Keeping the Moon (7 page)

I thought back to the nights we'd slept in the car; to ketchup soup. To the times she'd thought I was sleeping and cried

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silently, her hands over her face. My mother was strong, to be sure. But nobody was perfect.

Onscreen, my mother was leading the crowd in a touch-step, touch-step, her arms waving over her head. She had a big, bright smile, her muscles flexing and unflexing with each lunge. "Let's go!" she said to them, to us. "I know you can do it! I know you can!"

Mira was watching, leaning in close. "I just love this program. The weight stuff---" she paused, shaking her head. "That's not important to me; we've always been different that way. But I just love to see what she can
do.
It's infectious, you know? That's why I always watch," she said softly, there in the dark, the light from the TV flickering across both of us. "I always watch."

"Me too," I said, and I sat on the floor by her feet. I pulled my legs in against my chest and we watched together as my mother spread the gospel, one touch-step, touch-step at a time.

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***

chapter five

The Colby post office was a tiny little house, one room lined with mailboxes, staffed by an old man who always looked half asleep. After I worked lunches I'd leave from the back door of the restaurant, walk across an empty field, then past an auto shop and a drugstore to come out right by its front door.

There's a kind of radar that you get, after years of being talked about and made fun of by other people. You can almost smell it when it's about to happen, can recognize instantly the sound of a hushed voice, lowered just enough to make whatever is said okay. I had only been in Colby for a few weeks. But I had not forgotten.

I was in the post office picking through the mail one day-- bills, a check from Mira's card company, and a postcard from my

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mother featuring the Venus de Milo in workout wear--when I heard it.

"Well, you know what they say about her." It was a woman's voice, middle-aged and twangy. She was around the corner, behind the next row of mailboxes.

"I've been told some things," a second woman said. You could tell she wanted her friend to go on. She just wasn't ready to contribute yet.

This was also part of what I knew.

"It's no secret," said the first woman. I could hear her shuffling her mail. "I mean, everyone is aware of it."

I stepped back and leaned against the mailboxes, touching my tongue to my piercing. My face was already hot, that uncontrollable red flush that climbed across my skin, rampant, that one dry spot in the back of my throat that no amount of swallowing helped. I might as well have been back at school, standing in the girls' locker room listening to Caroline Dawes announce to her friends that I'd told Chase Mercer my mother would pay him to be my boyfriend.

And that was a
good
day. Now here, months later in a town where I hardly knew anyone, it was happening again.

"She's been like this ever since she moved here," the first woman said. "But it goes beyond just personality quirks, you know? With that bike, and the clothes she wears. Not to mention all the strays she takes in. It's like she's running some kind of weird commune down at the end of that road. It's embarrassing for
all
of us."

"You'd think," her friend said, "that someone would have told her how ridiculous she looks by now."

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"Don't you think I've tried?" the first woman said with a sigh. "But it's no use. She's crazy. It's that simple."

I took a deep breath. They weren't talking about me; of course they weren't. They were talking about
Mira.
I thought of her on her bike, pedaling furiously, and my face began to burn again.

"Big Norm Carswell's just beside himself that his son is living beneath her house. God
knows
what goes on over there. I don't even want to think about it."

"Is he the football player? Or the basketball star who went to State on that scholarship?"

"Neither," the first woman said. "He's the youngest, Norm's namesake. They never knew what to do with him; the boy didn't play
anything.
He has long hair and I think he's into drugs."

"Oh, that one. He's actually very nice. He came to my yard sale just last week and bought up all my old sunglasses. Said he collects them."

"He has
many
problems," said the first woman. "But then, so does Mira Sparks. I just know she'll end up living out her days alone, getting crazier and crazier, and fatter and fatter--" and her friend snorted once, an oh-you're-terrible laugh--"in that big old drafty house."

"Oh, my," her friend said, savoring this. "That's so sad."

"Well, it's her choice."

I already hated this woman, the way I had learned to hate anyone who talked trash behind someone's back. I was used to the flat-out mean, straight-to-your-face insult, no messing around or mixing of messages. Somehow, there was more dignity in that.

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I turned back to the mailboxes, still feeling sorry for Mira, and tucked our mail in my back pocket. Then I heard something behind me. When I turned around, I saw the Big-Headed Baby for the first time.

I recognized her instantly: there was no way not to. She was about two years old, wearing a frilly pink dress and white sandals. Her hair was blond and wispy, and there was a pink elastic ribbon with a bow stretched across her head, which just made it look bigger, if that was possible. She had true-blue eyes and looked up at me, open-mouthed, clutching her skirt in her hand.

Man, I thought. Mira had been right: it was
quite
a cranium, somewhat egg-shaped, the skin on her scalp pale and almost translucent. The rest of her body seemed toylike in comparison.

She stood there and stared at me, the way kids will when they haven't learned it's rude yet. Then she lifted one hand, touching a chubby finger to her lips in the exact place where my piercing was. She held it there, still watching intently, for a few seconds. I couldn't take my eyes off her.

And then, just as quickly as she'd appeared, she turned and toddled back around the corner, her tiny footsteps barely audible on the tile floor.

I was still standing there when the women walked past--the baby clinging to the hand of the taller one--and out the door, the bell clanking behind them. They were talking about someone else now, about husbands and divorces and real estate. They didn't see me.

I watched them go, two middle-aged women in shorts and sandals. The one with the baby had curled blond hair and was

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wearing a sweater patterned with sailboats. They stopped outside, still talking, and smiled and waved at a little old woman with a walker coming up the steps. The baby ran down the front walk, arms outstretched, toward the white picket fence and the roses growing across it.

It didn't matter how old you were. There were Caroline Daweses everywhere.

I stood at the window of the post office, watching them get into their cars and drive away. Then I walked back to Mira's.

