Luna Rising

by Selene Castrovilla

  The rabbit was burrowing furiously, and she couldn’t help but climb. And for a few glorious seconds she peaked – and then she burst into tears. Her rabbit slipped out and onto the bed, and there it was – a writhing, rubbery mechanism with pointed ears. This x-rated Easter bunny meant nothing, cared nothing. It just obeyed. Where was the joy in that?

  Oh God. Was she doomed to battery-operated orgasms for the rest of her life?

  No time for wallowing. She had to safely stow the rabbit under the bed. She tucked it back in its box and shoved it way deep – in case Dylan decided look under there for some reason. She didn’t want him asking what this toy was for.

  She swiped at her eyes a few times for good measure, woke up the kids and fed them breakfast. When they left the house to head to school, she grabbed up her laptop so she could work on her social media book-promoting in public. She needed to be around people so she wouldn’t fall down the rabbit-hole again – literally. It wouldn’t do to alternately vibrate and cry all day. Work needed to be done.

  There were two nearby diners. One had great coffee, but the other had wi-fi. She sacrificed the better java for the connectivity.

  The gum-cracking waitress, who was a ringer for Linda Lavin’s character Alice, took Luna’s order for pancakes and coffee, and Luna turned on her computer to get down to business. But the screen said “unable to connect” when she tried to get online. Alice came back and Luna asked if there was a problem with the internet. Alice replied, “You might say that. A busboy got fired for going on the computer and looking at porn. On his way out he took all the wi-fi equipment and tossed it into the soup of the day. Modem minestrone, coming right up!” Alice grinned and gave her gum a good crack. “Gotta admit, it was kind of a funny thing to do.”

  “Rats,” said Luna. “Now my goose is cooked.”

  “That’s not as good as my modem joke, and it doesn’t really work because it’s not a soup reference,” Alice said.

  “I wasn’t going for humor. I’m dismayed. I have work to do!”

  “Oh, relax,” Alice chided. “Drink your coffee and read the paper.”

  “I don’t have a paper,” Luna pointed out. She would’ve added that she didn’t want a paper – that she couldn’t stand reading about the world’s troubles, that truly no news was good news, and furthermore, she could still write something on her computer because she didn’t needed internet for Word – but Alice had already snatched up the one from the table next to Luna’s booth, where a man was just standing to leave. “You’re done with this, right?” she asked him. Before he could respond she’d plopped Newsday in front of Luna. “Problem solved. Cha-ching!”

  Luna looked past her at the balding, paunchy, previous possessor of the paper, who shrugged and walked away.

  “Um, thanks,” Luna told Alice. She didn’t have the heart to not read it now.

  “No problem, babe,” Alice said. “I’ll be right back with your food.”

  Pondering how freely the term “babe” was bandied about, Luna flipped past the front pages of devastation and woe to Part II. The inner section of Newsday was a benign sanctum.

  Or so she thought. But today’s cover featured a pile of bodies. Luna gasped, and nearly dropped her coffee. Was is a mass killing in some militant country? A cult suicide? She shoved the paper to the corner of the table, but her grim thoughts about humanity wouldn’t be pushed aside.

  Oh, calm down, Jiminy piped in. You’re going to give yourself a nervous breakdown. Take another look. Those people aren’t dead.

  Luna pulled the paper back over. It was true. The story was about something called snuggle parties. These people were lying together, cuddling in something called a puppy pile. They seemed so content – so peaceful.

  Oh, wow.

  There were people who felt like she did. Other people wanted to be touched.

  She wasn’t alone after all.

  Before she even read the whole article, she knew she had to go…

  Soon.

  Luna’s steaming pancakes arrived, and she dug into them while she read the article. When she’d finished, she thanked Alice profusely for the paper and tipped her extra well. Then she went home and went on the internet. She still had that social media work to do for her book, but first she Googled the snuggle parties and got the information. They were in Manhattan.

  So close!

  She made a reservation for the Saturday night party.

