Lost in La La Land Read online

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Epilogue

  Lost in La La Land

  A Novel by Tara Brown

  Copyright 2017 Tara Brown

  http://TaraBrown22.blogspot.com

  eBook Edition

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. No alteration of content is permitted. This book is a work of fiction; any similarities are coincidental. All characters in this fictional story are based entirely on the crazed mind of the author and are not based on any human. Any similarities are by chance and not intentional.

  Cover Art by Hart and Bailey Design

  Edited by Andrea Burns

  Other Books by Tara Brown

  The Devil’s Roses

  Cursed

  Bane

  Hyde

  Witch

  Death

  Blackwater

  Midnight Coven

  Redeemers

  Betrayers

  The Royals Trilogy

  A Royal Pain

  A Royal Affair – Coming soon

  The Born Trilogy

  Born

  Born to Fight

  Reborn

  The Light Series

  The Light of the World

  The Four Horsemen

  The End of Days

  Imaginations

  Imaginations

  Duplicities

  Reparation – Coming soon

  The Blood Trail Chronicles

  Vengeance

  Vanquished

  Valiant – Coming soon

  The Crimson Cove Mysteries

  If At First

  Second Nature

  Third Time’s a Charm

  Four Crimson Corners

  Hang Five – Coming soon

  The Single Lady Spy Series

  The End of Me

  The End of Games

  The End of Tomorrow

  The End of Lies – Coming soon

  Blood and Bone

  Blood and Bone

  Sin and Swoon

  Soul and Blade

  Puck Buddies

  Puck Buddies

  Roommates

  Bed Buddies

  My Side

  The Long Way Home

  The Lonely

  LOST BOY

  First Kiss

  Sunder

  In the Fading Light

  Lost in La La Land

  For Love or Money

  Prologue

  Manhattan, New York, 2020

  My reflection in the mirror isn’t what it ought to be. There’s a flash of something I vaguely recognize, a person I used to be or someone I will eventually become.

  She’s tired and haggard, she’s probably dying.

  She’s there one moment, sitting in her chair, blankly staring out the window. And then she’s gone. And I am me, normal me.

  If I lean in and stare closely, directly into the flecks of my eyes, I still see her. It’s the reflection. The window she stares from casts her back at me in the mirror. The gray day outside the window where she sits, the gray hospital gown she wears, the gray pallor of her skin. I blink and it plays live, clouds floating by, trying to animate the day and the woman I have become.

  If I look close enough, I see the exact instant I will become her, become lost in la la land.

  I can pinpoint the precise second that was the beginning of the end.

  It’s funny when you look back and see the end. To you, it disguised itself as a beginning, but it was a path to destruction. I craved that destruction, that end, that finality.

  The end started the night I decided to change my work, to create a new machine from the one I’d been working on.

  I was at a friend’s, sitting in the dining room, waiting for her to bring dinner to her massive wooden table. Being the only one seated, I was alone there amongst the eight chairs.

  From the kitchen she giggled, obviously reacting to something her husband had said. I felt like a voyeur, listening in on the intimate moment occurring in the other room.

  Being alone was hard enough without couples giggling and kissing, as was their prerogative. But it reminded me that I too used to kiss and giggle. I used to lean into someone, placing my whole heart on a shoulder.

  Instead of hating them, I distracted myself by pretending to peruse the new apartment. I made a list of things I could mention when they came to the table. Normal people did that, discussed art and tables and area rugs.

  My eyes scanned the walls and furnishings, and I happened upon a new painting. It was one of those art pieces that spread across the wall, continuing on several canvases as if the painting had been sawed into three or five or eight. This particular one was broken into five long thin panels.

  The eye-catching work was of a beach at sunset with a boardwalk and long wispy sea grass. The clouds were thin, suggesting the air was warm with a slight breeze coming off the water. It was the sort of scene that made you want to step inside and walk off into the fading light of dusk.

  If I let my eyes drift out of focus, I could hear the waves crash as I forgot for five seconds that my entire world was gone.

  The smell of him and the burning house was stuck in my nose, despite all the time that had passed, but it couldn't fight against the overpowering scent of the sea and the windswept salt.

  The taste of him and my tears was still on my lips, but it couldn't compete with the flavor of the sunscreen I would have spread over my arms as I roamed the sandy dunes below the boardwalk.

  The sight of him, his smile and his back entering that smoky house, was lost in the blinding brightness of the beautiful beach and the way the water sparkled under the sunlight.

  There had never been a competition inside me for what I felt more, my grief or anything else. He was always the winner, until that moment.

