He’s still smiling. “Well, no. But I was really, really hoping that you loved me back.”
My breath is caught. “Loved you back?”
Santiago nods.
“But that means—”
“Oh, stop being so dense, Moon,” Star yelps. “He’s loved you for ages. Since he first saw you.”
“I wasn’t even there and I believe that,” Tía says.
“He didn’t love me since he saw me,” I say. “I was a jerk.”
“The most beautiful jerk I’d ever seen,” Santiago agrees, and I hit him again. But he stops my arm, cups my face, and we’re just looking in each other’s eyes and smiling like total dorks.
“Okay,” Tía says. “I’m kicking the two of you out. Eat your dessert out back. It’s hot enough in here as it is.”
Before we leave, I stop because Star’s got the biggest smile on her face.
“What’s up?” I ask.
“She wrote back.” Star is giddy. I haven’t seen her this joyful and alive in so long, tears sting at my eyes.
I reach out and give her a hug. “I’m so glad, Star. I’m so happy for you.”
* * *
It’s humid and cool out. Santiago and I balance our dessert plates and café con leche in our laps. “So where will you be staying?” I ask.
“Andro’s helping me get an apartment near campus.”
I raise my eyebrows. “So you’re accepting Andro’s help now?”
“Yeah, well.” He shrugs. “It’s like you said. Foolish of me not to. And I can always pay him back when I make it big.”
“I bet he doesn’t want you to.”
“Yeah. Doesn’t matter, though. I’ll pay him back.”
I realize I’ve been a little too distracted to eat. So I put a bite of the cake in my mouth and moan.
Santiago grins. “Knew you’d like it.”
“Like it? I only want to eat this forever.” I smack his thigh. “Go back inside and make me another.”
As soon as I finish the last bite, Santiago pulls my plate and mug away and tugs me into his lap. “Do you think your aunt will be okay with you staying the night with me?”
“Probably,” I say. “After a birth control lecture.”
He kisses my neck and slides his hand down to my hips. Hip man, this guy is. I inhale. “Give me…” I trail off when his lips reach my collarbone. “Give me five minutes to pack a bag.”
56. How I Become My Own Moonflower Miracle
LATER, THAT NIGHT, after Santiago is asleep in the giant, creaky hotel bed, I grab a glass of water, then stop at the window. And I think about what Tía said. That people could help me all they wanted, but the only person who can save me is me.
I place the glass on the windowsill, the one overlooking the courtyard filled with sweet-smelling pansies and alyssum flowing out of big clay pots like water. And then I open the window so I can hear the fountains outside, and reach in my bag for my deck.
The first card I pull is the Moon. Then the Sun. Last is the High Priestess.
The High Priestess is the card Tía hates the most, because she represents the unknown. Not just what we haven’t figured out yet, but that which can never be known.
Isn’t that why religions all like to fight? Because each one wants to be the one that knows it all.
But we can’t know everything. We can’t. Some people might say only God knows, or only the universe knows it all. Either way, we humans aren’t the ones who’ve figured everything out. The more I learn, the more I realize that I know so little, it could be a fraction of a speck, and if you put the knowledge of all humans together, it might be two or three specks in the infinite and twinkling and wondrous universe.
I feel like the High Priestess is guiding me to go a little deeper, so I reach in my bag, take out my mirror stone, and face the window.
There are the little windows of the other hotel rooms across the way, framed by indigo shutters. There’s the flowers overflowing out of the clay pots, the big fountain made of concrete with a texture like sand. The ivy along the walls, rustling in the wind. And everything bathed in the light of the moon. Everything all blue like cornflowers and lupine and bearded irises the color of night.
I look down at the stone, and this time I don’t see him, but I feel him. I feel my dad. I feel his love all around me, so thick I could gather it in my hands like Spanish moss. I feel like he is a part of this universe, just like me, and we’re both a part of what’s ancient and holy. Me and Daddy and everyone else, too.
And that’s when it happens, right when I’m thinking about the great mystery that is this whole universe, a moth lands on my chest. A luna moth.
It’s huge. I want to scream, but my voice has dried up or something. Because, as mentioned, it is huge. Three or four inches in wingspan. “No,” I whisper, because then I hear more flutters. More creepy moths’ feet land on my arms, belly, even my freaking hair.
