Moonglow

by Michael Griffo

  Worried that Arla’s outburst might warrant attention from nosy classmates, I grab the book and, after a brief struggle, wrench it from Arla’s hands. “This is private property,” I remind her. “You can’t just read it.”

  Standing up Arla raises her hands over her head, while shouting, “Well, break out the handcuffs and give in to racial profiling, because I am guilty as charged!”

  I yank hard on one of the sleeves of her sweater, the same fiery color as her fingernails. “Will you sit down?”

  “And stop yelling,” Archie adds. “Before you attract any more attention and they start filming Law & Order: The Two W Edition.”

  “Flip open to page fifty-seven,” Arla says in a voice that can barely be described as a whisper.

  Rustling through the pages, I don’t know which is worse—the fact that I’m violating Jess’s property or that Arla memorized which page of her diary had the most interesting kernel of information. When I get to page fifty-seven, neither of those minor betrayals seems important, because right in front of my eyes is my best friend’s handwriting. Her words, her thoughts, her secrets. It’s like she’s right here with me again.

  “July 17,” I say, reading the entry date on the page.

  “Jess’s birthday,” Archie remembers.

  “That’s the one,” Arla confirms.

  I swallow hard, not wanting to continue, but unable to resist.

  “My birthday, sweet sixteen and finally been kissed,” I read out loud. “I have nothing to compare him to, but I’m going to put down for all eternity that Napoleon Jaffe is the best kisser ever! Perhaps in the world, but definitely in all of Two W.”

  At some point I lose my own voice and hear Jess reading her entry out loud, complete with her funny way of always putting a lilt in her voice at the end of a sentence, even if it isn’t a question.

  “But I think I’ve made a twinemy. ”

  “A what?” Archie asks.

  I don’t have to read any further to know exactly what she’s talking about; she and I used to love to make up new words. This one clearly relates to the other Jaffe twin, Nadine.

  “All night long Nadine stared at me with dagger eyes when I was dancing with Nap. Guess she was jealous that her brother snagged himself a hot girlfriend five minutes after coming to town, and if anyone ever reads this, the hot girlfriend is me!” Archie and I laugh at the same time, but Arla looks like the Nadine Jess was just describing.

  “Keep reading,” she instructs.

  “For whatever reason she was giving Dominy the evil eye too.”

  “What?!” I exclaim.

  “The only reason Dom didn’t notice is because she was all over Prince Caleb. ”

  “I was not all over Caleb that night!” I protest.

  “You were too,” Arla disagrees.

  “Archie?” I ask.

  “White boy, tell the truth,” Arla demands.

  “Kind of,” Archie relents. “But Caleb’s hot so we all understood.”

  “Oh my God!” I say. “I had no idea I was that type of girl.”

  “We’ll stage an intervention later, Dom,” Arla quips. “For now, read on.”

  “This isn’t the first time it’s happened,” I continue reading. “I’ve noticed Nadine staring at us before, mostly at Dom, but I thought it was my imagination. Then I thought about it a little more and realized that Nadine cannot be trusted. ”

  Sounds like Jess flip-flopped in her judgment of Nadine almost as much as I’ve been doing. As I read more it’s clear that Jess was just as confused.

  “There’s something not right about her, but I don’t know what it is,” I read. “Maybe she’s autistic. When I caught her tracing her tattoo with her finger, she reminded me of the O’Brien kid down the block.”

  Hold on a second. “Nadine has a tattoo too?”

  “What do you mean too?” Arla asks.

  “Caleb said Napoleon has a tattoo, way up on his thigh.”

  “Caleb’s checking out Nap’s thigh?” Archie snickers.

  “Shut up, Archibald,” I say. “Isn’t that weird that they both have tattoos?”

  “They’re from the East Coast,” Arla reminds us. “My father says things can get pretty wild out there.”

  “Have you either of you ever seen it?”

  “I don’t check out girls’ thighs,” Archie replies.

  “Nope,” Arla admits. “But Jess must’ve seen it. Maybe in the gym.”

  The class bell interrupts our conversation, but I’m not yet ready to give up this new connection to Jess. “Arla, would you mind if I borrowed this for a few days?” I ask. “Just to, you know, read the whole thing and see if there’s anything else in here.”