  For a few minutes I sat there, free of every burden his death had laid upon me. For the first time I breathed deeply, imagining the air was crisp and clean and I was someone new. I was clean with the breeze.

  I don't know how long I sat staring at the painting that stretched across the wall, broken into five scenes. Mentally, I hopped from each canvas, heading further and further into the work of art, fleeing my broken heart.

  And like all scientists, I wondered what if.

  What if I could make that picture come
to life?

  Even better, what if I could go into a painting made from my own heart’s desire?

  What if I could go there and he would be real again?

  Would I care that he was just a dream?

  I was the worst dinner guest from that moment on.

  We ate salad with battered fish and crusty bread, and I tried to engage in conversation but everything was halved. Half an attempt at a smile. Half a conversation. Half a distracted stare as the painting caught my eye more than once.

  Normally, I would have lingered over my plate, closing my eyes and tasting everything, dragging the crusty bread through the balsamic and Parmesan dressing, savoring the olive oil on my tongue as it mixed with the fish. I would have spent a few seconds paying homage to the fact I could taste and smell and devour all of it, and he could not.

  It was my way of making sure he saw me living on—saw me appreciating things he no longer could. It was an act I wished to do well enough that he might believe I was living without him.

  But that night I didn't live without him. I plotted. I was preoccupied as my eyes roamed the canvas, strategizing and arguing the scientific possibility of what I was contemplating.

  Marguerite and Stanley were the perfect hosts, ignoring my absentmindedness. A fault they no doubt blamed on the loss of the only man I could ever love. It afforded me many transgressions. Every time I did something people disagreed with, they blamed him. I could have gotten away with a great many evil things with him as my justification.

  I left that night, arguing equations in my mind.

  My feet carried me through the damp streets of the Upper West Side.

  I crossed at the wrong times, ignored the voices of others on the road, my heels clicking on the cold cement until I paused, realizing I was lost.

  Still in a frenzy of sorts, I glanced up at the office building in front of me and grinned. I had walked to work.

  Pulling my keycard from my purse, I didn't hesitate or contemplate the road I was about to take. I scanned the card and entered the building, leaving behind common sense and rationality.

  Those were things I had lost in the fire anyway.

  Chapter One

  Manhattan, New York, 2024

  “The storm got worse. I hadn’t seen it coming. It came out of nowhere and the wind was so harsh and Dorothy was shouting at me. I ignored her and ran inside the house. I could taste the straw in the wind as the granary was lifted first. Sand and debris hit me in the face, but I closed my eyes. Toto snuggled into me, curling into my arms like he knew he’d be safe there. It was insane. There’s no other word for it.” Her eyes lit up as she spoke of the trip. “The floorboards rattled and the walls waved and buckled, and I swear I floated for a minute. Then I landed with a hard thump, the same as the house did. It was so dark and then this light came and it was a woman with a beautiful face and golden hair. She helped me up and was smiling when she told me I’d saved them all.” She closed her eyes and sighed. “It was magical, Emma. Just magical.”

  The words are a form of bliss. My bliss.

  Mrs. O’Leary waited with rosy cheeks and a satisfied expression on her face as I removed the sensors and IV.

  When freed, she got up and wrapped her arms around my neck. “You made a dream come true today. Ever since I was a small girl I’ve wanted to see how magical Oz was and now I have. I really and truly have.” She hugged hard and then walked for the door. “I will never forget this.” She waved and let herself out as another customer came in, as if she had been waiting outside for the shop to open.

  “Hi. Welcome to Lucid Fantasies. Can I help you?” I smiled.

  The older woman beamed back, “I hope so. A friend of mine said she came and spent the most wonderful afternoon with you. She went into Far from the Madding Crowd and told me it’s the best day she has ever had. And that includes having kids and getting married.” She blushed and shrugged. “I was hoping I might give it a go. I don't have an appointment. I saw the ‘appointment only’ sign on the door. Could I make one?”

  “Of course. I do have an opening right now if you have the time to stay. I just need to sit you down and have a conversation about some of your medical and personal history first. And we’ll take it from there. My name is Dr. Emma Hartley, but call me Emma.”

  “All right. I’m Meredith Burks. Lovely to meet you.” She made her way in and took a seat on the couch in the foyer as I locked the front door and got us both a hot cocoa.

  When I put the mug down in front of her a wide smile crossed her lips. “I haven’t had a cup of cocoa in ages.” She lifted the mug and sniffed the steam. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.” I sat and studied her face, trying desperately to guess what book she would pick. My mind flitted through old volumes of Sherlock Holmes. Or maybe it would be Nancy Drew. But when she opened her mouth and spoke I sat stunned.

