Blue Moon (Blue Mountain Book 2)

by Tess Thompson

  Aurora reached into her bag and pulled out a good-sized hand mirror. “What do you think?” she asked Sam. He peered at himself, with darting, nervous eyes, as if he didn’t really want to see. “Silver fox, am I right, Bliss?” asked Aurora.

  “Completely right.” I clapped my hands together.

  Sam, still looking in the mirror, seemed to be in shock. When had he last looked at himself, I wondered. Then he smiled, wide and toothy. His teeth. I’d forgotten about his teeth. He must have cavities. And his gums? I didn’t even want to think about those gums, probably riddled with disease. What were we going to about his teeth?

  Aurora seemed to know what I was thinking, gesturing for me to follow her into the other room. She spoke in a low voice. “My dentist’s accepting new patients. Want to see if I can get him in this afternoon? I know he works late several days a week and this is one of them, I’m fairly certain.”

  “Great idea,” I said. This makeover was going to cost me a fortune. He probably had about a thousand cavities, not to mention his gums. Better order a twelve-pack of floss, I thought.

  Aurora got on the phone, making the appointment for Sam while I went back to the kitchen. Sam was still staring at himself. “Listen, Sam. How would you feel about going to the dentist?”

  He nodded in the affirmative.

  “And, here’s the other thing. Henry’s driving me to Idaho tomorrow for Thanksgiving. You want to come with us? I’ll put you and Sweetheart up at the local bed and breakfast, then we can all have turkey together at my sister’s.” I paused, trying to think what else to say to convince him to come with us. My instincts were telling me he wouldn’t want to go. Sure enough, he shook his head, no.

  “Sam, you can’t stay here without me and I don’t want you back on the streets. Give me a chance to help you.”

  He got up from the chair and went to the counter, where he grabbed a notepad and pen I kept near the phone. He wrote for a moment before handing it to me. His handwriting, as I’d noted at the hospital, was neat and angular.

  Why are you doing this?

  I shrugged, trying to think of how to answer. “I don’t know exactly. I just want to do something good for someone else. That’s all. It’s totally selfish, I guess. A way to make me feel like it would matter if I weren’t here.”

  He tilted his head, watching me for a moment before writing something else on the pad.

  It would matter.

  “Sam, will you tell me your story?”

  My story?

  “How did you get to this place? Living on the streets?”

  He looked at me helplessly; his faded blue eyes watery.

  “It’s a long story, right?”

  He shook his head, no, before writing something on the pad.

  I fell at a job site. Lost my speech and most of my memories. Sometimes I’m dizzy and unbalanced. Sometimes confused. Lost my job.

  “What was your work?”

  They tell me construction.

  “So you can’t remember anything before the accident?”

  He nodded, yes, and then slumped into the chair before writing another note on the pad.

  I remember my mother. I remember she died when I was eight. Nothing after that.

  Let it go for now, I told myself. He’s had enough. “Sam, let’s get some food in you.” I went to the refrigerator, hoping to find something for him to eat but there was nothing but a half-empty bottle of chardonnay and a jar of pickles. As one might expect from the contents of my kitchen, I don’t really cook. And that bottle of wine had been in there for at least a month. “You like Chinese food, Sam?”

  He nodded yes, again. His eyes brightened.

  “I wonder what Henry likes?” I looked over at Sam. “Write down what you like and I’ll order takeout. Anything you want.”

  Eggrolls. Sweet and Sour Chicken. Fried Rice.

  “Done.” I picked up my phone. “I’ll just have to guess what Henry likes. Between you and me, I bet he’s picky.”

  Sam smiled, writing on the pad.

  He thinks you’re crazy.

  “I know, but I don’t care.”

  He smiled again before turning back to the pad.

  I like my hair.

  “Yeah, you look like a million bucks. Seriously.”

  I called my favorite Chinese takeout establishment and placed our order. They promised to deliver in under an hour. As I hung up, Aurora came back into the kitchen.

  “All set for the morning, first thing,” said Aurora. “Couldn’t get him in until then.”