"So," she said with a smile, flipping through the mail. "What's the word on the street?"

I heard that woman's voice in my head, so snide, and felt that same dry spot in my throat, the same flush across my skin.

"Nothing," I said.

And she nodded, believing me, before turning back to the TV.

It was so much easier with wrestling. There was a balance: you had your good guys, like Rex Runyon, and your bad guys, like the Bruiser Brothers. The bad guys sometimes pulled ahead, but there was always a good guy in the wings, ready to run out and clock someone with a chair or throw them over the side or slap them into a figure four, all in the name of what was right.

As I watched, I realized that Mira probably
did
know it was all faked; she had to. But there was something satisfying about watching the Bruiser Brothers reduced to limping off the mat, heads in their hands, paying for what they'd done. It restored your faith. And it was enough to push aside your skepticism and just believe, if only for a little while, that good always wins out in the end.

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"The thing is," Morgan said, scooping out another measure of coffee and dumping it into a filter, "Mira has
always
been different."

We were at work, before opening, and I'd told her what had happened at the post office. She'd just sighed and nodded, as if she wasn't really surprised.

"I mean," she went on, "ever since she came here, people have been talking. Mira's an artist and this is a small town. It's practically natural."

I nodded. I was rolling silverware: knife, then fork, on a napkin, then the napkin pulled taut at a right angle and three tight rolls. Morgan watched me out of the corner of her eye, checking my technique, as she talked.

"I can still remember the first time I saw her. Me and Isabel were in high school, about your age, I guess. We were checkout girls at the Big Shop, and Mira came up one day on her bike, wearing some bright orange parka. She bought about six boxes of cereal. That's all she
ever
seemed to buy. I kept waiting for her to go into sugar shock, right there at my register."

I kept rolling, afraid she'd stop if I said anything.

"Anyway," she said, straightening the stack of filters, which was just slightly crooked, "after a while, she started to get involved in the community. I remember my mom took this painting class Mira taught over at the Community Center. It had been taught before by this old lady who had a rule that everyone could
only
paint flowers and animals. And then here comes Mira, talking about the human form, and perspective, and encouraging everyone to just throw the paint around and whatnot."

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I smiled; that sounded like Mira.

"But the worst part was she talked the mailman, Mr. Rooter-- who was about seventy, even then--into modeling for the class."

I looked up at this.

"Nude
modeling," she added, doing another filter. "Apparently, it was quite horrifying. I mean, my mother never really recovered. She said she could never look at the mail the same way again."

"Wow," I said.

"I know," Morgan replied. "Mira never understood what all the fuss was about. But from then on, everyone already had their ideas about her. You're not rolling those tight enough."

"What?" I said, startled.

"You need to pull that napkin tighter," she said, pointing. "See how they're kind of loose and floppy?"

"Oh," I said. "Sorry."

She watched me, eyes narrowed, until I shaped up. "But Mira didn't even seem to notice that everyone was up in arms until they asked her to leave. And poor Mr. Rooter. I don't think anyone made eye contact with him for at
least
a year. The next week that class was back to flowers and puppies again. My mom painted this awful lopsided basset hound that she hung in the bathroom. It was really scary."

I wasn't quite sure what to say to that.

"So that was kind of how it started," she went on. "But there were other things, too. Like when some parents wanted to ban some books from the middle school. Mira freaked
out
about that, started showing up at school board meetings and making a real commotion. It just made people nervous, I guess."

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"That's a shame, though," I said.

"Yeah, it is." She picked up one of my sloppy rolls and redid it, pulling the napkin tight. "But that's when they started getting kind of nasty toward her. Like I said, this is a small town. It doesn't take much to get a reputation."

"Those women I heard today in the post office," I said, softly, "one of them had this--"

"The baby," she finished for me, and I nodded. "That's Bea Williamson. The Williamsons are old Colby: country club, town government, big mansion overlooking the sound. She's got some kind of issue with Mira. I don't know what it is."

I wanted to tell her that sometimes there doesn't even have to be a reason. I knew from experience that no matter how much you turn things in your head, trying to make sense of them, some people just defy all logic.

"They were saying all these terrible things," I said, finishing another silverware. "You know, about the way she is."

"The way she is," Morgan repeated flatly.

"Yeah, well," I went on, not looking at her. I suddenly felt terrible for even bringing it up, as if I
was
Bea Williamson, just that shallow. "The way she dresses and all."

She absorbed this. "I don't know," she said, shrugging. "Mira's always been a free spirit, as long as I've known her. She's just Mira."

There was a crunching of gravel outside as the Rabbit pulled up, radio blasting. Isabel got out, wearing a pair of white sunglasses, and slammed the door.

"Oh, look at this," Morgan said loudly.

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"I don't want to hear it," Isabel said, walking right past me, sunglasses still on, heading straight to the coffee machine.

"Where were you last night?"

Isabel pulled down the newly stocked container of filters and balanced it on her leg to pull one out. Then she slipped a bit, knocking a few onto the floor, which she stepped over as she went to start the coffee.

This, of course, sent Morgan into a snit.

"Give me that!" she snapped, grabbing the container and putting it on the counter, reaching in to repair the damage. "I just
did
these, Isabel."

I rolled silverware, keeping my head down.

"Sorry," Isabel said. The machine started gurgling, spitting out coffee, and she stretched and yawned while she watched.

"You know I was worried
sick
about you," Morgan said, reaching down to pick up the spilled filters. Just for spite she knocked Isabel's knee with the dustpan, which she already had at the ready for cleanup.

"Ow." Isabel stepped aside. "God, Morgan. You're not my mom. You don't need to be up nights waiting for me."

"I didn't even know where you were," Morgan grumbled, busily sweeping. "You didn't leave a note. You could have been--"