The Bureau of Dreams to be Continued by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview
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The Bureau of Dreams to be Continued
Page 396
Governor’s Island
Dream Story: “The Ferry to Tomorrow”
In the spring of 1963, on the quiet military hush of Governor’s Island, 14 year old Lila Monroe woke to the sound of gulls and the distant hum of the Staten Island Ferry. Her room, tucked inside one of the officer’s quarters, smelled faintly of sea salt and the cherry lip gloss she’d spilled on her pillow. Today was special. Today, her mother was taking her to Manhattan; not for a Broadway show or a museum, but for something far more thrilling; the dentist. And afterward, the real prize; Superman Comics from the newsstand near Battery Park.
Lila loved the dentist. Not the drills or the fluoride, but the ritual of it. The subway tokens, the waxy paper bib, the way her mother always let her choose a stick of Juicy Fruit afterward even though it defeated the purpose. But most of all, she loved the city. Manhattan was a mythic realm to her, a place where buildings scraped the sky and everyone seemed to be in motion, like extras in a movie she hadn’t been cast in yet.
She dressed carefully; saddle shoes, a pleated skirt, and her lucky cardigan with the missing button. Her mother, a Navy nurse with a no-nonsense bun and a secret stash of Bazooka gum, handed