Luna and the Lie

by Zapata, Mariana

  I had been thinking about him specifically when I’d insisted he buy more aspirin. When he first told me he had high blood pressure, I had done a little research, not that I ever brought that up. But he mattered to me, and I wanted to make sure to take care of him any way I could so that he wouldn’t get worse. Because that was what you did when you cared about people. “Well, I’m glad you listened,” I told him.

  The smile he gave me in return, as he laid in the hospital bed, was weak. “I don’t know when I’ll get back to the shop.”

  The first thing I thought of was Ripley.

  “You’ll hold down the fort for me until then, won’t you?” he asked.

  Emotion had clogged my throat as I looked down at him, and it was my turn to give his hand a squeeze. “I’d hold down the world for you, if you want me to, Mr. C. Don’t worry about the shop. We’ll all be fine.”

  I specifically didn’t let myself think about Ripley and what Mr. Cooper being gone would mean for the rest of us.

  The day had been hard enough as it was. Tense and awkward and even a little charged weren’t good descriptions about how all of us had been. All of us minus Rip, who I hadn’t spoken to, made eye contact with or even been in the same room as. Over time, all of my coworkers had filtered into my room to ask about our favorite boss.

  Well, besides Jason, who hadn’t shown up for work, and who I’d bet never would again. But I didn’t give a single crap about that twerp anymore anyway. I could get his address like that. But luckily for him, all that seemed unimportant compared to Mr. C’s heart attack. And if I had to choose between kicking his butt or my cousin’s, I would always choose my cousin. Always.

  This man I loved and loved me back, gave me a gentle, warm smile that further put things into perspective for me. Life was too short to hang yourself up loving someone who would never love you back, I finally saw that clearly now. “I know you would, Luna,” Mr. Cooper told me. Then he sighed, and his eyes narrowed a little and he said, “I’m sorry about Jason. You have no idea—”

  Oh, hell. We were back to him. “Don’t worry about him or my cousin. It’s fine,” I tried to assure him, even giving him a smile so he would know I wasn’t saying it for the sake of it. “It’s not the first time my cousin has tried to jump me, but it’ll be the last.”

  Miguel had made sure to tell me they had made it clear whatever they had done or said had settled things. I hadn’t asked for specifics because that had been good enough for me.

  Hopefully he would give my message to my dad so he would know too that I wasn’t screwing around. I knew enough to get him into trouble still, and if I didn’t, I would have no problem digging up what would. Because going that far wasn’t out of the realm of possibility if they tried to do something again, and he had to be smart enough to realize that.

  “It’s not fine, but I am sorry,” the older man argued. His eyes slid in the direction of where Lydia was sitting before coming back to me. His throat bobbed softly, and he let out another deep sigh. “There are some things I want to tell you… some things I should have told you before….” He trailed off, the expression he was making almost like he was trying to tell me something.

  He was confirming it, wasn’t he?

  He was trying to tell me that he really was Rip’s father and they had kept the secret to themselves.

  He hadn’t lied. Not technically. He just hadn’t… told me or anyone else the truth.

  The man who had worked with us for the last three years was his son. A son from the wife he’d had before the one a few feet away from us. A son from the same woman he had told me was, or had been, the love of his life.

  And that son happened to be the man who he couldn’t talk to for two minutes without getting into an argument with.

  The same one who had made it real clear twenty-four hours ago that he held me in the same regard as just about everyone else who had ever really hurt me did.

  Man, that didn’t feel nice to think about.

  “I’ll come and see you tomorrow,” I promised, giving him a smile of reassurance so he would know that if I had put things together, I was fine with what he had kept from me.

  I wasn’t. Not totally.

  But I wouldn’t hold it against him. He had his reasons. He had to. And I would just deal with the small sense of betrayal I felt from this not-a-lie until then.

  I wasn’t feeling up to adding another person to my list.