I almost turn to get Santiago, but then the image of him slapping moths off me, moth guts flying all over, roots me in place. I am a tree. My roots go deep into the earth. The leaves that are my hair can only be moved by the wind. The wind and moths, that is.
My eyes are squeezed tight. I’m about to ask myself once again, why is it me that always gets these little blessings, and that’s when something clicks. I take a breath. My spine relaxes, my jaw unclenches, and the feel of the moth legs and fluttery wings starts to tickle. And then I bite my lips to keep from laughing.
Because it’s okay. My mom can’t love me. And that’s okay. I’m still a size 16. And that’s okay. My dad is gone, but I’ll never stop loving him, and he’ll never stop loving me, either. And that’s okay.
I’m loved, I’m fat, I’m beautiful.
I’m Moon Fuentez, and I’m currently covered in luna moths. And that’s all okay.
And as soon as I accept it, the moths, they fly up and out the window one by one like little spirits. Like they were feasting on their absolute favorite moonflower and had their fill.
Before I join Santiago and sleep, I keep thinking the same thing. Everyone is the center of the universe. Everything. Like Ana Mendieta said, how her art is connected “from insect to man, from man to spectre, from spectre to plant, from plant to galaxy.” Moons to stars, fog to dirt. Weeds to nebulas.
I am the center of the universe. And that’s okay. Better than okay. It’s miraculous.
Acknowledgments
Believe it or not, How Moon Fuentez Fell in Love with the Universe started as a robot-and-cyborg traveling circus story set in historic Mexico.
I began the manuscript for National Novel Writing Month in November of 2018, and it took me over thirty thousand words before I realized the novel wasn’t working. At the time, I didn’t know why it fizzled, but now I understand that I was trying to combine two stories of my heart into one, and they were melding together in a way that just didn’t work—too much honey, not enough pizza.
After I trunked the story, relatives came to visit, and we all took a stroll downtown where we lived at the time, in New Jersey. I was feeling pretty gloomy about giving up on thirty thousand words’ worth of work, when I looked up and saw two young women taking photos of each other in front of a redbrick wall.
They reminded me of me and my sister, Jessica, when we were younger, and how differently we were treated from our white-passing primos. What if we had grown up with social media? I thought. I imagined all of us as teens with Instagram accounts, with the differences in the way we were perceived and approached so vivid in my mind—and how it would’ve affected our self-esteems, too.
Immediately, two characters formed in my imagination. Moon, from the manuscript I was working on, arrived first. Then there was her sister, Star. And finally, the story. Much of the plot was taken from the robots manuscript—except without robots, and now, it was a contemporary. It felt right, even though along the way, I had many doubts. But that is how it is when you write a story from your heart, of your heart—the doubts must be pushed through t
o get to the tender, vulnerable, and honest core.
I have so much gratitude to so many people who have supported me and the stories of my heart. First, my family: Jordan and Ansel. How I love you both.
My sister, Jessica, who helped me remember the pain of what we experienced. Thank you for always being there for me, and for your generosity, and your wide-open heart.
My mother, who has always helped me translate English into Spanish, and for all the gifts you have given us, especially unconditional love, and for your example of a strong, sustained faith.
My father, for teaching us all to fall in love with books and plants. My brother, for keeping us laughing even when it’s difficult to laugh. Nana, for teaching us to speak with and thank the plants, and J.R., and Polo, always. And to my beautiful extended family: Matt, Oliver, Logan. Aries, Sophia, Daniella, Aria. Tod and Tina, thank you for being so understanding, so generous, and for loving us all and Ansel so completely.
So much gratitude to my agent, Elizabeth Bewley, for your belief in Moon Fuentez and all my work, and your ingenious ideas, and your friendship. I am so grateful I get to work alongside you.
Thank you to my editor, Jen Ung, for understanding and supporting this book so deeply from the start, and for making sure it was shaped to be its very best. I am so lucky to have you championing my stories.
To Laura Eckes and Veronika Grenzebach for creating a cover for Moon Fuentez that was more beautiful and majestic than I ever could have imagined. Thank you both for understanding the heart of this book, and Moon, so well, and conveying it, and her, in the most gorgeous way possible.
Thank you to production editor Rebecca Viktus and copyeditor Penina Lopez for your expertise in making this manuscript as clean and powerful as possible. I’m grateful for your input and advice.
