Keeping the Moon (8 page)

"Dead on the highway," Isabel finished for her, rolling her eyes at me. I looked back, surprised at even being acknowledged.

"Yes!" Morgan stood, dumped the grounds in the trash, then put the brush and dustpan neatly back into its place. "Easily. In my car, no less."

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Isabel slammed her hand on the counter. "Don't start about the car, okay?"

"Well," Morgan said, raising her voice, "you shouldn't just take it like that with no notice, I mean, what if I had to be someplace? Considering you didn't tell me anything, I'd have no way of finding you ..."

"Jesus, Morgan, if you weren't such an old woman maybe I would tell you more!" Isabel yelled. "Living with you is like having my grandmother breathing down my neck. So excuse me if I don't share all my intimate details, okay?"

Morgan flinched, as if she'd been hit. Then she turned around and busied herself with the sugars and Sweet'n Lows, segregating them with quick, jerky movements.

Isabel yanked out the coffeepot, stuck a cup under the stream, and let it fill up about halfway. Then she replaced the pot, took a sip of the coffee, and closed her eyes.

It was very quiet.

"I'm sorry," Isabel said loudly. It sounded more genuine than when she had said it to me. "I really am."

Morgan didn't say anything, but moved on to turning all the spoons right side up.

Isabel shot me a look which I knew meant
get lost,
so I stood and took the silverware and napkins into the kitchen. But I could still see them through the food window. I hopped up on the prep table, trying to be quiet, and watched.

"Morgan," Isabel said, softer this time. "I said I was sorry."

"You're always sorry," Morgan said without turning around.

"I know," Isabel replied, in that same low voice.

Another silence, except for Morgan arranging straws.

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"I didn't even know I was going out," Isabel said. "Jeff just called and said we should go sailing so I went and then the afternoon just turned into night and the next thing I knew ..."

Morgan turned around, her eyes wide. "Jeff? That guy we met at the Big Shop?"

"Yes," Isabel said. Now she smiled. "He called. Can you believe it?"

"Oh, my God!" Morgan said, grabbing her by the hand. "What did you do? Did you freak?"

"I had, like, totally forgotten who he was," Isabel told her, laughing. I was so used to her scowling that it took me by surprise. She looked like a different person. "He had to remind me. Can you believe that? But he's so nice, Morgan, and we spent this awesome day...."

"Okay, go back, go back," Morgan said, walking around the counter and sitting down, settling in. "Start with him calling."

"Okay," Isabel said, pouring herself some more coffee. "So the phone rings. And I'm, like, in my bathrobe, watching the soaps..."

I stood there, listening with Morgan while Isabel told the whole story, from the call to the afternoon sail to the kiss. They'd forgotten I was even there. As Isabel acted out her date, both of them laughing, I stayed in the kitchen, out of sight, and pretended she was telling me, too. And that, for once, I was part of this hidden language of laughter and silliness and girls that was, somehow, friendship.

The two of them fascinated me. I spent most nights, after wrestling and Miras early bedtime, sitting on the roof outside

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my window. I had a perfect view of the little white house from there.

Morgan and Isabel loved music. Any kind, really; from disco to oldies to Top Forty, there was always something playing in their shared background. Isabel couldn't seem to function without it. The first thing Morgan did when we got to work was start the iced tea machine; Isabel would turn on the radio and crank it up.

If Isabel was happy, she played oldies, especially Stevie Wonder's
Greatest Hits, Volume One.
If she wasn't happy, she usually put on
Led Zeppelin IV
which Morgan hated; she called it stoner music, and it reminded her of some old boyfriend. Their CD collection, which I'd glimpsed just once as I'd stood on the front porch waiting for Morgan, was enormous. It was spread across their entire house, stacked on speakers and the TV and the coffee tables and just everywhere, spilling across the floor to make a path from one room to another.

Morgan saw me notice this. She had to kick two CDs-- George Jones and Talking Heads, it looked like--out of the way just to shut the door.

"It's the Columbia Record and Tape club," she said simply, nodding toward the house. "Twelve for a penny. They hate us."

