Do You Know What A Shark Means In Your Dreams?

Every night I have the same dream. I'm standing at the lakeshore, and I see sharks swimming in the lakes. I want to swim, but I hold back. I can hear people behind me screaming to go back to them, but the thought of swimming with the sharks is magical. I wake up before I choose.

My alarm clock's obnoxious noise wakes me up again. I was so close to getting in the water in that dream! I sigh as I tap the clock and get out of bed. I look at the empty space next to me. Chet must've gotten up and left for work a while ago. Usually, he stays around long enough to make sure I have hot coffee before I go. This morning isn't any different. He might not be here, but there's fresh coffee waiting for me after I brush my teeth.

It's another early shift at the hardware store. I think the managers schedule me in the mornings to spite me. I tell them I prefer nights, but they always put me in early. Maybe the sight of me trying to keep my eyes open in the first hour amuses them. There were days when some of my coworkers laughed when I walked in.

It's no secret I'm not a morning person. It made college hard. All of the classes I needed for my major were in the morning. I got through it, but barely. I still managed a decent GPA.

But like every other millennial college graduate, I couldn't find a job, forcing me to move back in with my parents and get a minimum wage job that barely pays the bills. When Chet and I got together, I was too eager to get out of my parent's house and into something that looked like adult life.

I already have ridiculous amounts of debt and millennial disappointment. Now I have rent on top of a degree I can't use unless I somehow get enough money to move out of my hometown. But that's not happening anytime soon. Chet seems to like it here too much to leave.

The day isn't anything new. You get your usual contractors who want to argue with me about prices. And then there are the retired factory workers calling me stupid because I have to direct them to self-checkout. The managers watch these people berate me every day, and the most they do is lecture me about not being polite enough. Because that's what's going to make customers stop treating cashiers like crap.

Luckily, Teresa's here too, and we have the same lunch hour. Teresa works at Customer Service, and she's one of the funniest people I've ever met. I never met anyone so good at telling rude customers to fuck themselves and having them agree. Maybe it's because she knows how to make her big brown eyes sparkle as she smiles. Or maybe it's because she shows just enough cleavage that she can't get in trouble with the bosses, but she can make the customers agree to anything. I need to watch her more and take notes.

At my break, I'm racing to the bathroom. I drank way too much coffee this morning, and now I'm feeling it hard. I give Teresa a quick smile as I half-jog. She grins back, her smile dazzling as ever. She wears her long red hair down with a black, low-cut shirt today. It seems lower than yesterday's shirt, but I can't think about it now.

I make it, do my business, then come out to wash my hands. I must've been in there a while. Teresa is fixing her hair in the mirror when she sees me.

"Let's get pizza for lunch today!" she says.

"Sounds good to me," I reply.

At one, we clock out for lunch and head to the pizza place next door. The dining room is a weird art gallery of pizza and sharks. I half-expect the server to say they make shark-shaped pizzas. I'd try it, but the pictures make me feel uneasy.

Again, I'm reminded of my dreams. Teresa flirts with the server, unaware of my silence. We often get so caught up in talking we forget to eat our lunches. Today is different. I'm too weirded out by my dreams.

"So, what's up?" Teresa asked. "You're weirdly quiet, and I don't like it. Did Chet say something stupid again last night?"

"No, it's not him," I say, "Chet's been fine. He's been almost too nice to me since the whole, 'I don't want to get married' incident."

"Well, he should've thought about that before he proposed," Teresa sniffed. There was no love lost between her and Chet. After he called off our engagement, she's been waiting for me to say the word so she could tell him what she really thought of him.

"So what's really going on?" she asked. "Bad dreams? I interpret them on the side, you know."

"I don't know if I'd call them bad," I tell her, "but they leave me confused. It's the same one over and over again."

"The shark dream again, isn't it?" she asks.

"How did you know?" I don't remember telling her about the shark dreams. Maybe that's why she wanted to get pizza here.

"The last time we got drunk together, you wouldn't stop talking about the sharks," she said. "I have to ask. What are you afraid of?"

"What do you mean?" I ask, wary.

"You've never looked up what a shark means in your dream, have you?" Teresa asks. "Sharks are a symbol of fear. They're also a sign of danger."

The server comes back with our drinks. We order a large pizza with ham, onions, and green peppers. Teresa asks for two orders of cheesy breadsticks with extra pizza sauce for dipping. The two flirt more before he takes our menus and disappears into the kitchen.

"I should leave him my number," she says, "now back to you. What are you afraid of lately? Is it Chet? Is it that sketchy job you applied to?"

One of the regulars at the store gave me a website for an ESL job last week. Teresa thought it sounded weird since I had no teaching experience, but I researched it, and it sounded like a real job. The catch is that it's in South Korea. She's the only one who knows I applied. She let me come over to do the interview so Chet wouldn't know. If I didn't get it, he'd never know I thought about leaving.

"I still haven't heard from them," I admit. "I don't know how much longer I have to wait until I realize I didn't get the job."

"Give it till the end of the month," Teresa advises. "Then you can say you tried. It sounded sketchy anyway."

Teresa gets up and heads to the bathroom. The server comes back, disappointed to see only me at the table. He puts down the breadsticks and doesn't say a word. As I reach for a breadstick, I hear my phone vibrate. I have a new email. I open the app and nearly drop my phone.

"Hello, Tanya,

We would like to offer you a position in our school. Please reply to this email to arrange a meeting to go over the details of the job. We will also go over departure days. We will provide the plane ticket. Thank you for applying to this position."

Teresa and the server come back. The server puts the pizza on our table, and he and Teresa flirt for a while longer. Teresa pulls her phone out of her pocket, and she and the server exchange numbers. The server walks to another table, looking more chipper.

"Teresa," I say slowly, "I got the job."

"Awesome!" she cheers. "Now you can get out of this dump of a town! Are you going to tell Chet?"

"It'll have to be tonight," I say.

"Can I watch?" Teresa asks eagerly.

"No," I take a bite of the pizza. It's one of the best pizzas I've had in this restaurant. "I have to do it alone."

"Maybe that's the fight the sharks are telling you about," she says thoughtfully.

"Maybe," I agree. We eat in silence. When we leave, she sneak-texts the server. We're so busy when we get back to work we don't get to talk again until it's time to go home.

"If he kicks you out, you can crash at my place," Teresa says. "Text me after you tell him."

Chet doesn't get home for another few hours. I lay on the couch and glance at the walls. They used to have more pictures. We had our engagement photos hanging over the TV. There were also pictures from his proposal. After he called everything off, he took the photos down the next day. He said he did it so I wouldn't feel embarrassed when people asked about the wedding.

If it wasn't for one picture in the living room, it wouldn't look like I lived here at all. Everything in the living room is his. I didn't have a say on decoration. It was like that when we were engaged, too. It shows more now that we're not engaged anymore. I close my eyes.

The sharks are in the water again. I hear people yelling at me to stop. Chet's voice is louder than the rest of them. I can hear him begging me not to go to the sharks. I don't listen. I step towards the shore.

"Hey, Tanya," Chet's voice softly wakes me up from my nap. I must've been asleep for hours when he woke me. His beautiful silver eyes look down at me. I can see the warmth in them as he smiles. His stubble is starting to come in gray.

"Did you have a good nap?" he half-whispers.

"Yes," I answer. "Sit down. There's something I need to tell you."