Waking the Moon

by Elizabeth Hand

  Justine sauntered off, and Annie waved sadly after her. When the tall silhouette disappeared into the shadows at river’s edge, Annie hitched her knapsack over her shoulder and began walking away from the Javits Center. At the corner she hailed a cab.

  “Penn Station,” she said, and slumped into the seat. As the taxi careened in and out of traffic she took out the paper Justine had given her and studied it again, finally put it aside and rummaged through her restaurant chits and airline stubs until she found a tattered Amtrak schedule.

  TRAIN # 177 THE SENATOR DAILY/WEEKENDS DEPART PENN STATION 9:45 P.M. ARRIVE UNION STATION, D.C. 1:13 A.M.

  “Well,” she said softly to herself. Looks like old home week for the archangels.

  At Penn Station she paid for her ticket in cash—Helen had her credit cards—found a liquor store and bought a bottle of Pernod, because she remembered that was what her college friends used to drink. At 7:55 she boarded the train and collapsed into a seat. She took out a narrow sheaf of twenties—half of what remained of her cash—and stuck it in her right sneaker. Then she, Annie Harmon, who never, ever drank, spent the next few hours choking down Pernod until she finally passed out, somewhere around Wilmington, Delaware. She didn’t wake up until they pulled into Union Station, an hour later than the Senator’s scheduled arrival time and much too late for the Metro to still be running. The few other passengers trudged to where a handful of BMWs and Audis and Volvo wagons were waiting for them. Annie brought up the end of the parade, stumbling a little.

  When she got outside she looked around blearily. It had been a few years since she’d been in D.C. It was like getting that first whiff of ocean air: just one deep breath and it all came back to her, the swampy heat and soot and honeysuckle, the sound of traffic a few blocks away in the old riot corridor and an ambulance wailing along North Capitol Street.

  “Great,” she muttered. At least they’d cleaned up Union Station.

  A solitary cab was parked beside the curb in front of the station.

  “I guess I need to find someplace that’s still open,” Annie announced thickly to the driver as she slid into the backseat. “I mean a hotel or something. There a Day’s Inn around here?”

  The engine started with a thrumming roar. “I’ll take care of you, young lady, now don’t you worry,” the driver said in a deep, oddly comforting voice. Annie winced. She must sound like a hick. A drunken hick; this guy would never believe she’d lived here once. She stared defiantly at the back of his head, trying to remember the name of some other hotel, but her brain felt damp and empty. “Don’t you worry at all.”

  “Yeah, okay.” Annie glanced at his medallion, just in case he tried to overcharge her. Yellow Cab Number 393: easy enough to remember. “Maybe the Phoenix, then. Or the Tiber Creek…”

  The taxi swung out into the empty traffic circle, with its carefully arranged plantings of red, white, and blue petunias. Annie thought of how she should have called Helen, let her know she was coming down here, but then Helen would just worry. Fuck it, Helen would worry no matter what. And Annie’s lover was right, the cloak-and-dagger stuff was getting old. Their money was running low, people were starting to wonder where she was; Labrys had started calling about getting her back into the studio.

  And it was probably a really stupid idea to come down here to D.C., especially since Annie didn’t have a number or address or anything for Sweeney Cassidy. She wasn’t even certain that Sweeney still lived here, although she was pretty sure Baby Joe had told her that she did; and even if she did find Sweeney, it might be too late to stop Angelica’s little game of Ten Little College Friends…

  Somehow, somewhere between Union Station and the Old Executive Office Building, Annie must have fallen asleep. Because the next thing she knew, she was being helped gently from the cab’s backseat and led into the softly glowing lobby of the Hay-Adams, which was not anyplace she ordinarily would have been caught dead in, not to mention being a place neither she nor Labrys Music could possibly afford.

  “Hey,” Annie mumbled. “This is—maybe I just better—”

  But before she could say anything else, or even really wake up, she was in an elevator, and then she was in a richly carpeted hallway, and stumbling into a room; and then she was lying on a bed fully clothed with a warm blanket pulled up around her chin against the arctic air-conditioning, and there were voices whispering, and someone saying, “Of course, we understand,” and finally the sound of a door closing and blissful, peaceful silence.

