Moondance

by Black, Karen M.

  She pinched herself to wake up. When she didn’t, she tested her newfound sensitivity from person to person like an underwater explorer. There was desire and love, like the young man, but his gentle energy was rare. More often people emanated darker emotions, hidden intentions, fear, mixed with a shattering amount of anger, bitterness, and blame — there was so much there beneath the surface, below the external expressions of calm.

  She surveyed the car and noticed a woman with blonde, bobbed hair, large diamond earrings and pursed lips. The woman was beautiful, with too-blue eyes and as Althea stared, the woman blinked and caught her own, and Althea felt her ugliness, her cruelty and had to look away, and in that moment, she was open to everyone on the train, the feelings upon her like an overwhelming flood. The intensity was debilitating, a searing emotional assault, attacking her core. She trembled, her eyes squeezed shut. She retreated mentally, desperate to wake up. Doesn’t feel like a dream.

  Wake up, she thought enough, and she pinched her arm until her skin protested in an eruption of purple welts. Instead of waking up, the intensity of the feelings devoured her heart, took away her breath STOP she screamed silently, please STOP NOW.

  To her surprise, the feelings retreated and she held her concentration there, like a shell around her, shaking with the effort wake up wake up wake up she thought, biting the inside of her cheek, tasting blood, watching each station pass painfully into the next as the train headed toward the center of the city.

  • • •

  WHILE EXITING UNION STATION, which seemed busier than she’d ever remembered, she tried again to wake up from the dream without making a spectacle of herself, but when her thoughts turned away from protecting herself, she was flooded with emotions so intense she couldn’t walk. Hunched over, she fought nausea until the crowds passed.

  Althea arrived at White Light hollow and exhausted, her stiff neck screaming, her heart reeling. She walked quickly toward her desk, feeling a sharp pang as she passed by Vince’s office, which wasn’t Vince’s office any more.

  She arrived at her desk, annoyed at the pile of files that had been dumped on her chair in her absence. On her computer screen was a post-it note from Mike Foster notifying her of a meeting that had already started. Was Exeter in charge? She didn’t know. She hadn’t spoken with Phyllis since the funeral.

  Althea entered the boardroom, avoiding the others’ eyes, and sat down without saying a word. Stefan stared as she walked in. She felt unreal and light-headed and she wanted the dream to end. When it didn’t, her eyes followed whoever was speaking and she discovered that her consciousness could move around the room independently of her physical attention. She was gaining control of her newfound skill.

  Ralph was talking about White Light’s business plan. Althea worked to appear attentive, nodding when appropriate, taking cursory notes. She then focused and felt him and was overcome with sadness and defeat. Though Ralph’s voice was steady and efficient, his thoughts and feelings, his essence, was with his wife of thirty years, who had just been admitted to hospital for her third round of chemotherapy. His grief seeped into her, like an achy bruise in her chest, radiating into her groin.

  Little by little, she backed out of Ralph, as if moving too quickly would create more damage within him. She felt him resist. He was frightened to be alone. He was using most of the energy he had to keep track of what was being said in the meeting and the rest to hold on to her. As she left him, he rubbed his right temple.

  She observed Sandy, a short, stout woman with mousy hair and a short-sleeved blazer, whom she just learned was Exeter’s marketing vice president. Sandy was talking about the non-fiction pipeline, the books that were in the works, the marketing budgets, the launch dates for the upcoming year and projected sales for each. A couple of the authors she spoke about were White Light’s, including Ivana. Others were Exeter’s, and household names. Althea watched Sandy’s colorless lips move as she talked, her body still, wrapped in tired beige linen, and then felt. Laurie. The name came to her like a long-buried secret. Resistance, like an iron fist on her chest.

  What about Laurie, she thought, and when Sandy’s resistance dissolved, Althea fell, and it was like being sucked down an elevator through a spinning funnel of water laced with shame, guilt, hatred and unsettling calm and then she knew. Laurie was Sandy’s lover. They had grown up together. Laurie had experienced a near-fatal injury at age twenty-eight in a car crash which had left Laurie in a wheelchair. Sandy had been driving. Sandy was pulling at her now come further, further down, come see.