  “The dentist,” I said to Sam.

  I hate the dentist.

  “Everyone hates the dentist,” said Aurora. “Highest suicide rate in the world, dentists.”

  “That’s awful,” I said. “Think of all the good they do.”

  Aurora picked up her bag. “I gotta run. Hot date tonight with a fireman.”

  “I thought you’d given up on men,” I said, remembering our last conversation.

  “Yeah, well, my hiatus was short-lived. Damn Match.com. They’re like the freaking mob the way they pull you back in.”

  I wouldn’t know, I thought, shuddering. Nothing sounded worse than perpetual blind dates.

  After Aurora left, I changed into yoga pants and a sweatshirt and plunged into the mighty task of giving Sweetheart a bath. I put her in my big tub and soaked her with warm water using the hand-held shower. Since I didn’t have dog soap, I scrubbed her with my expensive shampoo that smelled of citrus, since I didn’t have dog shampoo, soaping her up until she resembled a man’s shaving brush on Monday morning. I’d closed the bathroom door, anticipating an attempt at escape, but to my surprise she not only cooperated but seemed to enjoy the scrub, looking up at me every so often and wagging her tail twice in each direction before bowing her head and sighing. Sweetheart was a girl after my own heart. Nothing like a little grooming to cheer you up in times of trouble.

  After rinsing her, I dried her with one of my fluffy towels and then dug an old brush out of my drawer to finish her grooming. I sat cross-legged and patted the soft bathmat. “Sit, Sweetheart.” She obeyed, sitting on her haunches with her eyes half-closed like a socialite getting a manicure, although tilting slightly to the left because of her missing right leg. This pooch was the best. “Who knew you were a hidden glamour girl, Sweetheart?” I murmured.

  Thump, thump went her tail before she rested her head on my knee and looked up at me with eyes of an old soul. “So many troubles you’ve seen with Sam, huh, old girl? What can we do to help Sam start over?”

  But as talented as she was, Sweetheart couldn’t speak human and neither could her master. The details of their journey and the solution to move forward remained a mystery for the time being. For now I felt satisfied I’d gotten him this far.

  Chapter 6

  THE NEXT MORNING, after the teeth cleaning of all teeth cleanings for Sam, we set out on our adventure. I hadn’t yet told Blythe I was bringing a guest or that Henry was driving me. It seemed too difficult to explain over the phone, and, like the little sister I am, I knew it was better to ask forgiveness later. With her soft heart, there was no way she’d turn the two men from her dinner table when presented with them face-to-face.

  So this is how, on the day before Thanksgiving, an uptight former actor, a lonely and jobless executive, a mute homeless man, and a three-legged dog headed out together on the road bound for Idaho. We made a motley crew to say the least, what with my head injury, Sweetheart’s missing leg, Sam’s muteness, and Henry’s decidedly bad attitude. We were like a twisted version of Dorothy and the rest of her gang on their way to see the Wizard, all of us looking for something others took for granted. I didn’t know then what exactly we were searching for. It would become clear later in a way I never expected.

  What a picture we made—the four of us in Henry’s
town car. Henry had insisted on wearing his usual black suit, even when I asked him to consider this more of a vacation. I, on the other hand, was dressed in stunning black high-heeled boots, skinny jeans, and an angora sweater the color of cranberries, covered by a white faux fur coat and matching Russian-style hat the texture of chick down. Henry had made some crack about Anastasia being found at last when he first saw me in it. But I knew I looked fabulous and completely ready for cold Idaho.

