“Ty, can you believe this is all happening?” his mom asked.
“I guess I’m starting to,” he said.
“I’m worried that you’ll be lonely out in California,” Jean said.
“I’ll be okay. I make friends pretty quick.”
“Maybe you could go out and visit him, Grace.”
“Maybe,” I said.
Except that I’m saving my vacation days for my honeymoon.
“What do you do, again?” Nathan asked.
“I’m an editor at Spender-Davis Education.”
“She writes schoolbooks telling teenagers not to have sex,” Tyler said.
“We could have used one of those around here, I guess,” Nathan said.
“He’s talking about Rebecca,” Ty said.
“She was a free spirit!” Jean said.
“Where does Rebecca live now?” I asked.
“Philly. She’s in veterinary school,” Nathan said.
“That’s why this house is falling apart. They spend all their money paying for her education.” Ty looked at his mom. “I was surprised to see you’d painted the place. And my room.”
“Well, I’ve been painting the outside for a few months now, bit by bit. And we did a big wedding, so I had a little extra. I just wanted to freshen things up for company.” She smiled at me.
“Ty tells me you’re florists,” I said. “That sounds like fun.”
“It’s a trade,” Nathan said. “I guess we’d rather handle flowers than Roto-root someone’s pipes.”
“Ty, bring her by the shop tomorrow,” Jean said. “You two can put together an arrangement for Gram’s party.”
I looked at him, thinking we’d share a silent laugh at the idea of him arranging flowers. But he just nodded and stuffed his mouth with buttered roll.
“ ’Kay,” he said.
I was not allowed to help wash dishes. Jean gave us mugs of hot coffee and handed Ty a blanket and told us to get our coats and go outside and watch the moon rise.
We sat on a wicker love seat on the side porch. Ty tucked the blanket mostly around me.
“Don’t you want some?” I held up an edge.
“Nah, I run pretty hot.” He hadn’t even bothered to zip his brown bomber jacket.
The moon was big and full, cresting the skeletal tops of the trees.
“If the moon weren’t so bright you could see a lot of stars out here.”
“Oh, I would have liked to see that,” I said.
“Do you want to smoke a J? I can probably get one from my dad.”
“Erm, no. Thank you. You go ahead.”
“Getting stoned alone is boring.”
“Sorry.”
“Have you ever?”
“I tried it once and nothing happened.”
“Yeah, same here, the first time. You gotta try it again.”
I couldn’t quite say yes.
He must have felt encouraged by my silence. “Be right back,” he said. “Stay there.”
“Right here,” I said dryly.
He came back in two minutes with a Zippo, an ashtray, and a fatty. “My mom wanted me to tell you that they’re not potheads. They only smoke once in a while.”
“Okay.”
“Same with me,” he said. “It fucks up my voice.”
“That’s your business.”
“Just don’t judge me on it, okay?”
“Am I in any position to judge?”
“Good point,” he said, lighting up.
He sucked the smoke in deep and held it, squinting, passing the joint to me. I took a tentative little draw. He waved a hand at me, encouraging me to inhale more deeply. Gak, it burned my throat and lungs! I choked and emitted plumes of smoke.
He patted my back and handed me my cup of coffee. After I drank some he offered me the joint again. I waved it away.
“Come on, one more. Not so much this time.”
I inhaled lightly and handed it back. “That’s all I want.”
He took another drag and put the joint out in the ashtray. Then he leaned back and tugged on the edge of the blanket. “I’ll take some of this now.”
We settled in to moonwatch.
The moon was watching us back. She had a tender, cream-and-gray Lillian Gish face.
“My skin is vibrating,” I said, after a while.
“See? Second time’s a charm.”
“The moon is so sad,” I said.
“I know. She’s lonely.”
“She is a she, isn’t she?”
“Yes, she is. Of course!”
“She needs a song. A moon song.”
“A moon song!” Ty agreed.
“I’m going to make one up,” I said.
“Okay.”
“Dear little moon girl. Way up in your moon world. Where are your ears? Why don’t you have any?
”
The wicker sofa shook.
“Stop,” I said. “This is serious.”
“
Although this man is laughing, moon lady, ears are very important. Can you even hear me?”
I croaked plaintively through my singed vocal cords. “
Do I need to sign?”
“Sign!”
Ty echoed in a tiny little soprano Kate Bush-y voice.
“You live in the big dark sky and don’t ever get to play basketball.”
“Basketball!”
“If it will make you happy I’ll read you a book.”
“But not
A Prayer for Owen Meany
because it will make you cry,”
interjected my boy-choir backup singer.
“I feel a little light-headed,” I said.
“Let’s go for a walk.” Ty held out his hand and led me down the porch steps toward the trees.
“Can you feel my hand vibrating?” I asked.
“No. I think you’re just feeling that way inside.”
“I don’t want to get lost.”
“I know exactly where we’re going.”
“How far is it?”
“Just a ways. Stay a little behind me so you don’t catch a branch in the face.”
“At least it’s not all that dark.”
“Nah, it’s bright as day.”
“Are there . . . bears out here?”
“Do they shit in the woods?”
I pulled him to an abrupt halt. He laughed and tugged me back into motion. “Any bears we got out here would run from us. We’re good. Just keep hold of my hand.”
Like I was in a million years letting go.
“Your fingertips are so rough!” I said.
“You get calluses from guitar strings.”
“Ouch.”
He stopped. “What happened?”
“No, I mean, ouch, the calluses!”
He turned and marched on. “You scared me,” he grumbled.
“Sorry.”
