The Moonlit Earth

by Christopher Rice

  “I thought he was supposed to help you move in.”

  “He did.”

  “It doesn’t look like it, sweetie.”

  “Yeah, well, he’s got a lot of people to help right now.”

  “Right. New Orleans. Teaching the kids. Healing the sick. All that good stuff.”

  Part of Megan felt like she should muster a reasonable defense of the guy. But the truth was her mother had done a great deal more for her than Joe ever had, so why not let her savor her victory?

  True, Joe had asked her to join him on his noble journey to the city that care forgot and then rolled over onto in its sleep. But he had also asked her to marry him, which Megan thought was so insane she had laughed into her fists at the dinner table when he proposed. For three months, Joe had been what every therapist in the Bay Area would refer to as emotionally unavailable, and at the moment she had lost her job and run out of money, he asked her to be his bride. Was Megan really supposed to spend the rest of her life, starting with her darkest and most vulnerable hours, with a man who sighed every time she started to speak?

  Lilah seemed uncomfortable with the silence that had settled between them. She had expected some small tiff over her remark, and now that there wasn’t going to be one, she shifted against the windowsill and took a breath that puffed her cheeks.

  At the bathroom door, Megan fingered the taffeta bloom on the cocktail dress. “Maybe if we could get rid of this,” she said. In no time, her mother was standing beside her, pulling back the loose petals to examine the stitching that held it to the material beneath.

  “That’s nothing,” Lilah said. “Just cut it and I’ve got a brooch that will cover it.”

  “A butterfly?”

  “No. A sea horse. Is that OK?”

  There was an expectant look in her mother’s eyes that warmed Megan’s heart. The woman reached up and cupped Megan’s chin gently, and for a second, Megan thought her mother was about to cry. But the tense set to Lilah’s jaw didn’t turn into a quiver, it just got tenser and more set. “Let’s be very clear about something. No one here regards you as a failure.”

  “Wow. OK. Thanks, Mom.”

  “I’m serious. I’ve talked to a lot of people and they all realize how hard the nonprofit sector is being hit in this economy. Organizations are going under right and left and—”

  “They didn’t go under, Mom. They fired me.”

  “They fired you because you had to take desperate measures to keep them running, isn’t that right?”

  Megan shrugged. They had been through this before, and Megan didn’t feel like making a repeat visit just so her mother could justify the steps she had taken to manage the gossip around her daughter’s homecoming.

  The facts on her termination letter were simply put; she had been fired because she had closed down the office and moved it into her own apartment to save on rent without first getting the approval of the board. She had also failed to maintain proper accounting records of where she had disbursed the savings from rent, raising questions about her own motives for making the move. Sure, her mother could frame it as a desperate measure if she wanted to. But the unvarnished truth was harder for both of them to look at.

  Megan had been fired because she didn’t have the cojones to tell the board of directors for the Siegel Foundation that after sixteen years of getting homeless youth off the streets of San Francisco they were about to go bust and there was precious little anyone could do about it. Their government funding had dried up, their major donors were suddenly trying to stay afloat after watching their net worth drop by half, and the left-of-center board had rejected a major contribution from Lucas when they studied the client list for his firm and saw he managed the investments of some of the most maligned private security contractors currently employed by the U.S. government.

  “They’ll go under because they fired you,” her mother said. “Mark my words, sweetie. But my point is that you have absolutely no reason not to hold your head up. Tonight or any other night.”

  “Thanks, Mom,” she said, which of late had become her more polite version of Please stop talking about this, Mom.

  “No one’s going to fault you for taking care of yourself.”

  “Let’s get those scissors,” Megan said. She went into the kitchen, knowing full well that if she could make it through another few remarks on this topic from her mother, she would probably be home free. But this was always the toughest part, because the dig, intentional or not, always seemed to come right at the end.

  “I heard someone say it’s about putting the oxygen mask on yourself before you put it on someone else,” her mother said.

  “Uh-huh.” Relax. She didn’t say your life is on life support. It sounded like it, but she didn’t say that. Just get the scissors.

