***
I poured my second scotch and by the time Maya reappeared after putting Calder to bed, I lay on the couch, staring at the TV. Homer Simpson sat at Moe’s having himself another Duff.
“He seems a little calmer,” Maya said.
“Yeah. He told me about a dream he had, where I died. I guess it’s been freaking him out for a while. I told him I was fine, that I wasn’t going to die.”
“He thought you were going to die?”
“Yeah. He said my dad told him to tell me to be careful if I went on a trip.”
“Your dad?”
“Yeah. That was kind of strange. Did you ever tell him the story?”
“Of how your dad died? No, I don’t think so. Just that he died a long time ago. I didn’t want to scare him about boats and water.”
“Well, he seemed to know that my dad died in a canoe. And that he wore a black shirt with a mouth on it. Don’t you think that’s kind of odd?”
“I certainly never told him any of that. How could he possibly know?”
“Maybe my mom told him.”
“I’d be very surprised by that. She never talks about it.”
“I know, but it’s the only explanation I can think of.”
“Well, maybe your dad did come to him in a dream. And maybe you really are going to die.” Maya widened her eyes into spooky eyes and laughed. I smiled nervously. We sat together on the couch for a while watching the last half of an episode of CSI Miami, the show’s colors enhanced, showing death and Miami in equally vibrant tones. As we headed to bed, we peeked in on Calder, sleeping with one arm flung over the edge of the bed.
“I hope he doesn’t have any more of those crazy dreams,” I said.
“It really got to you, didn’t it?”
“No, but how could he know those details? I’m sure you’re right. My mom must have told him about my dad. Kids have dreams all the time, right? It doesn’t mean it will come true.”
“I hope not. We really don’t need premature death to run in the family.”
Later, Maya brushed her teeth while I languished in bed on the verge of sleep.
“It’ll be good for us to spend this weekend together,” she said. I groaned. I had forgotten about the trip to Whistler we had planned.
“You’re still coming, right?” She poked her head out of the bathroom.
“Shit, Lene, I don’t think I can go.” I had taken to calling Maya Lene or Lenie after she told me the myth of Selene that night in Italy and somehow it stuck. I turned on my side to face her, any hope of sleep shattered. “And besides, Calder says I should be wary of taking trips.”
Maya rolled her eyes.
“Please, Jay. This weekend makes sense. We can leave tomorrow since Calder's off school. That way, we can ski Friday and Saturday. It would be great for him and would allow us to spend some time together, all three of us, as a family.” Maya disappeared back into the bathroom. I heard her spit toothpaste into the sink and then she reappeared at the bathroom door.
“So?”
“I just don’t think I can swing it.”
“I thought this is what we had planned! Ski school in the mornings for Calder, you-and-me time. Remember?”
I envisioned circling the icy parking lot, assembling gear from the trunk of the car, hauling skis, clomping around in those awkward, flat-footed boots, buying expensive lift tickets and ski school, an overpriced lunch at Merlin’s, the restaurant at the bottom of Blackcomb. I knew there would be at least one bout of tears from Calder in the middle of a run. I didn’t want to go. Why couldn’t she see that I needed the goddamned weekends to relax?
“I have a big meeting with a new client tomorrow.”
“Right. You knew we were planning this trip, but still you set up a meeting,” she said, wagging her toothbrush at me.
“I didn’t set it up, Lene. I didn’t have a choice.” In truth, I’d forgotten all about the trip, so absorbed in keeping the company financially afloat, determined to keep this business going. I had no desire to return to the slog of Microsoft if my business failed.
“Well that’s fine, Jay. Calder and I will just go by ourselves then. I don’t care if you come or not.” Maya stormed back into the bathroom and turned on the water.
“Maya!” I yelled. “Christ. Gimme a break, would ya?” The water turned off and her head popped back out from the bathroom.
“No, Jay. You need to figure out your priorities. Clearly neither Calder nor I factor into your life much anymore. You didn’t even come to see my last show and you missed Calder's soccer game last week. And I can barely remember the last time we made love.”
