Click!
Trip showed up around midnight.
He gave her a puckerless kiss and tramped inside with a cardboard box.
“A gift for me?” she asked.
He laughed and pulled off the Marlboro ski cap he wore far too often, even though he didn’t smoke. During his DJ years, he’d combed the club’s parking lot for discarded cigarette packs so he could get free merchandise. He owned a Marlboro windbreaker and Marlboro luggage, too.
Then he took off his Jets jacket, which he’d gotten practically for free at Goodwill.
He wore a tattered sweatshirt and jeans so grungy even Tide couldn’t save them.
“So what’s in the box?” she asked.
“A costume,” he said. “I found it in a dumpster outside a Halloween shop today. I don’t know why they threw it away.”
There was a noise from the stairs.
Dylan was attempting to sneak down, but the creaking wood had thwarted him. “I can’t believe you’re not sleeping!” Luna fumed. “What’s the matter?”
“I wanted to see your boyfriend,” Dylan said. “He’s as hard to catch as Santa.”
That was true. All these months, and Trip and the kids had never crossed paths. “Okay… Say hi to Trip.”
Dylan looked at Trip, but said nothing.
Trip said, “Dude.”
Dylan continued to eye Trip. “Mom, could you come in the laundry room? We need to talk.”
Luna followed him. Dylan slammed the door to the tiny room, which smelled like detergent and fabric softener. There were more piles of laundry around then she cared to confront, especially at this late hour. But at least they were already clean and folded.
Luna’s problem had always been actually putting the clothes away.
Dylan told her, “You need to break up with him right now.”
“Why?”
“You didn’t tell me he was homeless.”
“He has a home—technically.” Even though it was with his parents, and even though he lived more on the road than anywhere else.
“Look at him, Mom!” Dylan motioned toward the door like it was transparent.
“What about him?”
“He’s got all those whiskers, and he’s wearing those yucky clothes…”
“They’re work clothes. He works a lot…”
“He’s a mess!” Dylan broke in. “Your boyfriend’s a hobo!”
The door opened and Trip poked his head in. “Finished talking about me yet?” he asked. “Come see my costume.” He looked at Dylan. “You’ll like it.”
Luna and Dylan followed Trip into the kitchen, where Trip unfolded the nylon fabric costume, climbed into it and zipped himself in. “It looks like a beige blob,” said Luna.
“Patience,” Trip said. “I have no batteries, so I have to use an outlet.”
He stuck the plug in the socket and began to inflate.
Luna thought maybe the tan costume was Scooby-Doo.
She thought the big round circles at the bottom were paws.
She asked Dylan, “What do you think he is?”
Dylan answered, “Stupid.”
But as they watched the cylindrical outfit grow taunt and erect, Dylan hazarded a guess. “He looks like a giant wiener.”
He was right.
Trip was a big dick.
“Oh my God,” Dylan said, when his deduction was confirmed. He looked at Luna pointedly. “I’m going to bed.”
With that, he stomped upstairs.
“May I ask why you invited my six-year-old son to watch you put on a penis costume—the first time you met him?” Luna asked Trip.
“I thought it would be funny.”
Ben slept through the whole incident.
Good for him.
There was probably no point in introducing the two. It wasn’t like either wanted to meet the other, and it was doubtful that Luna and Trip would ever have the sort of relationship where he’d have a role in her sons’ lives.
Which might have been for the best.
A few days later, Luna decided to tackle the mess Nick had left in the back room. She really wanted to start getting things together, and it was best to do it when the kids were going to their dad’s, so she didn’t have to stop and cook them dinner.
She went in with a bunch of industrial-sized garbage bags and bent down to get to work. But something happened… she stalled. She just couldn’t face dealing with all the things he’d left behind.
She sat for a while in the rubble, then finally left without picking up one thing.
Trip came over. She told him about how she’d frozen, trying to clean. He didn’t know about the back room. She’d avoided discussing it, making believe that it didn’t exist—until now, when she just couldn’t pretend anymore.
He said, “Show me.”
She led Trip to the room. They stood in the rubble.
“How did it get like this? Trip asked, kicking aside a copy of Bill O’Reilly’s Who’s Looking Out for You?
She told him.
Trip said quietly, “Don’t you wish you could treat people like they’ve treated you?”
“No,” she said. “No, I don’t.
He surveyed the room again. “Well, I guess that’s how we differ.” They differed in many ways, but Luna was in no mood to start listing them. This room gave her a migraine.
Trip patted her hand. “I can’t always be the man you want, but I can help you out here.” He squeezed into her palm. “I have garbage bags in my truck. I’ll clean this up for you and get it out of your hair.” He ruffled her hair and smiled. “You go write.”
So she did.
Luna was lost in her words when Trip came back. He knocked on the doorframe, and she jumped up.
“Sorry, I knocked so I wouldn’t scare you,” he said. “I found this in the office, buried in the rubble—and I figured it belonged to you.” He held out a purple trinket box.
“Oh my God, I didn’t know it was there.” She got up and took it from Trip’s extended hand. “My son Ben gave this to me. Thank you for noticing, and not throwing it out.”