  Nodding her head, Arla agrees. With one caveat. “Just don’t let your father see it,” she instructs. “Unlike my dad, yours is actually good at the whole upholding the truth, justice, and American way thing.”

  The same forced smile appears on both my face and Archie’s in response to hearing about how law-abiding and crime-stopping my father is. If Arla only knew.

  In my room, I’m devouring page after page of Jess’s diary. It’s like she’s sitting in bed next to me whispering in my ear, gossiping, confiding in me, still treating me like her best friend and not her murderer. The words on the page become blurry, and I have to close my eyes because I feel like I’m going to faint. When I open them I automatically shove the book under my covers because I think I see my father standing in my doorway. I’m wrong.

  “I knocked, Domgirl, but you didn’t answer.”

  I smile because it’s a lot more refreshing to see Caleb staring at me than my father.

  “Whaddya got there?” he asks, jumping on my bed next to me.

  I shield the diary from his eyes until I know we’re safe.

  “Close the door.”

  “Your father’ll kill me.”

  Head tilt complete with sarcastic smirk. “He brought you into the inner circle and heard all those beautiful things you said to me,” I remind him. “He’s not going to kill you if you’re behind closed doors with his daughter.”

  Obedient, but wary, Caleb hops off the bed and closes the door. Before he sits back down, I add: “Without reading you your rights first.”

  “What?!”

  “I’m kidding,” I say, then add quickly, “Arla swiped Jess’s diary from her father’s stash of contraband.”

  His response is exactly what I expect. Out of all of us, Caleb is the most straightlaced when it comes to anything to do with criminal activity or unscrupulous behavior. Sometimes he acts like he’s the child of a law enforcer.

  “You could go to jail for that,” he whispers.

  When he realizes petty theft would be the least of my crimes, he blushes.

  “Sorry.”

  “Don’t be,” I say, meaning my words.

  We’re fully clothed, but I feel incredibly sexy and as if I’m doing something incredibly wrong. Not regarding the diary, but having Caleb in my room. He puts his foot in between mine and the pressure of his leg on my calf makes it difficult to concentrate.

  “Arla thought there might be some clues in here to tell us what happened to Jess,” I explain. “She doesn’t know that we already know what happened, but even still, there’s some interesting stuff in here.”

  “Really? Like what?”

  Caleb’s sneaker rubs against my stocking feet, and I close my eyes because it feels so good. It’s like tugging on our invisible string. When I open my eyes Caleb’s lips are pressed against mine. One sweet kiss, that’s all. For now that’s enough.

  Clearing my throat and smiling a very grown-up smile, I turn from one page to the next, showing Caleb that Jess was a few shades away from obsessed with Nadine. Whereas I think she’s odd and—what’s the right word? Melancholy?—Jess thinks she should be a patient at The Retreat instead of a volunteer.

  “I wish twinemy would shut up . . . Oh that’s Jess’s nickname for Nadine,” I explain.

 
; “Of course it is.”

  “I wish twinemy would shut up about her grandmother. All she does is talk and tell stories, my grandmother this and my grandmother that. The woman is old; that’s all she’s got going for her. I met her once with Nap, and the lady was nassty,” I pause. “Jess added an extra s to nasty in the middle of the word so it spells out . . .”

  “I get it,” Caleb says, interrupting me. “I didn’t know Jess hated Nadine so much.”

  “Me either. I thought they were friends,” I comment.

  “Maybe she was just putting on a show to score points with loser twin,” Caleb suggests. “Who would be Nap.”

  “Subtle, Caleb,” I remark, tweaking his chin.

  “Thanks, Domgirl,” he replies, sliding a finger down the bridge of my nose.

  Before our play-touching escalates to something my father would kill Caleb over, I continue reading words out of Jess’s mouth. “ ‘My grandmother’s led an amazing life; I wish I could be just like her.’ And that, dear diary, is a direct quote from twinemy’s mouth.”

  “What’s wrong with Nadine’s admiring her grandmother?” Caleb asks. “It’s kind of sweet.”

