Favorite Physical Activities: Lifting an alcoholic beverage to his lips, sprinting to the bathroom to avoid puking on the floor.
Other likes: Reading (though all he had to say about any book he’d read was “it was good”), Sunny.
Dislikes: None. He just went with the flow. Even after puking from excessive drinking, he’d just gargle and drink some more.
Religion: He was okay with all of them.
Favorite Writers: He expressed no preference.
Favorite dessert: Vanilla wafers.
Favorite expression: If he had one, he didn’t say.
Dating the Coconut was an accident, induced by a particularly hard night of drinking combined with a long sexual dry spell. When it came to intercourse, Sunny was like a camel in the desert. But even camels had to drink eventually. One evening, parched, she was at a co-worker’s retirement dinner. Many drinks in, someone commented that The Coconut and Sunny should hook up. Even though she worked most nights behind the desk near The Coconut, she’d never talked with him, or even given him a thought. He blended with the furniture. She’d sized him up at the party, shrugged and said, “Okay. Better than nothing.” What she didn’t know was that The Coconut’s idea of hooking up translated to Sunny’s idea of getting snagged on a fishhook.
As far as he was concerned, once they’d fornicated, they were a couple.
“I can’t believe you’re still going along with this couple thing,” Luna said.
“He has his pluses,” Sunny explained. “He buys me drinks, and he goes away on command. Except he keeps pushing to stay over – and you know how I feel about that. But the kids like him, and he takes them to their soccer games. He does anything I want him to, like the laundry and grocery shopping. He’s a good egg.”
“Sounds romantic.”
“Oh, yeah… the romance never ends with Phil. But you’re the one who nick-named him. So, tell me, how much passion can you get from a coconut?”
“You’ve got me there,” Luna conceded.
“He also buys me really good gifts, and he likes to make out at bars.” It was strange, because Sunny usually hated public displays of affection, but when she was drinking she loved to suck face. Luna had watched her do it countless times with Sal.
What could it feel like, kissing a coconut?
Luna asked Sunny if the kissing was good.
“Well, he’s not a natural at it, that’s for sure,” Sunny said. “I kind of have to coax him along. But he’s willing to do it anytime I want, which is convenient.”
Sounded like Sunny was settling¸ but who was Luna to judge? She’d be willing to kiss a coconut too.
Right now, she’d kiss pretty much anybody.
They agreed to let their four kids have a sleepover at Luna’s, under the supervision of Luna’s trusted teenage neighbor Betty, whom Ben and Dylan adored. Luna tried to call Nick again, to find out when he was coming and to let him know he’d be dropping the kids with Betty.
Again, the call went to voicemail.
“Mommy, we’re hungry!” Dylan called from upstairs.
“Okay, sweetie!” Where the hell was Nick?
Just then he called back. “I can’t take the kids out. You cancelled my card, and my boss won’t give me an advance.”
The old Luna would’ve felt bad and given him money. But the new Luna just said: “Okay then.”
Click! She hung up and boiled some water for pasta. Good thing I didn’t tell the boys their father was coming.
Jingles jangled into the kitchen and sat at her feet while she cooked.
The Achy Breaky Bar pushed Long Island’s redneck boundaries. It was the kind of place you’d expect to find sawdust on the floor. Through the dim lighting, Luna spied walls covered with Nascar photos. There was lots of pool-ball clinking and cursing. The air was moist with Budweiser. It was smoky, because rednecks didn’t think much of anti-smoking laws. Someone dropped change in the jukebox and “I Walk the Line” came on.
Every redneck bar needs at least one guy with a mullet to be complete, and lucky Luna sat next to him. He had that weatherbeaten, Willie Nelson look. She decided to talk to him anyway.
But what would she say? It had been years since Luna stepped in a bar, and small talk escaped her then.
How about introducing yourself? asked Jiminy. You get all worked up over nothing.
You’re right, she answered. To mullet man she said, “Hi, I’m Luna.”
He said something back, but she couldn’t make it out.
“What’s that?’ She leaned in closer.