  “It’s a nice image, really. And we have this problem in this country, especially up there—”

  “You’re from up there, Mom.” Her cutlery set wasn’t unpacked yet, but she had a good idea which box it was in, the one that was already open, thank God.

  “I know, but I left with good reason. I mean, there’s just this terrible idea up there that if you put everyone else ahead of yourself, your own life is just supposed to improve. I mean, I wish you could have seen the way my friends used to live back in the day. It wasn’t living. Their apartments were pigsties. They lived in filth, for God’s sake, but it didn’t matter because they were marching down Market Street every other day so they could link hands around the Capitol Building and chant Freeze, please!”

  Megan got down on both knees and dug one arm deep into the giant cardboard box before her fingers grazed the handles of the knives wedged into the cutlery block. When she felt the rubber grip for the scissors, she yanked on it with too much force, rocked backward, and hit the floor on her butt. It wasn’t the softest landing but it cut short another one of her mother’s mildly venomous lectures on her former hometown, so Megan was able to muster a broad smile as she got to her feet.

  “What do you say we kill that flower?” Megan said.

  Lilah gave her a slight smile, took the scissors from her, and went to work. “What happened to Cameron?” her mother asked. “I thought he was going to help you move too.”

  “He can’t. He’s flying out tonight.”

  “Bangkok?” Her mother had gathered the taffeta bloom in one hand and was gently cutting at the stitching that held it in place with the precision of a skilled surgeon.

  “No, he’s been doing Hong Kong for a few months now.”

  “Is he mad at me?”

  “He hasn’t said anything. Why?”

  “During my last surgery, I made him drive down from L.A. and take care of me. I had a bad reaction to the anesthesia and …” Her mother stopped working and fixed Megan with a hard look, her upper lip tense, her nostrils flaring, as if Megan had just made a smart remark. “Yes, it was an elective surgery, but we’ll see how elective you two think it is by the time you’re my age.”

  “Are you advocating plastic surgery for your kids?”

  “I’m asking if your brother is upset with me. It was a nasty drug reaction and Clarice, the lady who cleans for me, said I was quite a handful. Apparently I demanded to be taken to Saks but refused to get out of my nightgown. I don’t remember any of it, of course.”

  “He hasn’t said anything, Mom.” Recently Megan had not given her brother a chance to say much of anything at all; there was no one else on the planet she felt as comfortable spilling her guts to and she had done more than her fair share of it since getting fired. But had she really been so caught up in her own crap that Cameron hadn’t been able to get in a small, possibly humorous, story about taking care of their mother after a face-lift? She certainly hoped not.

  “He’s not being insufferable, is he?” Lilah asked. “I mean, that ad isn’t even running anymore, is it?”

  Because it had happened during those seemingly blissful months just before her life went toe-up, Megan had almost forgotten a
bout her handsome brother’s unexpected debut as a model. Cameron had been one of two actual flight attendants Peninsula Airlines had used for a print advertisement that had run in magazines all over the world as well as on a billboard on Century Boulevard, close to the entrance to LAX. During her last visit to L.A. she had taken a photograph of him standing on the sidewalk below his giant, beaming counterpart; every time she looked at the thing she seized with laughter.

  “I don’t think he’s gotten any movie deals, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “There!” her mother announced. She had cut the ghastly taffeta bloom from the dress. Then she placed her free hand over the hole as if it were a wound that might bleed out, and handed the flower to Megan. “Let’s go. Everyone’s waiting.”

  “What?”

  Just inside the bathroom door, her mother spun around to face her, but the expression on her face was quizzical, as if Megan had just uttered a strange, unintelligible sound. “Everyone’s waiting?” Megan asked her.

  “You know, at the event,” her mother answered. But she had dropped her attention to the bathroom floor as she drew the door shut with one hand. “I told them you’re coming, remember?”