  “It doesn’t add up,” I reply. “The few times I’ve heard Nadine talk about her grandmother, she’s always complaining about her, wishing she didn’t live with her family. Remember the post-season party at Nadine’s house?”

  A lightbulb is turned on. “Oh yeah!” Caleb exclaims. “She does hate the old lady.”

  “Exactly,” I say, accidentally placing a hand on Caleb’s chest. Feeling adventurous, he leans back against my headboard and puts his arm around me. It feels wonderful, and I lean my head against his broad shoulder.

  “Maybe Nadine was simply venting at the party,” Caleb says.

  “So she didn’t come off as some sort of a Grandma’s girl?” I add.

  Nodding, Caleb agrees. “Yup, plus you know how Jess loved to exaggerate things.”

  Nobody knows that better than I do. Which means all her diaramblings could be nothing more than figments of her imagination. Then again, why would she harp on Nadine? And if she genuinely disliked the girl, there’s enough quirky stuff about her to make fun of; Jess didn’t have to go after the grandmother.

  Curious, Caleb grabs the diary to get a closer look. He flips through some pages, and when he stops he’s not looking at the words, but the pictures.

  “Why does Jess have a drawing of Orion’s constellation in her diary?”

  Orion? I’ve heard that name before, but where, I can’t remember.

  “That?” I reply, pointing to the scribble. “I thought it was a doodle.”

  “Nope, see how the three stars are close together in one straight line,” he says, his index finger tracing over the drawing. “That’s Orion, the hunter in Greek mythology.”

  I’m starting to feel nauseous, and it takes me a second to realize it’s because the smells in the room have become magnified. Something about what Caleb’s saying, something about this Orion is making me sick.

  “Orion’s a hunter?”

  “According to legend,” he replies. “Does it mean something to you?”

  “I don’t know, but according to my own family legend my dad used to be a hunter.”

  “So’s my uncle,” Caleb says. “And most of the men over thirty in these here parts.”

  True, but why do I get the feeling that my father is somehow connected to Jess’s diary. “Oops! Sorry, Domgirl, I’m wrong,” Caleb says.

  Guess not all my feelings amount to anything.

  “Jess says here that the drawing is Nadine’s tattoo.”

  Suddenly inspired, Caleb whips around to the opposite side of my bed to face me. He looks like he’s had his very own aha moment. “That’s why it looks so familiar,” he says. “It’s Napoleon’s tattoo!”

  “Twin tattoos?”

  It was weird when we thought they both had tattoos; it’s downright gross that their tattoos are the same. Reading my mind, Caleb agrees.

  “That’s really gross,” he says.

  Actually that’s ultra gross. And once again another reason to question what the hell is going on with Nadine. My gut instinct tells me that I need to widen my pack and trust—not doubt—myself. Tomorrow, I’ll fill Arla in on everything I’ve been keeping from her. Another ally will make me feel a lot safer, because dealing with a curse is one thing, but I have a strong suspicion that dealing with a twinemy is going to be a heck of a lot harder.

  Chapter 20

  For someone whose ancestors gave voodoo dolls to children instead of Barbies, Arla is having a difficult time accepting the fact that I’m now only part human.

  “You’re a what?!” she exclaims, her skin color lightening so it turns dangerously close to Archie’s pigment.

  “A werewolf,” I reply.

  Once again Arla looks at me the way we used to look at Jess when she would recite full sentences in Japanese. “A what?!” she repeats.

  “The scientific word for the lady’s malady is lycanthropy,” Archie offers.

  “Not helping,” I say, slapping him on the shoulder. “I know it sounds like I’ve lost my mind.”

  “Like?” Arla corrects. “You most definitely have lost your mind if you believe what you’re telling me.”

  Trying another tactic, I spell out for Arla how the changes I’ve been going through these past few months have all been a direct result of the curse. She still doesn’t buy it and claims that hormonal imbalance is a more likely culprit than a supernatural hex on my head. Then I confess that my college expedition was just a sham so I would be in a safe setting in case I transformed, which I did, and that despite our precautions things almost ended with a tragic twist.

