I had another dream about Kanye West and Kim Kardashian. They were sipping champagne in the back room of a restaurant, alone. Well, except I was there. But I’m not me.

Dr. W. stares at me. She is an older white lady with taupe-colored hair and horn-rimmed glasses. I don’t think she cares for gossip.

Well, actually I was Patti Stanger–

I’m don’t follow, says Dr. W.

The Millionaire Matchmaker, I explain. It’s a TV show. She sets millionaires up on dates.

In the dream?

No, she’s a real person. She’s a third-generation matchmaker. She’s good. Behind the skinny jeans and the Brazilian blowout she’s an old-world bubbe. There are rules. In the dream, we recited them together. Kim, Kanye and Patti-me. No Sex Before Monogomy. I was their chaperone.

How did you feel?

In the dream?  I felt important. Like I was helping them. They need a mother. They need a Yenta. Patti has a two drink maximum. Sippy sippy? She’ll make sure they behave themselves. Kanye was wearing a salmon-roe colored tuxedo and Kim was wearing those beaded shoes he designed. She flew all the way to Paris for his bad fashion show.

Bad?

Yes, but that’s not the point. They could love each other. I want them to be happy.

Why?

I believe in their feelings. I believe they have feelings. His are on his roe-colored sleeve and hers are stored away in a Louis Vuitton suitcase but they have them. Their love could be redemptive.

For whom?

Dr. W.’s office is on the sixteenth floor of the only highrise in town. Through her windows I can see the houses north of us peter out into a wide strip of green. At least it’s a nice nowhere.

What’s right there?

I don’t know, I say. Nice view. You don’t follow celebrities, do you?

Why do you want to know?

Well, because despite our  happy illusion that you’re not a real person with real habits and real desires the fact is that you are one, and it just occurs to me now and then that perhaps one of your habits may or may not be to flip through the glossies in the check-out aisle in the grocery store. I am wondering how you’re judging me. I am wondering if you also care. If you could fathom caring.

I look out the window again. A forest is lovely but I’d trade it for Central Park or Topanga Canyon. No one wears heels here and all the women have short hair. Dr. W. has short hair. I can’t help it if I care about them.

What’s right there? Dr. W. asks. I’ve been quiet.

A song. You want me to sing it?

I look at my hands piled in my lap, my boring trousers, the carpeted floor:

The prettiest people do the ugliest things,

            For the road to riches and diamond rings.

What else?

In the night I hear them talk
            Coldest story ever told
Somewhere far away from home he lost his soul–
            To a woman so heartless.

            Was that song in the dream?

It’s two songs.

Dr. W. stares at me.

Why you standin there with your face screwed up?

            Don’t leave while ya hot, that’s how Mase screwed up.

Those are real lines, I say. This is important. You know how sometimes in a dream you know that something is supposed to be something but it actually isn’t that thing? Well this wasn’t like that in my dream. I knew the lines right. They were correct.

Mimesis, says Dr. W.

We are sitting around the table drinking champagne when Kim says, Let’s have a toast to the douchebags.

Then Kanye raises his glass. He says, Let’s have a toast to the assholes.

Then it’s my turn. Every one of them that I know, I say, and we all laugh, and I wink, because I am the matchmaker. That’s when I wake up.