Moon Shadow: The Totally True Love Adventure Series (Volume 1) (31 page)

He seems to brood above me, his eyes closed, his expression beautiful. I feel the pressure of his hips, the movement of his tongue and all it offers; I’ve never experienced anything so lovely. As I struggle wildly to receive him, there’s an uncanny sense of melted time, where I find myself under a strange spell, ahead of where I actually am.

Then I make an inadvertent whimpering sound and Daniel quickens the pace, bringing our lovemaking to a majestic end, as he plants his seed within me. The timing is perfect because I’m ovulating.

There’s a vast nocturnal silence, as if we’re alone in the world. Daniel kisses me passionately and then shifts his weight and lies in the sand beside me. The bright fierce moon pours metallic brilliance onto the sea and animates the black walls of the cliffs behind us.

I glance secretly at the young man I love. My arms and legs are held out happily in all directions, just like a starfish. Half child, half woman, I’m a little overwhelmed by the complexities of my changing body. There’s a sense of sadness about losing my virginity, too, but that’s kind of canceled out by the joy of losing it to the guy I care so much about. As I snuggle into the crook of his neck, Daniel makes me feel warm and safe. It’s as if I’ve known him all my life.

We watch the smooth foamless sea rise and fall in the moonlight. The world now has an odd look to it. I laugh, and my body seems to be moving of its own accord as I jump up and run naked into the surf, whooping merrily, flailing my arms in the wind along the way.

I look back, as if studying the girl on the beach I’ve just stepped away from. The Sarah part of me, by far the biggest part, recognizes herself, as she beckons Daniel to join her in the knee-deep shallows, to participate in her newfound sense of freedom, of independence. The Alice part of me, which seems quite small, is still trying to discern the figure of that girl on the beach, who now stands in the constantly changing waters of the ocean, waiting for her lover.

I ask myself, But if I’m not the same as before, who am I, then?

I’m Sarah. And I like being Sarah, just her.

I
watch as Sarah flies across the sand and into the sea, her arms like wings. When she’s standing knee-deep in the water, she looks back, as if beckoning me to join her. I rise and run to her. I splash seawater in her direction, as she plays modest Venus, one hand over her genitals, the other over her breasts.

When she splashes me in turn, relentlessly, I wrap my arms around her and place my mouth over her wet lips, kissing her passionately, cleaving spirit to spirit.

We stay in the water a joyous while, giggling against all restraint, clutching each other in helpless, delirious laughter, alternately splashing and embracing, without self-consciousness, but with something of the indifference of members of a nudist colony.

Whenever her eyes turn from me, I furtively stare at Sarah’s sublimely feminine figure, her long legs and small breasts. My hunger for her seems to keep me warm, but I desire her in the way I suppose she desires me: not so much for making love but for snuggling.

Soon we return to the cliff and get dressed—Sarah fixes her hair in a style that is both elegant and faintly disheveled. We gather our things and wade over to the main beach, before the tidewaters become too deep to traverse. As I take Sarah’s hand and lead her across to the other side, I sense that the ghost of my mother lies hidden within me now, perhaps permanently.

I reach a hand skyward, as if to push the thought away. Lately, nothing is merely itself any longer, and I’m constantly reminded of things gone. I remember how it was with Liz, and I smile. After all, it was only physical. With Sarah there’s real mystery.

We sit snugly together, backed against the base of the cliff on the main beach, looking out on the encroaching waters of the ocean. My legs are outstretched; Sarah sits with knees drawn up.

Save for the blazing stars and circle of white light from the moon, partially obscured by clouds, it’s enfoldingly dark. It’s quiet, too, except for the sound of the rushing surf that lands a delicate spray upon our faces every few minutes.

Sarah’s pale face is like a spot of light in the darkness. “My mother told me you’d gone to live with your grandma.”

I give a bubbly cough of laughter. “Your mother will say anything to keep us apart. It seems she’s known for some time that Frank ... my father ... had a vasectomy performed on him before he met your mother in 1998.”

“What’s a vasectomy?”

“It’s a medical procedure that precludes a man from getting a woman pregnant. Which means we are not brother and sister.”

Sarah looks at me, grinning, pushes at my shoulder. “I knew that already, silly.” Then she adds in a clear soft voice, “Take me away, Daniel, please. Once again my mother has betrayed me, lied to me. I can’t live like this.”

“We sort of secretly consummated our marriage tonight.”

“Yes, like Romeo and Juliet.”

“Where should we go?”

Sarah breathes deeply, settles herself with her chin on my wet shoulder and closes her eyes. “I don’t much care where, as long as I’m with you. Let’s just go and keep on going until we get there.”

“Mexico?” I mouth the word almost soundlessly, like a thief. “Perhaps I should return the money your mother paid me to stay away from you.”

“My mother feels guilty, that’s why she gave you that money,” Sarah says. “Keep it. Totally.” Then she opens her eyes and gives a little jiggle of her eyebrows, Groucho Marx style. “
Nos Vamos
,” she says. “Let’s go. Take me to Mexico, where the magic of our love can ring true. And maybe someday we can visit East Africa, where the Maasai worship their god, Enkai, husband of the moon. They say that Enkai’s kingdom, the other side of the moon, is the most quiet place in the whole universe.”

