Chocolate Chocolate Moons (5 page)

“CC?”

“Her name is Colorful Copies. But her friends called her CC. I can’t imagine she remembers me.”

Kandy frowns.

6

T
HE THREE-BEDROOM CONDO
that Flo and Billings rented for us is lovely and more comfortable than what I left behind. Cortland and Billings travel extensively scouting future locations for Little Green Men Pizza. Flo rarely calls. She is too busy tasting and spitting, that is when she is not with the twins who bond with her like nuts on honey buns. “Aunt Flo” shops with them at Rodeo Dive’s trendy boutiques with their expensive off-planet imports.

Life on Mars is a big adjustment. After years of being an average-sized person on the Moon, I am surrounded by tall, ultrathin, stylish people who give me the same disgusted look Flo gave me when we met; ergo, I have no friends. When I look for a job, the only offer I get is to dress as a Chocolate Moon and stand in front of a candy store. And although it comes with an attractive all-you-can-eat policy, my dignity trumps my appetite, so I decline.

I go into the kitchen and heat a slice of ten-mushroom Green Men Pizza. I sit and pick the mushrooms off the top. There are nine. I can’t believe I came all this way so my husband could work for this company.

“NO!” Flo yells at Billings. “I’m not moving to Pharaoh City and live in Arabia Terra. I’m no pioneer.”

“But our competition, Red Planet Pizza, has three thriving outlets.”

Flo bobs and weaves around him. “It may be up-and-coming, but I’m not up and going. Four generations of my family are in New Chicago, plus all my friends and work. How about your cousin Lawrence? He loves Arabia.”

Billings rolls his eyes. Finally he gets up and says, “I’ve a better idea.”

Billings sits in our living room on my favorite floating La-Z-Boy. Bad sign. He is not a sitter. Usually when he visits, he has one foot out the door. I think it has something to do with the pounding music emanating from the twins’ bedroom. But I’m wrong.

“All I’m telling you,” he says, “is that Pharaoh City is a boom-town. Developers are transforming it so fast environmentalists fear that red Mars is becoming Mars Mall. When you see those new geodesic homes, you’ll never want to live in a condo again.”

After he leaves I say to Cortland, “If it’s so great he and Flo should go.” He doesn’t answer, but I know we’re going.

We all pile into our new Chevy Laid Rover. The rover’s license plate carries an ad from the manufacturer that says “Get Laid.” I want it removed because I learned in a history class that the phrase was some kind of ancient war cry shouted during the war of the sexes, and I don’t want people to get the wrong impression. But Cortland says that was then and this is now. And, I should stop believing everything I read, because he knows for a fact that it is something football players said when they made a touchdown.

Cortland drives to a clear domed slideway, finds a slot, and pushes the red blinking word “Destination” on the dashboard and scrolls to “Pharaoh City.” The motor turns off automatically then restarts as we approach our destination. The twins sit in the back, sulking and snapping at each other.

“See what you made me do?” Lois screams, pointing to a chip on her pinky’s polish and waving it in front of Becky’s face.

“How about a Chocolate Moon?” I ask, desperately shaking a box.

“I would never eat
that
!” hisses Lois. “Don’t you have any Freedom Plan snacks? Aunt Flo eats only Freedom Plan snacks.”

“Yeah,” Becky chimes in. “Aunt Flo eats only Freedom Plan snacks.”

Finally we see several exits for Pharaoh and get off at Nefertiti, a suburb known for luxurious housing developments. I try to get the twins to look, but they are too busy checking their mirrors, putting on lipstick, and fluffing their hair.

When we park, a too-cheery real estate agent eyes the girls and points us in the direction of the model homes. The twins announce they hate them before they even see them. My stomach knots.

We enter the first model, a two-story building wrapped around a central courtyard. The kitchen has the latest wave-max appliances, which cook with ninety-degree winds. I touch an electro-spun wall that zings a color change.

Becky rolls her eyes like a martyr in a medieval painting.

Lois twirls her hair and bites her cuticles. Yawns.

I see a large colorful painting in the living room and recognize the style from my art history class at Armstrong University. I pick up a catalog and scan the list. “I knew it,” I say. “It’s a Hallmark! It’s called
Get Well Soon.
I would prefer
Happy Birthday,
but that painting’s too expensive.”

Becky looks over my shoulder and reads the catalog list. “That one isn’t,” she says pointing to
My Condolences.

The girls finally show some interest after they discover that the house temperature can be adjusted around each person, ending the “It’s too hot/It’s too cold” wars.

Cortland reminds the girls that this year they will be applying to college, and the best music school, King Tut, is in Pharaoh City. He points toward the den and drums his fingers on the wall. “Great music studio!” he says.

The twins say nothing.

Then they wander into the courtyard. They look down at a mosaic of white swans and water lilies in the center of the tiled floor. Large terra-cotta pots hold blooming plants. The twins sink into puffy yellow lounge chairs, put their feet on matching ottomans, tilt their heads, and look up at the sun shining in the pink sky.

Cortland, sensing an opportune moment, says through the doorway, “Guess who’s coming here to the Ten Plagues Multiplex?” He walks toward them, reaches into his pocket, pulls out some tickets, and waves them back and forth. “Got these just in case you all said yes.” Four blue eyes flash.