  We headed east on Highway 84. The roads were dry. Mount Hood loomed in the distance. Sam and Sweetheart were in the back seat. Sweetheart sat upright with her nose against the glass as if she were trying to memorize the sights. Sam, wearing a new pair of jeans and an ice-blue wool sweater, held an icepack to his jaw after his lengthy visit to the dentist, and stared at his new black and shiny boots. I remembered the feeling, suddenly, of having a new pair of shoes as a child. I couldn’t take my eyes off them, walking everywhere with my gaze directed at my feet. On the first day of second grade I’d run into a pole while staring at my new Hush Puppies. My grandmother had sent them, I remembered suddenly. She’d always sent them at the end of the summer with a short note to do well in school, until her death when I was in eighth grade. My mother’s mother, Isabella. We never met her because she and Sally were estranged after her decision to live in the counterculture. Occasionally, an envelope arrived with an address from Marin County, California, written in old-fashioned curvy handwriting. The envelope contained a check, Blythe told me, cashed almost immediately by our mother despite her wish to “live off the land.” Every September, two pairs of shoes arrived—one for Blythe and one for me. I’d forgotten those shoes until just now.

  I shifted in the seat to look at Sam. “How’s your mouth feeling, Sam?”

  I’d put a pad of paper in the seat pocket. He pulled it out now and wrote quickly before holding it up for me to see.

  Sore. Grateful.

  “I’m grateful you’re here, too, Sam.” Sweetheart took her nose from the window to look over at me, wagging her tail. “You too, Sweetheart.” I reached in my pocket and pulled out a treat, which she delicately took from hand. This dog was perfection. I wanted to know how long they’d been together, Sam and Sweetheart, but I felt it was best not to overwhelm him with questions.

  The dentist visit had been less calamitous than I expected. There were several cavities, but nothing serious, the dentist had informed us. After they filled the cavities and cleaned his teeth, the dentist told me he suspected Sam had somehow been brushing his teeth on a somewhat regular basis, although his gums needed a diligent regimen of flossing in order to recover. I felt immense relief, like I was his mother or something. Was this what it felt like to be Blythe? Always worried over the well-being of her children and soon-to-be stepdaughter, not to mention me? This mothering gig was exhausting, I thought, settling into the seat. I crossed my legs at the ankle and let out a happy sigh. It was good to leave work behind and see something new. “I may not go back, Henry.”

  “Back, Miss Heywood?”

  “To work. For a while anyway. Maybe I’ll hunker down in Idaho for the winter. What do you think?” I turned again to look at Sam. “What do you think, Sam? Want to spend the winter in Idaho?”

  He didn’t answer, giving me a quizzical look instead.

  “The future doesn’t matter for the time being, boys. We’re on holiday.” I slid a glance over to Henry. “Isn’t that what they say in England, Henry? Holiday?”

  “That’s correct.” Henry shifted slightly in the driver’s seat next to me.

  “Don’t worry, I was just kidding about the tequila shots.”

  My being so close to him in the front seat made him uncomfortable, but I wasn’t sure why. Was it the proximity to a woman or the fact that I’d broken some kind of old-school rule?

  Clients sit in the back, Miss Heywood. I could almost hear him speaking in his clipped British accent. The English were so much more class-conscious than Americans, I thought, stealing another glance at Henry, who drove with his eyes glued to the road and his back ramrod straight. We might be ugly over here in the States, but we know we can sit anywhere on the bus without apology. May you rest in peace, Rosa Parks, I said silently.

  “How you doing, Henry?” I asked. “Excited for our adventure?”

  “Practically shaking from excitement, Miss Heywood.”

  I laughed. “That’s the right attitude.”

  “Quite.”

  In silence we continued to drive, eating up miles one at a time until we could no longer see Mt. Hood and the terrain became flat and arid. Henry turned on music, a pop station from satellite radio. I relaxed into the seat, watching the scenery. In the back, Sam and Sweetheart had both fallen asleep.

  “Henry, can I ask you a question. Kind of personal?”

  “You can ask. I’ll decide then if I’ll answer or not,” he said.

  “Fair enough.” I smiled and shifted in the seat to get a better view of him. “Why are you no longer an actor?”

  He kept his eyes on the road. “After my wife died, I no longer had the heart for it.”

  “Why?” Weren’t artists supposed to gather comfort from self-expression, releasing emotion through their work?

  “My wife was an actress. We worked together in repertory companies all over the country during our thirty years together. When she died, quite unexpectedly, the thought of doing it without her seemed untenable.”

  “I’m sorry, Henry.”