  Althea was afraid. Sandy’s voice was moving further away, but her consciousness pulled Althea closer. Hatred. Althea felt a thin sharp sting on the inside of her arm. Under the table, she pressed her hands together to stifle the pain, which she felt, though the pain wasn’t hers. Sandy ritually cut herself with a razor. She believed she was responsible for Laurie’s injury. Penance.

  Being inside this woman was horrible. She preferred Ralph’s grief, for his pain was also mixed with love. She had to find a way out.

  Stefan interrupted Sandy and Althea exited from her suddenly, with one burst of concentration and entered Stefan who was at once sensuous and alien. At least six feet five inches tall on a slim frame, Stefan was perfectly bald, with flat metallic eyes and a soft, measured tone. Althea could not take her eyes off his hands. Folded neatly in front of him, they were huge, with impossibly long, slim manicured fingers. She played felt, meeting his eyes as a bolt of cold stabbed her forehead.

  Acting.

  Not just in the meeting, but in life. The perfect mimic. Instead of being enveloped in emotion, she was sucked into a void. White cold. This wasn’t loneliness. This was an emptiness that had no soul. Psychopath.

  Her hands tightened in her lap, her nails bit into her palm. Did he know what she was feeling? She struggled to maintain a neutral expression. She didn’t think so. At least, not consciously. He may be a psychopath, but that didn’t make him telepathic.

  Being inside Stefan was like being inside a vacuum with no light, alone with invisible creatures that infected with malice and killed without hesitation. She struggled to pull out of him, but instead he pulled her deeper, his resolve cold and insatiable, his utter absence of humanity unlike anything she could have imagined. He didn’t want her to leave. This is what insanity feels like, she thought. Not a dream. This isn’t a dream. Her panic rose.

  She had to get out of Stefan. Now. She gathered her strength. His words were indistinct, they no longer mattered, all she could think about was escaping his vacuum, the void with small pointed teeth. She fought him, pulling backward, purposely avoiding his eyes. She was losing strength, he was so strong, and just as she felt she could no longer hold on, Stefan stopped talking and for a split second, his pull weakened.

  Foster was talking now and she turned to him, because nothing could be worse than this, not Ralph, not even Sandy. She absorbed Foster’s voice, the softness of it, the gentle lilt, an oasis, one two three and as she pulled out of him, Stefan resisted violently and just as suddenly, he let go Playing with her and as she tumbled into Foster, it was like emerging from icy lead into a soothing bath. Human.

  Althea was faintly aware that her breath was uneven. Her eyes locked on Foster. She struggled to appear composed, taking him in with all of her senses, an inventory, his relaxed posture, his pen poised over the financial statements in front of him, his words careful and precise. Calm. She sat still for a while, immersed in his voice, perched just inside him, infused with his energy. Then she felt further, wanting more of his composure, his rationality. As she moved inside him, a barrier gave way, crackling like a crisp sheet of paper. His rationality was displaced like surface dust and underneath was sadness and resignation.

  But it wasn’t Ralph’s depth of grief, not harsh like Sandy or inhuman like Stefan. Foster’s sadness was gentle and she could stay here for a while. Still. Lonely. Foster was passive, as if receiving a reward at the end of an exhausting journey: one he did n
ot covet.

  The feeling wasn’t uncomfortable, it was warm and ethereal and she was drawn to it, so she went in, past the numbers of which he spoke, past his calm resignation, until she met with the red flesh where his numbers transformed into desire, trapped with nowhere to go. Circling his heart and hovering at his temples, was a tender blue light. A child singing a lullaby.

  Her eyes stinging with tears, she moved up, closer to his surface, but not as far as his external personality and she didn’t have a name for what she was feeling, so she focused on his voice, the company’s debt load, cash flow projections for next year, fighting the desire to sleep, resting in a dream within a dream. Maybe she could stay here.

  Stefan’s voice was like a rusty siren.

  “Althea, if you’re awake, how far along are we with Ivana’s launch plan?”