“Oooh, Daddy! Elvis Beethoven,” Becky squeals. “We studied him in school. He wrote nine polkas. Beethoven’s fifth was the theme for the film,
1002.
The conductor was some Swedish guy, Ingmar Bergman.”

“Sorry, I’m sure it was Ingrid Bergman?” Lois corrects.

“Whatever,” Becky says. “I only remember that he ate wild strawberries and wore a watch that had no hands. He must be a psychic.”

Flo, having no children of her own, has second thoughts about the girls moving to Pharaoh. She eats half a rice cracker and downs three vitamins Cs. But Billings is overjoyed. Having taken no chance that I would not leave New Chicago, and not realizing I would do almost anything to get out of there, he taps all his contacts at the Culinary Institute whose headquarters are in Pharaoh and lands me a job as a security guard. It comes with a free lunch at its Quantum Corner Café famous for the Olympic Mons soufflé.

My mouth waters: I can’t wait.

I overhear Becky say, “Can you believe she’ll be a security guard at the Culinary Institute? It’s like putting a fox in a hen house. I’m so depressed I could eat mascara.”

“Mascara topped with lipstick,” Lois groans.

I go into the bathroom and step on my old scale that still registers my weight in Moon pounds. Without dieting I have lost twenty pounds living in heavier gravity, but my metabolism is slowly adjusting.

7

K
ANDY CHECKS HER
makeup in a hand held mirror and smiles. The thought of CC coming to Mars flits through her mind like a brief sun shower. She knows that CC is no competition for Drew’s attention. Numero uno is collecting fine art.

Ever since Drew attended his first auction and acquired a lock of bacon from the head of Francis of Bacon that he keeps under glass with an egg, he’s been a passionate collector. Now a rare twentieth-century sculpture by the Swiss artist Alberto Giacometti is being auctioned at Park Bengay, and it’s all he talks about.

The Giacometti is such a news breaker that art historians interrupt their debate on what came first, the gift shop or the museum, and examine theories about Giacometti’s vision. Many think his thin emaciated-looking sculptures are precognitive of what people would look like in the future. But there are serious rumors that the sculpture is a fake, a media ploy by Park Bengay to draw people to its new dance club below its auction house where socialites get heady doing the sweaty Giacometti.

Drew and Kandy exit a chauffeured white limo and pass through the golden arches of the auction house. No one suspects that with his high life and beautiful girlfriend Drew has big stock market losses and large gambling debts with Rocket Packarod. No, no one suspects.

Kandy sits up front next to Drew, her beautiful head perched on a long neck encased in a crisp white blouse. Drew drums his fingers and taps his foot. Kandy puts her hand on his arm.

He pulls away.

Then the room quiets and the bidding begins.

Drew stands, gyrates, raises his paddle high over his head again, again, again—until the auctioneer shouts, “Sold to Drew Barron!”

He runs to the podium, grabs the scrawny twig-limbed sculpture, waves it over his head, and bows.

Kandy blushes, not knowing if she should be embarrassed or proud.

Acquiring the Giacometti puts Drew in a class with Mars’ top collectors like Craig Cashew, the Culinary Institute’s CEO, whose love of art rivals his love of food. At the last auction, Craig acquired the coveted brown-on-brown sculpture
Jasper’s John
and a rare etching of the great English chef from the Falklands, Margaret Thatcher, standing in front of Folsom Prison holding a rolling pin over the head of finance minister johnny Cash.

Craig Cashew built the Culinary Institute. He took a small gourmet take-out shop and turned it into a complex of restaurants, shops, schools, the Flying Saucer Supermarket, botanical gardens, and farms that consistently rank in the solar system’s top ten tourist attractions. His work on discovering how many sushi make a sashimi is summarized in two ancient, unique and rarely used descriptive words: awesome and amazing.

But most consider Craig an enigma wrapped in a riddle covered in a menu. He’s one of the few Mars natives not bone thin. He resembles a double-door subzero refrigerator held together with suspenders and a bow tie.

“You said getting the Giacometti was a sure thing,” Craig growls to Park Bengay’s director, Ozymandias Glitzstein, in a voice that sounds like the dredging of a chocolate malted through a thick straw.

“We didn’t think Mr. Barron would be interested in the classics,” Ozymandias says, wiping his brow.

“Well, you were wrong!”

“May I offer you a reduced price on an etching by Giacometti Jr.? Or the Venus de Milo’s arms? We just had them tattooed.”

Craig glares.

“How about X-rays of Picasso’s hands with woodcuts of his feet?”

Craig turns and marches away. Ozymandias runs after him. “Please! We just received a very rare painting of the last burger by McDonald.”

“Sell it to Drew Barron,” Craig snarls over his shoulder. “He can afford it!”

Drew is home alone. His palm signals a call. Loud music and clinking glasses almost drown out Rocket’s voice. “Must be your lucky day. I’m right across the street having a Trophytini at the St. Trophy. Heard you were the highest bidder for the Giacometti sculpture. Mind if I stop by and take a look?”