  Luna was so caught up thinking about snuggling that when her phone rang and she saw it was Nick, she didn’t even mind.

  “I’m gonna be sharing Sal’s basement for now,” Nick growled—or maybe it wasn’t actually meant to be a growl. His gravelly voice put all his words in the worst light possible. “I took the day off tomorrow to get my stuff. Make sure you’re there to let me in.”

  “Okay,” she said, still distracted by her thoughts.

  The phone made a beep, signaling that the call had ended. It was only then that Luna realized that Nick was going to be wreaking havoc on the day of her book launch. Talking about raining on a parade.

  Any parade that leads Nick permanently out of your house is cause for celebration, Luna. Your launch will be fine. Try worrying about you, Jiminy counseled.

  Luna looked back at the pile of serene people. She wanted serenity, too. And serenity started with a completely Nick-free home. “Okay,” she agreed.

  Luna’s head churned with so many contrary thoughts, and she still hadn’t done any social media work. She needed to spill all her news out so she could focus on tweeting. Sunny was at work, but if she left her a message Sunny would call back when she could. Sunny was that kind of friend.

  “Dude,” Sunny said. “I’m on a break. What’s up?” She made a sucking noise, clearly inhaling from a cigarette.

  “Oh, a lot!” Luna first told her about Nick coming for his stuff.

  “That’s rocking good news!” Sunny said. “You’ll be rid of his shit—and him, for good!”

  “I know, but still… .”

  “I get it. I’m out of sick days, but if you want I’ll skip work and come be your bodyguard.”

  That was tempting, but Sunny couldn’t afford to lose anything from her paycheck. “No, that’s okay. I’ll manage. But could you pick the kids up from school and take them to your house? In case he’s still here.” Sunny worked from seven to three, and she picked up Layne and Phoebe from school anyway.

  “No problem. Ka-chow!”

  “I have good news, too,” Luna told her.

  “Thank the Baby Jesus! So, spill.”

  Luna blurted out the story of how she’d discovered the snuggle parties. There was a long pause at the other end, punctuated by another sucking sound.

  “Christ in a yarmulke!” Sunny exclaimed. “You want to touch a bunch of sketchy strangers?”

  “Yes.”

  “Dude, you need to talk to a therapist.”

  “I’m done with therapy. Remember the across-the-room stutterer?”

  “Then talk to your chiropractor.”

  “I just had an adjustment. I’m not going back before the party. And anyway, my mind is made up. This feels right.”

  “Okay,” Sunny said dubiously. “But really. Cuddling people you just met? I don’t even like hugging my friends—no offense.”

  It was true, which made her slobber fests with The Coconut even more dumbfounding. But Sunny was a woman of contrasts. There was no point trying to figure her out.

  “I know it’s the place for me,” Luna said. “I don’t know about cuddling all of them—but I’d like to snuggle with at least one of them.”

  “Well then… enjoy that.” Sunny’s voice softened. “I hope you find what you’re looking for there.”

  “Thanks.” Luna stared out her window at the water’s current, moving so rapidly.

  Sunny asked, “Do you want me to take your kids for a sleepover on Saturday night?”

  “Oh, that’d be awesome!” Luna said. “And… there’s one more thing�
�� .”

  “What’s that?”

  “Would you go shopping for pajamas with me?”

  FIFTEEN

  Nick spewed all kinds of verbal abuse while he and Sal carried furniture to a U-Haul parked on the street. Luna was letting Nick take whatever he wanted—like half of the pieces to the entertainment center, which made what was left look incomplete and asymmetrical—but still he couldn’t make it easy on her.

  Nick blamed Luna for his infidelity.

  She hadn’t been a good cook, housekeeper, lover, you name it.

  On and on, he vented, while she said nothing. Sal’s insane-sounding Woody Woodpecker laugh followed each of Nick’s cutting comments. What was funny about this scene?

  “You showed no interest in decorating this house,” Nick spat out as the ottoman went bye-bye. “What kind of woman doesn’t care about where she lives?”

  Sal laughed.

