by Anthology
For it was made from the rocks and dust of the moon, inhabited by micro construction machines, and animated by Nell's algorithms. Nell's vision. Nell. An expression. An evocation. Of course, of course. Life on the moon.
"It's a garden."
"What? I don't see that."
"It's a sculpture. No. It's a garden. I think people are meant to go down in there."
"I still don't see--"
Art is the symbol of life, and the embodiment of the life it symbolizes, Nell had said. This was not a real garden, any more than the painting of a tomato was a real tomato. But it was the way gardens felt. And if anybody knows how gardens feel, what it is like to lie down among the tomatoes, it is me and Nell, Henry thought. Oh yes, a garden.
Henry touched the carved letters on the green stone. "Yes, I think it's pretty, Nell," he said.
Life on the Moon by Henry Colterman
After I ventured into the Big Empty,
a smaller movement between hard and fast stars,
after I ventured to the moon, and the dust of the moon,
and to those smooth ceramic halls, those lustrous and benign spaces,
and to the evaporated surface,
the empty mineral stretch and score,
I could not find you.
You moved on.
Yet you are still there.
You are in the valence between spaces.
I cannot kiss the fall of your hair; I cannot lie
beside you in the silence.
Not yet.
You hang mute and bright.
You rise gently from the undermass,
the crystal and stone, like a sleeper
half-waking, then back to dreams
of the moon, subtle as lips,
now harsh and warm as breath.
Rise and fall.
Nell, for love,
you have given the moon seasons.
A BIRTHDAY
Esther M. Friesner
I wake up knowing that this is a special day. Today is Tessa's birthday. She will be six. That means she will start school and I won't see her during the day at all.
My friends will have a party for Tessa and for me. The invitation sits on my bedside table, propped up against the telephone so I can't possibly forget it. I wish I could. There are pink pandas tumbling around the borders of the card and inside my friend Paula has written in the details of time and place in her beautiful handwriting. I get up, get dressed, get ready for the day ahead.
Before I leave the apartment I make sure that I haven't locked Squeaker in the closet again. Squeaker is my cat. You'd think it would be hard for a cat to hide in a studio apartment, but Squeaker manages. Tessa loves cats and pandas, just like me. She told me so.
I am almost out the door when I remember the invitation. Tessa hasn't seen it yet. Today will be my last chance to show it to her. I keep forgetting to take it with me, not because I want to deprive my daughter of anything but because of what this birthday means to us both. I don't like to think about it. I tuck the invitation into my purse and go to work.
I arrive a little before nine. Mom always said I never plan ahead, but I do now.
There are flowers on my desk at work, six pink fairy roses in a cut glass bud vase with a spill of shiny white ribbon tied around its neck. There is a freedom card propped open on the keyboard in front of my terminal, signed by most of the women in the office. I hang up my jacket and check my IN box for work, but there is nothing there, no excuse to turn on my terminal. Still, a good worker finds work to do even when there's none, and I do so want to touch the keys.
I sit down and reach for a sampler sheet to rub over my thumb and slip into the terminal. Damn, the pad's empty! I know I had some left yesterday, what happened? I can't turn on my terminal without giving it a sample of my cell-scrapings so the system knows it's me. Who's been getting at my things!
I'll kill her!
No. I mustn't lose my temper like this. I have to set a good example for my girl. It's important for a woman to make peace, to compromise. No one wins a war. Maybe whoever took the last of my sampler sheets needed it more than I do.
Maybe she had to stay late, work overtime, an d everyone else locked their pads away in their desks so she had to help herself to mine.
"Good morning, Linda." It's my boss, Mr. Beeton. His melon face is shiny with a smile. "I see you've found my little surprise."
"Sir?" I say.
"Now, now, I know what day this is just as well as you do. Do you think the ladies are the only ones who want to wish you the best for the future? Just became there's a door on my office, it doesn't mean I'm sealed inside, ignorant of my girls' lives." He pats me on the back and says, "I'm giving you the day off, with pay. Have fun." And then he is gone, a walrus in a blue-gray suit waddling up the aisle between the rows of terminals.
