“Suit yourself,” he said. “But I’m gonna push you extra hard on the bags now.”
That suited Luna just fine.
THIRTY-SIX
August already! The spring and half the summer had flown by, along with Luna’s 39th birthday. She was determined to find her way to happiness, but taking care of the house was a psychological strain. Every detail was daunting, and it was one thing after the next.
First, it was the air conditioners. She’d carted them from the shed and heaved them upstairs. One for her room, one for the boys. She could’ve hired a handyman – or even asked Joe to come help – but she’d wanted to do it herself. How hard could it be, to put in air conditioners? She took boxing lessons, for Christ’s sake (or, as Sunny would say, Christ in long johns with fuzzy slippers!). She could do it! She could install the air conditioners and show her sons the meaning of independence! But the problem was not carrying the units. It was the moment of installation, when she had to let go for one breathless second and trust that the teetering mechanisms would stay in place and not crash to the ground. The problem was that no matter how much boxing she took, how much self-help work she did, how solid she felt when she was with Sunny—still, there were moments like this when there was no control, and things could easily waver and fall two stories, and there was nothing she could do. She managed to hold in her hysteria in front of Ben and Dylan, but as soon as she got their unit balanced (as well as she could ascertain, because the hanging in a window part seemed precarious now) and humming, she headed down the creaking stairs and outside, slamming the screen door with the big rip in it behind her, and let it all loose. She wanted to feel the victory in having installed the air conditioners without dropping them, but all she could do was quiver with anxiety for whatever unforeseen task was coming, because there was never an end to them.
The bees came next.
There were bees nesting in a Hefty bag amongst clothes Nick had left behind.
She’d dumped the bag onto the second floor deck while cleaning her bedroom in March and forgotten about it – until the day in late June when she glanced up from her lawn to see Nick’s tube socks and tighty-whiteys spilling out over the deck’s edge, out of the overturned bag. Sensing that the neighbors might not like this, she went to retrieve the apparel and dispose of the bag. That’s when she discovered the bees, which, understandably, didn’t like being stirred, and swarmed out in protest. Ben, who’d been watching from the window, was afraid of them. He yelled out, “Bees!” and slammed the window closed, leaving Luna outside with them. She’d yanked the window back open and lunged inside, bringing several uninvited guests with her. It took an hour to coax them out again. A couple of days later, she and Sunny did a sneak attack, hoisting the bag over the railing before the bees knew what was happening. Luna and Sunny high-fived each other and stared down at the burst of clothing, only to have to hightail it away when a bee flew back up at them.
Then the washing machine rinse hose had the audacity to burst, after she’d so carefully connected it. She’d burst too, sinking onto the toilet and crying. Eyeing the water pooling on the floor, Dylan had asked, “Mommy, are those all your tears?”
Luckily Sears repairmen came quickly.
The worst thing was the office – untouched since Nick had dumped everything and left. She could never deal with it, nor could she pay someone else to – not only out of embarrassment, but also because there just might be something she wanted to keep buried in that rubble. Whenever she worked up the courage to try and face the mess, her hand trembled when she touched the doorknob and she walked away without so much as twisting it. She convinced herself it didn’t matter – she didn’t need an office. She wrote at the kitchen table, or on the deck in the summer.
She told herself she’d take care of it when she was ready – and she hoped one day she would be.
Luna also worried that she had scarred the boys with the divorce.
They seemed to be taking it okay. Nick was doing the single dad thing remarkably well. When they were with him, he cooked dinner every night and watched movies with them.
Still, they were a fractured family.
In the fall there would be a full schedule again: classes, tests and clubs for the kids, PTA and soccer mom duties for Luna.
She decided to take the kids away, before the return of their obligations.
She picked Boston. Not too far to drive to, and she knew the general layout of the place.
Within two days of her impulse, they were on their way.
They were playing a license plate game on the highway when the Fung Wah drove up, two lanes across from them. It was a bus with daily rides between Chinatown in Manhattan and Boston.
“We could’ve taken the Fung Wah!” Luna exclaimed.
Ah, well, this way we get to go at our own pace, she reflected.
And apparently their pace was a lot quicker than the Fung Wah’s. They exited for gas. They stopped at a rest stop for a bathroom break and ice cream. Then they got off again when Luna spotted a Dunkin Donuts sign and couldn’t resist her Pavlovian craving for coffee. When they resumed their ride, the Fung Wah bus was behind them.
“I can’t believe it! How slow is that thing? We stopped like a billion times!” Ben exclaimed.
“Let’s race the bus,” said Dylan.
“I don’t know, guys,” said Luna.
But the kids were adamant. They expected total victory in this unexpected contest with the Fung Wah to Boston.
“Hurry, Mommy,” Dylan implored.
“Go, go, go,” urged Ben.
“I’m doing my best!” Luna announced to her two backseat drivers.
The Fung Wah bus was on their heels. It changed lanes and picked up speed.
It was next to them now, engines revving.
“C’mon, Mom!” the boys cheered in unison.
Flooring it, Luna put a good, final space between them and the bus.
“Ha! That’s right, Ma. Shift into nitro!” Ben was triumphant. “What now, Fung Wah? What now?”
