Luna Rising

by Selene Castrovilla

  She was all set to yell at Lenny when she walked into his room, to really let him have it, but he had this look on his face like a dog. This big, dopey grin. Like he was so thrilled to see her, like he’d thought he’d never see her again.

  The TV above his head was playing Wheel of Fortune. The wheel was spinning. When it stopped, there was massive clapping. It had hit $5000.

  He was staring at her all happy—all that was missing to make the canine analogy complete was the tongue hanging out of the side of his mouth—sunken pathetically into that engulfing hospital bed, in those same blue pajamas because Loreena had never brought him any other clothes. The pj’s were faded and looking kind of worn. No doubt they’d endured many cycles of harsh detergent and bleach. These kinds of facilities focused on disinfecting, not fabric care. What did the nurses put him in when his pajamas were being washed? A hospital gown, Luna supposed.

  It was his birthday, and here he was all alone with not even a roommate to share the emptiness, and he deserved it, and Luna hated him—god, she hated him, sometimes she wanted to kill him, she really did—but with that dippy dog-face on him, she clammed up. There was no more use or satisfaction in being mean to him than there would have been in doing it to a dog. He wouldn’t even get it.

  She stood there at his bedside, watching Vanna White in her heels and shimmering evening gown touch letters and show off shiny teeth so she wouldn’t have to look at him. She said, “Aunt Zelda said to tell you ‘happy birthday’,” which was true. She’d phoned Zelda before leaving, to see if Zelda would be here, hoping her aunt’s presence would defuse her—but her aunt had had a bad cold and couldn’t make it.

  “Gee, th-thanks,” he said. Then he added, “H-how are you?”

  It was jarring. He’d never done that before. Not in her whole life.

  She answered, “I’m bad, Dad. I’m really bad. I’m in a messed-up relationship, and it’s the latest one in a series, and…and it all started with you.” Well, he’d asked.

  She’d been holding the plastic railing of his bed, and suddenly the warmth of his hand was on hers. Shit, she was standing by his non-paralyzed side. She didn’t like this touching at all.

  Still, she watched the game show. Like it had to do with anything.

  He said, “I’m s-sorry.”

  Lots of clapping from the crowd overhead. The puzzle was solved. But she didn’t see the answer. It was hard to watch the show now; it was all blurry. Jesus. She was crying again. Such bullshit, crying twice in one day. I need to get some sleep. It was practically impossible to rest with all that snoring.

  As for what her father had just said, she couldn’t think about that. It was like the music she’d turned off in her van. Too much.

  Luna’s tears rolled down, down. She said nothing for a while, just cried as the wheel spun again—they were onto a new puzzle, the show must go on—and tried to swallow the lump in her throat. She wanted to pull her hand away, but she couldn’t. She didn’t know why.

  “I-it’ll be o-okay,” he said.

  What did he know about okay? He’d thrown his whole life away for a needle; he’d probably die in this stupid hospital bed. Pat Sajack’s face would probably be the last one he saw. He’d thrown her away like nothing, for a fix…

  What did he know?

  “Y-you’ll s-see,” he said softly, patting at her hand. And she wanted to believe him, at the bottom of it all, but the man was more than half gone. He’d wanted to go to Mars!

  And even if he did know what he was saying, how could he mean it?

  It was way too hot in there. Sweat swept across her skin; under her coat and sweater she was drenched. She yanked her hand away, swatted at her eyes. His scent was there, on her hand. “I gotta go,” she told him, still facing away.

  And she did.

  FORTY-TWO

  Somehow, Luna managed to muddle through the week and do the parenting thing. They went to the movies a lot. The kids were entertained and Luna could escape into the dark void, if only temporarily.

  Then New Year’s came.

  Just like always, Luna and the kids were on board the barge.

  It was even harder to avoid thinking of Trip than it had been with Alex, and she kept letting the champagne bubble up too high and run over. She wanted to be like those bubbles—to rise up and be free. But she still called Trip at midnight—he was visiting his sister in Delaware—because emancipated, Luna wasn’t.