  “Well, there aren’t many roles for a man my age. It was time to stop, settle into a more steady life, I suppose.”

  “There’s King Lear.”

  “Ah, yes. I played him several times during my last years as an actor. One of the hardest roles ever written, especially for a man with no daughters.”

  “Just one son, right?” I asked. “The one in New York.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Do you miss it? Acting, I mean.”

  “Yes, I miss all of it. My wife. The theatre. The work itself.”

  “How did you have a son and still work in the repertory companies?” I asked. “Was it hard for him, always moving around?”

  “Apparently it was, Miss Heywood. He feels a lot of resentment toward us for what he calls a lonely childhood. We hired tutors instead of sending him to school, so he had little interaction with other children. Given our lifestyle, it was the most logical choice.” He fiddled with the radio, changing the station to classic rock. “My son and I aren’t close. When he left us at eighteen to attend college, we didn’t see him much after that. It was hard on Mary—my wife—to be shut out like that. We were both under the illusion that our nomadic, artistic life was interesting and adventurous, and that he was better for it. Mary and I grew up in staid environments—both of us from working-class people who spent most of their life in a five-block radius. To us, our life seemed exciting and enriching. All he wanted, I understand in hindsight, was to be ordinary. Unfortunately, he was born to the wrong parents.” Throughout this exchange, watching the emotions pass over his face, I saw a hint of the actor he must have been.

  “When was the last time you saw him?”

  “At his mother’s funeral. Five years ago now.” His words tapered off at the end, like hands squeezed around his neck, choking him. I felt the pang one gets in their chest when in the presence of suffering—helpless and inadequate to alleviate another’s pain, yet wanting so very much to do so.

  Poor Henry, I thought. All alone, mourning his wife, his career, the son who abandoned him. Then, a series of judgments crowded my thoughts. The son should forgive and forget. He was missing out on a wonderful father. I’d give anything for a father like Henry. “That’s a shame.” I felt lame the moment I said it. What a stupid phrase to utter when someone’s just confessed a loss such as this. There seemed no adequate words to convey how truly sorry I was for him.

&nbs
p; “Never mind all that, Miss Heywood. It’s all in the past. Nothing to be done now.” His voice had returned to its usual clip. Like a door slammed in my face, the intimacy between us was gone.

  I turned away, looking out the window, and thought of my mother. Like Henry’s son, I left home and cut ties. Did she miss me? Did she have regrets? Would she have done things differently if that had assured a relationship after I became an adult? I doubted it. She didn’t have it in her to suffer the remorse and sorrow I heard in Henry’s voice.

  My phoned chimed. I reached into my bag on the floor near my feet to grab my phone. It was a text from Kevan saying how excited he was that I was going to join them for the long weekend. I returned it with the same sentiment, adding some exclamation points for good measure. When I put the phone back in my purse, Henry looked over at me. “It’s actually alarming how fast you text on that thing.”

  I smiled saucily. “Oh, Henry, you say the nicest things.” Yawning, I settled into the seat and promptly fell asleep.

  Chapter 7

  WE ARRIVED IN THE TOWN of Peregrine, Idaho, as it was getting dark, which this time of year was a little after four in the afternoon. I’d called ahead to make reservations with Moonstone, owner and proprietor of the Peregrine Bed and Breakfast, before we left Portland. Yes, she had two rooms available, she assured me, adding that it was slow this time of year because of the weather. That made me smile. Their lack of customers probably had less to do with the weather and more to do with the fact that Peregrine had a population of five hundred people and the resort and skiing community of Sun Valley was thirty miles away. If you travelled to Idaho for Thanksgiving, you went there, not to her little town of Peregrine nestled in the foothills of Blue Mountain. I kept that opinion to myself, not wanting to offend Moonstone and her little town. Having grown up in River Valley in southern Oregon, I knew small town people were protective of their communities and immediately defensive if they sensed any hint of criticism, in the same way people are about their families. You can criticize crazy Uncle Jesse, but if anyone outside the family chimes in, be prepared to see the hounds of hell unleashed.