  The bathroom door clicked shut before Megan could ask another question. Her laptop was set up on the small desk station she and Joe had unloaded from the U-Haul earlier that day. A few keystrokes later she was reading about the Moonlight Foundation, the fund-raising arm of a community theater based in Vista, which was a good ways north of Cathedral Beach and had absolutely nothing to do with babies, crack-addicted or otherwise.

  She closed the browser down as her mother emerged from the bathroom, shaking her hands dry because Megan hadn’t put out towels yet. Lilah avoided Megan’s intent stare as she crossed the bedroom. “Better get dressed, sweetie,” she said in a small, tight voice.

  The Moonlight Foundation. It had been a stupid mistake. Her mother was as familiar with all the local charity organizations as she was with the local dermatologists. And then there was the dress. On any other night, she wouldn’t have been so willing to modify it to Megan’s liking. She would have found a way to guilt Megan into wearing it as is.

  Please let me be wrong, God, Megan thought. Please tell me she’s not throwing me a surprise party.

  Mount Inverness was a mountain in name only. It was really two conjoined hills that shielded the town of Cathedral Beach from the hotter temperatures and less affluent residents of inland San Diego County. But its flanks were so packed with mansions that at night it looked like a giant ocean swell run through with bioluminescent plankton. Megan was confident that if the town ever came under siege from the marauding armies of Latino immigrants the residents so feared, the fine fighting men and women of Cathedral Beach, having just laid down their martinis so they could raise their rifles, would build their first fortifications atop Mount Inverness, further cementing its reputation as the gateway to a precious corner of California prosperity.

  As they sped up Inverness Drive, Megan was too busy trying not to choke on her own hair to question her mother about their destination. This predicament diminished her affection for her mother’s champagne-colored Mercedes convertible. Lilah didn’t seem to notice. She was too busy shouting details about their destination over the strong, buffeting winds generated by her breakneck driving.

  By the time they pulled into the motor court of the house, Megan had learned that the enormous three-story Spanish Mission revival, with its gently sloping red-tiled roof, precision exterior lighting, and defending armies of towering box hedges, was the recently vacated residence of an eccentric bestselling novelist who allowed the house to be used for parties as long as it remained on the market. Clara Hunt, Lilah’s close friend, was the listing agent.

  This was all well and good but it didn’t give her any further indication of what she was about to walk into, so she looked for physical evidence. The valet who took the Mercedes didn’t make eye contact with either of them. They were the only guests in the motor court. Both very bad signs.

  “How does my hair look?” Megan asked.

  “Natural.”

  “So like I’m eight years old and I just ran up the hill to get here? That kind of natural?”

  “Let’s go inside, sweetie.”

  Before Megan could say another word, Lilah reached around from behind her, gripped the massive bronze doorknob, and pulled the giant door open.

  A screeching chorus shouted the word “Surprise!” and a shower of pink balloons cascaded down onto a phalanx of leering, unfamiliar faces, all of whom seemed to be advancing on her at the same speed across the floor of an atrium-style living room with soaring stone walls.

  Because it seemed like something someone in a movie might do, she turned to her mother and slapped her lightly on the shoulder, which invoked a ripple of laughter from the crowd all around her. Her breath returned to her when she recognized her cousin.

  Lucas was dressed in a charcoal gray suit with a powder blue tie, and as usual, his straw-colored hair looked like it had just been straightened in a salon. His sharp upturned nose revealed his nostrils, and when he smiled broadly, as he was doing now, he had the appearance of someone struggling for breath. He seized her by one shoulder and started to steer her through the crowd. She almost wilted into him.