  Yet again, all circuits were busy.

  Did things ever change?

  She finally got Trip’s voice mail, but he didn’t call back until the next day. “It’s still New Year’s,” he told her. “But you’re not making it happy with all this complaining.”

  Then, Valentine’s Day.

  “I can’t take you out tomorrow,” Trip told Luna on February 13. “My mom’s getting lasik eye surgery, and I have to drive her.”

  He promised to make up for it on the weekend.

  But he arrived so late on Friday night that the only place open was the diner, featuring a haggard old man at the register who was hunched so low Luna feared he might drop before the end of their meal, and an angry waitress who slammed their plates on the table.

  Paradise was definitely lost.

  Now her birthday was coming—in four days.

  Luna and Sunny were in the parking lot shared by library system and a tabernacle church, leaning on Sunny’s car. Sunny was on a smoking break.

  Luna was not allowed inside Sunny’s office.

  No visitors could enter, not even to pee. That’s because the crazies were always spotting the word “library” on the sign and trying to get in. Recently a woman wearing three knit scarves and a puffy ski jacket, magenta lipstick veering across her jaw, had rushed in behind an employee, raced to Sunny’s desk and started grabbing. Christ in pajamas got stripped to his undies, and Sunny wrested her Angel Snot out of the woman’s hands just before the precious fluids were released. “I like this branch. It got toys,” the woman said as she was escorted outside.

  “I wonder what Trip got me for my birthday,” Luna said. She was staring at the empty church.

  “I’m picturing something red with a Marlboro logo,” said Sunny. “Is he taking you somewhere?”

  “He’s not gonna be here.” Trip wasn’t even on Long Island now—he was at a convention in Florida. Luna was picking him up at Kennedy Airport the following night, but he was flying out of town again the evening after.

  “I guess you’re stuck with us then,” said Sunny. “I’ll bring over a cake.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Don’t forget to formally invite your mom, Dude.”

  “Right.” Luna slumped a little. She kicked at a cigarette butt near her foot.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m afraid Trip’s gonna give me a thoughtless gift. I don’t think I can handle that.”

  A ruby Cadillac pulled into the lot.

  It parked in the space next to Sunny’s, even though the lot was at least two-thirds empty. A black woman in a chiffon dress matching her car and a huge round hat adorned with a tuft of feathers got out and headed for Sunny.

  “Uh-oh,” said Sunny.

  The woman shook her fist. “We don’t like smoking here!” she fumed.

  “Who is ‘we’?” Sunny asked.

  “Well… I mean ‘I,’” the woman amended.

  “I’m sure you have authority over this lot,” Sunny said. She blew a ring out.

  The woman stamped her high-heeled foot down on the yellow line dividing the parking spaces. “I am the pastor’s wife!”

  “That explains the car. It’s incredible what you can buy with those full collection plates.”

  The pastor’s wife examined Sunny’s sad Saturn, badly battered and missing its nose. “Our congregation understands that a sister needs her Cadillac.” Her clump of feathers looked like they’d been snatched off a seagull. “So, are you gonna respect our lot?”

  Sunny threw her cigarette on t
he pavement and crushed it with her sneaker. “We’ll take that under advisement.”

  “We?” The pastor’s wife eyed Luna like she was daring her to light up too.

  “Oh, I mean ‘I.’” Sunny took another cigarette out and ignited it.

  The pastor’s wife’s eyes bulged. “Hmmmpf. I’m gonna have my husband order up some ‘no smoking’ signs for this area.”

  “Say goodbye to another few hundred in donations,” Sunny said as the pastor’s wife staggered off on her stilettos, feathers flapping.

  “That was crazy,” Luna said.

  “Welcome to my life,” Sunny said with a shrug. “But, speaking of crazy, back to you. I don’t actually understand why you’re still with Trip.”

  “I keep wondering what I can do…”

  “Nothing. You can’t fix people.” Sunny inhaled the cigarette deeply. The pastor’s wife had taken the second cigarette personally, but Sunny always chain-smoked during her break. She had to get enough tobacco in her system so she wouldn’t go postal from the hours of deprivation.

