Dreams, Dreams

Chapter One: Another James Dean

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Full Summary: Emma DeNoire and her best friend, Jess, have made out their ways just to have fun. Especially Emma. She’s outrageous, funny, and most definitely out-going that you still can’t use a leash to tie her down. So when her favorite actor in the world, James Scott, comes into town to film a new movie, she’s definitely going to him—not just to watch, but to talk to him! But the strange thing is, James Scott appears to know Emma! And through what? Their . . . dreams . . . ?

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Emma

"This is the greatest of above all greatest of there ever was great!" I yelled to my best friend, Jess. "I mean, he's coming to San Francisco, to shoot a movie! And where do we live?"

"San Francisco!!" we chorused.

We jumped on the couch and leaped through the air. James Scott was coming to San Francisco to shoot a movie! He's the most handsome-beautiful-talented-gorgeous-handsome-actor on the planet! And he was coming here -- and we will get a chance to meet him! Well, hopefully.

"Oh my gosh," Jess started. "What should we wear?"

"I don't know. ... Do you really think we'll get a chance to meet him?" I predict that there will be millions of crew there -- we might not even get a glimpse of him.

"We will! We must!" she said.

I stopped jumping and landed on the floor. "But there would me a ton of camera crew there. Plus, security guards and people trying to push unwanted people out of frame. ... It would be horror havoc!"

Jess landed on the floor too and grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me. "Stop being a damn pessimist! We will meet James Scott, and we will get his autograph! If you keep thinking negative, then negative things will happen to you."

"Stop acting like a fortune cookie! When my parents and I went to New York last year, and there was a shooting in Times Square -- with Eddie Murphy -- they even shooed us away from the sidewalk! We didn't even have a chance to take a picture with a freaking building!"

"But that was New York! The security there is way tighter than San Fran! Besides, it's not the first time we snuck into something that could have led us into prison."

"Please, don't remind me!" I cried, covering my ears.

"But we didn't get caught and we didn't get into trouble. No one even knew. Well, besides those college guys and the announcer. And the whole entire bar…”

Yes, I could still picture it like it happened yesterday -- or I was watching it on HD television. ...

We were fifteen at the time, and we went to Virginia as a summer vacation thing. There was this really hip strip mall, so we were window shopping until we heard these men yelling and arguing in front of a bar. We decided to check it out for a while...

"What's going on over there?" Jessica had said.

"I don't know. Let's check it out." I said as we made our way over there.

"It’s not like we have anything else to do."

As we got closer, we could make out what they were arguing about. They were a bunch of college guys and they weren't really arguing. They were compromising -- really loud.

Then, they spotted us. "Who are they staring at?" I thought. I guess Jess and I were thinking the same thing as we both looked behind us. But no one was there.

"Hey you guys!" One of them yelled.

"Us?" I said pointing to us.

"Yeah, you. Come here for a sec!"

One of his friends whispered, "What are you doing?"

"They could help us!" the one who called to us replied.

We walked over to them wondering what they wanted with us. "You guys are in college, right?"

"Actually," Jess started, "We're--"

"--Eighteen." I cut in. Jess stared at me confusingly and I nudge her in the stomach. "We just turned eighteen."

"Great." he said. "I'm Jeff. We go to Harvard, but we're here on a vacation. You guys think you could spare some time?"

"Actually, I have a quarter." Jess said. "But I can give it --"

"He said time. Not 'dime'. But sure, we can spare some time. What do you need?" I asked. Jess gets really deaf and nervous around older guys especially if they were as cute as them.

"Great! See, we need some more people on our team for this annual trivia contest, and we need two more people. Interested?"

"What kind of Trivia Contest?" I asked, because Jess was totally brain dead.

"You know. College stuff." another guy answered.

"Uh..." I looked at Jess and she shrugged. "Sort of like a Jeopardy thing? But for college students?"

"Yeah." Jeff said. "Sort of."

"Cool." I answered uneasily. "I mean, sure. Count us in."

"Alright!" they cheered. "It's in here." he pointed to the bar. It's in the bar? I thought. Oh gosh.

We followed them in, and the bar was pretty dark and there were people standing next to this big screen.

"What the hell are you getting us into?" Jess whispered to me.

"This will be fun. I mean have you ever pretended to be a college student before?" I said cheeringly.

"Not when there's college material involved!"

"Oh come on. We're in high school and we take advanced courses. It would be a piece of cake. And besides, we might not even need to answer anything. We're just here for head count."

"I don't know." she said.

"Stop being a damn pessimist. If you think negative thoughts, then negative things will happen to you." I said.

"Whatever. You're going to do all the talking." said Jess.

"Don't worry." I assured her. "It will all go smoothly. And no one will even know."

By that time, we got near the screen and stood next to Jeff. There was an announcer guy in the middle explaining the game rules. All we had to do was press the buzzard in front of us, and say the answer. That simple! (What kind of bar was this anyways?)