  When she woke up it was late morning. The phone was ringing to inform her that checkout time was noon.

  “Unless you’ll be staying another night?” The voice on the other end suggested.

  Annie shook her head, dazed. “Huh? Oh—no, I mean, I think there’s been a mistake. I—”

  “Your bill’s already been taken care of. Just leave your key at the front desk as you depart.”

  “What?” But the voice had already rung off.

  She was still wearing the fatigues and sleeveless flannel shirt she’d had on last night; the same clothes she’d had on for several days, including her sneakers. She was too confused and hung over to feel panicky yet, but she figured she should get out of here fast, before someone figured out there’d been a mistake.

  Although maybe there’s time for a quick shower, she thought, gazing wistfully to where the bathroom door was cracked open. She tried to stand, had to pause and give her head a chance to stop reeling. How do people drink?

  After her shower she felt better. She found her knapsack set carefully on a mahogany table, beside a brass lamp. Next to it was a message pad printed with a nice engraving of the Hay-Adams Hotel, circa 1923. She stared at the pad curiously, suddenly grabbed it.

  “What the hell?”

  Bold black letters marched across the paper where someone had written a message in Magic Marker. Annie’s hands began to tremble as she read.

  KATHERINE CASSIDY

  19A NINTH STREET NE

  547-8903

  Compliments of a friend and Handsome Brown.

  So the summer passed. And in spite of the dreadful heat, the rumors of imminent disaster at the museum, and the usual threats of gang violence, random shootings, environmental cataclysm, and inflation, I was happier than I had ever been in my life.

  If you had asked me what I was most afraid of, it wouldn’t have been any of those awful things. It would have been that Dylan would wake up one morning and suddenly remember that he was only eighteen and I was thirty-eight; that it was his prerogative to be a fickle adolescent; that he had a whole other life to lead, with college and girls and god knows what, and I had Amex payments and the same dull job waiting for me that I’d held forever. My affair with Dylan shouldn’t have meant any-thing to either of us; it should have been nothing but a summer fling. It seemed crazy, even irresponsible, for me to think otherwise.

  But I did. Dylan and I had never really spoken about What Happened Next. The fall term at UCLA started before Labor Day, and September first I was supposed to go to Rochester to look over a collection that Kodak was thinking of selling to the museum. It seemed impossible that our relationship could outlast the summer; it seemed ridiculous that I should even dream of it doing so. Yet the mere thought of going on without Dylan, of returning home alone to the carriage house every day, was enough to reduce me to tears. But I was afraid to ask him to stay.

  At night I lay beside him and listened to the mockingbird in the garden outside. Dylan’s dark tousled hair spilled across the sheets, moonlight threw shadows across his chest and throat and I would be so flooded with love and desire that I would fall on him like a panther, biting softly at his throat, the skin there taut and tasting like a salted peach. Groaning, he would awaken and we’d fall onto the floor, Dylan clutching me as I straddled him, while outside the moon hung like another fruit in the sky.

  “Oh, Sweeney, Sweeney…”

  His voice broke as he hugged me to him and I cried, we both cried, from joy or
exhaustion or unspoken fear, or perhaps just because it was so beautiful, so terribly, terribly beautiful there in the moonlit summer night with the smell of roses and wisteria perfuming our skin.

  A few days before his birthday we went to Kelly’s, the Irish bar next to the Dubliner. They knew me there and never raised an eyebrow when they saw me with Dylan, and never asked to see his ID. The ceiling fans turned desultorily overhead, but otherwise everyone seemed to have given in to the heat. Maureen the bartender had stripped down to a Wonderbra and a pair of men’s plaid boxer shorts; the band was wearing much the same, minus the bra. Dylan drank black-and-tans and I sipped cognac. The band knocked back pints of Guinness and cooled off by spraying each other with bottles of Molson. When closing time came Maureen hopped over the bar, locked the door, and lowered the lights, so the rest of us could stay inside. We drank some more, yelling requests, and the band played everything from the Irish national anthem to “Purple Haze” and “Ghost on the Highway.” Dylan took his shirt off and we danced by the unplugged jukebox, knocking over bottles and pint glasses and sliding in spilt beer. As the light in the windows turned the color of a steel penny, Dylan went up and gave Sean the lead singer a twenty-dollar-bill, and the band played their last song—

  I never felt magic crazy as this

  I never saw a moon knew the meaning of the sea

  I never held emotion in the palm of my hand

  Or felt sweet breezes in the top of a tree

  But now you’re here

  To brighten my northern sky…

  We stood and swayed in front of the tiny stage, and Dylan shouted drunkenly in my ear and pointed to where Sean listed in front of the microphone—

  “Listen, Sweeney!”

