The Hunger Moon (26 page)

Bill whistled. “Jesus, no wonder you called in sick. Was she a friend of yours?”

It seemed in a way presumptuous to say yes, since she hadn’t known Eleanor long. But knowing that she could knock on the older woman’s door for a visit had made Renata feel settled. When Eleanor gave her advice about Charlie, Renata took it. Eleanor had been a wise, comforting presence. She may have been the only real adult Renata had ever known. Then, on the last day of her life, she had done literally everything in her power for Renata’s baby.

“Yes,” she said. “We were friends.”

Bill shook his head. “What was it that you said about Friday the thirteenth?” He reached across the table and covered her hand with his. “Except the part about being with you was lucky.”

Renata withdrew her hand.

Bill took a sip of his coffee and smiled out the window into the dark. “Then there’s the part about Charlie’s father showing up,” he said. “Ex-husband or ex-boyfriend?”

“Boyfriend.”

“Ex-, though, right?”

“Right. But he wants to stick around and spend time with Charlie. I said okay.”

“Long-term or short-term?”

“He said long. I say wait and see.”

Bill nodded and fingered the napkin. “So, how are you feeling? You know, about us going out?”

“Everything is just too complicated for me right now to start something new.”

“I’d say so,” he said.

Renata felt a pang of disappointment over his response. She resisted the urge to say that they should still be friends, all the usual drivel. He didn’t seem crushed, so to console him would be ridiculous. Maybe it was she who wanted consolation. Bill actually seemed quite offhand over the way things were turning out.

In the days that followed, they kept up the pretense of flirting. But it was a sham, and Renata began to understand something about Bill. He came and went with the seasons; he was aiming himself permanently in the direction of the Caribbean. She believed he had been sincere when he had said he was attracted to her and wanted to see more of her, but she also saw that his heart was in no way broken by not being able to. Well, why should it be, after one night together? She wasn’t surprised. But she didn’t know why, since she was the one who dropped him, that it was she who suddenly felt dropped. Sometimes things got twisted around in her mind like that; when she was on the road there had been moments—before she remembered the truth—when Renata actually felt gripped by a fierce anger toward Bryan for abandoning them.

And yet Bryan had followed her across the country.

But for Charlie’s sake, not hers.

S
HE WAS LATE AGAIN AND
R
ENATA EXPLODED
. June had been half waiting for something to happen, some reaction from someone that might break her trance. After it happened she made an effort to be on time for work; she also forced herself to go to some of her classes, although she still couldn’t take notes during the lectures. Her professors’ voices seemed to be talking in another language. June spent the class hours doodling stick figures in her notebooks. She didn’t bother with dance class; what was the point?

The only thing that kept her from losing herself completely was seeing Charlie. It was impossible to stay silent, or sit slumped in a chair, or keep your face passive and expressionless, around him. During her baby-sitting hours she let Charlie show her what to do. He’d point to the toy he wanted and she’d bring it over to him. He’d reach up his hands to be held and she’d hold him. He’d clap his hands to the music on the radio and she would, too. Once, holding Charlie and turning the cardboard pages of an animal picture book, June felt her eyes fill with tears. It was a surprise; she had had no warning that she was about to cry. But the baby’s weight on her lap got her thinking about Mrs. MacGregor’s struggle to carry him that day, and the tears came. They were warm
and, in a way, pleasant. Charlie didn’t seem to mind if she cried. He hummed and gnawed the corner of his book, and June rocked with him, her face wet.

O
NE DAY WHEN SHE WAS ON HER WAY
up to Renata’s, she stopped at Owen’s desk.

“I never really thanked you for all you did that day,” she said.

He shook his head. “Please.”

“No, really. I couldn’t have talked to those paramedics without you. And I couldn’t have handled the call to Mrs. MacGregor’s daughter. You really saved me.”

“It’s okay. Whatever I could do.”

He wasn’t smiling his goofy, overeager smile now. June noticed for the first time that his gray eyes were really quite nice behind his glasses, and if he were a little more filled out, you could almost call him handsome.

“Owen, urn, I don’t really like skiing, but would you like to see a movie sometime?” She hadn’t planned to ask him out; she wondered why she had.

He looked surprised. “Sure. I have weekend nights off.”

“I have Sunday nights off.”

“Sunday’s great. Do you want to meet somewhere?”

She liked it that he didn’t offer to come over to her apartment and pick her up. He was hanging back a little now, which made him more attractive. Maybe she had been too hasty about Owen. After all, who was she to put herself above him? Mrs. M. had thought he was nice. Renata liked him. And Owen liked her; that much was clear. What was wrong with liking someone who liked you? Always before, June had been drawn to guys who made a show of not being available. Even in high school, her crushes had been on the boys in torn black Levi’s and leather jackets, the ones who smoked out in the parking lot between classes and turned the car radio up loud instead of making conversation. She had lost her virginity on a date with a guy who dumped her the next week because he wasn’t interested in “being exclusive.”

June was sitting on the floor in front of the television with Charlie when Owen buzzed her.

“Is it okay if Bryan Harmon comes up to get something he forgot?” he asked her.

June had never met Charlie’s dad. Renata had talked about him a little, said that he had come from California, and that he was in town for a while. But June had never even seen a picture of him. She had time to run a brush through her hair and turn off the TV before he knocked. She answered with Charlie on her hip.