“My priorities involve keeping food on the table, a roof over our heads, and the freedom to allow you to continue painting. I think my priorities are just fine, thank you. Jesus.”
“I know you’re working hard, Jay. And I know the sacrifices you make for Calder and me, but I guess I question what good those sacrifices are if we can’t share the benefits together as a family once in a while.”
“I hear you, Lene. I just have to get this company off the ground and then we can share the benefits all we want.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard that before. But I’m tired of waiting.”
The next morning I stood in the driveway in my slippers and bathrobe, a cup of coffee in my hand as Maya backed the car out, her expression a mixture of anger, sadness, and resignation as she swiveled in her seat to reverse. Calder waved half-heartedly. I waved back, feeling like a complete asshole. Maya didn’t wave, her eyes avoiding mine. I could’ve rescheduled the meeting, but the truth was I didn’t want to. I wasn’t in the mood to make the drive to Whistler, wasn’t in the mood to ski. I just wanted to spend a quiet weekend hanging around the house, sleeping in late, listening to music, puttering around in the garage. A whole weekend to myself. Why couldn’t Maya see how badly I needed that?
Our conversation from the previous night played again in my head. Maya was right. I had missed her art opening. I should have gone, but I hated those shows. Standing around with a bunch of nambies in black discussing existentialism or some shit. Sure, I wanted to support my wife, but I could do it better by working hard so she could have the freedom to paint. Wasn’t that supporting her art?
She had arrived home the night of her opening slightly tipsy from the cheap wine they served.
“Where were you?” she asked.
“Sorry, babe. I couldn’t make it. I got stuck at work.” I felt the heat of my second scotch.
“Of course.” She went in the kitchen and began clearing out the dishwasher, slamming cupboards, crashing plates around. At one point I heard glass shatter.
“Shit!” she said. I took a deep breath and went into the kitchen, bracing myself for her barrage. Folded on the floor, surrounded by glass, she clutched a paper towel around her bloody finger.
“Jesus, get up! You’re sitting in glass,” I grabbed a broom from the closet. Maya just glared at me.
“I’m sorry, OK!”
I began sweeping around her, trying to clear the glass away from her.
“Do you want a Band-Aid or something?”
“No! I don’t want a damned Band-Aid! I want a husband who actually supports what I do by showing up at my goddamned art opening! Is that too much to ask?”
“I said I was sorry.”
“Marcus was there.” Tears began coursing down her cheeks.
“What?”
“Marcus Pellegrino came to my opening.”
“Why the hell would he show up?”
“To support me.”
“I didn’t know you two were in touch.”
“He found me on Facebook.”
“That’s just great. Did he try to make a move on you?”
“Would you even care?” Tears started streaming down Maya's cheeks.
“Of course I would care. He’s an asshole.”
“At least he shows up at my openings.”
“I said I was sorry!”
“A ton of people asked where you were. I felt like an idiot telling them I didn’t know.”
“What can I tell you? I’m sorry.”
“I sold five paintings in case you wanted to know.”
“That’s great, Lenie!”
She stood up and stepped over the glass. I tried to pull her into an embrace as she passed, but she pulled away and I remained standing in the middle of the kitchen with a broom in my hand. I swept away the rest of the glass, put the rest of the dishes away, and resumed my place on the couch with my scotch, wondering what Marcus Pellegrino wanted with my wife. I awoke on the couch at five in the morning and got up and left for the office.
Asshole. You should have gone to the opening, I thought, still standing there in the driveway. I plodded back into the house and loaded a giant bag, along with my skis, poles, and boots into the back of the car and headed to the office. I would head north after work.
Chapter Two
CAT’S EYES
“The moon, like you, is far away from me, but it's our sole memento: if you look and recall our past through it, we can be one mind.”