Again, she couldn’t understand him. “Sorry?”
He said it a third time, and finally she got it. His name was Bobby.
Why was his speech so garbled? Had he had a stroke?
Bobby pointed to the bartender. He was offering to buy her a drink¸ she presumed. She accepted.
Sipping her vodka collins (she had been going to order a beer, then decided some hard liquor was in order), Luna told him a little about herself.
Then she had to let him talk.
She tried to understand what he said, but it was so hard. All she wanted to do was make out. Yes, he was yucky, but that meant he wouldn’t judge her harshly. She needed someone who would be complimentary, not impatient with her rustiness.
Would she be able to kiss him? What if she’d forgotten how?
He kept saying the same thing over and over, obviously trying to communicate something important.
But what?
He pointed to his neck.
The bartender came over. “Bobby’s trying to tell you about his throat cancer,” he told Luna.
“Oh! Are you okay?” she asked Bobby.
Bobby nodded, and took a sip of his Bud.
The bartender said, “He can’t talk so good ever since they took out his tongue.”
Luna’s jaw hung open in disbelief.
Inside her head there was laughter from Jiminy.
You knew about this? she fumed at him.
No. I told you I don’t see the future. I’m just along for the ride. But, wow, that was pretty funny.
Luna didn’t find it amusing. She turned to Sunny, wanting to vent, but Sunny was using her tongue with The Coconut.
Meanwhile, Bobby was still talking – about who knew what.
Luna didn’t want to be rude, so she nodded politely.
Kenny Rogers’ “The Gambler” played on the jukebox.
Looks like you crapped out tonight, said Jiminy.
Yeah, she agreed. What were the odds?
When Sunny finally came up for air, Luna practically dragged her to the ladies room. Safely out of earshot, she told her about Bobby.
“Eeew,” Sunny said.
“That’s not nice.”
“Never said I was.”
This was true. “Oh my god, I just wanted to kiss someone,” Luna moaned. The stall door said, “Kim and Colton 4eva” in black magic marker. Luna wasn’t looking for anything like “4eva.” She was just looking for a French kiss “2nite.”
“Clearly the universe doesn’t feel you’re ready,” Sunny said.
“You think?”
“Could there be a more obvious sign than a redneck with no tongue?”
“Good point.”
The ladies room door squealed open, and two bimbo-types with big hair, three-inch thick eyeliner, skin-tight minidresses and stilettos wobbled in. Laughing, they bolted themselves into adjoining stalls and chatted loudly while peeing.
Luna envied them. She had nothing to even smile about.
“Cheer up,” said Sunny.
“How can I cheer up? You have The Coconut, Nick has his parade of inappropriate men, Kim has Colton… and I have tongueless mullet man. Oh, and let’s not forget: The universe is conspiring against me.”
“I didn’t say that! I said the universe thinks you’re not ready.”
“Yeah, well¸ screw the universe.” Luna looked in the mirror. She wasn’t bad-looking. And yet she felt ugly.
> Sunny patted Luna’s back. “Let’s go get you some whiskey shots.”
“Yuck!”
“Just get them down, and everything will be better.”
Sunny was right again. The whiskey scalded going down, but after that nothing mattered.
She wished she could duplicate that carefree feeling without the vomiting that followed the next day.
TWELVE
After Luna picked herself up from the bathroom tiles and flushed her barf, she remembered to check on her dad. Loreena answered the phone by saying, “I just came home so I could feed the cats. I’ve been sleeping in a chair in your father’s room. What are the odds he’d do that for me?”
Million to one, Luna thought.
“Not that you’d do it for me, either.”
Luna let that jab pass. “How’s dad doing?”
“He talks a little, other than cursing.”
“That’s good.”
“It takes him forever to get a word out.”
“Still, that’s progress. Right?”
“I suppose. But speaking of right, he’s paralyzed on his right side.”
“Permanently?”
“No one knows these things, Luna.” Loreena’s voice was sharp, but then it morphed into a sigh. “They wanted to send him home to me in a few weeks and then send an ambulette to take him to rehab every other day, but I told them I couldn’t handle him. Plus I don’t have a ramp for the wheelchair.