Apparently Isabel and Morgan were engaged in a mail war with Columbia, sending angry letters back and forth. But the music kept on coming. It was Isabel's main accessory as she dashed in late to work, always with two or three CDs, usually new, tucked under her arm.

At night, when I crawled out on my rooftop, it was what I heard first, rising from their windows. Usually they were on the

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front porch with the door propped open, the two of them lit up from behind. Isabel smoked and they split a six-pack, sitting barefoot facing each other. Every so often one of them would get up and go inside to change the music, and the other would complain.

"Don't play that Celine Dion crap again," I heard Isabel call out one night, stubbing out her cigarette. "I don't care how much you miss Mark."

Morgan reappeared in the doorway, hand on her hip. Behind her, Celine was already singing. "It was my pick, you know."

"Y'all need a new song," Isabel grumbled. "Just for that, I'm putting Zeppelin on for my next three choices."

"Isabel," Morgan said, plopping down beside her. "Then I'd have to do Neil Diamond, and you don't want that." Morgan loved crooners: Tony Bennett, Tom Jones, Frank Sinatra. She only played Frank, though, when she'd had a crappy night and was really missing Mark. I knew this music well because my mother was a Sinatra fan too.

"Well, then," Isabel said,
"I'd
have to play one of those Rush songs with a ten-minute drum solo. I wouldn't want to, but I'd have to."

"Okay," Morgan said. "I promise I'll only play this once tonight. I just miss him, that's all."

Isabel didn't say anything. She hardly ever did when Mark came up; his name always made her twist her mouth a little bit tighter and turn away.

Celine Dion kept singing, and Morgan brushed her bare foot across the porch, back and forth, mouthing the words. They didn't say anything for a while. When the song faded, Morgan

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stuck out her bottle, and Isabel leaned forward, clinking hers against it.

This was always the truce.

If one or the other didn't have plans they'd stay out there all night. As it got later they'd get lazy and stop changing the music, letting one CD run its course. Isabel always sang along; she knew the words to everything.

I was amazed that they had so much to talk about. From the second they saw each other, there was constant laughing and sarcasm and commentary, something connecting them that pulled taut or fell limp with each thought spoken. Their words, like the music, had the potential to be endless.

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***

chapter six

M
ira had a thing for astrology. She started each morning by reading her horoscope very carefully, then made predictions about the day.

"Listen to this," she called out as I spread fat-free cream cheese across my bagel. She was halfway through a big bowl of Cap'n Crunch drowning in whole milk, the kind of breakfast that would have horrified my mother. " 'Today is a five. You will find yourself challenged, but stay calm: relax and you'll discover you had the wiggle room you needed all along. Highlight energy, patience, faith. Capricorn involved.' "

"Hmmm," I said, which was my usual response.

"Ought to be an interesting day," she mused, taking another heaping spoonful of cereal. "I'd better get my errands done early."

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This meant that when I set off for work, Mira rode alongside me on her bike, pedaling slowly. She was wearing leggings, a big paisley shirt, and the purple high-tops, her hair tucked under a baseball cap. And, of course, her Terminator glasses.

She always acted like she didn't notice that people were looking at her, ignoring the laughter and occasional horn beep. That was fine; I was embarrassed enough for both of us.

When we got to the Quik Stop, right across the street from the restaurant, Mira turned in by the gas pumps and came to a squeaking stop. She waved to Ron behind the counter, who smiled and went back to his paper.

"Okay," Mira said, getting off the bike and taking her pink vinyl purse from the front basket, "we need some white bread, sliced cheese ... and what else?"

I thought for a second as a green Toyota Camry pulled up beside us. "Ummm ... I can't remember."

"It was something," Mira said thoughtfully, pushing up her Terminator glasses. "What was it?"

The door of the Camry slammed and I heard footsteps coming around the front of the car. "Soda?"

"No, no. It wasn't that." She closed her eyes, thinking. "It was..."

Someone was standing behind me now.

"Milk!" Mira said suddenly, snapping her fingers. "It was milk, Colie.
That's
what it was."