That was the last they saw of the Fung Wah.
In the wake of their triumph, the kids were both quiet, curled up in their seats and reading books. The only sounds came from outside – tires against highway pavement, wind against windows. Dylan had Gus, Luna’s old stuffed walrus, tucked next to him with his fins crossed. Luna had found Gus in the closet recently – the poor creature had a piece of his left tusk missing, but otherwise he’d survived the years unscathed – and she’d introduced him to Dylan. Now, they were inseparable.
Ben was reading his daily ten-page installment of My Brother Sam Is Dead. He paced himself so he’d never have to rush. He was almost done, and ready to write the report he had to hand in the first day of school.
Luna glanced in her rearview mirror at her two boys.
She was so lucky.
That’s what she needed to remember always.
Now you’ve got the right idea, said Jiminy.
Luna pulled the van up to the old-fashioned inn she’d booked a family suite in. There was a kitchen, which Luna loved because she could cook some meals and save money, and even more because she could have her morning coffee the moment she woke up.
None of this impressed the boys, who were appalled that there was no pool. The way Ben and Dylan reacted, it was as though they’d been told they had to sleep hanging from nails in the closet.
Luna laughed, and apologized that she’d caused them dismay.
Next time, she promised them, they’d hit a chain hotel.
Over the next three days Luna and the kids explored Boston. Then they branched out, visiting the battleground in Lexington. From there it was a few minutes into Concord, where Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau had lived.
Emerson and Thoreau were philosophy’s rat pack.
Luna loved Emerson’s great dictate: “What lies before us and what lies behind us are small matters compared to that which lies within us.”
Emerson ha
d been a Unitarian Universalist minister and his words tended to have that ‘almighty’ feel.
Thoreau had written a passage which had helped Luna get through her awkward, lonely teen years: “If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music he hears, however measured or far away.”
Thoreau was the renegade of the pair.
First, Luna and the boys toured Emerson’s house. Then they headed up to Walden Pond, where Thoreau had lived in a cabin.
It was hard to say why she loved Walden Pond at first sight. She’d seen light glisten on water before – she saw it every day, actually, at home – and maybe the familiarity had something to do with it. Still, she’d been around water and nature in other places which had done little for her. There was something utterly perfect here, something conducive to spirit and soul which instantly struck a chord of harmony in her heart.
Maybe it was Thoreau’s ghost tickling at her, whispering, “Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify.”
Luna smiled at that thought. After all, she was simplifying her life. She’d been releasing the clutter she’d been carting around – the sorrow, the desperation, the loneliness. These were the details weighing her down, taking up precious time where she could be a mom, a writer, a happy person.
Simplicity was the key.
What would it take for her to toss every piece of garbage from her mind in one fell swoop and be free?
People were swimming, splashing around in the pond. She wondered if they were happy in any consistent way.
Did details drag them down, too?
Dylan wanted to swim. Even though they had no bathing suits or towels, she waded in with him. He was in shorts, she was in sweatpants – but it didn’t matter. They danced in the water, played a dunking game, and collected rocks to bring home.
Ben, ever the pragmatist, didn’t want to get all wet without the proper equipment. Luna told him they had clothes in the van to change into, but without a towel he was a ‘no.’ He sat on the stone bench in front of the pond and started his book report.
Stepping back onto the sand, Dylan reached down and scooped up what turned out to be a rubber band. He held it over Luna’s head, a halo. “You’re an angel, Mommy,” he said.
Luna squeezed her arms around him. “You too, baby.”
Maybe this was heaven on earth if only they’d let it be. Maybe all they had to do was see it, embrace it, accept it and let go of the rest.
Maybe it was that simple.
Just say no to hell.
Afterwards, Luna and Dylan made their dripping way back to the van and changed, and Ben basked in his dryness. In the past Luna wouldn’t have wanted to get all wet either – generally she thought of swimming as a giant nuisance – but something had made her take that plunge with Dylan. She was so glad she had.
On the highway home, Luna and the kids passed the Fung Wah bus parked at a rest stop.
They waved.
THIRTY-SEVEN
Back from vacation, Luna made a decision.
“I’m gonna try dating again,” she told Joe. They were doing pad work—jabbing, hooking, ducking, slipping and talking about love.
“Don’t do it. You ain’t ready,” he said. “Uppercuts!”
“Gee, thanks.” She drove her fists up into the pads until the bell rang.
“Rest. Hey, you want me to lie, or what?”
“Possibly.”
“What makes you all gung-ho to do this? You horny?”
“No… well, I guess maybe yes… But that’s not it. I just feel good. I’ve been living alone for nine months. I’ve been okay.”
Not exactly true… she’d nearly fallen apart every time something in the house broke down. But she wanted to concentrate on the positive. She’d survived. That was positive.
“What’s your game plan?”
“I thought I’d try CraigsList again.”
“CraigsList? Are you shitting me? That’s where you buy a table, not get a date.”
“Yesterday, I heard a guy on Howard Stern say he met someone on CraigsList. It was love at first sight.”