I don't want to have the day off. What will I do?
Where will I go? The party isn't until six o'clock tonight. There is so much I need to say to her before then. I suppose I could go to the bank, but that's only ten seconds' worth of time. It's nowhere near enough. Here at work I could keep finding excuses to --
Mr. Beeton is at the end of the aisle, staring at me. He must be wondering why I'm still sitting here, staring at a blank screen. I'd better go. I put on my jacket and walk away from my terminal. It will still be here tomorrow. So will part of me.
I hear the murmurs as I walk to the door. The women are smiling at me as I pass, sad smiles, encouraging smiles, smiles coupled with the fleeting touch of a hand on mine. "I'm so happy for you," they say. "You're so strong."
"I've been praying for you."
"Have a good time."
"Have a good life."
"See you tomorrow."
But what will they see? I think about how many sick days I have left. Not enough. I will have to come back tomorrow, and I will have to work as if everything were still the same.
As I walk down the hall to the elevator I have to pass the Ladies' Room. I hear harsh sounds, tearing sounds.
Someone is in there, crying. I don't have to work today; I can take the time to go in and see who it is, what's wrong. Maybe I can help. Maybe this will kill some time.
The crying is coming from one of the stalls. "Who's there?" I call. The crying stops. There is silence, broken only by the drip of water from a faucet and a shallow, sudden intake of breath from the stall.
"What's wrong?" I ask. "Please, I can help you."
"Linda?" The voice is too fragile, too quavery for me to identify. "Is that you?
I thought Beeton gave you the day off."
"He did," I tell whoever it is in them. "I was just on my way out."
"Go ahead, then." Now the voice is a little stronger, a little surer when giving a direct command. "Have fun." Another shudder of breath frays the edges of her words.
I think I know who it is in there now..Anyway, it's worth a guess. "Ms. Thayer?"
What is she doing in here? The executives have their own bathrooms.
A latch flicks; the stall door swings open. Ms. Thayer is what I dreamed I'd be someday, back when I was a Business major freshman in college: a manager never destined to waste her life in the middle reaches of the company hierarchy, a comer and a climber with diamond-hard drive fit to cut through any glass ceiling her superiors are fool enough to place in her way. Sleekly groomed, tall and graceful in a tailored suit whose modest style still manages to let the world know it cost more than my monthly take-home pay, Ms. Thayer is a paragon. Every plane of expensive fabric lies just so along a body trimmed and toned and tanned to perfection. Only the front of her slim blue skirt seems to have rucked itself a little out of line. It bulges just a bit, as if -- as if --
Oh.
"Would you like me to come with you?" I ask her. I don't need to hear confessions. "If it's today, I mean." If I'm wrong, she'll let me know.
She nods her head. Her nose is red and there is a little trace of slime on her upper lip. Her cheeks
are streaked with red, her eyes squinched half-shut to hold back more tears. "I called," she tells me. "I have a four o'clock appointment. Upstairs, they think I'm going to the dentist."
"I'll meet you in the lobby, then, at three-thirty," I promise. And I add, because I know this is what she needs to hear more than anything, "It's not so bad." She squeezes my hand and flees back into the shelter of the stall. I hear the tears again, but they are softer this time. She is no longer so afraid.
I could take her sorrow from her as I took her fear by telling her there are ways to make what lies ahead a blessing, but I won't do that. She'd never believe me, anyhow. I know I would never have believed anyone when it was me.
Besides, I was in college. I knew it all, better than anyone who'd been there, and the evening news was full of stories to back up my conviction that I'd chosen purgatory over hell. You're supposed to be able to survive purgatory.