—Saigo, Awesome Nightfall
Fifteen years earlier, I literally fell over Maya in Pompeii on a hot Italian September day. My eyes on my guidebook, I strode along blithely, sweat dripping down my forehead. Not seeing her crouched in the middle of the shimmering hot road, I toppled over her hunched form. Lethargic tourists – their cameras slung around their necks like all-seeing windows into their souls – limped past trying not to make eye contact. I cursed and rubbed my knee. Mortified, she stammered words of apology as she stood. Surprised she spoke English, I reached up to take hold of her outstretched hand, noticing its softness as she pulled me up with surprising strength. I stood shakily, looking into her eyes, which were a greenish yellow, like an olive, but flecked with light brown and blue and with a dark purple ring around the iris. I might have overlooked them under different circumstances, but she looked directly at me, eyes filled with concern. Familiar eyes.
“Maya?” I hadn’t seen her in ten years, on August 15th, 1981, the day my father died. She’d been my fourteen-year-old crush, an infatuation both light with innocence and marred by tragedy. I’d spent many summers at Maya's cottage, swimming in the lake, bunking in the boat house, playing Crazy Eights on rainy days. Two years older was an eternity to a sixteen-year-old girl in love with Marcus Pellegrino, one of her cottage friends from down the road. At eighteen, he trumped me with his fully matured biceps, deep baritone voice, and Italian-Irish confidence. The last I’d heard of Maya, she lived with Marc in a tiny apartment in Toronto while she studied Fine Art at the Ontario College of Art. He worked as an account executive for some big Toronto ad agency.
Meeting there in an ancient city-sized graveyard seemed impossibly ironic, as if death followed us here and arranged for this serendipitous meeting. Maya looked good. A little older without the baby fat, and her hips had filled out nicely. To me in that moment, she was as sexy as it got. She wore a tight tank top over low-slung utility shorts cinched with a wide leather belt, a brass star for a buckle.
“Jay? My god! What are you doing here?”
I continued to clutch her hand as she spoke my name. “Hello, Maya. I could ask you the same thing. What the hell were you doing down there?”
She gave me a sideways glance, looking coyishly sexy. “I wanted to feel the ruts in the street.”
I looked at her quizzically.
“I know it’s weird. But I find them amazing.”
I glanced down. Two parallel grooves – the distance between them presumably a standard ancient cart-wheel width – were deeply etched into the stone. The two lines wavered down the block until they seemed to meet far in the distance.
“Those ruts were formed by carts driving along this street thousands of years ago, and yet here they still are, as though a cart had just driven along this road yesterday,” she said as she looked down at them, shaking her head in amazement. I could tell she wanted to touch them again.
I smiled. Maya's fascination with such a myopic detail was typical of her artistic obsession with details and textures. I remembered her at the cottage, always picking up stones and shells, rubbing them in her hand, passing them to me. But here in Pompeii, there was something more to it. As if by touching those ruts, she could transport herself back to another time and relive what had happened there. One couldn’t deny one’s mortality in a place that remained frozen in death – the grisly aftermath of a volcano’s wrath, scant reminders of once-busy lives, instantly ended.
“Are you just traveling in Italy for the summer?” I asked. My open-ended post-college backpacking trip was my attempt to avoid being a grown-up and finding a real job.
“I came to Italy a year ago. I got accepted to this artists’ commune at a monastery near Rome.”
“Sounds interesting.”
“Yeah, it has been. More or less.” Maya's face clouded over.
“What?”
“Well, you remember Marcus?”
“Yes. I remember him.” I hoped my voice sounded neutral.
“I’ve been living with him for the last three years in Toronto. When I got this fellowship, he thought it would be an adventure to come with me. Of course I was thrilled. I didn’t want to leave him. I wasn’t even going to come to Italy because of him. We were going to get married. Well, we talked about it... Anyway, he gave up his job in Toronto. He thought he might be able to get a job in Rome, but he didn’t speak Italian. He took language classes, but then he found a motley group of Italian musicians to play with in a band. And then he found some cute Texan singer...” Maya shook her head as if trying to shake away the memory. “It hasn’t ended well. He left two weeks ago. With her, apparently.”