With a gentle inviting rhythm, the waves seem to whisper in response, “Shhh, shhh, shhh.”

I
open the sliding glass door and step outside, into our small back yard. I’m wearing my pale blue dress, which hardly fits now. It’s a luminous morning, and warm already. The birds are making music. I walk to the garden and kneel in the grass beside my blooming roses, irises and gerberas. I wonder about the loneliness of each flower. Do they know one another? Do they converse? Then I see the woolly bear caterpillar, about three inches long, just like the ones we studied in biology class last spring. Soon the little creature will metamorphose into a chrysalis, and then after that into a tiger moth.

As I water the plants and examine closely the fruits of their bountiful growth, I can’t help thinking of my mother. Why is love intensified by absence? I miss my loving, unreliable, batshit crazy mother. It’s not that I curse a lot now or anything, but that term best describes my mother and her attempts to come between Daniel and I, and to mold me with her lies into something I didn’t want to become. She just couldn’t resist trying to fit me neatly into
her
world, instead of guiding me along while giving me enough freedom to shape my own existence, make my own choices and learn to take responsibility for them. I can’t do anything about not seeing her or talking with her, and I don’t really wish to. I’m content here in Mérida with Daniel; our home is bliss.

Nonetheless it’s sad, sort of tragic in a way, that I can’t share with my own mother the experience of being pregnant and, in six months, the experience of having a baby. I’ve enjoyed reading
The Secret Life of the Unborn Child
. Thank God for Cristala, my friend, who’s also pregnant and married, like me, and only a year older, and for Russ and Maggie, Americans who have been really kind to us. On Thanksgiving I helped Maggie prepare the turkey and all the trimmings and I learned so much about how to cook. I knew next to nothing about it before, since Carmelita had always prepared the meals in my mother’s house.

There’s no way I can even visit my mother, for she’d surely call the police and they might arrest Daniel for kidnapping a girl under the age of consent and having relations with her. But maybe they wouldn’t arrest him since he’s only two years older than me, and he’s underage himself.

I’m certain my mother is pissed and has hired a private detective to find us, so it might be just a matter of time, but I don’t know what more we can do to avoid being found. Move again? Neither of us wants to do that. I suppose we’ll just have to take our chances. We’re planning to go back next summer, after I turn sixteen and have given birth to our baby. It’s unlikely then my mother will still try to come between us.

We were married here, in October, in an Episcopal church in the city, but that doesn’t count in the U.S. My mother would make me give up our baby, Emma Suzanne, Suzanne after Grandma Hartford (I love the name “Emma,” too) or William Michael Jonathan, after my dad, Daniel’s brother and Mr. Christie. Then I would be miserable all over again, without Daniel and our baby. I wouldn’t be able to share with Daniel the experience of helping form a new person’s soul, of guiding our child on its life journey. In a few weeks we’re going to have an ultrasound but we don’t want to know our baby’s gender until she or he is born.

I still miss my dad, my one and only dad, and I still talk to him and write letters to him. Sometimes when I’m writing to him in my diary it feels like my pen is being held and directed by someone else, like God or something. I hope my dad supports me in what I’m doing. I’ll never get over losing him. Not completely. If our baby is a boy, I see him growing up to be a lot like my dad.

I know I haven’t felt the same since my dad died. When I lost him, I lost my mentor, the person who was meant to help guide me through the many parts of growing up. It sort of took away the person I was inside, for a while, removed a piece of myself that was integral to making me whole. But talking with Daniel about it has made me feel better. I often tell him who my dad was. I also allow myself to cry when I feel sad. Now there’s a special place in my heart that guards the memory and essence of my dad. I will always be my dad’s child.

It’s a good thing my mother gave Daniel so much money. I’ll be able to attend a private bilingual high school here, with an American high school curriculum, starting in January. Mr. Shapiro, our friend, knows the people who run the school and he’ll make sure I get enrolled okay. I could do independent study, at home, instead, but I think I’d rather attend school. Of course I’ll have to take a leave when I give birth.

We have all these fake Mexican and American documents that we picked up in Tijuana: birth certificates, passports, visas, work permits, social security cards, everything. I have a driver’s license from Texas that says I already turned sixteen, and a ninth and tenth grade transcript from a school there. I’m Sarah Taylor now that I’m married to Daniel. My name before was Sarah Bates. Daniel has thought of everything.

Deep down my mother knows she did a lot of wrong things where Daniel and I are concerned. I believe she really does like Daniel. Inside, underneath the temporary psychosis, my mother is actually free-spirited, open-minded, and not just a stuffy old lady.

I’ve been wondering why it is that I’m able to perceive such things, why these things are obvious to someone as young as me, when they seem invisible amid the conventions of the grownup world and are so overlooked in the adult campaign of deceit.

A few weeks ago, during the Day of the Dead festivities, Daniel and I watched a puppet show in the city. Puppets never have to pretend, I remember thinking, like my mother, constantly clinging to the façade of her social status. No, puppets never put on an act, like some people do all the time. That’s ironic.

I’ve been listening, through an open window, to the musical notes in the air. Daniel is playing the piano, his Yamaha keyboard, which sounds just like a baby grand. He practices daily, with scales and arpeggios and chord progressions, usually after working on his movie script, but I’ve not heard him play a song before, like the blues tune he’s pumping now with such joyous passion.