  “I’ll come to your house to see you after you’re out of here too,” I kept going, barely holding on to that thread inside of me that decided not to be hurt. “I’ll have to keep you up to date on the shop gossip, huh?”

  Mr. Cooper’s gaze searched mine, and after a moment, he tipped his chin down just enough for it to count as him agreeing. But whether or not it had anything to do with him agreeing he needed to hear what was going on at the shop was a different story. We were both well aware of the giant elephant in the room looming over us. There are some things I want to tell you… some things I should have told you before…

  Because right then—and I had a feeling that it wasn’t just going to be in that moment or the next, or the one after that—I knew I wouldn’t care enough to get the full story.

  My heart honestly just didn’t give a crap anymore.

  My heart had been broken, stomped on, and moved to dust just yesterday, and like the other times the same thing had happened, I knew I could regrow it. That was my other superpower. I would make myself always come back from the dumps.

  Because that was exactly where Rip had left me to wallow.

  I had told him once I didn’t sulk, at least not for long, and I wasn’t about to start for him. It was easier to forget and ignore than it was to hold on to things that hurt.

  Before Mr. Cooper or I got a chance to say another word, there had been a knock at the door before it opened a crack and then fully. I knew instantly who was coming in before I actually saw the stained work boots and the white compression shirt that was just long enough to go over the stained blue jeans the new hospital room visitor was wearing.

  I knew it was Ripley.

  And that was why I slipped my hand out of Mr. Cooper’s and bent over to give him a kiss on the cheek. “I should get going. Call me if either one of you need anything. I’m sure my boss won’t have a problem with me sneaking out of the shop for a little bit if I have to,” I said, trying to sound as chipper as freaking possible.

  Mr. Cooper’s head was already tilted in the direction of the door when he said, “Thank you, little moon,” in the same tone he spoke to me every time Rip was around. With a little less affection. With a little more distance.

  I had always thought he just didn’t want to make him mad or make him feel like he was playing favorites, but I could see now that it was for other reasons that I wasn’t totally sure I understood. To not make him jealous? To not rub in our relationship and how well we got along?

  I didn’t know, and it honestly wasn’t my business to find out. Not anymore. Not ever from the beginning apparently.

  “You too, Lydia,” I told her before bending over to give her a kiss on the cheek too, watching as her eyes settled on the man I could hear walking into the room.

  Her eyes shifted to me, but her smile was as brittle and tired as her nod. “Thank you, honey. I’ll give you a call soon.”

  I nodded and took a step back. “Rest, Mr. C. I’ll come check on you tomorrow.”

  I got a “drive safe” and a “take care” from them just as I turned to walk out, but I couldn’t miss the strain in their voices as they said it.

  Sure enough, by that time, a figure a head taller than me and a lot wider, stopped right at my side.

  I wanted to pretend he wasn’t there, but I wouldn’t.

  It wasn’t his fault I had started to believe he genuinely gave a shit about me. I could handle his moods at work. I could handle his secrecy. But making me feel dumb, pushing me away, those things I couldn’t.

  It was my fault for thin
king things had been changing between us. For being desperate and clingy. It was my fault.

  Instead, I looked right up at my other boss and said, pretty freaking calmly and coolly, “Hi, Mr. Ripley.”

  He had already been looking down at me. His face, that mask I never knew what to think of. It was that same mask that I tried to replicate, just for a moment, because that was how long I stood there before saying “Bye” over my shoulder to all three of them.

  My chest hurt only a little as I left the hospital, and like so many other things, I squashed it down into an even smaller hurt and threw it away.

  I was loved, and I had everything. I wasn’t happy then, but I would be again.

  My chest had only continued hurting just a little every time I saw Rip at the shop.

  The very first day, three days after our conversation in the waiting room, I’d had to find him to ask about some vague details on an order. He’d been on the main shop floor, pulling out upholstery inside a 1970-ish Ford Bronco. I had only stood in my room for maybe one minute trying to pump myself up to talk to him the way I envisioned I could and would in my head.

