Moon Shadow: The Totally True Love Adventure Series (Volume 1) (20 page)

Daniel definitely knows his stuff. “How does the elliptical orbit affect the tides?” I ask.

“The moon does exert a bit more of a gravitational pull when it swings closer to Earth, about forty-two percent more at its closest point than its farthest. In general, the moon stabilizes Earth’s wobble on its axis, leading to a stable climate. That’s why it’s so important that we find a solution as soon as possible.”

I’m still showing off a little when I say, “Yes, the coastlines and lowland areas all over the world will be affected first, with flooding of the land and disruption of the biota most pronounced in lowland areas, notably the tropics, just as if the effects of global warming were to happen much earlier than expected.”

Daniel glances at me. “Hey, you know your stuff,” he says.

“I’m going to major in biology at college, zoology actually.”

“We’ll both be scientists.”

As we continue traveling east on the freeway, without talking for a while, I unwind my braid and the wind catches my hair and blows it taut behind me. I take a pink headband from my purse and put it on. I notice that Daniel seems driven by a kind of shadow energy, which I know is a measure of his restlessness. Out of the blue I say, “I’m looking forward to eleventh grade but I’m afraid of getting kidnapped.”

“What’s
that
supposed to mean?”

“No, really, they do kidnap sophomore girls at Coronado High. The senior girls come right into your house at night after the school year starts, and they take you from your bed for initiation. They make you leapfrog down Orange Avenue, and then wake up star football players, and wear your nightgown into the all-night coffee shop to serenade the patrons. When it’s over the girls have a group breakfast and welcome you into the sisterhood.”

“Sounds frightening, and fun, perhaps. Better than having to tie shoelaces all day for seniors.”

I laugh. “Somehow I can’t picture you doing that.”

“Are you hungry?” Daniel asks.

“I am the avatar of hunger. Totally.”

We exit the freeway at Main Street in El Cajon Valley and drive to a Jack-in-the-Box. I brush my windblown hair; each stroke creates a sizzling sound, barely audible on the afternoon stillness. “My Mom never lets me eat at places like this.”

Daniel parks the car. “Look, if you want to be on your own, and you’re broke, you have to eat cheaply.”

“I’ll pay,” I say. “I have over two hundred dollars.” I look back at Manny, who fusses, moving back and forth anxiously. He’s craning his neck from side to side, as if he might be gasping for air.

“Daniel, I think there’s something wrong with Manny.”

Daniel looks over his shoulder. “He’s not used to being outdoors, especially when it’s this hot. I’ll bet he’s dehydrated. Wait here and I’ll run inside and get some water.”

I sigh theatrically. “My hero.”

I feel like such a dimwit. Duh, of course Manny needs water, and food. I’ve brought neither.

I get out of the car and, with the door open, place Manny’s cage on the passenger seat. I open the cage and put my hand inside, but instead of perching on my finger, Manny hops out of the cage, onto the seat.

With that, my bird suddenly opens his wings and soars skyward, high into the air above Jack’s. I watch in horror as Manny circles the building. Oddly, one of my favorite songs, “Time to Say Goodbye,” by Sarah Brightman and Andrea Bocelli, begins to sound in my head.

For a couple of minutes Manny flies higher and higher and his circles grow wider and wider. Then I scream, “Manny, Manny, Manny,” as my parrot disappears. It seems he was flying in a southerly direction when I lost sight of him. I begin to cry.

Daniel, who’d returned with the water just as Manny escaped, takes me into his arms and holds me tightly. I rest my head on his chest. “Did you see where he went?” I ask.

Daniel points south. “Somewhere beyond those houses, I think.”

I’m pursing my lips to make the tears stop.

“Get in, let’s go look,” he says.

As Daniel drives slowly along several streets behind Jack’s, we search for Manny on front lawns and between houses. Then Daniel parks the car and we walk, holding hands, canvassing an area of about two square blocks, again and again in the hot sun for more than an hour, without any luck.

We return to the car. With one arm flung over my eyes, I blow my nose on a Kleenex. “I think I’ve lost Manny,” I say somberly. “He could be miles away.”