"Well, Mira Sparks," I heard a woman's voice say. "Aren't you something this morning."

I didn't even have to turn around; I just glanced into the back

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of the Camry. Sure enough, there was that baby, in a carseat, sound asleep with its big head hanging over to one side.

"Hello, Bea," Mira said, acknowledging her. Then she hitched up her purse and said to me, "I'll see you this afternoon."

"Okay." I turned, facing Bea Williamson, who narrowed her eyes at me. I took a few slow steps, unsure whether I should leave.

Mira opened the door to the Quik Stop, then disappeared inside. Bea Williamson took the baby out of the car, settled it on one hip, and followed right behind her.

Maybe nothing more would happen. Maybe Bea would leave it at just that tone, that one question. But I had been the butt of the joke long enough to know not to put much faith in the benefit of the doubt.

I crossed the road to the Last Chance, dodging the morning traffic. But even as I chopped lettuce, the radio up full blast, I kept glancing back at the Quik Stop, wondering what was going on inside and upset with myself for not being there.

It was a Friday, about a week later, when it happened.

Fridays were usually crazy, with day-trippers and weekenders stopping in before hitting the beach. Morgan had almost every Friday off, in case Mark was in town, which left me to suffer through them with Isabel. I'd already had two large tables and at least ten small ones and it was only one-thirty

"Your food's up," Isabel snapped. She balanced a huge tray on her shoulder, hurrying past the line of people still waiting to be seated.

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"How's it going out there?" Norman asked as I started fraying my food. The music on the kitchen CD box was Stevie Wonder, loud. Isabel had been in a good mood that morning. Norman had on his green sunglasses and was grooving out at the fryer, with Bick making salads and humming behind him.

"Crazy," I told him. "At least three tables waiting."

"Four or more," Isabel said from behind me, reaching around to grab a side of fries. "I need that burger, Norman," she said, leaning closer to the window. "Pronto."

I stepped aside and Norman raised his eyebrows, smiling. He had kind of grown on me. He might have been an art freak, but he was a
sweet
art freak: he always remade my food quickly, even when the error was my fault, and made a point of setting aside the leftover bags of low-fat potato chips, which he knew I loved. On slow nights when we closed together we'd stand, him on his side of the food window, me on mine, and just talk. Days I worked with Isabel he was my only ally, but from the kitchen he couldn't do much.

"This is yours," Isabel said, pulling the rest of my order and dropping it on my tray. "You need to get this stuff
out,
not leave it sitting there getting cold and taking up space."

"I was getting it. But then you--"

"I don't give a crap." She didn't even turn around. "Just do your job, okay? That's all I'm asking."

"I am," I said, with that hot frustrated feeling I always got around her.

"Look, Morgan's not here to coddle you today," she snapped, grabbing the burger Norman handed her. "And I don't have time to explain how life is like coffee or whatever. Just stay out

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of my way and do your own shit." And with that she picked up her tray, bumped me aside again with her hip, and was gone.

I just stood there. Every time this happened I thought up a great response--about three hours
later,
which didn't help much. Waitressing may have forced me to be braver with strangers, but Isabel was different.

"Colie, she's just like that," Norman said, like he always did. No matter how busy he was, Norman somehow noticed
everything.
I'd look up in the middle of a rush to see his eyes on me, just keeping track of where I was. It was strangely reassuring. "She doesn't--"

"I know," I said, taking a deep breath and turning back to my tables. I ran my food out and kept working, my fake smile plastered across my face. I lost myself in the buzz and busyness, avoiding Isabel until two-thirty, when things had slowed down. Then, as my last table left, I took off my apron and went out the back door.

I sat on the steps facing the Dumpsters and let my feet dangle down. In the afternoons it was sunny and bright enough to make you squint, and if the wind was blowing the right way you couldn't even smell the garbage.

A car pulled up out front and I heard the bell ring as someone came in. I looked at my watch: one minute to close. Through the back screen I could just see two girls leaning against the counter.

I started to get up but Isabel was there first, pulling a pen out of her hair. She had that snippy look on her face, like she was just waiting for these two to make her mad. "Can I help you?"