by Ann Jacobus
“You really can’t back down,” he states.
“Look, it’s my training. Sell chicken, don’t be one.”
“What?”
“My family is—was—in the chicken business.”
He shakes his head. “Oh. Right. Explains stupidity.”
“I don’t need someone to protect me!”
Moony looks at her like that’s the dumbest thing he’s ever heard. “Everyone needs someone to watch their back.”
She blinks. “Whatever. So what did you tell them?” She is kind of drained.
“You’re my violently insane cousin. Have your medication here.” He pats his pocket and the left corner of his upper lip pulls suspiciously toward a smile.
Her mouth drops open. Then she laughs, and pulls out her flask. She offers it to Moony. “Just a splash? To calm our nerves.”
“No, thanks.”
“Don’t mind if I do.” She takes two sips then puts it away. “And, um, thank you.” She does totally appreciate that he had her back. Plus it’s just nice to be near him.
Moony says, “‘Black dresses’ Muslim women wear, for modesty, are abayas. Men cover their heads and wear long thobes, too. In the Gulf.”
“I know why they wear them. I just didn’t know what they’re called.”
He herds her in the direction of the freeway overpass. The flea markets start on the other side of the freeway, la Périphérique. His eyes have dark circles, and his face is pale and pinched. At the risk of another fight, she asks, “Are you okay?”
He sighs, but doesn’t get mad. “Yeah. Rough night.”
“I know what you mean. Post-party penance.”
“No. Not that.”
“Oh.”
They walk at a snail’s pace past dozens of narrow collapsible stalls and blankets spread on the sidewalk. It’s a mini-souk full of used clothes, shoes, cell phone covers, posters, and cheap red, blue, yellow, and white plastic bowls, tubs, and pails. Whiffs of grilled meat and ripe garbage float in the drizzly air.
Something is different about Moony today. His movements are stiffer. He looks sort of beat up. Maybe he’s in pain. Maybe that’s why he couldn’t sleep last night. Jeez.
“You know, we could do this another day,” she says carefully. “What with the sucky weather and all.” The altercation left her feeling a little wrung out. Moony may feel the same. They could just sit in a café and talk.
“I’m fine.” He frowns, clearly annoyed, then mutters, “Thanks to modern pharmacology.”
“Okay, okay, just checking. What’s on the shopping list?”
He pulls his phone from his jeans pocket and thumbs through a couple of screens. Small white French delivery vans and compact Renault hatchbacks zoom by as they wait to cross the road. The south end of the huge flea market area starts on the other side.
“Clothing, accessories,” he reads. “Rifles.”
“Rifles?” she asks. Maybe they are easy to get at Les Puces.
“Old ornamental ones. Probably too expensive.”
“Oh. But we can check.”
“Antique plate or bowl. One piece to wave around so audience thinks it’s all old. Period clothing. 1910. Ladies’ hats maybe.”
“Isn’t the costume designer in charge of that?” she asks. Graffiti that looks just like American graffiti covers the buildings, the walls, and the overpass above them.
“Yeah, but said I’d look.” The light changes. They step into the street. A guy on a big French scooter rounds the corner and narrowly misses Summer. Moony grabs her arm.
“Truth or dare,” Summer says, taking a chance.
“Truth. I avoid dares.” He smiles.
“Ever been in love?”
“Madly.”
She waits. “Aren’t you going to give me a little more?”
“Frame questions better.”
“Okay, with whom were you madly in love and when and what happened?”
“Nurse Sophie. In hospital. Met her my eleventh birthday.” He grins. “Saw me naked.”
“Ha!” Nurse Sophie probably helped give him a reason to recover. Good for her. Summer’s also relieved that he’s not madly in love with petite Jackie-who-fondled-him-at-his-locker.
“You have a distinctive way of talking, you know.”
Moony nods. “Used to be harder. To talk. Habit. Your turn.”
“No, it’s cool. Efficient,” she says. They enter a covered walkway that goes past dozens of bright antique stores full of crystal chandeliers and massive wood and gilt furniture. “Um. Truth.”
“Same question.”
She hesitates, but knows she can trust him with the story. Wants to trust him with it. “It was more of an infatuation, hardly love, and I was unceremoniously dumped … and humiliated.”
Moony regards her with surprise.
“Remember? I was bigger.” She fills her cheeks with air to show him. “Last June—boarding school number four, for misfits—I had a crush on the debate team cocaptain. Not much to look at, but a very witty guy. Probably sociopathic.”
“Here we go,” says Moony.
This area is open air but covered from the light rain. A stall straight ahead displays stacks of soft piles of mostly white old French quilts, sheets, table linens, and dish towels. A rosy-cheeked woman is folding.
“And?” prompts Moony.