“Your bird grew tired of being caged,” says Daniel. “It was time for Manny to spread his wings.”

I remember the gift I’ve brought for Daniel. I didn’t want to mention what I imagined I heard Manny say just before he flew off: “Sorry kid, it’s time you do your thing and I do mine.”

Reaching into my purse, I pull out my dad’s ... William Hartford’s ... Navy pilot wings. I hand Daniel the brass pin, which replicates the wingspan of an American eagle. “They gave this to me the day of ... my dad’s funeral,” I say, in a melancholy tone. “He fought for our freedom, like you.”

Daniel laughs softly. “I want you to know that any patriotic reason for my joining the Army was secondary. I suppose I only wanted to embrace some crazy ideal of manhood, you know, experience the desire to kill along with the thrill of risking death. But it didn’t work out that way.”

“You certainly aren’t the killing type,” I say exultantly.

Daniel averts his eyes. “War truly
is
hell, as they say.”

I don’t know how to respond. “That pin means a lot to me. It’s very dear to my heart, as you are. I want you to keep it forever, no matter what happens to us.”

Daniel’s eyes meet mine. He looks puzzled. “Thanks,” he says, and he stuffs the pin into his jeans pocket. After a brief pause, he adds, “Later, before we go to the beach, we’ll come back here and put up some notices about Manny. I’m not hungry any more, are you?”

“No, I’m not.” I feel a sudden need to speak of my love for Daniel with another female, my mother, maybe, but now that seems impossible.

As Daniel drives to First Street, turning left, and we head north, towards Rattlesnake Mountain and The Gables, I try not to think about Manny.

I
drive past The Gables, at Sarah’s request. Turning from Ballantyne Lane and traveling towards Rattlesnake Mountain, I park the car out of sight, in the grass, behind a grove of orange trees, in case Sarah’s mother shows up. Sarah has told me she isn’t ready to go home any time soon.

As we walk to the house, I put my arm carelessly around Sarah’s waist, an arm squeezing a thin, warm waist. I can feel the light play of her muscles, a kind of steady, determined articulation: I-love-you, I-love-you.

The late afternoon sun sears my eyes. Earlier, from the freeway, I’d observed the leaden sky east of the El Commandante Mountains. I’d seen dark damp clouds, earth-bound, and flashes of heat lightning, a sign of possible rain out of season.

We enter the house through the back door, and Sarah whispers mischievously in my ear, “Where’s the nearest bed?” She holds her suitcase under one arm, her purse under the other.

I blush as I peer at her lovely face, her youthful body and wonder how someone so pure can love someone like me. The thought fills my heart with sadness. “I have work to do,” I say soberly.

“Where’s your room?” Sarah asks, wide-eyed, with a smile that seems to embody her innocence. I point the way, and she sidles past me.

Although it doesn’t appear that Julie is around, I knock on the door of the back bedroom. When I don’t hear a response, I go in. I want to take a final look around.

I quickly search the room: dresser drawers, under the bed and between the mattresses, under both chests of drawers, in the closet, behind the furniture. I find no evidence of my mother’s diary, but, oddly, there’s a suitcase under the bed, and it’s full of Julie’s clothes and make-up and her toiletries, as if she were going on a trip. I put everything back as it was before I’d entered the room.

“Sarah,” I call, as I walk into my bedroom. She’s removed her sneakers and socks, and she’s lying supinely on my undersized bed in her white rayon blouse and wide print skirt that is too tight. Her long chestnut hair is splayed on the pillow. She seems the focus of all the natural light in the room. Her face is snow-white, bloodless, enchanting. It comes to me clearly that Sarah is what I want. My white goddess, I think.

“Did you have any luck?” she asks.

I sit on the edge of the bed. “No, I didn’t find anything. Are you hungry, yet?”

“For you, Daniel. I’ve fallen in love. It’s the first and last time for me, you know. I want you now, and someday, when I’m old enough (that is, of course, if you’ll have me) I want to become Ms. Hartford-Rosen.”

I’m delighted with the unreasonableness of her answer. “How do you know it’s love if you’ve never been in love before?”

“Because I can feel it.”

