Valley of the Moon (13 page)

I had a vision of my father in the living room. Wearing his plaid Pendleton shirt. Standing beside the mantel, watching me walk on my hands. I was six years old.

“Monkey,” he'd said, his eyes gleaming with pleasure.

I'd walked the length of the couch, my arms quivering, and finally fell in a heap on the floor. I'd wept then, from exhaustion, from an overfull heart. He'd gathered me up into his lap and held me silently. I didn't have to tell him why I was crying; he knew. He was my planet, I was his star. He orbited around me: I was safe in the knowledge I'd always be orbited. Love was so simple back then.

I put my hand over the receiver so my mother wouldn't hear me crying now.

“Lux? Lux, are you still there?”

Rhonda's prism spun in the kitchen window, splashing the wall with rainbows.

“Benno won't stop talking about you. You are his favorite topic of conversation. Mama said this. Mama said that. Mama and I did this. Mama and I did that. He sits in your father's lap and tells him stories about you. You, Lux. And your father is desperate to hear those stories. He is. He wants to know about your life.”

“Right,” I said.

“My God. The two of you are so alike.”

“Me and Benno?”

“No, you and your father. You know, Lux, you're responsible for this, too.”

“For what?”

“For this distance.”

“Bullshit. Mom, it's been his choice. He's chosen to stay away. He's chosen to have little to no relationship with me or Benno. He came to San Francisco once. He met Benno once. That's it. Once.”

“That's because you didn't invite him to come again.”

I sucked in my breath. “He's been waiting for an invitation?”

“This is getting us nowhere,” she said. “The important thing is what's happening now. Benno can be a bridge. A way back for the both of you.”

I could just imagine Benno in the afternoon light, sitting on the couch, his legs swinging. His chubby hand in the bowl of butterscotch candies that was always on the side table.

“He's a little boy, not a bridge,” I said.

I started a week of double shifts at Seven Hills. I needed the hours; I only had eighty-nine dollars left in my checking account. I'd splurged and bought Benno some new clothes and a suitcase for his trip to Rhode Island. I'd have to make that money up now or I wouldn't be able to buy groceries and pay bills.

On Wednesday I arrived at 10:35 and spent an hour refilling condiments and resetting the tables from the breakfast shift. At 11:30 customers started pouring in and then it was nonstop for two solid hours.

At one forty-five an elderly couple walked in the door.
Please, oh, please, oh, please don't sit in my section
. My last table had just paid up and the busboy was clearing the plates: I thought I was in the clear. There was a back-to-school meeting at Benno's school, and if I left now, I'd just make it.

They sat in my section.

Tourists. A surprised look on their faces, but that wasn't uncommon. To stumble upon Seven Hills, an Irish pub in the middle of North Beach, was like finding a four-leaf clover in Times Square. At least that's what Mike always said. Mike Mulligan, owner of Seven Hills (don't you dare mention that children's book to him, as if he hadn't been asked if he owned a steam shovel named Mary Anne a thousand times) and my boss.

“I'll take them,” said Barb, my co-worker. She knew I wanted to leave.

“That's Lux's section,” said Mike.

“It's fine,” said Barb. “I don't mind.”

“No. She was late for her shift this morning. She'll have to stay.”

Mike liked to talk about me in third person, as if I weren't there. I'd been five minutes late that morning, which wouldn't have been a big deal if not for the fact that during the school year I was frequently late or calling at the last minute to beg him to find somebody to cover my shift. June had been really bad. Benno had missed an entire week of school because of a flu, which meant I missed an entire week of work. When Monday rolled around again and he still had a fever, I was so desperate that I crumbled up two baby aspirin, sprinkled them into his Cream of Wheat, and sent him off to school, praying by the time he got there his fever would be gone. The school nurse, Mrs. Lafferty, had it in for me. If she could have greeted me at the kindergarten door with a thermometer in her hand every morning, she would have. Disapproval beaming out of her eyes. Benno's chronic cough. His constantly runny nose. She hated us.

“Look like big tippers,” Mike joked.

“Sorry,” whispered Barb.

Old people frequently forgot to tip. I didn't take it personally; watching them painstakingly count out their money was excruciating. It was so sad it made me want to pay their bill for them. This couple tipped me well, but it didn't make up for the fact that I was late.

I walked into the school courtyard surprised to find it still filled with children and mothers. The picnic tables were strewn with snacks. Bowls of potato chips. Ransacked platters of cream cheese sandwiches and peanut butter on Ritz crackers.

I missed Benno and felt vulnerable on school grounds without him. That milky-smelling, sweaty, and, more often than not, snotty creature whom I adored more than anything.

“Lux, we were wondering where you were,” said Nancy Atkins. She had a second grader and a fourth grader.

She smiled sympathetically at me, but it was a toxic mix of condescension and schadenfreude. My tennis shoes, a splotch of ketchup on the right toe. My cheap purse, bulging with a sweater and an unopened can of Tab.

“I'm sorry, I got a table at the last minute.” I smoothed my hair down self-consciously, knowing I smelled of french fries.

“What's the worst thing that happened today?”
my father would ask me when I came home from school in a bad mood. This question was a sort of magic. A bad grade, striking out in kickball, not getting invited to a birthday party, I'd tell him. As soon as I said my reasons out loud, my woes evaporated, exposed as the trivial things they really were.