  “I would like to enter Lady Chatterley’s Lover.” Her cheeks filled with color as she glanced down, clearly ashamed and yet somehow brave in the same respect.

  “Of course.” I smiled, wanting to reassure her there was no judgment on my behalf. Who was I to judge anyone? I couldn't even enter the machine, the one I’d created for myself. “But, before we consider a Lucid Fantasy, let’s get past the formalities. I don't enjoy this part but it’s very necessary.”

  “All right.”

  “It’s a small questionnaire so I can determine if the machine and you are compatible.”

  “Okay.” She sipped the cocoa and nodded.

  “Do you have any history of mental illness in the family?”

  Her brow knit as she contemplated those words. “No. I remember one of my aunts having dementia before they cured it, but I think that’s it.”

  “Do you smoke, drink, or participate in recreational drugs?” I had become quite good at detecting if they were lying when answering this question.

  Obviously, she was not when she scowled and shook her head. “Lord, no. Maybe when I was a girl, but it was the late sixties and everyone was doing drugs and smoking and drinking. They didn't know it was bad for you then.”

  “Of course.” I laughed. “And have you ever lost someone you love?”

  “Oh. Uhm—” A sad smile crossed her face as her eyes took a journey into the past. “Of course. We all have, haven’t we?” She sighed and sipped the cocoa again. “My mother and father are both gone. My eldest sister is as well. My husband passed away last year. He was seventy-eight and riddled with cancer. I have never said this aloud, but it was a blessing to see him go. The peacefulness on his face when he passed was remarkable, as if watching the pain fade from him until there was nothing but calmness left. For a whole minute after he died he looked like the man I married. The boy I met.” Tears filled her eyes. “It was nice, which is so odd. But he had been in pain for so long.”

  That was the answer I was looking for. She’d had a lifetime with a man she loved, but she wasn't searching for him. She might even want to be young again and try something new.

  Satisfied, I continued with the questions, certain she was exactly the sort of candidate the machine required.

  When we finished, I put her into the machine for her first session. We always started small, two-hour sessions. We would then build up to four hours. The most a person could stay was six hours. Very few people could last that length of time hooked to a machine, dreaming.

  She went into Lady Chatterley’s Lover and came out sparkling with secrets and satisfaction. Her cheeks flushed as she left the store with a new pep in her step.

  Like a vampire or succubus, I gleaned something from it all. Her experience became mine. Her satisfaction fed me. Every one of my clients did. Their eyes sparkled again and their mouths twisted in revealing grins, never betraying everything they did in the book, but suggesting it was all more than they ever imagined possible.

  I lived off that, the smiles and the sparkles and the happiness, and I imagined what it would be like to go into the machine and see him. I
lived through them, closing my shop each day with a sigh of satisfaction.

  Chapter Two

  Manhattan, New York, 2025

  Lana’s eyes lingered too long on the poster, before she finally spoke, “I’m ready, Emma.” She lay back in the chair, relaxing. It was the same as always for her, the mayor’s wife, Lana Delacroix. She never changed up her story. She came daily some weeks and always stayed as long as she could. The service had become something I had to book for the wee hours of the morning or after everyone had left, so I could fit in other clients.

  Every time she arrived she seemed happy and paid her money, which essentially was all I asked of anyone. But no one came nearly as often as she did.

  She had started a year ago, telling me she was obsessed with Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell and needed to feel the book come to life the way it did when she read it. I told myself she was simply lost in the gowns and glamour of life before the Civil War. I told myself she hated her marriage and enjoyed living a dream.

  Maybe I lied to myself a little.

  Lana slipped her hands into the gloves that monitored her vitals as the forearm clamps clicked into place.

  The microbiosensors, glowing pale blue and pulsating softly in the syringe, were pushed into her arm under the clamp when I pressed the start. I placed the mask over her eyes, putting her into a state of light deprivation. It helped with the dream.

  The microbiosensor computers resembled a dot, or a tiny cluster of explorers under the skin, flashlights all pointing in the same direction. The moment my fingers touched the screen, starting the Gone with the Wind program, the nanobots deployed. The glowing small blue dot under her skin was gone.

  They hurried to attach to the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex of her brain, hijacking the area, creating the world from within.

  When we sleep and dream, our bodies go "offline” for lack of a better word. The primary motor cortex and primary somatosensory cortex are disconnected, so to speak. Since all dreams come from within us, my nanocomputers hooked into the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex with the story already programmed. The whole system was linked to a virtual world, based entirely upon a novel. There had to be a base of control. Early on, I discovered when people were put into a dream, completely in their control, it usually involved nightmares.