So much gratitude to everyone at Simon Pulse. Everything you’ve done in making this world a more inclusive place for young adults and beyond, it will echo out into the universe forever. The good you’ve put out there will never be lost. I’m so thankful for our time together, and that you made my work at home from the start.
Thank you to the first readers of this (or, in one case, very early parts of this) novel, India Holton and Jenny Elder Moke. Your feedback was invaluable, and I’m thankful to call you both my friends. Also thank you to so many wonderful and talented people who have encouraged me, especially Sandra Proudman, Shannon Doleski, and Loriel Ryon.
Much love and gratitude to the Las Musas Collective, especially Aida Salazar, Mia Garcia, Anika Fajardo, and Zoraida Córdova. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I’d belong to such a supportive and loving community, and every day I am grateful for the guidance, advice, and understanding Las Musas has brought me and my work.
At the time of this writing, it is not known whether the CWLA program at the University of Alaska Anchorage, where I received my MFA, will continue. I am brokenhearted about this uncertainty and want to extend enormous gratitude to those at UAA who have given me so much: David Stevenson, Elizabeth Bradfield, Linda McCarriston, Anne Caston, Erin Coughlin Hollowell, and Sherry Simpson, among many others. My MFA colleagues: Lisa Stice, Kersten Christianson, Andrea Hackbarth, Tara and Chaun Ballard, Marie Tozier, Jonas Lamb, Anne Haven McDonnell, Evan Tysinger, and Brandon Thompson. And, of course, love and gratitude to Alaska, which helped me fall in love with the universe so fully, I will always be connected to it through poetry and wild light and fireweed.
Thank you to the authors of An Illustrated Dictionary of the Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya, Mary Miller and Karl Taube. This book first taught me about divination and mirror stones.
Gratitude to Craig Childs, whom I met through UAA. All of the adventuresome bits of William Fuentez were inspired by Craig, especially through his book Atlas of a Lost World: Travels in Ice Age America. If you’re interested in what this continent looked like ages and ages ago, I urge you to pick his book up. It’s where I first learned about wildflower pollen samples taken from the Bering Sea, and how amazing chert is!
To Marissa Lieberman and Lisa O’Shaughnessy, who gifted me the gold and gray elephant journal on which I began this novel. Thank you for welcoming me and Ansel with open arms to the EOPL, and making certain Ansel knew how magical libraries are from the very beginning.
Thank you to Jan DeBlieu, whose favorite word is “ocean.”
I have lost two beloved family members to suicide: Margaret Villanueva and Ben Gilliland. Thank you both for how deeply you loved me and our family.
If you are experiencing suicide ideation, please phone the National Suicide Prevention Hotline: 1-800-273-8255. I may not personally know you, but I do know this: the world needs you, and your art, and your words. And the world—this whole, wild universe!—is far better for having you in it.
More from the Author
Sia Martinez and the Moonlit Beginning of…
About the Author
Raquel Vasquez Gilliland is a Mexican American poet, novelist, and painter. She received an MFA in poetry from the University of Alaska Anchorage in 2017. She’s most inspired by fog and seeds and the lineages of all things. When not writing, Raquel tells stories to her plants and they tell her stories back. She lives in Tennessee with her beloved family and mountains. Raquel has published two books of poetry. How Moon Fuentez Fell in Love with the Universe is her second novel.
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www.SimonandSchuster.com/Authors/Raquel-Vasquez-Gilliland
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Sia Martinez and the Moonlit Beginning of Everything
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Text © 2021 by Raquel Vasquez Gilliland
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Vasquez Gilliland, Raquel, author. Title: How Moon Fuentez fell in love with the universe / by Raquel Vasquez Gilliland.
Description: First edition. | New York : Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2021. | Audience: Ages 14 up. | Audience: Grades 10–12. | Summary: When seventeen-year-old Star Fuentez reaches social media stardom, her polar-opposite twin, Moon, becomes “merch girl” on a tour bus full of beautiful influencers and the grumpy but attractive
Santiago Philips. Identifiers: LCCN 2020016455 | ISBN 9781534448667 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781534448681 (ebook) Subjects: CYAC: Sisters—Fiction. | Twins—Fiction. | Popularity—Fiction. | Social media—Fiction. | Dating (Social customs)—Fiction. | Photography—Fiction. | Hispanic Americans—Fiction.
Classification: LCC PZ7.1.V4 How 2021 | DDC [Fic]—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020016455
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