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meant for two! Do you know how lonely that huge bed makes me feel? I need someone to hold me and ask, ‘how was your day?’ and listen to me and rub the tension out of my shoulders and make love to me.”
    “Sweet baby.”
     
    It had been seven years since that three month period when Randle, the baby, and Jimmy Brewster, had been murdered. I think when Jimmy was murdered, it was the last straw. My Mom and Dad were gone, my husband was gone, my baby was gone and then the only family I had left, Randle’s Dad, was taken from me as well. I was all alone, no one to support me. I just lost it.
    I spent six months in the hospital, slipping in and out of reality; one minute I would be talking to Randle or changing the baby’s diaper and the next I would be crying. Everyone thought I was crazy.  Visits with Dr. Cox and medication had done little to soften the trauma of those three months, but they had made me functional. Occasionally, just like now in the shower, small things tended to bring the memories back into focus. Dr. Cox reassured me my depression would disappear when I found a new person to love. I’ve been trying; Lord knows I’ve been trying. Maybe that’s why Ronnie and Wilma want me to be careful with Coach. They know what has happened in the past between me and men; my need for love clouded my judgment.
    “But why this man, this coach, why now? You don’t know this man. He might be a killer, or worse, a sexual pervert or anything.”
    I had to laugh at Wilma’s imagination. “Could be, but I doubt it. Wilma, when Randle and I lived in Memphis, we went to most of the Grizzles games. He was the leader of that team. We met him occasionally at various civic functions and knew him enough to wave at him across the room. Randle liked him and I thought he was a hunk, as well as a good basketball player.”
    “But you don’t know anything about him since he retired. No telling what he has become.”
    “A couple of months ago, I was rummaging through my things looking for something, who knows what, when I found an old program from a Boys and Girls Club benefit we attended. Apparently Randle saved it because he signed it for us. The autograph said, ‘Til We Meet Again’. I remembered him and I just sat there and cried. Wilma, it was like a sign from Heaven — this is the man for you — flashing in neon blue and red and yellow lights. Is that silly?”
    “Sweetheart that was just an autograph. It didn’t mean anything.”
    Dr. Cox and I had numerous talks about my being careful in new relationships. I tended to jump in feet first and generally got burned. And I had already started this relationship in my mind. “I know, I know. But two months later, Sports Illustrated had him on the cover. The cover no less! He’s the coach at a small college in Ohio, and they had just beaten Indiana in the first round of the NCAA Basketball Tournament. Wilma, I’ve always dreamt of Randle, I still do. But I started having dreams about Coach McCoy as well. God knows, I don’t plan them, they just happen. At first the dreams were simple and meaningless, and after a while some of them became pretty sexy.  I mean real sexy. At first I was ashamed my mind was thinking and dreaming about someone else. Even today, I feel uneasy thinking I might have dreams about someone other than Randle. But I keep having dreams about the coach, and honestly now I look forward to them.”
    “But those are just dreams Charley. They’re not real. You need a real live flesh and blood man.”
    “Maybe you’re right Wilma. When Nashville secured the NCAA Regional Coach’s Convention, I decided to put an end to this madness. I’m going to meet this man, and see just how close he is to my dream man. If he is the man for me, I want to know it.  If not, I need to know that too. Wilma, something is just pulling me to see just how close this dream man and the real man really are.”
    “It all sounds pretty unrealistic and dangerous to me. Dream