  Like he hadn’t hurt my feelings.

  Like he hadn’t been mean and cold and cruel.

  I could do it, I had told myself.

  I didn’t play games, and I wasn’t about to start then.

  So in that minute, I got myself together and headed over.

  “Mr. Ripley?” I called out, a little smug with myself for keeping my voice under control.

  He had instantly stopped was he was doing, crouched in place just outside of the SUV.

  I didn’t wait around to stop right beside him and thrust the invoice between us. “I was about to place an order, but I wanted to confirm what you marked off and scribbled in. There weren’t any notes added into the computer. You want the color you wrote, correct?”

  Correct. Man, I was good.

  Rip watched me silently, passively, for a moment before taking the sheet and looking it over.

  I let myself take in his features, even though I shouldn’t have. There were bags under his eyes and serious tension at the corners of them as he read his scribbles. I bit the inside of my cheek as he glanced at me, all cool detachment, and said, “It’s right.”

  I didn’t give him the smile I usually passed around. I had just nodded at him and, just as quickly, said, “Thank you” before I headed back.

  And when he had come into my room a few hours later to take a look at a hood I had done that morning, all I had done was tell him “Hi” and then gone straight back to work taping. Just like he wasn’t there. Just like I should have done since he was my boss and I was his employee.

  And if anger had ridden through my veins, leaving me hot and tense for a couple of minutes, I ignored it.

  I wasn’t mad. I wasn’t hurt. I was fine.

  I was always going to be fine.

  And that’s what I was from then on.

  I went to see Lily one weekend with Lenny. Another weekend, we had game night at Grandpa Gus’s place. I did some overtime but not much. I went to the gym, had one okay date that didn’t rock my socks off. I chugged along. I made it.

  It had been two weeks, and the shop was surviving. I wasn’t sure who was doing payroll, but I was an employee, so I wasn’t going to worry about it. That’s what Rip was for. The only extra thing I had taken upon myself was ordering things for the break room and charging them to the shop’s account, but that was it.

  Things were all right. Everyone at the shop was doing fine. From what I overheard from the rest of the guys during lunch and in bits and pieces when we’d happen to be in the break room at the same time, or they would come to my room to move something or pick something up, they told me about how much more short-tempered Rip was being, and how annoying it was when he was the only one they could ask questions to.

  I didn’t say a word. I didn’t agree or disagree. I just patted them on the back or would try to make them laugh.

  I wasn’t going to talk bad about him.

  In that time, Mr. Cooper and I still hadn’t gotten a chance to talk. I had gone to visit him every other day at his home after he’d been released and brought him food and movies from the Redbox closest to his place, but he hadn’t told me much of anything.

  It might have been because Lydia had never been far away.

  If I had thought months ago that I would have a hard time cutting someone I saw on a regular basis out of my life, I would have been mistaken. I had forgotten how easy it was.

  I had a feeling that was mostly because I hadn’t been able to get Rip’s words out of my head. I had them memorized. Or pretty close to it. Leave me alone, he had said to me in that waiting room.

  I’d stopped pining for people who didn’t treat me as well as I treated them as a kid. I had promised myself back then that I would never fall for that crap again, and in a life where I had failed myself a dozen times, that one oath had been the only one I managed to uphold.

  It was why I had no problem making my coffee and ignoring Rip when I walked downstairs and toward my room.

  He wanted coffee? He could get it his own self. He wanted me to leave him alone? Sure thing. I wasn’t going to beg anyone for their time, their love, or attention. I definitely wouldn’t beg for friendship or company either.

  Not anymore.

  So when I had a dream about two weeks into Mr. Cooper’s recuperation about my dad again—a dream that was an exact replica of the night before I had left San Antonio for good—I was upset and irritated like I couldn’t even begin to explain. It didn’t help that my nape had itched and burned from the moment I had woken up. Or that it reminded me of having a very similar dream with Rip in the bed with me not long ago. A night when he’d pulled me close….