  This was the second time he had asked. She willed herself conscious. Nothing.

  He was so cold.

  • • •

  ALTHEA MOVED THE PILE of files on her chair, and dumped them unceremoniously on Foster’s. She hated this, it felt horrible to her. She was impatient and drained, and she wanted the nightmare to end. She felt rather than heard Foster coming up behind her. As he spoke to her, she checked her email, avoiding looking at him. Foster chuckled.

  “Sorry about the files.”

  “Right.”

  “Stefan wants to see you.” Althea felt a stab of terror at Stefan’s name. She couldn’t even remember what she had said to him at the meeting. She also didn’t know if she had the energy to fend him off. But how could she explain that to Foster?

  “Do you know why?”

  “No I don’t.” Althea turned to face Foster. Lying.

  “I think you do.”

  “Well, imagine if I did, what do you think would happen to me if I told you.” Althea looked into his eyes. He was telling the truth.

  He’d eat you alive, she thought.

  Althea knocked on Vince’s door. Stefan was sitting at Vince’s desk. Ralph sat beside him. He wasted no time.

  “Althea, we’ve decided to sever our relationship with you, effective immediately.” He explained the terms, and as he did, Milena’s face swam before her. It’s happening again. You gonna take it this time? Feeling slightly masochistic, she probed him a bit, his white cold biting at her. She hovered just between his eyebrows, ensuring that she was out of his reach. When he stopped talking and offered her his pen, Althea accepted it, carefully avoiding touching his fingers. Hating her own cowardice, she signed the termination agreement, leaving her copy behind, exiting the office quickly in case he tried to shake her hand.

  • • •

  MICHAEL LEANED ON A window ledge in the front lobby, his eyes on the elevator. He knew what was happening in Stefan’s office. As Althea had fumbled an incoherent response in their meeting earlier, Stefan’s eyes had turned reptilian and Michael knew. Althea wasn’t supposed to be let go until next month, but Stefan decided to move that date up. Sandy would pick up the slack.

  At the meeting, Althea had been drifting. It was like she was at the meeting physically, but mentally she had checked out. Her body was rigid and her eyes darted, vacant and glassy. At times, she seemed short of breath, as if she was about to faint. Because she wasn’t wearing makeup today, her fair complexion looked stark. Michael wondered if she drank or did drugs.

  Or maybe she was pregnant. Lara had looked like that when she had morning sickness.

  Althea’s secrets.

  When Michael went over the financials, he noticed that she was staring at him, first at his face and then at his chest. Her face had softened then, no longer nauseous, but she seemed sleepy, as if she had been up most of the night.

  Insomnia?

  Perhaps. He knew what that was like. Through Althea, maybe he was witnessing what he used to look like.

  As Michael waited for Althea, he wondered if he could muster the curiosity he once felt for her. Over time, she had become more and more of an enigma. First, the distracted woman on the side of the road, then smiling and dimpled, holding her martini glass high in celebration. Then all business.

  And today, her unsettled, vacant eyes.

  Althea was lost. Michael knew how that felt and that, he reasoned, was why he was here. Today, if she’d let him, he’d try once more to take her home. He wasn’t sure how she’d respond. He also wasn’t sure how hard he’d try.

  He sat on the ledge in the lobby and waited. Staring at his hands, he twisted his wedding ring off his left finger and put it in his pocket, looking up just as the elevator doors opened.

  • • •

  ON HER WAY OUT, Althea was surprised to see Foster in the lobby, his hand in his pocket. He stood up as she approached, and her senses reached out to him, wanting to understand his motive for being here. Compassion.

  “You knew what was happening.” Althea said.

  “Yes, I did. Let me take that for you?” Althea had emptied her desk of her personal belongings and put them in a box: shoes, licorice, tissue, the notebook Vince had given her, the framed picture of the hawk rising over the lake on top.

  “Take it where.”

  “To my car. I’ll give you a ride home.”

  “Is this an Exeter policy?”