“That’s ridiculous. That ain’t love.” The bell rang again. He held up his right pad. “Double hook. Twist on your heel!”
Luna complied, or at least she thought she did.
“TWIST!” he hollered. “Holy shit, for months I been telling you to twist. What the fuck does it take?”
She tried again. She responded to being yelled at. “Better,” he said. “Twenty. Go!”
Luna twisted and thudded, twisted and thudded. In the background Cher crooned “If I Could Turn Back Time.”
Joe said, “It took me six or seven years to fall in love with my wife.”
Luna almost fell over mid-twist. “Really?”
“Yeah. In the beginning I would’ve told you it could never happen. But people can grow on you.”
Twist, thud, twist, thud.
Over and over, catching Joe’s steady blue eyes in-between each move.
Then he said, “Love is a consequence.”
Twist, thud¸ twist, thud. “That’s an unusual concept,” she said.
“It’s true,” he said. Then he said, “Jab, jab, double left uppercut.”
She struck the pads silently for a few moments. Consequence seemed almost a dirty word, although she didn’t know why. Maybe it was too grown up.
Luna liked the immediate.
She asked, “What about the Zen saying, ‘leap and the net will appear?’”
Joe said, “You’re mixing metaphors. Jab, jab, right, right uppercut.”
Thud, thud. “Am I?” Thud, Thud.
He laughed. “What the fuck do I know about metaphors? Sounded good, though.”
The bell rang. Joe yanked off Luna’s gloves, tossed them to the corner under the mirror, ripped the Velcro seal on her wraps and unraveled her. The wraps landed in a heap at her feet. “Let’s go,” he said.
He put a thirty-pound weight on what Luna called “the butt machine” and motioned her on. She stepped onto the platform, bent under the shoulder lift, spread her feet so they were centered, pulled the safety bar out and pushed up, lifting the weight on her shoulders.
Lift, squat. Lift, squat. The first couple were never bad. She said, “Don’t you at least believe in unconditional love?”
“The only unconditional love we have is for our kids.”
Up, down. Up, down.
By the fourth she was feeling the strain in her thighs and her rear. She felt it in her chest too, which stopped her from responding.
Up, down. Up, down.
Up, down. Up, down.
Her legs were trembling. “Jesus, Joe…” she managed.
He said, “Jesus wasn’t really sacrificing anything to die for our sins. He knew he was going to heaven. I don’t have that kind of faith.”
Up, down. Up, down.
Up, down. Up, down.
Was he even keeping count here? “I have to stop,” she told him.
“Two more.”
Up. “Uhhhh!” Down. “Uhhhh!”
Up. “Uhhhh!” Down. “Uhhhh!”
“And rest,” Joe said.
Luna slid the locking bar forward and moved out from under the shoulder rest. She wobbled down.
That’s why she paid him – she’d never push herself this far.
She leaned against the machine for support. In between recuperating huffs she said, “So you’re saying even Jesus didn’t offer unconditional love?”
“I’m saying he had nothing to lose. It was a no-brainer for him.”
Sunny didn’t like the idea of Luna dating again, either. They were having lunch at the Chinese buffet near Sunny’s job.
“Remember Mr. Ocean?” she licked at her chopstick provocatively.
“You did that pretty well.”
“Remember the old man?” Sunny stuck her left foot out of the booth and pointed her chopstick at her shoe.
“How could I forget Gumppoldskirchen?”
“Remember crackhead Alex?” She stuck a chopstick in her mouth and sucked it like a pipe.
“Ex-crackhead Alex,” Luna amended.
Sunny waved that detail away. “Remember the sadist?” She poked her chopsticks at her throat.
“Hey, I broke that off.”
Sunny jabbed a chopstick towards Luna’s private area. “Remember Date Rape Red?”
Luna hung her head. “Yes.” She stared at her bowl of hot and sour soup.
“Chicky.” Sunny’s voice softened. “I’m sorry. That wasn’t funny.”
“None of this is very amusing.”
“I hate bringing all this up, but I’m trying to talk some sense into you. You don’t have the greatest track record.”
Luna looked up now. “What should I do? Just give up completely? I’m not you, Sunny. I crave companionship.”
“I understand the concept of companionship. That’s why I have my smelly dogs.” Sunny sucked in a wad of vegetable chow mein and chewed.
“Don’t you ever want to date?”
“I dated Phil for a long time.”
“Please. You had sex with him when you were drunk. Then he kept hanging around like a lost puppy even though you swatted him away.”
Sunny was still chewing. She swallowed and asked, “What’s your point?”
“And the same thing happened with Sal. You were drunk in a bar and went home with him. The only difference is that there was an actual attraction.” Luna wasn’t eating. Thinking about those guys she’d dated had quelled her appetite, and she didn’t love the Chinese buffet anyway. The food always looked like it had been sitting too long, and the sauces were all extra gunky.
Sunny still had plenty of appetite, and she was fine with the food because there were vegetarian options. She was chewing again because she only had an hour lunch break to chow down, but she managed a “So?”
“So, have you ever gone on a legitimate first date?”
“I guess not,” Sunny answered after a sip of Coke to wash down her vegetable egg roll.
Luna Rising Page 24