"OK." the announcer guy started. "Before we begin, let's introduce our players!" Oh God. "On the left side of me are the Crimson Barracudas!" Jeff and some other guys cheered. I guess that was us. "And on the right side of me are the Purple Vendettas!" Our opponents were some nerds with the whole ‘Nerd Package’. Glasses, over-use of hair gel, pocket protectors tucked in their breast pockets, and no physical coordination when two of them high-fived each other and missed. That made me giggle.

"Don't let your guard down." Jeff told me. He was really cute -- long and wavy blonde hair and a muscular chin. "They win every year."

"Oh." I said nervously. I was praying that the announcer wouldn't let us introduce ourselves.

I looked in front of me. There was a stand -- like the ones that people use when giving speeches -- a small red buzzer and a glass of water. How long will this take anyways that we needed a glass of water?

"OK." the announcer guy said. "Let's begin by introducing our, "--oh God--"Categories." Oh, thank God. "First off we have; The Works, Scrabble, Shake me Spear, TV, and Capitals."

Shake me Spear? What kind of sick people make these titles anyways?

"Since the Purple Vendettas won last year, their team captain, John Gill, will choose the first category."

"Let's have 'Shake me Spear' for 200." he said.

"He wanted Kate, but ended up with nothing."

I actually knew that! I punched my buzzer and saw everyone stare at me. Overcome this stage fright, overcome this stage fright! I thought to myself. "Um… Who is Hortensio?"

"Correct!" the announcer said. My team cheered and Jeff gave me a high-five. I looked at Jess and she looked surprised. "For 200 extra points, name the play!"

Jeff looked at me with happy eyes, and it felt nice! "Taming -- I mean -- What is Taming of the Shrew?"

"The Crimson Barracudas has four hundred points!" he yelled. The crowd and our team cheered. "This game ain't half bad." I told Jess.

The game continued until we finished all of the categories. "We're going to continue with the Double Round. Remember, Crimson has 1600 points and Purple has 2000. It's a tight game, and so we'll pause for a minute and talk to our players!" Oh no!

He started with the Purple nerds and I turned to Jess. "OK. We're going to be screwed." I whispered so no one would over hear.

"Didn't I tell you?" she whispered back, but with those yelling kind of whispers.

"Don't panic!" I said smoothly. "Let's just say that we're from San Fran -- like we are -- and that we go to ... Stanford!"

"You want us to lie again?" she said.

"Well, we can't stop now; we actually have a chance of beating these Purple nerds! Jeff told me that they win every year -- we could break that streak!" I said.

"Uh oh… They're going to us now." Jess said.

The announcer was interviewing some guy three people down. "OK, remember. Stanford!" I said.

"I know, I’m not an idiot.”

"Just repeat it after me; Stanford!"

"Yes, yes. He's at Jeff now!"

"I'm Jeff, and I'm from Boston, Massachusetts. I'm going to attend my third year in Harvard University." People cheered. Now he was coming to me!

"Uh... Hello! I'm a ... Annie." Oh gosh. I faked my name too! "Annie Falangy. (Annie Falangy? What the hell?) I'm from San Francisco, California. But I'm in my second year in... Stanford."

"Really? How old are you?" the announcer guy asked.

He knew. I just knew it! "Eighteen."

"Wow, you look young for you're age. Maybe like fifteen."

"Huh." I laughed uneasily. "I get that a lot."

He nodded and went to Jess. Please don't screw this up! "I'm Jess." she looked at me, probably telling me that faking my name was unnecessary. "And I go to Stanford with ... Annie, as well."

"Good, good. OK. Let's continue!" he said. Phew! That was easy.

The categories were even more ridiculous than before. Jeff, who was our team captain, picked out, "Span-a-lot", and the announcer read, "Translate this; Donde esta biblioteca."

That was too easy. I buzzed in. "Where is the library?"

"That’s 200 more for Crimson!"

Later in the game, we were a tie at 20,000 points. It was time for the final round which felt like hours later. I checked my watch and one hour had passed.

"Whichever team gets this one right wins the game! Each team needs to decide the answer together, with a thirty second time limit. OK, here it goes; who said it? 'Some have little power to do good, and have likewise little strength to resist evil.' Thirty seconds."

Jeff, Jess, two other guys, and I huddled together and I could smell a strong scent of cologne. "Shit." Jeff said. "I don't know who that is. Any luck, Annie?"

Right, Annie. "Um... ... no. Jess?" We didn't learn it in high school, but we could take some chances.

"Five seconds."

"I know!" Suddenly Jess's light bulb went on and she snatched the chalkboard that we needed to use in order to answer the question in from Jeff and started writing an answer on it.

"Jess, what are you doing?"

"Breaking the streak." Jess said.

"Times up!" the announcer's voice made me jump a little. "Purple nerds-- I mean, Vendettas, what's your answer?"

John raised the chalkboard and on it was, "Who is W.E.B. Dubois?"

"Sorry, that's incorrect. Crimson Barracudas, you have a chance to win this year's Trivia Contest. What's your answer?"