  “No. In fact, Stefan wouldn’t approve. But he’s on his way to New York at the moment, so I really don’t care.” Althea thought about the train ride that morning. She was too tired to argue. Not a dream. She was leaving White Light. And she was going insane.

  “Okay.”

  Foster took her box and backed out the lobby door, leaning against it so she could pass. They walked to his car in silence. She felt nervous, on edge. Being with Foster was better than the GO Train, but not as desirable as being alone. Such sadness inside him. In the car, she mentally created a wall between them to shelter herself. Foster felt softer now, less like paper, and more like light wool, possibly because he was away from the office. Because he was less intense than some, more mutable, shielding herself was effortless, like holding up a cloth divider. Silence, yes. Calm. Almost invisible. She stared out the window. Five minutes later, they pulled onto the highway.

  “Do you know what you’re going to do?”

  “Haven’t really had the time to think about it, Mike.”

  “Of course. Would you consider consulting again?”

  “God no.” Why did people feel the need to interrogate her?

  Althea wanted Foster to shut up. He was pressuring her with his questions, trying to gain access to her and he was an unwelcome guest. She tightened the wall around her. It took effort. For a few minutes, Foster was quiet. Then he started again.

  “You know, if you needed to talk or something, that would be okay with me.”

  “Talk or something.”

  “Yeah, if you needed someone to talk to. About leaving. And also, I don’t know. I sort of sensed —” Althea stiffened, protecting herself. She could feel his questions like physical fingers. She found that if she stayed angry, she felt more protected. She kept her voice level as her muscles tensed.

  “You sensed what?”

  He was probing into her, curious, and it felt light, a ticklish sensation. Her face hardened. She turned to watch the passing traffic, struggling to keep the wall between them intact.

  “Yes, well, I’ve been through a few difficult things in my life and I notice if people are, I don’t know, a bit off.”

  “I’m a bit off.” That’s an understatement. She bit her lip to keep from reacting.

  “Well, no, you’re okay, considering, it’s just that I thought that in the meeting today, you seemed distracted.”

  “That would be one way of putting it.” She laughed, her voice higher than normal. She clasped her hands in front of her, her nails digging deep.

  Caught.

  He pushed into her.

  Like she had done to him.

  He couldn’t feel her, at least not in the same way she could feel him. He had to use words. Earlier
, she had entered his consciousness uninvited. Tit for tat. Now it’s your turn. She resisted.

  “So what’s going on?” Michael asked.

  “Why should I tell you?”

  “Because I might understand.”

  “Because you’ve been through a few things.”

  “Yes, I’m going through a divorce, and I’ve lost people close to me. It was really hard, it hurt, so I understand.”

  Like Kevin. Like Tori. Like Daniel. Like Vince. Like the family she never knew. No.

  “You understand what.” Her voice was cold. She wanted him to back off and instead, she felt something snap within him, his superficial banter taking a plunge, an unfathomable resonance.

  “Okay, I’ll just say it, I understand that today you came into the office, spaced out, not really there, you looked pale like you were nauseous or high or something, every one could see it, but didn’t say anything, and I didn’t want to ignore it. I like you, Althea, and I want to know if you’re okay and help if I can, and if you want me to fuck off and mind my own business, then just tell me, and I’ll be happy to. But don’t shit on me for caring.”

  He saw through her. Why did he care so much? Not a dream. And instead of asking, she thrust into him, past his layer of calm, his curiosity, further, until she felt his grief, saw Lara, Elizabeth the smiling blue light, his childhood, the chop of a helicopter, and his wedding ring in his right pocket, and beneath that kindness.

  His warmth was overwhelming, he really did care about her and then she was ready to tell him, tell him everything, about Sophie, the green-eyed hallucinations, about reading people, about her fear of going insane and the moon, and it was there, her confession, its sweetness perched on her tongue, seductive not a dream.

  She allowed herself to move closer, further inside him, and again felt cradled by his sadness, soothed by his kindness, and buoyed by his curiosity and there she saw herself reflected, walking on the side of the road, talking on a cell phone in the dusk, and then at Sophie’s holding a martini glass.