I should have known better. Surviving isn't living, it's only breath that doesn't shudder to a stop, a heart that keeps lurching through beat after beat after beat long after it's lost all reason to keep on beating. I was wrong. But I was in college, Mom and Dad had given up so much to provide the difference between my meager scholarship and the actual cost of tuition, books, room and board. They said, "Make us proud."
When I dropped out in junior year and got this job as a secretary, they never said a word.
I think I need a cup of coffee. I know I need a place to sit and think about what I'll do to fill the hours between now and three-thirty, three-thirty and six. There's a nice little coffee shop a block from the office, so I go there and take a booth. The morning rush is over; no one minds.
The waitress knows me. Her name is Caroline. She is twenty-six, just two years older than me. Usually I come here for lunch at the counter, when there's lots of cusotmers, but we still find time to talk. She knows me and I know her. Her pink uniform balloons over a belly that holds her sixth baby. She admires me for the way I can tease her about it. "Isn't that kid here yet?" I ask.
"Probably a boy," she answers. "Men are never on time." We both laugh.
"So how far along are you?"
"Almost there. You don't wanna know how close."
"No kidding? So why are you still -- ?"
"Here? Working?" She laughs. "Like I've got a choice!" She takes my older and brings me my food. I eat scrambled eggs and bacon and toast soaked with butter.
I drink three cups of coffee, black. I don't want to live forever. I leave Caroline a big tip because its no joke having five -- six kids to raise today's prices, and a husband who doesn't earn much more than minimum wage.
I get a good idea while I am smearing strawberry jam over my last piece of toast: The Woman's Center. I do weekend volunteer work there, but there's no reason I can't go over today and see if they can use me. I'm free.
I try to hail a cab but all of them are taken, mostly by businessmen. Once I see an empty one sail past, but he keeps on going when I wave. Maybe he is nearsighted and can't see me through the driver's bulletproof bubble. Maybe he is out of sampler sheets for his automatic fare-scan and is hurrying to pick up some more. Maybe he just assumes diet because I am a woman of a certain age I really don't want to ride in a cab at all.
I walk a block west and take the bus. Busses don't need fare-scan terminals because it always costs the same for every ride and you don't need to key in the tip. Tokens are enough. I ride downtown across the aisle a woman with two small children, a boy and a girl. The boy is only two or three years old and sits in his mother's lap, making rrrum-rrrum noises with his toy truck. The little girl looks about four and regards her brother scornfully. She sits in her own scat with her hands folded in the lap of her peach-colored spring coat. She wants the world to know that she is all grown up and impatient to leave baby things behind. I wonder it she'll like kindergarten as much as Tessa did? She didn't cry at all when it was time to go, even though it meant I couldn't see her in the mornings.
Things are pretty quiet at the Woman's Center. After all, it is a weekday, a workday. You have to work if you want to live. But Oralee is there. Oralee is always there, tall and black and ugly as a dog's dinner, the way my mom would say. She is the Center manager. It doesn't pay much, but it's what she wants to do. She is seated at her desk --and old wooden relic from some long-gone public school -- and when she sees me she is surprised.
Then she remembers.
"Linda, happy freedom!" She rises from her chair and rushes across the room to embrace me. Her skin is very soft and smells like lilacs. I don't know what to do or say. Oralee lives with her lover Corinne, so I don't feel right about hugging her back, no matter how much I like her or how grateful I am for all she's done for me over the years. I would be easier if she hadn't told me the truth about herself. A lesbian is a lesbian, I have no trouble hugging Corinne, but what Oralee is scares me. She clings to Corinne not because she loves her, but because it's safe, because she'll never have to risk anything that way, because her body craves touching. Oralee is always telling us we have to be brave, but she is a coward, pretending she's something she's not, out of fear. I can understand, but I can't like her for it.
Oralee leads me back to her desk and motions for me to sit down. She leans forward, her elbows on the blotter, a pen twiddling through her fingers. "So, to what do we owe the honor?" she asks, a grin cutting through the scars that make her face look like a topographical map with mountains pinched up and valleys gouged in. Today she wears the blue glass eye that doesn't match working brown one and that startles people who don't know her.