  No wonder her mother had instructed her to hold her head up. First there was Weezie Adams, Megan’s high school guidance counselor, who had once taken Lilah aside to express concerns that Megan might be displaying lesbian tendencies given her burgeoning interest in what Weezie had termed “feminist-oriented books.” Apparently that was what you got for being one of the only female students at Cathedral High to finish reading The Color Purple, which was assigned reading in Honors English that year. Then there was Melissa Roman. Sweet, demure Melissa Roman with her movie-star teeth and long, springy golden curls. In sixth grade, Megan ratted her out for cheating on a social studies test and Melissa had responded by organizing a club dedicated to her social annihilation called S.A.M.R., Students Against Megan Reynolds. Wasn’t eighteen years enough time to clear the air? Apparently not, which Megan had discovered over the Thanksgiving holiday, when she ran into Melissa at Starbucks and referenced the incident in jest, only to watch Melissa turn a bright shade of crimson and begin sputtering boastful remarks about her new husband. Now the former foe turned newlywed threw her arms around Megan as if they had been separated by war.

  It was endless, she realized. An interminable who’s who of people she had run like hell from the minute high school ended. And after twelve years of nonprofit work, political correctness, and the crisp character-building chill of the Bay Area, they were not the two-dimensional caricatures of themselves Megan had allowed them all to become in her memory. Indeed, they were very much alive and the gazes they leveled on her seemed full of both curiosity and various expectations that were difficult for her to discern. And they were loud. But the volume in the room was familiar to her, a collection of the same vibrations everyone in Cathedral Beach gave off when they consumed just the right amount of alcohol on the grounds of an impressive piece of real estate.

  Of course, none of her San Francisco friends were there. No sign of Mara or Eddie or Celine. Maybe they hadn’t been able to make the trip, but Megan was willing to wager they hadn’t been invited. On the surface, it appeared to be a welcome-home party, but the cast of characters suggested it was a reprogramming session.

  To remain sane, Megan kept her eyes on the elaborately detailed Oriental rug underfoot and imagined that she was a bird, so that she could fly far, far away from here.

  “Are you all right?” Lucas asked her.

  “Tell me this wasn’t your idea.”

  “I suggested a nice dinner.”

  “Get me a drink,” she said.

  “Have you eaten?”

  “I’m currently debating the merits of suicide versus homicide. Both can be accomplished on an empty stomach.”

  “Booze ends up in your stomach,
Meg.”

  “Yes, but it will also fill my dark little heart.”

  “A drink for the guest of honor!” Lucas bellowed to no one in particular. Within seconds, a champagne flute had been pressed into Megan’s right hand.

  When she tilted her head back to take a heavy slug, she saw Cameron. There were three wrought-iron grates that looked out over the living room from the second-floor hallway, and her brother was standing in the middle one, staring down at the proceedings below with a furrowed brow and a tall drink in his right hand.

  Next to her, Lucas said, “Look who it is.”

  Megan waved, and Cameron’s eyes met hers. He sank his teeth into his lower lip and shook his head back and forth. I feel your pain, his look told her.

  “What’s he doing up there?” Lucas said. He gestured wildly for Cameron to come downstairs, but Cameron’s eyes only glanced over him, as if their cousin wasn’t there at all. “Is he ignoring me?” Lucas asked. A slight edge had crept into his voice. She had watched her cousin ride wild swings in the financial markets with nerves of steel, but whenever he thought he was about to be embarrassed socially his voice took on a youthful, high-pitched tone and his mouth set into a thin, determined line. “Tell me he’s not ignoring me,” Lucas continued.

  “I’ll talk to him,” she said. Relieved to have a mission, Megan moved through the crowd with the casual air and plastic smile of one of the cater waiters.

  “Get him to come down here,” Lucas called after her. “Tell him tonight’s about you!”

  Megan looked over her shoulder to acknowledge her cousin’s last words. But the crowd had already closed in around him. Silly Lucas, she thought. In this town, you’re the guest of honor no matter where we are.

  2

  Megan was almost to the top of the stairs when her brother curved an arm around her waist and hoisted her off her feet. She squealed and raised her champagne flute high so she wouldn’t spill any down her brother’s back. It was a doomed effort.

  A handsome cater waiter emerged from one of the guest bedrooms and scurried past them, tucking in his tuxedo shirt as he went. For a second Megan thought the guy had been in flagrante with one of the guests, but then she glimpsed purses and backpacks through the half-open door behind him and realized the bedrooms had been turned into employee lounges.