  “What kind of man picks out swatches for curtains?” Luna countered, finally lured into the fight.

  Sal laughed.

  Just let it go, said Jiminy. Don’t get sucked down to his level.

  Ignoring Jiminy, Luna followed Nick and Sal out to the lawn. “You deliberated every last detail. It was the hardest you ever worked in your life, which isn’t saying much, because you hired people to do all the actual labor. You wouldn’t even pick up a paint brush.”

  Sal laughed again. Nick was red with anger. They hoisted the ottoman into the rear of the U-Haul.

  Luna got in Nick’s face. “And I paid the bills.”

  Sal started to laugh, but Nick shot him a murderous look and Sal sucked it back. They headed into the house for more things.

  What Nick didn’t want, he dumped. The bedroom floor was littered with his old clothes that no longer fit. The living room had a pile of partially-burnt candles and keepsakes accumulated through the years—all surrounding the Christmas tree, which actually looked great now that it was decorated. Maybe that was another thing that set Nick off – the fact that there was going to be a family Christmas in this house without and despite him. It turned out that what made a tree special was not its height or it girth – it was the spirit put into trimming it. Luna had let the boys put the ornaments wherever they wanted, and they’d strung garlands all around it as well. Perched on top was a cowboy hat they’d elected to use in lieu of a star or angel. Yee-ha! Luna thought of her boys’ beaming faces as they’d admired their work. She had to keep them in her mind. These were the things that counted.

  But it was hard to retain happy thoughts when she headed into the office and faced that floor, the worst victim of Hurricane Nick: a sea of magazines and books and assorted paraphernalia had been tossed from the desktop and bookcases to the floor so Nick could take the furniture away. The rubble was knee-high—and it had been Nick who had accumulated all this clutter to begin with! His message of contempt and hate was so palpable that she felt it clogging her throat. God, she’d been married to this man. She’d borne his children… .

  Happy release day to me.

  But it was a happy moment, a double release—Luna kept telling herself that, even as she quivered—from Nick’s abrasive tone, from her fear of what came next in her life. Nick may have been jerky, but at least he had been there. There was something terrible about being free.

  How will I go it alone?

  Don’t ask questions; just go, said Jiminy.

  But… where am I going?

  Up to you. But the great thing is, you don’t have to decide now. You just have to keep moving, shake everything off. Your soul needs exercise just like your body does.

  Nick and Sal were heading through the kitchen with boxes. Sal went out the door first. Nick paused, and motioned toward the purple tiffany lamp hanging above the table. “You had to have that lamp. You’re a control freak.”

  Luna could’ve pointed out the incongruity between that statement and Nick’s earlier claim that she’d been uninterested. Instead she said, “Okay, I insisted on a lamp, and you had sex with men. Touché.”

  “You’re such an asshole,” Nick said.

  “Hey, you’re the bottom, not me,” she said. Another lovely tidbit of information she’d gotten from the computer. He was taking that, too. Not that she wanted the sticky-keyed, gay-porn-infested machine. She probably needed to sterilize that whole room.

  Nick shut up. Luna doubted he wanted his cousin hearing anything about his secret life. It had to stink, living a lie. But it was no longer Luna’s problem.

  Hallelujah, said Jiminy.

  Nick and Sal finally finished and drove off. Luna sat in the quiet. Her quiet. She stared out the living room window and spotted the egret she often watched while she was musing for the perfect word. As usual, he plodded along the shoreline on his search for nourishment.

  What a slow process, she thought – not for the first time. She wondered how he could bear such painstakingly slow movements.

  She forced herself away from the scene, to face her interior. After all, Sunny and the kids would be there in a couple of hours.

  I should clean.

  But where should she start?

  She spotted her wedding album in the living room rubble and picked it up.

  It was grey faux-leather with bulky gold-rimmed pages.

  It smelled stale, and its surface felt craggy—covered with intersecting lines like someone’s palm.

  Luna stared at the cover, embossed with the words: “Our Wedding. Luna and Nick.” She opened it.

