piped up. “It’s five days, actually.”

She shook her head. “I’m surrounded by idiots. It’s not a game, these are feelings we are talking about. We don’t play games with our emotions,” she added.

Devin and I both exploded at almost the same time. “That’s the biggest load of horseshit I have ever heard,” Devin began. “Women do nothing but needle us and push us with their mind games, all the while using emotion as a weapon, so cut the crap.”

“And god forbid you don’t have the ability to read their mind and have the right answer ready for whenever that moment of female tenderness does happen," I added. I pointed a finger at her. “You’d better watch what you’re shoveling, missy.”

“Whatever. We’ll call it a Venus-and-Mars difference in the sexes,” Michelle declared. “So back to the question at hand: Did you or didn’t you?”

I sat back and balanced myself on the back legs of the four-post chair. “I did not. She wasn’t looking for that affirmation. Not yet.”

Devin smacked his hands together. “That’s what I’m talking about!” He held his arm out. “Give me some, man. Up here.”

I shook my head. “You want to high five over that? C’mon.”

Michelle held her forehead in her hands as she returned to her lunch. “Idiots. My best friends are idiots.”

“You’re making too much of this, Michelle. She’s the kind of woman who would have come out and said it. She wouldn’t wrap in some disguise. That’s not her style. Besides, why do you care? Five minutes ago you were taking a jealous line of questioning, so what gives?”

Devin cut Michelle off before she could answer. “It’s because they’re all sisters. They have to look after each other and their reputation. They’re a sisterhood; if one disagrees with the actions of another then all of the sudden they’re not as perfect as we guys make them out to be. Then they’re flawed, then they’re just like us, and no woman will ever let that happen to another woman, whether they are friends or not.” He tapped his finger on the table as he repeated it. "A sisterhood.”

“Okay Mr. Know-it-all, you keep telling yourself that. It’s a wonder you don’t have a girlfriend.”
Devin tapped his at his temple. “This is Southern California and at our age you can’t be tied to any one person. I know what I am doing. I’m crazy like a fox.”
__________________________________________________________________

I was again driving on Pacific Coast Highway just north of Santa Monica where the last stretches of public beach are. I pulled out my phone and began dialing, and after a long pause of silence it began ringing on the other side.

“Hey, it’s me,” I said after the message greeting announced the caller wasn’t there to take the call. “Just had you on my mind and thought I’d call. Where are you? Pick up, pick up, pick up…”

There was a clunking on the other side while the machine recording was being manually overridden and the phone snatched from its cradle. “Reed?” she said. “What are you doing?”

“Just thinking of you. You a hard habit to break.”

She laughed which in turn made me smile. “Hold on mister – did you just quote Chicago lyrics to me? More importantly – why are you calling on the phone, the roaming charges are so expensive. We usually IM during the week.”

“I know, but I wanted to hear your voice, if even for a brief moment.”

“You’re getting all mushy on me, Reed. Have you been drinking?”

I switched hands on the wheel so I could hold the phone with my other hand. I really needed to get myself one of those hands-free Bluetooth devices. “Hardly. I’m intoxicated only by you.” I waited a moment for her laugh that I knew would be coming.

“That was so corny and lame!”

“I know. I did it for the laughs.” I switched hands again. The wind generated from driving with the top down was wreaking havoc on my conversation. “But I was thinking about you.”

“I think about you too. All the time.”

“I was thinking, what if I came out there to see you in the next few weeks?”

“Don’t joke with me like that, it’s not funny.”

“I am serious.”

The other side was silent. Then: “You hate flying. You won’t do it.”

“I hate flying, but I would still do it. So whaddya say?”

“Nothing would make me happier, but you know we can’t.” She sighed heavily. “The whole thing is draining me emotionally. Do you know hard it is to see you for just a few days and then have you ripped away when I am most happy? Do you realize how difficult the following weeks are for me after you leave, trying to get back to some normal semblance of my life, only to have Hurricane Reed blow back through town just when I’ve gotten used to life without you again? As much as I want to see you and be with you, it’s killing me this way. I can’t just have you around a little here and there. I need something consistent.”

“There’s a few thousand miles of distance keeping us from the reality of that dream, Carolyn. Add to that the responsibilities of your job and finishing your degree, and my responsibilities here. It’s no win-win, but it’s a compromise. That’s all I can offer.”

“I can’t deal with a compromise. I have been on an emotional roller coaster. Do you know how that feels, to wake up and long for the touch of somebody you know won't be there? To want to race home after work or class and share my day only to find an empty apartment and nobody to share it with?” She started sobbing softly, every so often stopping her train of thought to stifle a tear. “I can’t do it. I thought I’d be stronger but I’m not. Not when it comes to you.”

I pulled off the highway and onto a shoulder carved into a cliff top overlooking the ocean. The Santa Monica Bay looked picturesque today, not at all like the cesspool of oil spills and pollution usually reported on the news. Carolyn was right: There was no salvaging anything between us. The feelings were as strong as ever, but the distance too great to overcome. Any attempt to deny that fact or act oblivious to it only prolonged the torture. What we had known and at times, even joked about had finally come to pass. Ours was a relationship on life support and the time had come to pull the plug.

“So what now?” I asked.

Carolyn sniffed into the mouthpiece and wiped away some tears. “Now we do what we always said we would do – move on. Start dating other people. Start making new friends. Slowly wean ourselves off each other.”

“Are you sure that is what you want?”

“Of course it’s not, but it will be in time,” she responded. “And in a few weeks you’ll go to that wedding your friends are having, and you’ll give some fantastic best man’s speech which all the women there will go gaga over. I’ll be jealous, but there won’t be anything I can do about it. It’s just how things are.”

She paused for a moment while I turned off the car’s engine. “It’s so weird it is ending like this. Every guy I have dated, every guy I ever called my boyfriend, ended because he was a sleaze or a liar or too much of something I didn’t like. There’s none of that with you. That’s why it’s so…”

“Weird,” I said, finishing the thought. “I know.”

“But you know,” she said, perking up, “if you’re ever in town or I’m in town, the people we are dating will have to know they go on the back burner during those times. I jump to the top of the list.”

“Of course,” I responded.

“And who says this has to be an end? In a few years when circumstances have changed, maybe things will be easier to come by and one day I’ll look you up.”

“I hope you do.”

“Besides, I don’t think we will ever stop talking to each other. We’ve grown too close.”

Even though she couldn’t see it I smiled from my side of the phone call. “Agreed. You have done so much for me that I don’t know what I would have done had you not been there in the way you were over the summer, Carolyn. For that I could never turn my back on you.”

“I know. I think because of that we have a bond that transcends the run-of-the-mill relationship.”

I told her I’d message her in the next few days and we could catch up. I wanted to hear everything. I missed that aspect of our time together. Carolyn got very animated and excited when sharing things about herself and her work. It was an energy I always enjoyed seeing in her.

Just as I was about to hang up she cut in. “I love how you can put me at ease, even now, when it’s all falling apart.”

I tilted my head back in the driver’s seat and pressed the cell phone to my ear. “I know what you’re doing, and I know what you mean to say. It’s all right. I love you too.”

That’s when I woke up. Damn, I’d been dreaming again.