“What’s going to happen?”
“There’s a rehabilitation facility in Long Acre that will take him while I find an aide to help me and have someone make the house handicap-accessible.”
“Oh… well, that’s close.” Long Acre was the town between Island Harbor, where Luna lived now, and Little Beach, where Luna had grown up. Luna shuddered, thinking about her old house, where Loreena still lived. It was not a warm and fuzzy atmosphere.
“I’ll have trouble getting there when it snows,” Loreena said. Leave it to her to focus on the worst-case scenario. Luna started to say something reassuring, but why bother? Loreena looked for misery in any situation.
After a few seconds of silence, Loreena asked, “Are you planning on visiting your father again?”
Luna wasn’t planning on anything, really. She was trying to stay in the moment, like Dr. Gold had advised. Unfortunately, it proved easier to avoid stress over what was coming up than to block out the past. She was prone to flashback, maybe because she was a writer, or maybe that was one of the things that had made her a writer. Everywhere there were connections to things that had happened before. And triggers, shooting her back in time.
So here she was, ricocheting again…Back in her father’s car.
Twenty-five years earlier
She saw her father about once a month. He’d pick her up from the barge in Brooklyn – she served Oreos and coffee at the concerts – and give her a ride home. She imagined this alleviated his guilt for being a beyond-sucky dad. Getting the ride didn’t change her feelings toward him. She just preferred the car to taking the Long Island Rail Road at night. Plus, he always gave her money.
Lenny waited outside for Luna, even though Zelda was his sister.
She got into her father’s blue Buick and yanked the door closed. Something was the matter with that door. You had to pull it hard to get it closed, and bump your body against it to get it open. Inside was a cigarette odor, unsuccessfully masked by the air freshener hanging from the rear view mirror. That smoggy, choky feeling lingered no matter how many little cardboard trees he strung. At her feet lay empty coffee containers with the lid tabs bent back.
“Hey, Kiddo,” her father said. He always said that. His chestnut brown hair – same color as hers – was slicked back, with a few strands hanging loose. His face resembled James Earl Jones’, except it was white.
“Hi,” she said. She couldn’t even bring herself to call him ‘Dad’ anymore. He was just this once-a-month driver.
The car was running and the heat was on, even though it was summer. She wanted to unroll the window, but it was broken.
“What’s up?”
“Nothing.”
“How’s Zelda?”
Why don’t you go in and ask her yourself? “Fine.”
He backed up and turned around, heading up the street.
“Can you stop somewhere for tea?” she asked. Once in a while she drank tea, when she felt a little achy. People said it was soothing. It hadn’t worked for her yet, but in an attempt to do something proactive, she kept trying.
“Sure.”
He pulled up to a deli and handed Luna two bucks. She bumped the door open, went inside and returned a few minutes later with a Styrofoam cup in hand.
Her father frowned. “Is there lemon in there?”
“Yeah…”
“Please don’t drink that, Luna. I heard that the acid from the lemon juice eats into walls of the cup, and you actually ingest it.”
“You’re kidding.” The man abandons me and worries about a lemon.
“No, it’s true.”
She stared at him.
“Please pour it out.”
Rolling her eyes, she bumped the door and leaned over the street. The tea’s plastic cover squeaked as she opened it, like it was complaining about how stupid this was. She dumped it at the curb. Steam rose from the gutter. The offending rind lay in a puddle, tangled with the bag.
Luna slammed the door closed. “Okay¸let’s go.”
No sense starting a Revolution over tea again.
She didn’t even like it. It tasted like nothing. Watery nothing. You had to add lemon to get any flavor at all.
She should’ve gotten coffee. But she wasn’t going to ask for it now.
If she were to say anything to this man next to her, it would be something like, “Why didn’t you save me from my mother? You knew she was nuts.” But she didn’t want to get into that. She was afraid of the answer.
Lenny headed onto the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway.