She opened the cover, and there was a little note from Ben inside. It said, “I lov u.” She smiled. “He was so little when he wrote this.”
“Cute,” Trip said, in a deadpan voice. He pointed to a drop of glue on the cover. “The top was broken. I guess your ex stepped on it, or something. But I fixed it.”
Trip gave her a toothy smile. This was what he loved: fixing things.
Luna kissed him. He didn’t pucker back.
“I’m gonna go dump this garbage,” he said. “I’ll be back later.”
And it was much later when he returned. Past dinner, past bedtime.
Even later, when Trip was asleep, Luna rolled over and touched his sturdy back. She felt protected behind it. He was the brick house, and she was the little pig hiding from the big bad wolf.
Except, sometimes he acted like he was the big bad wolf.
Could he protect her from himself?
Trip was out of town on Thanksgiving, visiting family. Luna could understand that, but he didn’t even phone her. She typed him an email: “Are you interested in this relationship? People who care about each other talk on holidays.”
He called.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “The truth is, I’ve had this problem for years.”
“What problem?”
“Whenever I get into a highly physical relationship like ours, my emotions go right out the window.”
She was stunned. “Why didn’t you warn me?”
“I thought it would be different with you. It started out so good…” his voice trailed off.
“So what now?” she asked.
“I’m trying… really…”
After they hung up, Luna thought about what Trip said. She had her minor in psychology and she remembered studying the symptoms he described.
She called him back. “You have the Madonna Complex.”
“As in ‘Like a V
irgin’?”
“Kind of.” She struggled to recall the reasons behind the complex. “Did you have an over-protective mother?”
“Nah. She didn’t give a shit.”
“Hmmm… I’ll check into it more…”
She hung up and Googled the name. Turned out she’d only gotten it partially right. It was the Madonna-Whore Complex.
Figures I leave out the whore… I am the whore, she thought.
You’ve got to admit, it’s funny, said Jiminy.
“Jiminy! Where have you been?”
I’ve been trying to let you find your own way. And here you are, lost again.
“I’m trying to figure out what’s wrong with Trip.”
How about figuring out what’s wrong with this picture?
But Luna wasn’t listening—she was reading. According to Wikipedia, a man with this complex separated women he could have a fulfilling sexual relationship with from women he could love.
It turned out, a “cold and distant mother” was a cause.
She called Trip back with this new information.
He said, “Wow. That stinks. Guess I’m screwed.”
“No, you’re not,” said Luna. “Now that you know what your problem is, you can get help.”
“Right.” But he didn’t sound convinced at all.
“This could work out for us.”
“Sure.” Then he said, “You wanna be the Madonna, don’t you.”
Not particularly. “I don’t think I could be that immaculate,” she confessed.
But Trip made no effort to seek therapy. “I have to work,” he told her when she brought it up a couple of weeks later, during an Elementary commercial break.
There was no room for discussion.
The show was back on.
FORTY-ONE
Then came Christmas.
Those gloves were a real ho, ho, ho.
True, he’d returned from his car with a steamy “real” gift: a Victoria’s Secret satin and lace babydoll. That fogged her brain so much that she forgot all about her misgivings and hurt. It was all she could do to slip it on before she jumped him. But once Trip had delivered the goods and was snoring away, she realized the cold reality of the babydoll. It screamed “lust,” not “love.” Like Trip, it made her feel cheap in the aftermath.
When Luna woke up the next morning beside Trip, she kind of wanted to stab him with the scissors on her desk.
No, you don’t, said Jiminy. You’ll miss your kids, and prison coffee sucks.
“I hate him.”
“Zzznmpfff… ,” Trip snored.
Then wake him up and throw him out, said Jiminy.
“I can’t.”
Why not?
“I love him.”
Therein lies the rub.
“What now?”
Tell him you love him.
“I told him last night.” Right there, in the middle of making half-love, it’d come bursting from her mouth. She hadn’t even known she was going to say it, until it was out. Exposed.
Trip had said nothing in return. Not even, “Thank you.”
Tell him again.
“What’s the point?”
Are you still questioning me, after all we’ve been through?
“Oh, fine.”
Luna gazed at Trip’s closed eyes. “I love you.”
“Zzznmpfff… ,” Trip snored.
“Happy now?” Luna asked Jiminy.
Well, it was more than he said last night.
“You think this is amusing, don’t you?”
Maybe you think it’s amusing… since I’m a part of you.
That was a bit much. “I need coffee.”
Lucky you’re not in prison.
“I guess I am.” She glanced at Trip, who snored on. She pushed off her covers.
Remember what day this is?
How could she forget, after the night she’d had? “It’s the day after Christmas.”
What else?
She thought.
“Oh, fuck.”
It was her father’s birthday. And that meant it was a year since she’d seen him.
Then she shrugged. Whatever. She’d celebrate Lenny’s birthday the way he’d celebrated all of her birthdays—without so much as a phone call.
“Why should I go see him, Jiminy? Last time I got nothing out of the visit, just like you predicted. What’s the point?”