  Even a busy morning at work and the entire Hairspray soundtrack hadn’t made me able to shake off the restlessness brewing under my skin.

  When lunch came and I went upstairs and found the room full, I grabbed my food from the fridge—taco casserole that was dry and just weird— warmed it up, and decided I was going to do myself and my coworkers a favor and go somewhere else where I could be in a bad mood. It wasn’t because of Ripley either. He hadn’t bothered looking up when I had walked into the room. If that didn’t say enough about how things were between us, I didn’t know what else could.

  So I took my food and ate it on one of the chairs set up around the back of the shop where the guys took smoke breaks. It was Northside Houston, warm and always humid, but in the shade, with a decent breeze, a lack of bugs, and away from the worst of the street pollution closer to the entrance of the shop, it was… fine.

  Honestly, it was kind of relaxing, even if I was just around the corner from where my cousin had backhanded me. But I didn’t have a scab or a scar on my face, and I wasn’t going to focus on that dipshit. Not when he’d done similar things to me as a kid when I had been walking home from school.

  Rudy was nobody. My dad was nobody. And nobodies didn’t hurt anyone.

  I was fine. I had a job. I was loved.

  Mr. Cooper was going to make a full recovery.

  Lily was happy, healthy, and making lots of tip money.

  Thea and Kyra were both alive, but I only knew that because Lily confirmed it.

  My dad hadn’t called again.

  Jason had never come back to work.

  I was safe. I had a roof over my head and food to eat. I had so much. Not everything was perfect—and I hated how resentful I felt toward my sisters—but it was better than most people had it.

  That’s what I kept telling myself as I sat there, all by myself.

  About twenty minutes into my lunch, I shoved the hems of my sweatpants up to just above my knees and stretched my pale legs out in front of me to catch a little bit of sun.

  When I had ten minutes left on my break, I packed up my things and headed back inside. I didn’t look around to see who was on the main shop floor before going up the stairs, but when I got to t
he break room and found it empty except for two of the body guys—and Rip—I made sure to smile at both of them.

  When I accidentally shifted my gaze over just enough to meet Rip’s eyes, I didn’t let the smile slip from my face.

  I wasn’t going to give him my hurt. I was going to treat him the way he wanted me to months ago. Like he was my boss. Like he hadn’t dug a space into my life and then decided he didn’t want to be a part of it anymore.

  Like he hadn’t told me those three freaking words.

  But when I met his eyes, keeping the smile on my face, those teal-colored eyes bounced all over my face, lingering on the star necklace that had fallen out from where I’d tucked it under my shirt.

  It lasted for a second.

  Because I looked away and toward the fridge, keeping my gaze on that as I passed by the three men so I could put the rest of my almost-gross casserole away.

  “Luna, what’d you eat for lunch?” one of the guys asked as I set my bag back inside.

  I closed it with the back of my hand as I said, “Casserole. It tastes like butthole, but if you don’t have taste buds, you can have the rest.”

  They didn’t sound that interested, but I filled my water bottle from the filter and left the room only saying “see ya” to the two I was on speaking terms with.

  I got back to my room and finished taping the car I was set to start priming that afternoon. I was going over my notes for it, triple checking the paint color on the invoice with the number on the label when the door opened. I didn’t look up after I heard the first two steps taken inside. Only one person walked that heavily.

  “Do you need me to do something?” I called out before he got too far in.

  The footsteps kept coming and so did his voice. “I wanted to double-check something on the SS,” Ripley answered immediately.

  I didn’t pinch my lips together or make a face. I stood up and immediately handed over the clipboard with the notes I was holding. He was already standing beside me. I kept my eyes on the board as he took it, those long fingers flipping to the page I had just been reading.

  Then I took a step back and headed into the booth to look around and make sure all the taping was correct, even though I knew it was.