Page 37 of On the Double

I shot him a hesitant smile before continuing. “But then the strangest thing happened. Darth Vader showed up and told me he was my father.”

“At your waxing?” the man asked.

“Uh…yes.”

“You must really like Star Wars,” he grumbled.

“And then…” I widened my eyes at her, letting her know what was about to happen.

“And then what?” the man asked curiously, though Luna caught on and started scanning items faster.

“And then…he took off his helmet and he was James Earl Jones!”

The man was just about to hand over cash when he stopped and stared at me. “James Earl Jones was at your waxing?”

“Yes!”

“And he was Darth Vader?”

I could kill this guy for interrupting my discussion. Luna was just staring at me like I’d gone batshit crazy. Then she burst out laughing.

“Shut up!” I hissed.

“I’m sorry,” she said between gasps. “It’s just…you dreamt about an old man!”

The man at the counter looked between her and me. “We’re not talking about waxing, are we?”

I pursed my lips, pissed that Luna couldn’t keep her mouth shut. “It was a dream! It’s not like I could help it!”

The man looked me up and down, then frowned. “Do you dream about old men often?”

“No! It was just the one time!”

“You know, if it makes you feel any better, I was once having this awesome dream about me and Cindy Crawford, and then my Grandma showed up and started scolding me about not separating my socks.”

Okay, that was just weird—way worse than my James Earl Jones story. “Um…”

He rubbed the back of his neck uncomfortably. “Yeah, it’s pretty weird.”

“It is,” I agreed.

“But even worse was when she called me the next day and started asking me what kind of socks I wanted for Christmas. I’ve never been able to look at socks the same way again.”

That was way more information than I needed about any customer. Now that my dream was out in the open, it didn’t seem there was a need to keep it quiet. “But what do you think it means?”

“The socks?” the man asked, his eyebrows raised.

“No, my dream. Not yours. That’s just gross.”

Luna, thankfully, came to the rescue, preventing me from having to discuss the man’s gross Christmas socks anymore. “Hot, sexy hunk paired with a Highlander and an old man…I’m not sure what that means.”

“Don’t forget that he said he was her father,” the man chimed in.

“Yeah, that’s a little disturbing. Either you really like Star Wars or…”

“Or what?”

She cringed. “I guess it could mean you want a daddy.”

---