  “Arla, I didn’t believe it until I saw it with my own eyes,” Archie declares. “It’s the truth. Dominy’s a she-wolf.”

  Shocked, I want to tweak Archie’s fanciful description of my current physical situation, but unfortunately he’s nailed it. As horribly bizarre as it sounds, that’s what I am.

  “Oh my God!” Arla squeals. “This is a hazing! You guys punked me. Where’s the video cam?”

  Arla looks around my bedroom in search of something that doesn’t exist. She picks up one of Jess’s old Hello Kitty stuffed animals and asks it a question. “Did you swallow a video camera, Miss Kitty? Are you streaming my pretty face out to all of Two W?”

  “Wow! That is exactly what Nadine thought when you told her,” Archie says.

  Suddenly Hello Kitty is tossed to the floor.

  “Y’all told Nadine?” Arla asks, her voice about an octave lower than normal.

  Quickly, I explain how coincidence and circumstance led me to confide in Nadine before telling Arla, and I can see that she is more upset by being left out of the inner circle than she is that my life has been irrevocably changed. But I can’t blame her; if the roles were reversed I would feel the same way. It’s never fun to be snubbed.

  “So that’s why you’ve been buddying up to Ms. Jaffe and giving me the cold shoulder?”

  And it’s less fun to be misunderstood.

  “No, Arla, that isn’t it at all,” I say firmly. “Nadine happened to be in the right place at the right time and stumbled upon the truth. I chose to tell you. Big difference.”

  And from the way Arla’s eyes moisten, I can tell she finally gets it.

  “Oh bless your soul. You are philanthropic!”

  “Lycanthropic,” Archie corrects.

  “A she-wolf!” Arla simplifies.

  Luckily Arla keeps her always-brightly-colored fingernails short, or else they would dig into my skin when she holds my face in her hands. She’s looking at me tenderly, and before she speaks I know that she’s channeling her grandmother’s spirit.

  “My nana is jumping for joy on the other side right now,” she says. “You, Dominy, are living proof that the woman wasn’t a crazy old banshee like my grandpa always claimed.”

  As I said, both Arla’s parents have Creole blood i
n their veins, which means Arla can trace her roots back to a heritage of relatives who believed in the paranormal and worshipped magical gods. Clearly, her nana would consider me a patron saint.

  All talk of mysticism must be put aside though, and I need to make Arla understand this curse is more than a gift that proves her ancestors sane. I have to admit the role I played in Jess’s death. Once again the response to my confession amazes me.

  “At least now we know, Dom,” she states soberly. “We don’t have to invent stories; we know Jess died because of this Luba bitch.”

  Just like my father, Archie, and Caleb have already done, Arla reminds me that I am not responsible for Jess’s death; the true culprit is Psycho Squaw. I’ve already come to believe this, but it’s reassuring to know Arla has joined the club. The only wildcard remaining is Nadine.

  “If we’re to believe everything Jess wrote in her diary,” Arla begins, “Nadine may not be trustworthy.”

  A mental image of silver smoke wrapping and undulating around Nadine’s body pierces my mind.

  “I think it’s more than that,” I say. “I think in her own way Nadine is like me.”

  “Please, please, please tell me you think she’s Lady Dracula!” Archie begs.

  This time Arla slaps him in the shoulder for me. “No! But I do think she’s full of secrets that she doesn’t know how to deal with.”

  “Then as Nana Bergeron would always say,” Arla declares, speaking in her best Creole accent, “let’s help dat chile see da light!”

  We all agreed that the plot of the first episode of The Secret Life of Nadine Jaffe needs to deal with uncovering the truth about the tattoo she shares with Napoleon. There’s just something wrong and ickilicious about twin tattoos, and it has got to be a clue to some deeper secret.

  After some debate and discussion we decide that the only real way to confront Nadine about her twattoo is to catch her half-naked. (Twattoo is Archie’s word, not mine, and even though it’s kind of gross, it made me smile, because I think he might be a worthy successor to Jess and a new partner in my never-ending quest to bastardize the English language.) But since none of us wants to stray from our innate sexual identity and undress Nadine in private, we’re going to have to go public. Or as public as the girls’ locker room.