“Where?”

Sarah covers her belly with both hands. “In my stomach. It’s all warm.” She pauses. “Since my dad died I’ve had a knot there. And now ... it’s gone.”

She had turned on my stereo, put on a CD of classical masterworks. A symphonic rendition of “Musetta’s Waltz,” music from Puccini’s “La Bohème,” plays softly.

“Do you want to dance?” I ask.

With a sort of silent-movie eagerness Sarah jumps up from the bed, into my arms. We begin to slow-dance. As we sway solemnly in each other’s arms, the sweet smell of orange blossoms floats into the room on the breeze from the open window.

Sarah squeezes my hand and I lace my fingers with hers and bring her closer. She’s smaller than I had imagined. She rests her head on my chest, and I gently touch her face, which somehow beckons me. As we dance cheek-to-cheek, I imagine it’s a virtue dance, which is customary at Yiddish weddings when the bride is a virgin. After the virtue dance, the bride and groom are led, separately, into the marriage chamber.

“I’m dancing away my impure thoughts,” Sarah whispers. “I seem to be filled with them.”

When the song ends, she steers me to the bed, breaks away and lies down. I lie next to her and stroke her hair, clearing the wispy strands from her face. Sarah seems to purr like a contented cat. I lay my hand lightly on her bare arm. Her skin is warm, and her closed eyes appear to be smiling behind their lids. As I blanket her shoulder and neck with kisses, she begins to breathe heavily, sighing and softly calling my name.

There have been days when my mind was awash with fantasies of making love with Sarah. Yet I don’t really feel, for reasons unknown, that I should take her now, her first time, as CJ has taken Devon. Sarah represents for me something holy, which almost any sexual act will profane. Better the austere sterility of only having the desire.

I catch in her face a wisp of impatience, and so I kiss her tenderly on the lips. I feel Sarah’s fingers on my ankle, on my feet. With a sigh, I relax as she takes off my moccasins.

“I’m yours,” she coos, smiling.

I shake my head as if denying the power of my desire.

“Yes, Daniel,” she says, her voice trembling but determined. “Teach me ... show me how you love me. Sex is a sort of mystery for me, like when you feel something for somebody, and you don’t know what it is, but you know that if you knew what it was, you wouldn’t feel it anymore. It’s all mixed in with love that way.”

I kiss her again and unbutton her blouse. She sits up, takes it off and lies down again. I remove my tee shirt, and then my hand moves independent of my will, and I stroke her tiny breasts through the fabric of her bra. She reaches around and unclasps her bra and suddenly I’m touching bare skin. As she presses her body firmly against mine, grinding on me, she starts breathing a little too fast, so I remove my hand from her breasts.

Sarah unzips her skirt and slides it off, and I kiss her lips, grazing the waistband of her panties with my hand, as she caresses my belly and chest and back. The phone in the living room begins to ring.

“Kiss me more,” she says, “I want to bloom with your baby. I love you marvelous much.”

As I’m kissing Sarah, her hand moves to unsnap my jeans, and I put my hand over hers, gently stopping her. “I really don’t want to, not yet,” I say. The thought of not making love to her right now makes my body shudder with a kind of negative electricity. The phone is still ringing.

Sarah springs up, the bruised vanity evident in her eyes (the sparkle is gone) and in the pink blush that spreads from her face to her neck and shoulders. “Don’t you want to talk about it?” she asks, shaking her head. “Sex, I mean.” She looks at the floor.

“No,” I say. I don’t want her to think I’m not into getting down with her, I just don’t feel we’re ready yet.

“No, or not now?”

“Not yet,” I repeat, regretfully. “When the time is right, it will happen easily and naturally. In the meantime we should savor each moment of togetherness.”

Her eyes glow again. “If I lost faith in you, I’d lose faith in God,” she says. “I’d like you to be around for a long time, forever, because if you weren’t, it would be just like eating dirt.”

She gets up from the bed and, turning away from me, opens her suitcase. She puts on a pair of jeans, her bra and the white blouse. As I watch her, I promise myself that when we arrive at the apartment I’ll tell Sarah the truth about my father.