Dream Lovers-e

By Arline Chase

Apple and Junie are not only sisters, but the best of friends, until they quarrel over a man. With the man of her dreams MIA in Vietnam,Apple thinks it's best to make a life with the man at hand. That's how the love of her life comes home to find her married to someone else. She can understand his rage and rejection. What she can't understand is his dating her sister.

ISBN 1-59431-312-1 Romance / VietNam / Paranormal

Cover Art Maggie Dix

Also available in HTML and RTF formats.





Chapter One

Fall, 1976

I never thought a thing like this could happen between me and my sister. If you had told me I would end up slapping her face -- when we rarely had a fight in all the years we were growing up -- I'd have sworn it was a lie. And to end up fighting over a man. No. No way! But maybe I'd better start at the beginning.

Junie and I were close, and not just in age, we loved each other dearly. There was never any jealousy between us. That's why I can't understand what happened. And all because of Bartley Richardson, a man she wouldn't have looked at twice a few years ago. How could she deliberately go after the one man who meant so much to me?

We grew up together in a rambling old house on Elm Street, with horse chestnut trees flanking the front steps. I never will forget those steps. Junie used to sit on them, surrounded by boys, bicycles piled all over the sidewalk, while I sat on the side porch, unnoticed and alone, watching her flirt. I never thought I resented her, but maybe I was just a little bit envious. After all, Junie was a real knockout.

For sisters, you couldn't get much different in looks. Junie is tall, blonde, and drop dead gorgeous, with one of those lean athletic bodies that nevertheless has curves in all the right places. Mom always said she took after Dad's family, and I guess she's right. Until I came along, there wasn't a Johansen on earth who wasn't as tall, blue-eyed, and blonde as when they left Norway two or three generations ago. Junie was pure Johansen, all right. I took after the Callahan side. Even our baby pictures show it. Junie is this pretty, smiling baby with golden curls, while I'm a round little lump with red fuzz on top. Looking at those pictures I was never surprised that, although Mom had me baptized Mary Elizabeth, they never called me anything but Apple Dumpling. By the time I started school, it got shortened to Apple and nobody has ever called me anything else.

I'm still round -- not fat exactly, but at any given moment in my life, I've weighed about ten pounds more than I wanted to. When Junie's figure filled out she looked classy -- tall and slender -- a real California beach-bunny type. When I hit puberty, my figure produced curves of almost embarrassing proportions, far too lush to be stylish. Add to that frizzy red hair and freckles, and you'll see that I definitely wasn't in Junie's league. But I did all right.

Because of the way our birthdays fell -- there's less than a year between us -- Junie and I started school at the same time. I remember how we used to lie awake sharing our thoughts and dreams. Sometimes, we'd giggle, then whisper, talking quietly about all the important things that had happened that day. The only thing I didn't share with her were my fantasies about falling in love.

I guess every girl has romantic dreams. Like most, I was curious, often wondering what it would be like to lie in a lover's arms. My fantasies were quite elaborate. In my favorite, I was shipwrecked on a desert island along with my own true love and we spent happy golden days swimming and lying together on the sand, then making love in a bower hidden away beneath the trees.

In every fantasy, my own true love was Bartley Richardson. A tall boy whose bony hands and feet seemed too big for his body, but whose brown eyes looked deep within my soul. In spite of the fact that he lived in the poorer section of town, didn't own a car, and worked every day after school, I loved Bartley Richardson with all my heart. But Junie wouldn't have looked at him twice. Not then -- even though he had limpid dark eyes, and a mouth that looked about to smile even when he was serious. How I wanted to kiss that mouth, to be enfolded in his arms, to have him carry me off to some flower-drenched nest and make passionate love to me.

At night, I'd hug my pillow and pretend it was Bart. Maybe that was silly, but fantasies were all I had. In person, Bart was kind, gentle, and polite. He liked me, but he didn't exactly try to overpower me with passion.

We dated all our senior year and I was in heaven. That year was one of the happiest of my life. I loved every minute of it. I won an essay contest, got straight As and Bart asked me to the prom. So I wasn't feeling left out, no matter how popular Junie was. The yearbook committee voted me the 'smartest girl' too. I don't know about that. If I really was smart, I wouldn't have gotten myself into the mess I did later and maybe I'd have missed some of the worst times I ever lived through. But then again, I don't know if I'd really want to change anything.

May, 1969

I never will forget prom night. Bartley Richardson might not have been Junie's idea of handsome, but I thought he looked heavenly in his rented tux. Mom had bought me a creamy chiffon gown, that Junie pronounced 'too sophomoric,' but that I thought suited me. Bart's dark eyes looked right into my heart that night. He was a good dancer and I fit into his arms as if he'd really held me all those thousands of times in my daydreams. I felt like an angel floating in space as we danced beneath the fake moons and tinsel stars. Junie swirled by in the arms of her latest conquest, a track star named Steve, who'd come in second in the State Decathlon. She'd been begging me for weeks to let her 'fix me up' with someone she considered 'more presentable' than Bart.

"Come on, Apple. He hasn't even got a car! And everyone's going to Sunset Point for a beach party after the prom. Besides, nobody walks on prom night. Nobody!"

I had been planning to borrow Mom's car, but Bart asked his mother. When he whispered that he wanted to leave early, I said, "Fine.." I thought, since this was our first ever car-date, that he wanted to ride around awhile before going to Sunset point. I should have known better. If I'd stopped to think, I'd have realized that Bartley Richardson had no money to waste on gas for joy rides. Bart's dad had been hurt in an accident at work and the family had been kind of hard up ever since. His mom worked at the hospital as a nurse's aide. And instead of buying the car he'd once saved every cent toward, Bart was putting all the money from his part-time job into the household. When the other guys teased him about being a senior and not having a car, he just shrugged and said, "Some things are more important.."

Junie thought that was stupid. To her, nothing was more important than the kind of car her date drove. But I liked Bart better for caring about his family. We didn't go to the beach, instead we drove to the hospital and parked the car. Then we walked the three blocks to my house in absolute silence.

"I'm sorry, Apple," Bart said, as we stopped at my walk. "Mom said she'd walk home tonight, but it's been one thing after another all night and she's practically dead on her feet."

"How do you know that?." I stared up at him. "You didn't phone her, you haven't been out of my sight all evening."

Bart hung his head and mumbled something. I had to ask him to repeat it three times before I caught the words. "Sometimes I can 'guess' what people are thinking."

"You can guess?"

"Well, I sort of know." He looked down at me, his face worried, as if I'd caught him doing something wrong. "I don't know how. I just 'know'."

"Are you kidding?" I stared so hard I don't know what he thought. But while I was staring, a lot of things fell into place. "You mean like ESP or something?"

"Or something." He lifted his head and his eyes met mine. "I know it sounds crazy, but it's like I hear voices in my head. Even though she wanted me to have a good time, all night Mom's been thinking about that long walk home and wishing the car would be there. Don't laugh, Apple."