Jeff looked at the board, and then raised it before him. It said in Jess's handwriting, "Who is Samuel Johnson?"

“Ladies and gentlemen, this year’s trophy goes to the Crimson Barracudas!”

The crowd and the team cheered in victory! I screamed and hugged Jess for saving our skins!

...Until one of the nerds yelled out, "Wait! Wait!"

The room was silent and was staring at the little nerd. "I don't think these two girls are really college students."

Oh no. "Look," Jeff said. "You guys lost. Deal with it."

"Uh... I don’t know. Girls, are you guys really college students?" The announcer asked us.

"No!" Jess blurted out.

The crowd gasped. "Oh, come on, this isn't a court room drama!" I said aloud. "Look, we are college students! I mean, how could Jess have known the answer if she wasn't?"

"Do you guys have proof?" he asked.

“What do you mean, proof?”

"Like a college ID?" he asked.

I looked at Jess. I looked into the crowd who were waiting curiously for an answer. And all I could say was, "Run!" We dashed out of there and never again did we go near that bar or the strip mall. ... ...

"Yeah, those were good times." Jess said.

We're seventeen now, and we think that bar thing was way behind us. "I would agree. It was fun." I said.

We sat on the living room rug and watched the TV. I turned to Jess. "Do you really think we'll get a chance to meet him?" I asked her.

"Of course. If we look like we're eighteen when we were fifteen, imagine what we look like now that we're seventeen."

"So we're going to sneak in?" I asked her.

"Of course not. We'll think of something." she said.

"Since when were you the spontaneous one?" I joked.

"Since James Scott came into town."

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Later that night, I was chatting online with Jess about the 'Scott' mission.

"So, what's your plan?" I wrote.

"Well, James's coming to town this weekend." she wrote. "I think we'll make our move then."

"How long is he going to be here?"

"Well. Rumor has it that he'll be here for a week or so. For location, you know?"

"Ah, well that'll leave us plenty of time."

"Yup."

"So," I wrote. "What's the plan?"

"Um… ... Actually, I came up with nothing."

A chance to meet James Scott and we went blank. Of course I've dreamed about this day to come ever since I saw him as Batman in "Gotham". He was like twenty at the time. Now he's twenty-two. He's made five films since then. Wow. ... ...

"I have an idea!" I wrote.

"What??"

"OK, well remember when you said that we could play college students now that we're seventeen?"

"Yeah?"

"Well, why don't we use our gift one more time?"

"What do you have in mind?"

"I saw in the movie, Scoop that Scarlett Johansson played a college journalist and got an interview with this major actor..."

"Are you saying that we should schedule an interview with James Scott for our 'college newspaper'?"

"Uh huh."

"That's complicated."

"How?"

"Well, shouldn't we have, like, an ID, and an actual newspaper title? We're not accepted into any colleges yet anyways!"

"But that didn't stop us before, my little Stanford colleague."

"I don't know."

"Let's just try it on Saturday, then if it doesn't work, we could try it again on Sunday -- a new thing."

"But we need IDs and the name of the real Stanford newspaper -- it sounds risky. We could get into a lot of trouble!"

"We don't need to be from a real college. We could just say that we're college journalists, and if he asks, then we could just say a college from London."

"We don't have British accents."

"We could fake it!"

When she didn't answer, I wrote, "C'mon! We need to meet him!"

"Fine."

I flipped through the magazine on my bed -- and with my luck came across a picture of James himself. It was of him leaving Toronto and going on a plane to San Francisco. The caption said, "James Scott headed to San Fran to shoot on location for his new movie, 'Just Right Now'." The article talked about his new movie and blah, blah, blah -- rumors about him and his co-star Regina Goods being an 'item'. That woman was a total slut, everyone knew that.

I looked at the picture of him in the airport again. He was wearing dark shaded glasses and had his collar up like James Dean. He reminded me of James Dean. He looked a lot like him. He had black hair and a little curl in the front.

“So, it’s settled.” I wrote.

“I guess. We need to do major research in the whole journalist thing.”

"OK, we’ll start in school tomorrow. Sweet dreams."

"Sweet dreams, Jess."

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My dream that night was everything as sweet.

I was in Manhattan, and was wearing a dress to die for. It was short and sleek -- white with black flowers and a black silk belt. I had vintage sunglasses that I saw in Breakfast at Tiffany's and my hair was up in a stylistic bun with a white headband.

I was walking one sunny day in the park -- I think it was Central Park because that was my favorite spot to visit when I was there last summer -- and saw a bench and sat on it, reading a book with a black cover. What was I doing there anyways? And what book was I reading?

I closed the book and looked next to me, and saw -- James Scott! I knew it must have been a dream because of his remark, "Do I look like another James Dean?”

I just sat there and nodded (which I don't know why) then he leaned over and kissed me!

I sat up in my bed and sighed to know that I was still in my room -- in California -- where something like that could have happened to a girl in New York.

But of course – with my luck – not me.

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