"My boss gave me the day off," I tell her. "With pay."
"Well, of course he did. Soul-salving bastard."
"I have to be somewhere at three-thirty, but I though that until then you might have something for me to do here."
Oralee pushes her chair a little away from her desk. The casters squeak and the linoleum floor complains. She runs her fingers over her shaven skull in though.
"Well, Joan and Cruz are already handling all the paperwork. . . . Our big fund-raising drive's not on until next week, no need for follow-up phone calls, the envelopes are all stuffed and in the mail . . ."
My heart sinks as she runs down a list of things that don't want doing. I try not to think about the empty hours I'll have to face if Oralee can't use me. To distract myself while I await her verdict, I look at all the things cluttering up her desktop. There is an old soup can covered with yellow-flowered shelving paper, full of paper clips, and another one full of pens and pencils. Three clay figurines of the Goddess lie like sunbathers with pendulous breasts and swollen bellies offered up to the shameless sky. Oralee made the biggest one herself, in a ceramics class. She uses Her for a paperweight. Oralee says she is a firm believer in making do with what you've got. Mr. Beeton would laugh out loud if he could see the antiquated terminal she uses. All you need to access it is a password that you type in on the keys so just anyone can get into your files if they discover what it is. At least this way the Woman's Center saves money on sampler pads, even if that's not the real reason.
The photo on the desk is framed with silver, real silver. Oralee has to polish it constantly to keep the tarnish at bay. The young black woman in the picture is smiling, her eyes both her own, her face smooth and silky-looking as the inner skin of a shell, her hair a soft, dark cloud that enhances her smile more beautifully than any silver frame.
At the bottom of the frame, under the glass with the photograph, there is a newspaper clipping. It's just the headline and it's not very big. The event it notes was nothing extraordinary enough to merit more prominent placement on the page: ABORTION CLINIC BOMBED. TWO DEAD, THREE INJURED. The clipping came from a special paper, more like a newsletter for the kind of people: who would read TWO DEAD, THREE INJURED and smile. Oralee tells us that most of the papers weren't like that; they used to call them birth control clinics or family planning clinics or even just women's clinics. As if we're none of us old enough to remember when
it changed! She talks about those days -- the times when the bombings were stepped up and the assaults on women trying to reach the clinics got ugly and the doctors and sometimes their families were being threatened, being killed -- as if they'd lasted as long as the Dark Ages instead of just four years. Thank goodness everything's settled down. We're civilized people, after all. We can compromise.
"I know!" Oralee snaps her fingers, making me look up. "You can be a runner.
That is --" She hesitates.
"Yes, I can do that," I tell her.
"Are you sure?"
"Just give me what I need and tell me where I have to go. It's all right, really. I need to go to the bank myself anyway."
"Are you sure?" she asks again. Why does she doubt me? Do I look so fragile? No.
I take good care of my' body, wash my hair every day, even put on a little lipstick sometimes. It's not like before, that hard time when I first came to the city, when I was such a fool. I almost lost my job, then, because I was letting myself go so badly. I know better, now. It's my duty to set a good example. Children past a certain age start to notice things like how Mommy looks and how Mommy acts. I've read all the books. You get the child you deserve.
Oralee goes into the back room where they keep the refrigerator. She comes back with a compartmentalized cold pack the size of a clutch purse, a factory-fresh sampler pad, and a slip of paper. "You can put this in your pocketbook if you want," she tells me, giving me the cold pack. "Make sure you only keep it open long enough to take out or put in one sample at a time. And for the love of God, don't mix up the samples!"
I smile at how vehement she sounds. "I've done this before, Oralee," I remind her.
"Sure you have; sorry. Here are the names and addresses. Bus tokens are in the clay pot on the table by the front door. You don't have to bring back the pack when you're done; just drop it off next time you're here." She cocks her head.