“I’m sorry, that must be tough.”
“Yeah, but I’ve been doing some amazing painting. All that angst.” Maya smiled.
“I’m really sorry, Maya.”
“No you’re not.”
“I’m sorry to see you in pain, but no, I’m not sorry about Marcus. I always thought he was an arrogant prick.”
“I know. You have a weird history with him. With your dad and everything.”
“You could say that, yeah.”
“But he’s a good guy. Really. He’s passionate and smart and...” Maya began to cry.
“I’m sorry, Maya. I really am.” I patted her shoulder. Maya wiped away a tear and gave me a shy smile.
“Enough about me, what are you doing here, Jay?”
“The consummate bumming around Europe.”
“I heard you went to Dalhousie. How was that?”
“I liked it alright. Got a degree in Computer Science. Have no idea what I’m going to do with it. I’m thinking about going to business school. What about you? I heard you went to Ontario College of Art.”
“Yeah, I graduated from OCA a couple of years ago. I’m a painter. And an installation artist. I’ve even had a show at a tiny gallery in Toronto. You’ll have to come to one sometime, when you get back to Toronto.”
We both looked down and watched a drip of blood snake down my shin from a cut on my knee, threatening to seep into my one pair of clean sport socks.
“Do you need a Band-Aid or something?”
I smiled at her concern. “Nah, I’m fine,” I said, brushing ancient volcanic dust from my shorts. Maya squirted my wound with water from her water bottle, causing a dusty, bloody mess to run onto my sock and shoe.
“It’s OK. I’m fine. Really.”
“I’m just trying to help.” I’d forgotten her alluring pout, a tiny puckered rosebud. “I feel terrible I made you fall!”
I put my hand out for her water bottle, which she handed me and I took a swig. “So ruts in the road, eh?”
“I know, it
’s dumb.” She squatted down to run her fingers over them once more. “They are proof of what was, a reminder of another world. And look at these.” She reached over to point out a small, sparkly, inch-square tile embedded in the stone. “They’re called ‘cat’s eyes’. They reflect the moon’s light, guiding travelers at night. Funny how it took the rest of the world so much time to rediscover that technology.” She stood up, grinning. “Oh, how I love Pompeii!” Her eyes flashed an excitement I remembered from when we were kids, becoming a deeper shade of green with contagious passion, drawing me in. “I could hang out here every day for a year.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean,” I said, my mouth strangely dry. I tore myself away from her eyes and crouched to pick my guidebook off the ground and shove it into my backpack. She blew a thick curl of reddish hair that had escaped her ponytail off her face. I noticed a few faint freckles across her nose. I had never noticed before that she possessed the same intriguing coloring of many of the people I admired in the region around Amalfi and Positano – that same deep shade of auburn hair, a complexion that turned coppery in the sun, and those green eyes. I remembered her dad Peter had the same coloring and now faintly recalled him talking of his Italian ancestry. It hadn’t meant anything then.
“Have you seen any of the castings of some of the people who died that day?” she asked.
I nodded, grim-faced. They had spooked me. Bodies contorted, captured in their moment of death, trying to ward off the tons of ash about to bury them.
“They have some amazing mosaics and frescoes in one of the villas just down the road,” she said, perhaps sensing my discomfort. “I was just heading there now. Would you like to join me?”
We spent the rest of the afternoon together, Pompeii a distraction from our intersected past. Only through some kind of divine intervention was it possible that I now sat with Maya Willis, ten years since I had last seen her, sipping freshly squeezed lemonade under the canopy of a giant fig tree, just outside the gates of Pompeii. The breeze, flecked with the sugary citrus scent of orange blossom, danced with her hair. This girl, now woman, knew my inner scar and shared my deepest sadness. She sat across from me, her elbows on the table, mouth pressed into an O around her straw, and looked into my eyes. I felt naked.
Remember The Moon Page 2