  “It was the chicken that made him like this…”

  “Whatever, Dude.” Sunny had heard the chicken soup story more than once. “You’re not his shrink. Tell him to hop his sorry madonna-whorey ass on a transatlantic flight and tell it to Sigmund Freud’s cremated remains, because no one else cares.” She flicked the ashes from the tip of her cigarette. They fell to the pavement in a tiny grey heap.

  “I care,” said Luna.

  “Oh, Chicky,” said Sunny. “I know you do. And if it makes you feel any better, I’m a mess too.”

  “What’s the matter?”

  Sunny sighed. “Phil.”

  “What about him?”

  “I miss him.”

  “Excuse me? You miss the man who came to bed with a bottle of gin?”

  “Okay, it’s not actually him I miss. It’s his wallet.”

  “Are you serious?”

  Sunny nodded. “He would’ve hooked me up. That useless fuck Sal cracked out again, so there went my back child-support up in smoke, and I’m about to be evicted.” She puffed out a long trail of smoke. “I totally blew it with Phil.”

  “You didn’t blow it,” Luna said. “You saved yourself. How can you sacrifice your happiness for money?”

  “Dude—no one would’ve died.”

  “He would’ve. You would’ve killed him eventually.”

  “Well… maybe.”

  Then Sunny spilled the real truth. She’d been e-mailing The Coconut, actively seeking reconciliation.

  “How can you use The Coconut for money?” Luna said. “I’m disgusted.”

  “I am too—when other people do such things. It just doesn’t seem so bad when it’s me,” said Sunny. She threw down her cigarette and stared at the rising white wisps. “I’m not a morally bankrupt person, usually.”

  “I know.”

  Dylan came home from school with a surprise for Luna. “Mommy, I got you a birthday present at the school book fair.”

  “That’s great, sweetie. I can’t wait to see it.”

  “I wanna give it to you now.”

  “It’s not my birthday yet.”

  “I don’t care.” He reached into his backpack and dragged out a plump white stuffed chicken by its neck. “Isn’t he cute? I spent two weeks’ allowance on him.”

  “I love him,” said Luna. She gave the chicken a hug, and then she hugged Dylan. “Thanks, baby.”

  “I didn’t have enough money to buy you the book that came with him, but I think you’re too old for it anyway. It was a counting book. You know how to count.”

  “Yes I do,” she said. I just don’t know what I can count on. “What should we name him?”

  Dylan considered the chicken. “Fred.”

  FORTY-THREE

  The following night, Trip lay face down in a pillow, his usual pose in Luna’s bed.

  Luna was in her usual pre-sex spot, straddling Trip and giving him a massage. He hadn’t pulled out any gift from his luggage; nor had he mentioned her birthday. They’d stopped for Chinese take-out on the way home from the airport, watched Law & Order: Special Victims Unit while they ate, and then gone upstairs.

  Luna stared at the chicken, Fred, perched on top of her pillow, big orange feet facing forward and wide, worried eyes staring. She thought of Trip’s poor, cooked Fred. Trip had insisted his brother was the one traumatized by eating Fred soup.

  Luna could only imagine how that brother was now.

  She could only imagine, because seven months after they’d met, Trip still hadn’t introduced her to his family.

  He hadn’t met hers either, of course, because he was rarely around. It was probably better that he hadn’t met Loreena, who was bound to be venomous, but she wanted Trip to meet Aunt Zelda.

  Luna rubbed and rubbed and rubbed, while birthday candles burned in her brain.

  Last year’s birthday had held so much promise… she was free from Nick and on the road to recovery.

  Now she was trapped in this half-relationship.

  Trapped by her own self, because Trip clearly wasn’t holding her in.

  Where was the guy from the beach? Was he buried in the sand?

  Trip finally turned over and took charge, doing those things to her that blew her mind, literally exploding all bad thoughts.

  “I love you, Trip,” she said. Those late-night words escaped from her lips every time she and Trip made half-love.

