“I‘ve heard that too many times so come on and let‘s see something new.” She towed him towards the water. Something new was a collection of shells buried at the edge of the water.
“I can‘t get them out, please help me.” She muttered and knelt facing the sea.
Edward knelt down opposite her and started digging out the shells. “You weren‘t able to dig these out?” He pulled out the shells but his mocking smile changed to a grimace as a wave washed over him. The expression on Gladys face and the distance between them told him it had been intentional. She was a few paces away and now she ran off laughing.
Edward gave merry chase, the shells forgotten. When he caught up with her and picked her up, he recalled the dream. A line, “Out of my dreams and into my life”, from one of his favorite songs by Michael Bolton came to mind. Maybe Gladys was the one for him.
She began to squirm on the way. “Please don‘t dunk me. I‘ll do anything...”
“You certainly have to pay.” He moved closer still to the edge of the sea. Gladys closed her eyes thinking she would probably be dumped in the water but Edward set her down gently.
She opened her eyes and asked. “Is that all?”
“There is only one way for you to pay, a long way.”
“Do you want a pound of flesh?” “I want to marry you.”
Edward was fully woken by the splash of salty warm water on his face. Gladys danced around and flicked wet fingers at him. Edward growled and turned over, his daydream vivid in his memory. It had seemed so real and he had asked Gladys to marry him! What had he been thinking? Perhaps it was all that thought of unmet goals that had been on his mind before he drifted off. But they‘d only been dating since May. He shook his head and groaned.
“Are you OK?” Gladys asked kneeling by his side. “It must have been a more hectic week than I knew. You seem very tired.”
“Yes it was and it didn‘t help that I had a nasty experience to top it all.”
“What happened? You didn‘t mention anything when we spoke a couple of days ago.”
“That was Thursday.” Edward sighed heavily thinking of his meeting yesterday with a friend who worked at the Securities and Exchange Commission. There were strange movements of the company shares in the stock market and prices were being affected. It was still subtle but his contact thought he should be aware. He had been grateful but that meant spending the bulk of last night poring over the financial reports. He had to remember to leave the file he‘d pulled together with Mr. Odili, the company accountant before he traveled.