Chocolate Chocolate Moons (12 page)

One by one, the Culinary Institute’s other board members file into the long rectangular room and take seats around a large brown oval table that sits under a ceiling fresco of the first Mars landing depicting Captain Colombo on the deck of the
Margarita
with his arms around Nina and Pinta drinking a tall one.

No one smiles, not even when lunch arrives from the Quantum Corner Café: blackberry-pear soup followed by Coquille St. Jacques with Freedom Plan heavy cream accompanied by white and blue asparagus topped with truffle shavings. Everyone drinks watermelon iced tea.

A rum-raisin almond tart is dessert. The tension is so great that several board members almost come to blows arguing over how much rum is in a rum raisin. Still others argue about how long it takes to make a raisin in the sun, and whether it’s fair that the people on Mercury, who get so much sun, have an advantage over the people on Pluto, who get so little—and should the same arguments apply to sun-dried tomatoes?

Finally Craig Cashew clinks his glass with a spoon and, in his deep sonorous voice, quotes Rosetta Stone, a Martian philosopher, who said that rocks always look redder on the other side of the crater, and will everyone just cool it? But since no one stops arguing, he resorts to the Khrushchev technique: pounding the table with his shoe.

The table quiets. Craig clears his throat. “Can we now discuss what we have all come here to discuss?” he says.

This time, they stop midsentence and turn to Craig. “We have to do something to restore confidence in the Culinary. And we have to do it right here and now.”

Heads nod.

“Everyone’s sales are off. Attendance is down.”

“We could restructure the company and rename our products and services,” one board member says.

“But everyone knows those are things done when no one has any real answers,” says Craig, who just realized he left his shoe on the table and watches in silent horror as a busboy removes it and fills it with leftover rum raisins.

Then Sandy Andreas peers over his glass and says, “I have a plan to restore confidence.” He lowers his voice so everyone will have to lean in closer to hear him reveal what feels like a secret. “If an exclusive enclosed garden that grows rare herbs and flowers was built at the far end of the property—a garden that required a key to enter—and we added a private club with a private restaurant that was attached to the executive wing of our new convention center, it would show that not only is the Culinary growing, but it is thriving. We could levy a hefty surcharge for membership that would increase our revenues. And we could be very picky about whom we let join.”

A board member who never says anything except
Can I have a take-out order of this lunch?
pipes up, “Like, for example, Rocket Packarod, and Scheherazade, who runs Ali Baba Caves. She makes it easy to put things into storage but makes it almost impossible to get them out. Some people have disappeared trying to claim their properties.”

Everyone shoots him a
How do you know that?
look.

Then Sandy adds, “We can throw in some free memberships to media stars.” The board members frown. “Of course this is for a limited period of time.” The board members smile. “And when the public sees all of them and business tycoons having dinner at the new restaurant, everyone will want to come and join.”

Craig listens with a no-expression look, pressing his palms down on the table. He breathes in, but no one sees him breathe out. But everyone knows, especially Sandy Andreas, who doesn’t always know what to make of Craig Cashew, that his circling rim shot just fell through the basket.

16

B
ECKY AND
L
OIS
are nervous wrecks. In addition to rehearsing for the Mars Malt contest, they’re studying for their final exams at the King Tut School of Music. The exams are designed by the Bored in Colleges, an independent study group, which delights in designing tests its own members can’t pass.

Cortland paces, quizzing them. “This is bound to be on the test. What country on Earth did Ludwig Beethoven come from?”

Becky gulps and ventures a guess. “New Orleans?”

Cortland rolls his eyes. “Well,” he says, “I see you girls are struggling. Ludwig Beethoven was born in a country that produced many brilliant musicians and scientists. It also had a lot of germs, which was why it was called
Germany,
meaning land of many germs.”

Lois pops a piece of gum into her mouth and hands one to Becky. “Wow! Less than six degrees of separation between germs and music?”

Cortland smiles. “Back then people were afraid of Germany because they knew that germs led to world wars.”

“Ooh, world wars. Is that like the war of the worlds?” Becky asks.

“That’s a stupid question,” says Lois giving her sister the elbow. “How different can they be?”

“You girls need to take a break. Let’s talk about the Mars Malt contest.”

Becky and Lois sigh in relief.

“I went through some music archives and ancient newspapers like the
New York Times.
”

“The New York what?” says Becky. “Daddy, are you sure it was an important paper? I’ve never heard of it.”

“You mean more important than
The Globe
and
The Enquirer?
I can’t believe it!” Lois rolls her heavy black-kohl-lined Egyptian-looking eyes. “We studied about Earth and we saw pictures of old supermarkets. No
New York Times
up front near any of the cash registers that I could see.”

“Well, reliable source or not, I found a few concert reviews that described a way to pick up a tempo without destroying the line of the music, and I want to try it. I also found these ancient clips from the late twentieth century about some guy named Mick Jagger. Watch how he walks and points at the audience. I think we could adapt some of that.” Cortland clicks the holo screen and enlarges the image.

“What’s that stuff on his face? Those lines?” Becky asks squinting through gold-colored eyelids.

“Must have been a popular style,” Cortland says. “Most of the people in those days wore them but they look like they hurt.”

Lois fine-tunes the optic fibers on her harmostring guitar and looks up. “Didn’t he live in a country called the United States?”