We kept going and going. “Are we there yet?”
“Yeah,” he said. “We’re there. See that tree?”
It must have been huge once but now some of it lay on the ground and some stood ruined, a long-dead, blackened spear pointing at the sky.
“What happened?”
“Lightning strike. I saw it get hit from my bedroom window. I ran out here and watched it burn till the rain got so heavy it put the fire out.”
“You ran out here in an electrical storm?”
“Well, I was thirteen. And I told you, Rebecca got most of the brains.”
“You could have been killed! What did your parents say?”
“Didn’t hear me go out. I sure never told them, I might have gotten a whipping.”
“They
beat
you?”
“Only when I deserved it. Anyway, it was pretty spectacular, watching it burn.”
I would have to think about the burning tree later. I was having a problem with the whipping concept. They had seemed so kind, but they were monsters! How would I look them in the eyes now, knowing they had done that to him? I cradled his hand gently in both of mine and drew a ragged breath into my sore lungs. I hardly felt high at all anymore.
“What’s up?”
“I’m so sorry,” I said. “I wish they hadn’t done that to you.”
“What, the whipping? Shit, Grace. Didn’t your parents ever wallop you a time or two?”
“Never!”
He sighed. “They did it because they loved me. To knock some sense into me. Because I scared them and pissed them off. Believe me, I was all over the place.”
That, I believed.
“I guess it sounds strange to you, but that is just part of raising kids in my family.”
“What did they hit you with?”
He shrugged. “Belt. Yardstick. Extension cord. Fly swatter. Badmitten racket.”
“Minton,” I said.
“Huh?”
“Minton. Bad
minton
, not mitten.”
“Well, a mitten wouldn’t have hurt as much. Anyway, they hit me with whatever was nearby. But only if they could catch me.”
“You ran?”
“Hell yeah! Till sometimes my mom was laughing too hard to try to get me anymore.”
These people were nuts.
He put an arm around me and shook me gently. “Come on, sing to the moon some more.”
“I don’t feel like it.”
“If you don’t sing, I’m gonna.”
“Go ahead.”
He looked up at Lillian Gish, weeping over us, and started snapping his fingers.
“
Fly me to the moon
,” he sang, in a loud, dead-on imitation of Frank Sinatra, “
and let me . . .
play?” he looked at me. “Is it play among the stars?”
“How would I know?”
“
Da da da da da da da on Jupiter and Mars.
”
“Hey, those are the same words in that Willie Nelson song.”
“Do you mind? I’m trying to sing.”
“Sing ‘Moon River.’ ”
“
Moooon RIV-er
,” he obliged me instantly in the braying Sinatra voice.
“No.” I grabbed the unzipped edges of his jacket. “Really sing it.”
He held my cold wrists, smiling. “I don’t know the words.”
“Do you know the melody?”
“I think so.” He started humming. He knew it.
We couldn’t think of all the words but it didn’t matter.
He sang the three sweetest words in that song slowly, soulfully, in his real voice.
My huckleberry friend.
I absorbed them and they sharpened all other sensations—the cold, crisp air, the silvery trees. I gazed up over his shoulder at the sweet-faced moon. What had I ever done in my life to deserve this wondrous little moment?
Ty squeezed my wrists lightly. “Grace. What are the rest of the words?”
I reluctantly left the moon and looked at him. My mind was perfectly empty. I wanted it to stay that way. “I have no idea.”
“Okay. Let’s go, Zombie Girl. Are you hungry?”
“Ravenous!”
“Another good word for Gram! Come on.”
He led me to chocolate.
Barcalounging, bloat, and bouquets
Cheez Whiz. Yes, my mouth tasted like I had squirted it full of Cheez Whiz. It was possible that I had.
I mentally catalogued the feeding frenzy that followed our illicit drug use. I remembered eating (in roughly this order): half a giant Kit Kat, a ham and Swiss on rye, two kosher dills, an indeterminate number of Combos Nacho-Cheese-Filled Pretzels, and fourteen watermelon Jelly Bellies—each one carefully hand-sorted from all the other flavors by my drug supplier, who made sure that I did not accidentally eat a jalapeño.
I had excused myself to go to bed at around one a.m. and fallen asleep in my clothes, on top of the covers, propped up against the headboard. Trusting that gravity was my friend and would not let me die a vomitous Jimi Hendrix death.
I woke up queasy, flat on my back in the gray November morning light. All the pillows were on the floor. I sat up squinting and emitted a monstrous belch that made me feel like a new woman. I tiptoed to the door and peeked out into the hall. All still and quiet; maybe Jean and Nathan had gone to work. I grabbed my toothbrush and fresh clothes and crossed the hall to the upstairs bathroom.
I showered and pulled on jeans and a sweater and crept quietly down to the kitchen. Half a pot of still-warm coffee sat on the stove.
I ate a bowl of Rice Krispies, then munched on a banana while I snooped around the living room. It featured a gorgeous bay window and a fireplace with a carved mantel, but also a purple velour couch and a camel-colored Barcalounger. An old upright piano stood against one wall, and above it, a dead deer mounted on the wall. Well, just its head.
I went back into the kitchen and checked the time on the microwave. Nine o’clock. I listened at the basement door for sounds of life.
I went upstairs for my book and brought it down and stretched out on the Barcalounger. Read two pages and dozed off.
At about eleven, I crept down a few of the basement stairs to take a peek. Nothing to see but a bunch of bumps and lumps under the navy sleeping bag on the plaid couch. Oh, wait, there was a bit of foot visible.