good luck
by Chachee Valentine
Even after the fourth blow, Francis dreams of smoke and fire, refuses to wake up to the clang of an ax hacking through the front door. Like a pack of ghosts, the smoke swirls and lingers, slipping and sliding, changing form.
Once inside the home, a rookie firefighter finds a handwritten letter on the kitchen counter addressed to, “My New Bride.” The rookie’s voice cracks as he calls out to his chief, while the rest of the squad follow the trail of smoke and breach a door that leads to a well-maintained backyard.
Back in the dream, Francis keeps her eye line on the center of an Italian buttercream cake, where missing slices reveal layers of raspberry coulis. Being married on a cruise ship was John’s idea. Despite Francis’ susceptibility to getting seasick, he would not abandon the fantasy of having a flashy destination wedding. She wanted them to be married in the tiny cobblestone chapel in Manchester-by-the Sea, the chapel she and her brother were baptized, where she envisioned their future children being baptized.
Francis’ brother adores champagne. He seizes the opportunity to maintain the champagne glass tower, an unfaltering trickle of pink bubbles in excess. Over-fed family members and guests begin to melt in tandem with the growing waves and the listing cruise ship. Everything in this dream seems to meld into a nonsensical blob, like the waxy faces in Scanners that dissolve under the hands of gravity.
Francis is aware that she is lucid dreaming about her wedding, especially when their dog, Sailor, appears wearing a baby’s bib. Sitting upright at the captain’s table, Sailor’s yap becomes the main soundtrack of the dream. Francis stews at the round table, annoyed by Sailor’s bark. She bites her bottom lip, a habit disliked by John, as the dog continues to agitate, to wake her from deep sleep after mediocre lovemaking. The stench of steaky carbon returns to her nostrils. For a brief moment, Francis sees herself through the tiniest pinhole from outside of her body and observes herself and John, gnawing petite fillet and garlic broccoli. The scene repeats, mixes with charcoaled smoke that stings her throat chakra.
The dream continues, as well as smoke no one else appears to notice. John hovers in a darkened corner over someone not on the guest list. Francis remarks to herself that the unknown guest is a handsome fella with a magazine cover chiseled jaw, with one of those sexy clefts in his square chin. He’s a younger man, a bit younger than John, who resembles a crooner dressed to the nines in a crisp, satin suit. He sips, on what looks like, a dirty martini. His Morrissey-esque hair, styled with purpose, flows with each gesture. At one point in the dream, John says something to the handsome fella that makes them both giggle in a bashful manner. The handsome fella almost spills his drink, but pulls away the rim of the martini glass from his lush, pillowy lips just in time, as if the whole production had been staged for Francis to see. Whatever is said reveals a softness, a kind of gentle attentiveness between the two men, that forces Francis to ponder a closeness she has never experienced, not only with John but with anyone. The thought crosses her dreamtime-mind that maybe she consumed too much champagne to be considered a reliable witness of her own wedding.
Francis begins to stir. Even though she hears Sailor’s bark in stereo, she cannot ignore the fact that Sailor is at home with a pet sitter, not at their destination wedding, and he’s certainly not sitting upright at the captain’s table wearing a baby’s bib. Nausea sets in. Her sea legs wobble, as she attempts to collect glasses of champagne to put out a fire at a leathered distance, a fire she cannot see, though the smell of roasting flesh on the other side of her dreamtime keeps Francis captive to the rocking ship that will not permit her to wake up. Their family, and random wedding guests, who now resemble cartoons intoxicated by frosting, loud music, and bubbles, melt and sizzle into crusted brown butter in a cast iron skillet.
Francis’ eyes tear from ribbons of smoke seeping through the frame of the bedroom window. Awakened by the fire squad, Francis reports that she’s dreaming, that she’s still on the ship. She recalls that right before she entered the dream, she looked out the bedroom window and witnessed a shadowy figure combust into flames inside Sailor’s pen. She describes how the abrupt flames stretched far enough to warm the glass windowpane. The rookie turns to his chief and asks if it’s possible for flames to reach that far, but Francis interrupts him because she wants to know if Sailor is okay.
Half-dreaming, she rummages through the contents of her and John’s 2 a.m. arrival-home bags from their love boat wedding. Over her shoulder, she throws John’s swim trunks, his toiletry bag, and bow tie, searching for her poolside shawl and a pair of slip-on mules. As the chief implores her to stop dreaming, she catches a glimpse of the wedding garter her new groom forgot to toss for good luck. It’s time to wake up, Mrs. Boucher. We found a letter from your husband, John.
Photo of Chachee Valentine
BIO: Chachee Valentine (they/them) writes creative nonfiction, poetry, fiction, and screenplays. Their work appears or is forthcoming in Stonecoast Review, Talon Review, Litbreak Magazine, Sheepshead Review and elsewhere. They are a 2024 Pushcart Prize nominee and a future MFA candidate in Creative Nonfiction at the University of Montana ’26.