Dreaming in Literature: Gore's Little Girl

For reasons aplenty, I've felt too fragmented to read much this week.  Almost as a consolation, I had a literary dream two nights ago.

In my dream, I was about 10 years old and I was Gore Vidal's daughter.  I lived with my mother (faceless and nameless) across a small bay of water from Gore Vidal's house.  To travel back and forth between Mom and Dad, I had to swim this bay, but it wasn't deep and the water was usually warm and calm.

Sometimes Mom couldn't take care of me, so I had to hang at Gore's place.  I tried to read his books, but they were all fattish novels about male disappointment and longing for status while living in small-town Pennsylvania.  Somehow Daddy Gore seemed like he was turning into John O'Hara.

One day, Mom (still nameless and faceless) told me not to swim over to Dad's place, but I went anyway.  When I stepped into the bedroom to change into dry clothing, there was a strange man lying on the bed.  He frowned and looked embarrassed.  I pretended I hadn't seen him, but I wondered who he was.

I wanted to ask Dad about this, but he was also frowning and in a hurry to go somewhere.  It was time for me to go to daycare, except that Gore Vidal didn't use daycare.  He thought it was a waste of time and money.  Instead, he dropped me, as was his custom, at a huge public library in a big city like Philadelphia or New York. I happily wandered around and read until he came to fetch me several hours later.