And then there was the dream with Tom at the roller rink. He spun her and they twirled around on the rink, weaving and shifting to miss the other kids speeding past them. She was lucid: when extra lights pulsated along with the swirling multi-colored hues from above, she realized that the bulbs had tripped. While lucid, she remembered what Lauren had said about her dream with the tall man in the marble dance hall. "This is so cool, I love it!"
The roller rink seemed so much larger and more opulent than the one they had skated in, the one where she took Molly that summer. Everyone seemed happy and carefree as they skated past them. The roof overhead changed into a starry sky at one point, then a turquoise dome with flashing points of light. While the skating rink in real life could smell of spilled soda, stale popcorn and sweat, a crisp, clean scent like Oleander drifted through the air.
While in real life they would have turned in a giant circle around the edges of the rink, in her dream they traveled on and on as Tom twirled her and held her hands. Linda decided to test out what Lauren had told her. "Tom," she said, "Do you know we're in a dream?" As they skated side-by-side for a moment, he looked down at her with a confused expression. From over his shoulder a bright light shone, getting brighter and brighter until it washed out the details of his face and his hair. "Oh no!" Linda exclaimed. She felt someone pushing on her shoulder, shoving her as if they wanted to push her off the ice skating rink.
She realized it was Geraldine trying to wake her up, having to tap her arm with a bit more force than usual. "Must have been a good one," Geraldine said, her eyes wide, as she got her clipboard and pen ready.
"So you saw something on the screens, I take it," Linda said.
"Like squiggly bolts of lightning," Geraldine replied.
Linda was glad for the occurrence, which would help the directors of the Dream Lab decide to keep her on as an Oneironaut. She rattled on for a half hour about Tom, the skating rink and the wonderful new dimension for partner skating. Geraldine scribbled on her pad furiously, trying to keep up. Twice she had to stop and shake her wrist, to keep her hand from cramping up.
By Halloween, Linda had saved enough money to buy a nice new stereo for Myrtle, complete with AM and FM plus a cassette deck. Naomi let her record several of her albums onto cassette using her cassette deck system so that Linda could play her favorite music anytime she rode around campus.