“You must be June,” he said.

“Hi.” She opened the door to let him in. He was gorgeous. Charlie smiled and stretched out his arms. “You want to go to your daddy? Okay, there you go,” June said.

Bryan lifted Charlie high in front of him and made silly faces. Charlie chuckled and grabbed his nose, trying to twist it.

“Hey, that’s Daddy’s nose. I need that,” Bryan said. He turned to June. “I’m sorry to barge in. I was over the other day and I left my camera here.” He pointed to the kitchen counter where it sat.

“That’s okay. Do you want a soda?”

“Sounds good. Me and Charlie’11 just hang out on the floor over here.” Bryan put Charlie down on all fours and assumed the same position, sniffing him and making friendly dog sounds. Charlie cracked up.

June put his soda on the coffee table.

“That’s a nice camera. Are you a photographer?” she asked.

“I like fooling around with it. Renata tells me you’re a dancer.”

“Well, I’ve taken dance classes.”

“She made it sound like a lot more than that.”

“I flubbed this audition with a big-time choreographer. Well, actually, I didn’t—that’s even worse, because I danced about as well as I could, and he didn’t think much of it. That was the same day that Mrs. MacGregor died. Since then, I haven’t felt like going back to dance class.” June didn’t know why she was telling him all this.

“Well, my opinion is that you should do something if you enjoy it, and let the critics be damned.”

June smiled.

“I mean it. If dancing is your thing, then dance.”

“But the point is to do it for an audience,” June said.

“I don’t know this jerk who didn’t like what you did, but I’ll bet that he’s not the only choreographer in the world.”

June knew he was trying to cheer her up, but all she could do was shrug.

“I know, I know, easy to talk. You want me to go find this leotard guy and bust his nose?”

June laughed, and so did Charlie. Charlie loved jokes.

“You think that’s funny? I’ll show you funny.” Bryan nuzzled Charlie over onto his back and growled into his tummy. Charlie was helpless with laughter, waving his arms and legs in the air like a bug.

“Okay, I’m headed home. Good to meet you. Renata has said great things about you. See you later, Charlie-O. We’ll go out on Sunday, pal.”

Charlie fussed when Bryan handed him back to June. To make up for the sudden quiet in the apartment after Bryan left, June hoisted Charlie up and razzed his stomach. He giggled. But not as much as when Bryan did it.

W
HEN
R
ENATA CAME HOME
, June told her he had stopped by. Renata frowned slightly. Then she said, “What’d you think?”

“Of Bryan?”

Renata nodded, hanging up her coat.

“He’s nice. Charlie was thrilled to see him.”

“Yes,” Renata said.

June decided to be bolder. “He really is good with the baby, isn’t he?”

“Seems to be.”

“And he’s gorgeous. But he wasn’t full of himself, the way good-looking guys usually are.”

“I guess that’s right,” Renata said. She sat down on the couch. “So, you noticed how the baby responds to him.”

“Oh, Charlie loves him, that’s easy to see,” June said. She stretched, and got up to get her backpack and jacket. “I don’t mean to be nosy or anything, but why did you split up? Didn’t he treat you okay?”

“He treated me all right,” Renata said. “At the time I didn’t think he was father material.” She shrugged.

As June rode home in her cab, she compared Owen in her mind with Bryan. June wished now that she didn’t have a date with Owen. She was bound to be disappointed.

E
LEANOR HAD BEEN DEAD
exactly one month; Renata had not meant to equate that fact with Valentine’s Day, but there it was. By imperceptible degrees the days were lengthening, so that when she set out for Viva’s lately, it was still daylight. They had even had a couple of balmy springlike days that were offered tantalizingly, like soft fruits imported from a different latitude, then quickly withdrawn.

Valentine’s Day fell on a Tuesday, her day off, so she was spared the irritation of waiting on couples ordering frothy drinks. She wasn’t interested in watching that kind of advertisement for romance right now. Bill was openly flirting with a new woman on the wait staff who had replaced Martin, who had quit after learning that his lover’s HIV had become full-blown AIDS. Martin took up smoking again. He and his lover moved to Florida, where they were living on the money they had been saving to open a restaurant together.

Bryan had not offered to see her today, and she wondered why. Even though he seemed to have taken her at her word that their new relationship would cover only their mutual commitment to Charlie, she had been operating under the assumption that he was just following the rules, and that he wished things could be
different between them. She had half expected some kind of overture on Valentine’s Day, but maybe she had been making things up, pretending she was more important to him than she was.

At least she didn’t have to worry about finding a baby-sitter tonight. June would probably be unavailable, now that she and Owen had begun spending their time off together. Renata had first learned of this when June asked if it was okay if Owen stopped up one evening after Charlie was put to bed so that they could study together. Renata had been taken up short, not so much by the fact that June suddenly had a boyfriend, but that it had happened sometime recently and June hadn’t mentioned it to her. She guessed she hadn’t been asking June much about her life lately.

Last Saturday had been June’s last regular night with Charlie, which made Renata feel bad. When she had told her about Bryan’s offer to watch the baby, June said of course she understood. But she looked stricken. Renata wanted to give her a hug, but something told her that June needed to hold herself together just then, and that if Renata approached her she wouldn’t be able to. They agreed that when Renata needed an occasional sitter, she would call June.