  Trip remained silent. As always.

  His eyes were closed, his lips out of reach.

  All those other times she’d told herself, It doesn’t matter.

  Tonight¸ it did.

  Trip worked his way around Luna’s body like a blind, mute auto mechanic doing a tune-up.

  Kiss me! Look at me! Luna screamed at Trip inside her head. Say you love me, too!

  She ranted the whole time Trip made half-love to her, but the words never made it out. Part of her—one lucid little shard cowering in the corner of her mind—thought, This is what it’s like to go mad.

  Then it was over.

  Luna was mentally hoarse and physically frustrated.

  Trip was snoring.

  Luna gathered Fred into her arms and squeezed. She stared at Trip’s nearly bald head and wondered why she cared about him anyway.

  To make herself not care, she tried picturing him in his Marlboro jacket.

  It didn’t work.

  Outside, the patio light from downstairs illuminated the holes in the rotting deck wood like a glowing jack-o-lantern.

  Next, she tried thinking of shitty things Trip had done to her.

  How can I love this man? she questioned herself.

  She lay there awhile, then decided to try and get the one thing she could from him: an orgasm.

  If she could have sex again, maybe she could silence the voices and enjoy it.

  She touched Trip in certain erogenous zones.

  “Stop that!” he said harshly. “I need my sleep. I have to get up early. If you’re going to be like this, take me home!” He rolled over and gave an extra-loud snore.

  Tell him to start walking, said Jiminy.

  “You know I can’t.”

  Let me ask you something, Luna: If you have a man in your bed and you’re holding a chicken for comfort, what do you need the man for?

  Luna had no answer.

  She drifted into a fitful sleep, dreaming that she was a chicken and Trip’s mother was chasing her with a hatchet, screaming, “Fair is fowl and fowl is fair!”

  Waking up again before dawn, Luna wondered if she might have been Trip’s chicken in a previous life. She was nine years younger than he was—the time sequence worked.

  She glanced over at Trip, who was curled away from her, facing the wall.

  Jiminy said, Write him a note.

  She didn’t want to, and yet she also did.

  Oh, just do it, said Jiminy.

  She sat at her desk and started up her laptop. Outside, the wi
nd billowed in and out of the spaces between the glass slats in her deck doors. It used to whip through the room, until Luna had sealed a plastic covering around the frames. The temperature stayed warm now, but the plastic made an annoying swishing sound as it expanded and contracted. Trip had promised to fix the drafts so that she didn’t need the plastic—but that was just something else he never got to.

  Like telling her he loved her.

  The wind pummeled the tree next to the dock. All of the tree’s normally droopy leaves were raised, like they were giving her the finger en masse.

  But at least the sun was on its way.

  She started to type:

  Dear Trip,

  This isn’t working for me.

  Try as I may, you won’t let me in. And more than that, you won’t give me the affection I deserve.

  I don’t feel like you care.

  I gave you so many chances, Trip. I wanted this to work, but I can’t succeed alone. It takes two.

  I’m sorry,

  Luna

  Finished, she printed it.

  It was after nine when Trip awoke.

  So much for getting up early.

  He did whatever suited him at that moment and had no game plan past that.

  The note was folded inside Luna’s purse. She was going to give it to him when she dropped him off.

  Part of Luna wanted to talk to him—to tell him how she felt instead of handing him the note—but he was rushing around zipping up his pants and gathering all his scattered things. She knew he wouldn’t respond well to any attempts at conversation.

  And there was also the fact that she was a chicken.

  It had snowed in the hours between dawn and nine. Everything outside was white, as if it had all been sugar-coated.

  The roads were slippery and Luna drove slowly. Trip was on the phone with one of his clients.

  They inched along the normally twenty-minute route to Trip’s parents’ house. Trip was chatting it up with his client about plans for their project; Luna was a silent mix of resolution and squirm.

  Half-way there, Trip finally got off his phone. They were passing a church sign that said: “Forgive your enemies. It messes with their minds.”