It’s not what you’re going to get out of him, it’s what you need to face in yourself.
“That doesn’t sound too appealing.”
Jiminy’s voice rang harsh in her head then¸ so loud that it stopped her cold: It’s time to deal with your life, Luna…
“I don’t want to.”
But Jiminy was gone. He’d made his point, leaving Luna to face what she had to do next.
“ZzzfffclmpACK!” Trip snored.
She couldn’t agree with him more.
Blue Skies Extended Care Facility was a town away from Luna’s—a two-minute drive once she crossed the Long Acre Bridge. But it might as well have been an ocean away.
She thought about her last visit, with Ben and Dylan. It had been confusing for the kids and upsetting for her. And what was going on in Lenny’s stroked-out brain, anyway? He probably didn’t even understand who they were.
That’s what she told herself.
She was going to see him now, like Jiminy obviously wanted. But she wasn’t armed with birthday wishes.
Today, Lenny Lampanelli would hear what he’d done to his only child.
Snow started falling just as Luna’s minivan tires met the metal grid in the center of the bridge. Fat flakes splatting against her windshield, like kamikazes dropping from the sky and crash-landing. They were so big that she could see their individual patterns in the seconds before the wiper blades obliterated them. The air in the van smelled sweet, lilac-coated by the air freshener dangling from the radio knob. She’d turned the music off. It clashed too much with the din in her head. Beneath her, under the floor littered with hardened corn-muffin crumbs, the tires grooved their metallic murmur—a soundtrack for the flakes’ demise.
Memories flurried through Luna’s mind.
Lacey, spiky.
Unlike the snow, unbreakable.
Why can’t you pick the things that last?
She remembered crossing the 59th Street Bridge with her parents. A rare appearance by Dad. They were in a little Fiat, driving down the long, winding exit ramp into Queens. The small backseat felt massive to her. She was tiny, shrunken into upholstery, watching the rhythmic flashing of the outside lampposts flickering reflections on her lap. Then she noticed something across the divider – a deflated red balloon. Only a flash, then they were past it. Her dad had said: “This kid, she doesn’t miss a thing.”
She wished she did miss things.
She wished she could shut down and rest.
She wished she couldn’t recall the hurt… that she couldn’t remember missing him.
Swoosh—more snowflakes met their maker. Was there a snowflake heaven?
All she’d ever wanted was in that moment with her parents.
The three of them, together.
The van’s tires hummed on the bridge like a choir of monks.
She was crying. Damn it. She reached for one of the napkins wedged next to the seat belt buckle. If she couldn’t wipe out her thoughts, at least she could cut off her tears. There was some small victory in that.
You have to let go, said Jiminy.
“Leave me alone. Unless you’d like me to drive off the side of this bridge.” She couldn’t take much more, between last night and now.
Let go, he repeated. Let go or be dragged.
“Dragged by the Fiat?”
Yes, said Jiminy. Sort of. You’ll get it eventually… Or it’ll get you.
Just what she needed. A vague, ominous warning. Coupled with that word she loved so much. “Eventually” sounded like something they’d say in hell. “Thanks a lot.”
She was off the bridge now, passing McDonald’s golden arches, the first landmark in Long Acre—a fast-food beacon through the snow. She didn’t eat anything fried, but they did brew a mean cup of coffee. Much better than that fancy stuff in some other places that could burn a hole in your esophagus. A humongous Mack truck idled in their lot, delivering supplies. The side of the truck said: Merge at taste and quality.
She thought of Trip.
That motherfucker.
Where was his taste and quality?
Where was hers?
She’d wanted a daddy to take care of her back when she was a kid, and she wanted a man to take care of her now. Trip had presented himself as that man, and she’d clung to the relationship past all reason.
Now she felt like she was losing all reason.
She was around the corner of her father’s street now. By Starbucks. Where she and Trip had met last August. Starbucks served that hole-in-your-esophagus coffee that felt like some first dates, but her meeting with Trip hadn’t been gut-wrenching at all.
He’d texted her a little while ago about the basket full of treats she’d made for him: U want 2 make me fat so no other women will look at me.
She wrote back: Yes, that’s my plan. I love to sleep with fat guys.
Trip didn’t thank her for the basket.
Now, she had that burning-esophagus feeling. Who knew it you could get it four months later?
Her engine was off.
She was there.
Parked outside Blue Skies, where her dad sat parked inside.
This was his fault, all this groveling for love—and she was going to tell him so. Fuck him and his birthday. Was he ever there for hers?
Her hand grappled at the door handle, but she didn’t open it. Instead, she wrapped her palms around her steering wheel, gripped, and prayed.
She said, “ Please. God. Help me say the right thing.”
Breathe in, breathe out. Rule number one.
She took a gulp of the water she kept in her van—rule number two—then climbed out. Door slam, lock click, footsteps crunching through the flakes settled on the street, the sidewalk, and the ramp leading inside.
All along the way, she tried to embrace rule number three. But it was a doozy.
Luna Rising Page 27