The Dream Before the Dark ✓

01 | In the Beginning

THERE WERE MANY PLACES in which Jenny Adler could envision meeting the man of her dreams. At a dinner party with mutual friends. Or she'd find him at the art museum, wandering through the galleries and thoughtfully admiring the paintings. At her friend Celie's coffee shop—maybe he sat next to her by chance and they struck up a conversation. Perhaps someday off in the future, if she could ever get a God-forsaken master's degree, she'd travel the world presenting her groundbreaking research and just so happen to stumble into a handsome man in the Italian Riviera. Or maybe she'd just meet him on the L. She wasn't picky.

Yes, there were many places in which Jenny Adler could envision meeting the man of her dreams.

But St. Catherine's Catholic School was not one of those places.

What it did happen to be was home to the new job that she was about to be late to if she didn't stop messing with her hair and get out the door. She grabbed her satchel from where it had been haphazardly flung onto the floor in the chaos of her fluttering around to get ready. It wasn't like her to carelessly throw her belongings around like that, but the bundle of nerves planted in her stomach made today an exception. Although she was a bit nervous about the work itself – there were a lot of moving parts that she was going to have to get adjusted to – the primary source of her anxiety was the inevitability of seeing her. But she was simply going to have to get used to this sensation. Her new boss wasn't going anywhere anytime soon.

The bag was heavy when she picked it up, stuffed to the brim with an absurd number of objects that she either wouldn't need or wouldn't have time for – extra blue and black pens, scissors, a roll of tape, pads and tampons, a thin sweater, this month's issue of Technology News in case things got slow in the afternoon and she had a moment to spare – yet felt compelled to pack.

A vacuum of cold air ushered her outside the moment she opened the door. Yesterday's snow, muddied with footprints and various other substances that she didn't want to think about, crunched under her feet as her feet carried her swiftly down the sidewalk and scenes of quotidian life played out around her. The figures of the streets, unnamed faces that rhythmically performed their given roles, moved along through the confusing labyrinth of life on these roads so neatly organized that they could have been placed there by an algorithm.

All the usual cues made their appearances. The honking of a taxi, of two, of three, of many. The faded Bill Clinton for President posters plastered on a telephone pole. A group of boisterous men in long coats on the street corner, loudly conversing with one another while pretending to read the newspapers in their hands. The flick of a cigarette sent ash falling to the ground like a fresh layer of snow. One gentleman twirled his between his fingers, making circular smoke trails in the air while he shared a deeply philosophical thought with his comrades – something silly his girlfriend said the other day. The vapors of their exhalations were nearly opaque in the sub-freezing air, man playing the role of God by breathing white clouds into existence. The putrid smell of tobacco filled Jen's nostrils as she waited for the crosswalk signal to change. She wrinkled her nose and resisted the urge to cough conspicuously.

In many ways, today was no different than any other day. St. Catherine's was on the edge of the approximately ten-block radius in which she spent at least ninety percent of her time, this tiny microcosm that contained her entire existence. The only notable exceptions were when she went to visit her parents, but she preferred it this way. She enjoyed walking and biking and not having to deal with the questionable people a woman would inevitably encounter on public transit.

Fortunately, she didn't have to worry about getting lost this morning. In addition to the fact that the school was connected to the church and therefore rather hard to miss, she had already come by on Saturday to get oriented. Jude, the school librarian who also happened to be her friend Celie's older brother, showed her most of the ropes. They apparently didn't have the budget for two secretaries, so he oftentimes got dragged into administrative duties, too. The vice-principal, a man named Elliot Wood who was nice enough but had a personality even blander than the communion crackers, had also shown up to meet her and get her acquainted with whatever aspects of the role Jude wasn't familiar with.