Well, what's the worst thing that happened today?
I thought. Some asshole customer wouldn't deign to speak to me. Instead he communicated through snaps and pointing. Stabbed the menu with his finger. Pointed at his empty water glass. Anything to avoid treating me like a fellow human being. It was an everyday occurrence in my line of work. A man treating me like I was invisible. He left me an eleven-cent tip.

Nancy smiled. “Not to worry. You didn't miss a thing. Just the same old same old. Can the PTA afford to buy new recorders for the kids? What to do with the ripped flag—did you know there's a protocol? I mean, you can't just throw a flag away? Who knew? Anyway, we figured you had your hands full. What with…” She drifted off.

Being a single mother and all. Doing it all on your own, you poor thing.
And then beneath that? The more messy truth.
Yes, we support the ERA. Yes, we fought to legalize abortion; yes, we believe you can bring home the bacon and fry it up in the pan; but really, why is your son's nose always running? Why does he wear the same pair of pants to school three days in a row? Why does he lack impulse control?

Because he's a five-year-old boy!

In this group of mothers, all but a few were married. The few who weren't married were divorced and received alimony and child support.

“Where's Benno?” she asked.

“Covering my shift,” I said.

Her eyes widened.

“I'm kidding, Nancy. He's with my mother. In Newport.”

“Oh. Newport Beach?”

“Newport, Rhode Island.”

“Newport!” said Nancy. “Wow, there's so much history there. Is he going to see the mansions? Surely your parents will take him to see the Breakers, Lux.”

“I have no idea.”

“He went alone? You didn't want to go?”

She screwed her face up into one big question mark. I screwed my face up into one big fuck-you-it's-none-of-your-business mark.

“I had to work, Nancy.”

“Oh, right. Of course. I understand.” She looked over my head and nodded at somebody. “I'm afraid I'm being summoned.” She put her hand on my arm and squeezed. “You have a wonderful rest of the summer.”

Like a school of fish, the mothers collected Nancy and swam away.

“Lux dear, it's your mother again. This is the third message I've left. I was hoping you'd call back today, but you haven't. I know you're punishing me. And I really wish we could have this conversation over the phone—I hate talking into this damned machine—but I have a feeling you don't intend to call me back at all, so here goes.

“First of all, Benno is an amazing child. He is really quite precocious for his age. Curious about everything. I can't believe he knows the name of every dinosaur in the Jurassic period. And he can already count up to a hundred. And you've done a wonderful job reading to him. Bravo! His vocabulary? Well, for a kid his age, it's astounding. Okay, so I know what I'm about to say may shock you. But I want you to take some time to think about it. George and I have hatched a plan. We've been agonizing over it, really. It's not an offer we make lightly. We may be overstepping our boundaries. You can tell us to go to hell, you may well do that, but I want to put it out there.

“What if Benno stays here with us in Newport through the fall? Your father has managed to get him a place in the first-grade class at St. Paul's. Of course you know what a coup that is. They only take the very brightest children. Your father administered some tests—Benno did very well, of course.

“He loves it here, Lux. Both of us, me and your father, have grown quite attached to him. I want you to know your father has nothing but goodwill for that boy. He wants the best for him.

“Now, I know things are tough for you out there. Money is tight. Perhaps this would be just the thing for you. To have some time and space to figure out your next move. You can't be a waitress forever—you know that, I know you do. Let us take some of the pressure off. It's just through the first term. We could send him home right after that. A little time with his grandparents. A break for you. Think about it, darling, will you?

“All right, I can't believe your tape hasn't run out. Let's try and—”

As the last four days until Benno came home slowly passed, and reality swept me under, there was a part of me that almost regretted finding Greengage. I'd never imagined a world like that existed, but now that I knew it did, it was impossible to switch off my longing for it. I'd felt so energized there, so complete. I couldn't help but contrast it with the plodding inevitability of my life here. Minute after minute, hour after hour—the days unspooling as they always did. Wake at six. Get Benno ready for school. Pack his lunch. Shower. Dress. Breakfast. Get him to school. Take the bus to work. Punch in. Punch out hours later. Pick Benno up at school. Take the bus home. Make dinner. Do laundry. Pay bills. Fall into bed. Repeat, repeat, repeat until the end of time.

It was Saturday, the night before Benno's return, and Ginger was coming for dinner. Rhonda had the entire Time-Life Foods of the World series, and had cooked her way through five of the books already. Tonight she was making jambalaya.

She glided from countertop to fridge, humming. A big pot bubbled on the stove. She'd had to make a special trip to Oakland to get the smoked sausage and another trip to Berkeley to get the proper seasonings. Apparently Ginger had been to New Orleans once when he was a kid, had tasted jambalaya, and had been dreaming about it ever since.

Rhonda was already all about fulfilling Ginger's dreams; I found it both irritating and sweet. I was happy for her, though envious.

“I don't think your mother offering to keep Benno for the fall term is such a horrible proposition,” said Rhonda.

“It wouldn't be if it was just my mother. But it's my father, too.”

“But isn't this what you've been waiting for? Your father to come around?”

I popped a green bean in my mouth. “Not this way.”

Rhonda turned around slowly and leaned against the counter. “Lux.” She was using her serious, X-ray technician voice.

“Rhon—da.” I drew out the syllables of her name, hoping to pull her back from the edge of a conversation I didn't want to have.

She shook her head. “Honestly, what happened between you and your father? What did he do that was so bad? This thing started way before Benno, right?”

Yes. It started with a question.