  —as Sean sang in his raw, Guinness-blurred tenor.

  Would you love me for my money?

  Would you love me for my head?

  Would you love me through the winter? Would you love me till I’m dead?

  Oh if you would and you could

  Come blow your horn on high…

  “Would you, Sweeney?” Dylan pulled me to him until our noses bumped. His breath was warm and sweet and beery as his arms encircled me. “Would you?”

  I looked at him, confused. “Would I—?”

  “Stay with me? Marry me—forever?”

  “Marry you?”

  “Marry me!” Dylan shouted. He turned to the band and yelled drunkenly, “I just asked her to marry me!”

  From behind the bar Maureen and her friends cheered, and the few others scattered at tables joined in. Sean laughed and yelled into the microphone, “And what did she say?”

  Dylan looked at me. “What did you say?”

  I stared up at him, at the grinning faces watching us from onstage and at Maureen and the expectant strangers behind the bar; then, laughing, I flung my arms out and shouted the only thing that seemed appropriate.

  “Yes, I said—yes I will!—

  “Yes.”

  That was how I decided to get married. The next morning neither Dylan nor I had changed our minds, although we didn’t make any immediate plans to find a chapel. It was the thirty-first of July. Tomorrow Dylan would turn nineteen. Angelica was still supposed to be coming for his birthday, although I had no idea when she’d arrive or what arrangements, if any, she and Dylan had made. Now it felt even stranger to think about Angelica—my former friend and onetime lover was going to be my mother-in-law? I had no close friends of my own to confide in, certainly not anyone who would understand the inherent weirdness of the whole situation with Dylan and me. So I decided to concentrate on planning a private birthday celebration for just the two of us. Dinner at home, since otherwise we wouldn’t be able to drink champagne. It was too hot to cook, so I thought we’d bring home a couple of boxes of sushi from a place on the Hill. I laid in three bottles of Taitinger and a pint of Ben & Jerry’s. If Angelica decided to show up, well, I’d deal with that later.

  I did want to tell someone, though. So when I got to the office I finally broke down and called Baby Joe. After three rings his machine clicked in and I heard an unfamiliar voice.

  “You have reached Daniel Aquilante at the Arts Desk of the New York Beacon. Please leave a message at the tone, or else call Reception at 8407.”

  “That’s weird.” I frowned and dialed again, got the same recording. “Huh.”

  I double-checked the number in my computer, then tried Baby Joe at home.

  “The number you have reached has been disconnected.”

  I dialed again and got the same playback. When I put the phone down I felt chilled. I walked over to my window and stared outside.

  The Aditi had ended last weekend. Now the Mall looked like the aftermath of Woodstock or something worse—trash heaped in huge piles inside hurricane fencing, Park Police and orange-suited custodial engineers everywhere, bare scaffolding and dead grass where I had grown accustomed to seeing luminously colored kiosks and tents. That morning in the coffee room I’d overheard someone talking about an infestation of rats outside, drawn by the mountains of food left to rot in the heat. At the time I’d laughed, but now I felt distinctly uneasy. I turned back to my desk and dialed Manhattan information, then called the main number at the New York Beacon.

  “I’m trying to reach José Malabar,” I said when someone finally picked up the line.

  Silence. “I’m a friend of his from college,” I explained. “I was out of town for a while, and when I got back I had several messages from him on my machine—”

  “Hold on, please.”

  A moment later someone else came on, a woman with a pleasant but reserved-sounding voice. “Who’s calling, please?”

  I took a deep breath. “My name is Katherine Cassidy. I’m with the National Museum in Washington and I had several messages to call José—”

  “You said you were a friend of his?”