  The first pictures were of Luna getting ready. Or rather, pretending to prepare. She’d already been finished, of course. Who would pose for wedding pictures without being made up? Not even Luna.

  Then came Nick. In his tux.

  Tears sprang to Luna’s eyes. Oh, stop, she scolded herself. But it was the tux that made her cry, not Nick.

  That tuxedo was a sham—a promise that wouldn’t be kept.

  She turned a few pages.

  There they were. The happy couple. Bending under their wedding party’s human arch. Frozen forever in that entrance to marital bliss.

  Pictures really were all you had left from a wedding.

  And they were a problem when you wanted to forget about it.

  She couldn’t throw the album away, or burn it. For one thing, she looked too good in the pictures. And for another, she wanted her kids to have proof that their parents had once been happy.

  Had they been happy?

  She was going to go with ‘yes’ on that one. The path of least resistance.

  Luna flipped to the last page. The one of her and Nick waving good night.

  She remembered how faint she’d felt at the end of the evening – all that money spent, and they hadn’t had a moment to eat until later in the hotel room where they finally dug into their foil-covered take-out swan. The ninety-five-dollar serving of chicken divan, scalloped potatoes and mixed vegetables lost its allure all mushed up in Reynolds Wrap, and it didn’t taste so great cold.

  Her wedding and her marriage had two things in common: She hadn’t been able to really enjoy either one, and both had left her dizzy.

  Luna slapped the book shut and removed it from her lap.

  It was a relief to put it aside.

  Those gilded pages were ridiculously heavy.

  Here’s to lightness, said Jiminy.

  “Yoo-hoo! We hear it’s someone’s book launch day!” Sunny’s voice came from the doorway.

  “Mom, you didn’t lock the door,” Ben scolded, coming in behind Sunny. Ben was vigilant about safety and security—even more so since Nick had gone. He’d started checking the house doors and windows every night before bed.

  “Sorry, sweetie,” Luna called from the top of the stairs. She’d just stowed the wedding album in Ben’s closet.

  “Oh, and congratulations on your book, too,” Ben added sheepishly.

  “Thanks.”

  Dylan, Layne and Phoebe walked in, too. “Mommy, did Daddy come get his stuff?” Dylan asked. Luna ha
d told them last night, so they wouldn’t be surprised to see all of Nick’s things gone.

  “Yes, baby. But it’s okay. You’ll still see him. He only moved across town.”

  Dylan looked sad.

  “We’re gonna have ice cream cake after dinner,” Sunny told Dylan.

  “Yay!” Dylan said. He bounded upstairs to play.

  Everyone else stood around the pile Nick had left. There wasn’t enough room to sit, because Nick had taken the couch and left only the love seat. “Dad took our furniture?” Ben asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Why’d you let him?”

  “I just thought it would be easier, to let him take what he wanted. We’ll get new stuff,” Luna said. “It’ll be nice. A fresh start.”

  “But what will we do now?” Ben asked.

  Luna slumped. She had no answer; she was out of ideas. She didn’t want to be in charge anymore; she was tired of thinking. She really felt that her head just might explode.

  “It’s okay,” said Sunny. Her voice was extra-soothing, like a nurse on a mental ward. “We’ll use garden chairs.” She sent Layne and Phoebe to the shed.

  “I didn’t mean to upset you, Mom,” Ben said.

  “You didn’t, sweetie. It’s just… today was a bit much.”

  “I got you this card,” Ben said, handing her a purple envelope. He’d written “Mom” inside a lop-sided heart, and drawn stars all around.

  It was one of those sentiment-filled “Special Mother” happy birthday Hallmark cards Luna had always cringed at when shopping for Loreena. She couldn’t imagine giving such a warm thing to her cold mother.

  But her son had picked one out, crossing out “birth” and scrawling “book” above it. Thank goodness she’d managed to be the kind of mother who deserved a gushy Hallmark card. “I mean it, Mom,” Ben told her. “I love you.”

  “I love you, too, baby,” Luna said. They hugged.