Luna stared at the lamps illuminating the road. Easier than looking at him. The tires grooved on the pavement, except when they hit potholes. Passing cars swooshed by. Lenny was a right-lane driver.
He was breathing pretty heavy. It sounded like he was gulping down air.
Is he on heroin now?
Wouldn’t he have to be, in order to function?
He’d be all sweaty and crazy if he needed a fix.
God, she wished she didn’t know this about him…
Especially that he was a dealer.
Are there drugs in the car?
Near Kennedy Airport, the quiet was broken.
Sirens blared.
Red and blue strobe lights flashed behind them.
Had the police read her mind?
Oh my god, they’re going to arrest him in front of me! Luna’s pulse pounded. What will they do with me? How will I get home?
Lenny seemed unaffected. He kept driving.
“Pull over!” a voice on speaker from the police car thundered.
She was having a heart attack.
No, worse.
Her heart was extracting itself from her chest, just yanking its way out.
“Alright, alright. Keep your shirt on,” Lenny said. He inched over to the side.
Luna wanted to ask him, “What now, Dad? What will we do? What will I do?”
She wanted to tell him she was terrified.
But before she could get the words out, the police car zoomed by.
It had only wanted to pass them.
“What a fathead,” said Lenny.
When they reached her house about a half hour later, Luna was still quivering. Lenny was clueless about Luna’s state.
He pulled money from his pocket. A twenty and a ten, folded together. Thirty bucks. What he always gave her at the end of the ride.
But before he could hand it over, Loreena appeared at the side of Luna’s door. She was wearing a hair net, a rainbow tie-dyed sweatshirt she’d bought at
a thrift shop, and her angry face.
She wrenched Luna’s door open. “You get her drunk again, Lenny?”
“Babe, that was years ago. Can’t you let it go?”
When Luna was about four, Lenny had given her a sip of his beer. She’d loved it – so much that she chanted for it whenever she saw him. “Beer, beer, beer!”
They were in a convenience store once, and she’d spotted the Budweiser logo. “Beer! Beer! Beer!”
“Pipe it down, Kiddo,” he told her in a hushed voice. “You’re gonna get me in trouble.”
“Beer! Beer! Beer!’ she’d proclaimed, tugging on Lenny’s leg.
“Shhhh! I’ll get you the beer, but you gotta be quiet,” he said.
And he did buy her a beer, which she’d chugged. “Easy, easy!” Lenny exclaimed, tilting the bottle before she drained it. “You’ve gotta learn how to sip, Kiddo. Hope you don’t throw up all over your mom’s newspapers when we get home.”
She hadn’t puked. But she had burped loudly in Loreena’s face – a big, smelly¸ hops-filled belch.
“She’s drunk!” Loreena screeched.
Lenny shrugged. “Sorry, Babe.”
He’d limped down the driveway at a pretty fast pace and gotten in his car. Loreena leaned against the open screen door, shouting obscenities at her retreating husband. She couldn’t go out after him. Her favorite show, All in the Family, was starting. The opening music drifted from the little black-and-white kitchen TV.
Luna slipped past her mother and stumbled down the driveway. “Why are you leaving, Daddy?” she asked in a slurred voice.
“See you, Kiddo,” he’d said. “Gotta go.”
Now he said, “Jeez, she’s not drunk, Loreena. Smell her breath.”
“Yeah, he wouldn’t even let me have tea with lemon,” Luna interjected. She wished she didn’t have to inhale Loreena’s heated, hating breath. It was laced with sardines – a dinner favorite of hers.
Loreena ranted on. When she was in this mood, no one was right but her. Ever.
“Sorry, Babe,” Lenny said with a shrug. He extended the money toward Luna. “See you, Kiddo. Gotta go.”
“Yeah, see you.” Thanks for leaving me with a raving lunatic. To Loreena she said, “Can I get out, please?” Loreena stepped up to the curb, into the patch of green spiky-leafed things growing in front of the sidewalk. She called them plants, but they looked like weeds. Loreena favored them because they didn’t have to be mowed.
Luna Rising Page 8