  “Yes.” My heart was pounding as I stammered, “Why?”

  The woman sighed. “I’m not really supposed to do this, but—” She hesitated. “José passed away a few weeks ago.”

  I slumped back into my chair as she went on, “He had a heart attack—”

  “A heart attack! But he couldn’t—he’s so young!”

  “I know. I’m sorry.” The woman’s voice broke slightly. “I really am. It was a terrible thing, very unexpected. We’re all really going to miss him around here…”

  “Yes,” I whispered. I wanted to ask more but suddenly I felt sick. “Th-thank you, thank you very much. I’ll call somebody—I mean I’ll call one of our friends…”

  I hung up. For a moment I clung to the edge of my desk. Then it was too much, on top of cognac and a nearly sleepless night and everything else that had happened. I stumbled out of my office and down the hall, and fled into the ladies’ room. I thought I’d throw up—I wanted to throw up—but I didn’t. Instead I started choking with sobs, so violently that Laurie came running in from her cubicle around the corner.

  “Katherine! What is it—”

  She put her arm around me and I shook my head. “Here,” she said in a softer voice, and turned on the tap. “Get some cold water on you—you’re so hot! Is it heatstroke?”

  “I’m okay—I’m okay,” I gasped. “I just had some bad news—a friend of mine—a friend of mine died.”

  “Oh, Katherine—”

  “I’ll be all right. It’s just—just so sudden,” I said, and gulped back a sob.

  Laurie nodded, her eyes wide with pity. “I’m so sorry. Do you want me to get Dylan?”

  I shook my head. “N-no. It’s—it’s not anyone he knows, and tomorrow’s his birthday and I don’t want to upset him. I’ll be okay, really. But thanks.”

  I stood over the sink with the cold water running, until finally I stopped crying. Then I went back to my office, hoping to hide until lunchtime.

  But Dylan was already there. “Sweeney, I’m so sorry,” he murmured, hugging me. “Who was it?”

  “Just a—well, an old fri
end of mine. From school—from the Divine, I mean. I hadn’t even seen him in a year or so, but we talked all the time, and he left me all these messages early in the month but I kept putting off calling him back. And then I—”

  I bit my lip, trying to keep the tears back. “I called him this morning. To tell him about us. And someone at the Beacon told me he had a heart attack.”

  “Your friend Baby Joe?” Dismay flickered across Dylan’s face as he made the connection.

  I nodded. “Yeah. Oh god. I don’t even know who to call—I mean, his family was from here, but I never met them or anything…”

  “It’s okay, Sweeney. It’ll all be okay.” Dylan soothed me, stroking my head. “Don’t worry…”

  I tried not to laugh bitterly. Yeah, death sucks, man; but what the fuck does a kid like you know about it?

  But that was just mean. I looked up and could see how confused he looked, and also a little worried: was he doing this right, was this how you behaved when one of your girlfriend’s friends died?

  “I’ll be okay,” I said, and tried to sound like I meant it. “It’s just so—unexpected. And I feel so fucking guilty. He left me all these messages, and I just blew him off. Because of—”

  Because of you. I fought back the nasty thought, and ended, “Because I—I just didn’t feel like talking. And now—he’s dead.”

  “How could he have a heart attack? I mean, if he’s your age?”

  I moved away from him. “I don’t know. I—well, I don’t know, that’s all.”

  For the first time, I thought of Hasel: how had he died, really? That insane letter he’d sent to Baby Joe, about seeing Angelica bathing in a creek in Virginia; and the next thing I knew, he’d drowned.

  What had Baby Joe been up to when he died?

  I leaned against my desk. “You know,” I said slowly, “I think I’m going to leave early today I feel pretty awful—” I smiled ruefully. “No offense—it’s just, you know, I’m kind of hung over and now this.”

  “It’s okay.” Dylan ran a hand through his hair. He hadn’t showered that morning, and had dressed hastily, in wrinkled khakis and a blue cotton shirt that had seen better weeks. In the close hot room he still smelled like the smoke and beer from Kelly’s. “I’d go too, but I told Laurie I’d help her with stuff downstairs.”