Bonnie and Dinner Theatre

Dreamed about Bonnie Bailey. We were in high school again — our present age, but looking young. Washington High School. I invited Bonnie to the movies (the Calvin theatre). Getting ready for the date at home, I had long hair and a beard — had to shave before leaving. Got to the movies late, so Bonnie had to go in without me, our date wasted. I found some other girl to accompany me, some big ol’ gal from Labadie or some such farming place. 

Inside, it was not a movie but a series of live performances. Bonnie was sitting at a table next to me and my date. Her replacement date, a big ol’ country dummy, was in one of the performances. The performance was simply this: a flowery belle is met at a restaurant by two of her old beaus, one a fancy Easterner, the other a big local galoot (played by Bonnie’s replacement date). The threesome goes to a table among the audience to dine (it is a dinner-theatre arrangement). Neither I, my replacement date nor Bonnie can see the action, but I stand up for a glimpse, and all you see is a woman and two men at a table, dining and chatting. This goes on for the length of a meal — pretty poor theatre. Then finally the threesome is walking across the floor of the performance space — the show is back in action. 

Now we’ll get some dialogue and stuff!

But, no, the three of them are simply heading for the exit of the “restaurant.” I am wondering: what kind of misbegotten theatre  is this? Then we get the payoff for all our waiting and wondering. At almost the last possible second, the fancy beau makes a left turn, goes into a doorway on the left, as the belle and her country bumpkin beau continue straight ahead, towards the street, and she hooks her arm through his. This is the great and climaxing moment of the play. The belle has made her choice.

That was the entire show. Sure, there was a surge of satisfaction over the terminated suspense and even a kind of gladness that the female character had made the “right choice.” But I was left unsatisfied. This was theatre? We were given no reason to believe either one of the men was the right choice. We were left out of the drama completely. The only reason for the country bumpkin to be the “right” choice was that it’s a convention in culture and politics and so on to favor the authentic ignoramus over the questionable and probably educated dandy.

I made some remarks along this line to Bonnie and my big ol’ country girl. Then it was time to leave. Somehow I got separated from my last-second-date, the oversized farm gal, and went looking for Bonnie, to see if I could steal her from her last-second-date.

During the show, while my replacement date was in the ladies room, I had asked Bonnie if it was too late for us to try again — was she now attached to her own replacement date? Bonnie said of course it is not too late for us. We should plan another date.

There was a time when Bonnie and I were standing and hugging and it felt completely natural and satisfying. She felt like the love I was born to have.

As I woke up, the Bonnie of the dream got replaced gradually in my thinking with the real Bonnie. The warm, adoring, comfortable young woman, as I tried to get my thinking clear, became the middle-aged Bonnie I have been in communication with for a year or two by email — who is now married. I reminded myself of the reasons I lost interest again in the real Bonnie. Her legs in that picture she sent didn’t look so good; as sweet as Bonnie was, she seemed uneducated and dull; there was a faint suggestion of “white-trash” about her.