“I know about the United States,” Becky chimes in. “It was important because it was near the Virgin Islands, where all the virgins lived. I learned that they used paper money with pictures of dead presidents and coins that people dropped into baskets at the end of a religious service called bingo.”

Cortland snaps open a flat black box. “Focus, girls. Look at these pictures of masks from Earth’s Africa.”

“Ooh, we love them,” Becky says, admiring the pictures. “Don’t we Lois?”

“I’m thinking of having you wear masks like this one for the opening.” He points to a picture of five women. “This is a rock group called Les Demoiselles d’Avignon. A guy named Picasso was their manager.”

“Oh, Daddy, you’re so smart. I was afraid you wanted us to wear scratchy-looking lines like those on Jagged Jagger’s face.”

“Mick Jagger,” Cortland corrects. “He was very famous.”

“Really?” Becky says flipping her hair. “Not my type.”

Flo calls. I grit my teeth. I know what she wants.

“Who’s that?” Cortland asks, sensing trouble.

I put my hand over my palm so Flo can’t hear. “She wants the girls to take the shuttle from Pharaoh City to New Chicago to shop for something spectacular to wear for their concert. We never asked her to do this. And I don’t want them shopping with her before I’ve had a chance to go with them.”

I reach into my pocket and pop two stale Chocolate Moons into my mouth, which I had hoarded in case of an emergency.

“Thanks, but no thanks, Flo. I’ll shop with the twins myself.”

The girls, who have been listening, rush to my side and whirl like dervishes around me. I look at them and say, “Yeeees? Whaaat?”

Lois’s whine feels like nails scratching a chalkboard. “Please, please, on a comet’s tail, let us go to New Chicago and shop with Aunt Flo. Don’t you want us to look our best and win?”

I wonder:
What could I have done to deserve this?

The next day I take the recently reopened Carpal Tunnel to the Canal Mall. The new construction cut out the syndromes that made traffic crawl. The twins, wearing the darkest sunglasses that they could find, don’t say a word and crack Freedom Plan gum as close to my ear as possible. If I hadn’t automatically programmed the rover to get us to the mall I don’t think I could have made it.

Once inside, the twins march quickly past several store windows. They are neither tempted nor impressed. Finally I spot a sheer multicolored dress in a Mars Marcus outlet window. “Stop girls,” I say in a cheerfully forced voice. “Look, how about that?”

The twins peer with faint interest over their glasses. “That’s almost something Aunt Flo might choose but, no, not enough energy density. Too yesterday,” Lois says. “We could go naked and paint our bodies in neon stripes. Think of the money you’ll save, Mom.”

“Or we could just wear a thong and a bra,” Becky taunts. “There’s nothing here.”

I bite my tongue so hard that it bleeds.

“Double nothing,” Lois adds. “Let’s eat. I’m starved.”

My ears pick up at the word
eat.
It’s a word I rarely hear them say. It shows how desperate they are to stop me from any further shopping.

We trudge past a Little Green Men Pizza franchise that Cortland had sold. We smile but do not stop—we get enough pizza. We finally settle into one of the new Red Rock Cafés.

A waitress approaches. “I’ll have the vegetable burger with the vegetables on the side,” Lois says.

“Same for me,” Becky says. “But I’ll have the vegetables with the burger on the side.”

“Any dessert?”

“I’ll have a Freedom Plan hot fudge sundae with vitamin-enriched carrot ice cream and nutritional supplements on the side instead of the fudge,” Lois says.

“Same for me,” Becky adds, “but make mine with acorn squash ice cream, put the ice on one side and the cream on the other side, and change the fudge to butterscotch.”

Eaters from hell,
I think.

“And for you, ma’am?” the waitress says.

“Spaghetti with dilled veal meatballs and cognac tomato sauce topped with extra-dried shredded ricotta cheese. I’ll also have a frozen aurora borealis for dessert. I understand the recipe is based on an ancient one found in the ruins of a restaurant called Serendipity in old New York called ‘frozen hot chocolate.’”

The waitress nods yes.

“Hopeless,” Lois whispers to Becky.

“What did you say?” I glare at them and tap my fingers on the table.

“I said I was hopeful we would win the contest,” Lois says, whose foot I know is kicking Becky, who is holding her hand over her mouth and giggling.

The girls turn to a screen not far from our table. Becky points and says, “Look,” that’s her, Solaria Pastrami Andreas, the one who’s hosting the Mars Malt contest, standing in front of her home.”

The waitress brings their orders. The twins pay no attention.

“Are you sure that’s her home?” I ask, adding more grated cheese while the girls’ eyes are riveted on Solaria. “It looks like a hotel complex.”

“Definitely,” they say together. “That’s her.”

“Shh,” Becky says. “I want to hear this. She’s telling about how she lost her hand as a child.”

“One summer when my cousin Pluto and I were at Cape iPod, I dared him to see which of us could put a hand through a laser fence faster,” Solaria says. “But neither of us was fast enough, and both of us had one hand sliced off at the wrist. It took almost a year for mine to grow back.”

“Is that why you always wear that beautiful diamond-chip nail polish?” the interviewer asks.

“Yes, and I always favor the hand that was cut off because it’s so much smoother and younger than the other.” She looks at the camera and holds up her right hand that is dominated by a rare blue-ice sapphire ring.

“Mom.” Lois interrupts me looking at Solaria’s hand.

“What?” Pause.
“What?”