She’s glad he’s still listening. “One evening we, um, hooked up”—she glances at Moony—“then I was scared and avoided him for a couple of days. He dumped me kind of … publicly.” She’s never told anyone the full story and won’t get into all the details now. It’s more complicated. The dickhead posted a horribly unflattering fat photo of her, eyes half-closed, clutching a vodka bottle, with the caption at the top, DRINKING TO FORGET … At the bottom it read, I’M A SLUT. He shared it with his 743 friends. At least he got in trouble. But so did she. And at the time, it smashed her to an unprecedented low.
“Turn here,” he says. “Stupid guy.”
“Thanks.” She froze it away months ago. It took a while, though.
A glint catches her eye across the courtyard to her left. At a stall crowded with gleaming silver candlesticks, bowls, and frames, a man in dark glasses and a fedora holds up and examines an ornate flask. It’s exquisite and she’s now dying for a slug from her own. He looks at her, expressionless, then smiles.
It’s Kurt.
Summer stumbles on a crack in the sidewalk and almost pulls Moony down.
“Sorry!” she says. Whoa, what is he doing here?
“What?” says Moony. He turns toward the stall.
Kurt raises a gloved hand. He’s looking at her like at a lavish layer cake.
Moony’s eyes widen.
She nods at Kurt, but turns away. She’s with another friend now. Could he have followed her? He’s as hot as she remembers, but she will not think about him.
“Do you know that guy?” Moony’s eyebrows are low and a scar between them is squeezed into a new shape.
“That’s—I think I met him once. Let’s just move on.” And she drags him in the other direction.
FOURTEEN
Late the Saturday morning of the Thanksgiving weekend, Summer sits at her desk organizing her notes and assignments. She has a major French exam on the following Tuesday. Perfect. She texts Moony. She’s been wondering how to see him again.
Can we schedule French tutoring?
Sure. Next week?
ASAP. Test Tues. Today?
I’ve got a football game this p.m.
He means soccer. She knows he’s not playing. Maybe he can miss it. She calls him.
“Hey. You’re going to a game this afternoon?” She’ll talk him out of it.
“Have to. I’m manager.”
“Oh.” He’s so involved. “Could we study tomorrow then?”
“Sure.”
“How about four o’clock?”
There’s a pause. Moony says, “Want to come watch the game today?”
“Is the hog’s ass pork?”
she says.
“What?”
“It’s a rhetorical question. It means, ‘yes,’” she says. “In Arkansas.”
He laughs. What a great sound. A hum starts in her, warm gold notes in triplicate from violin strings, a cello, and a sax. Like the opening notes of Kentucky’s “Looking for Grace.”
* * *
Summer waits for Moony on the same corner where she saw the hooker, flanking one of the ubiquitous six-story limestone buildings with black wrought-iron balconies. She repeatedly zips and unzips the navy wool jacket she took from Mom’s closet as she scans the street for her ride. She also pulled her hair back and swiped on some pink lip-gloss for the first time in months. Her stomach aches even though she’s psyched. Probably because she’s psyched.
For some reason, she thinks of an illustration of Pandora from her seventh grade unit on Greek mythology. A wispy girl with pouting lips in a white silky dress, trying to close the lid of the box she’s just opened. At the time, she thought Pandora should have been prosecuted on criminal charges, like a huge oil company, for letting all that shit out into the world. Her twelve-year-old self couldn’t get past the idea of how nice life might have been if Pandora had just minded her own flipping business.
A big American minivan with diplomatic plates stops and the side door opens automatically. Summer smiles when she sees Moony and slides in next to him. In the front is team captain Josh, the jock she met the day she met Moony, and Josh’s mom. In France, no one can get a license until they’re eighteen.
Josh turns around to look at her. “Truce?” he asks.
“Peace,” she says.
But it’s forty-five minutes of excruciating small talk with Josh and his mom out to the burbs and their game with a French team. They park at a gated club in Garches, with sweeping lawns and fields. The day is overcast.
Outside the van, Summer gulps in fresh, cold air, then sees Moony limping toward her from the other side. “What’s up with the cane?” she asks.
“Security blanket. No big deal.”
She’s not sure what he means, but she helps Josh carry a duffel bag of soccer balls and a case of blue sports drinks to their field. Gold leaves from towering trees flutter to the ground as she stands on the sidelines while the team warms up. The game is thinly attended.
Moony talks to the coach, clipboard in hand. The guys gather and at one point Josh glances over at Summer and says something. Everyone turns around. There’s laughter and Moony looks down sheepishly. Perturbed, she looks away.
The whistle blows and the game starts. Moony spreads a bright yellow rain poncho on the damp ground and he and Summer sit. It’s like they’re perched on a giant egg yolk.
As he adjusts his bad leg, his hair swings off his right ear. A clear plastic hearing aid nestles inside.
“What did Josh say that was so funny?” she asks, trying not to stare at his ear.
“Called you my girlfriend.”
“Poll results are in. He’s a jerk.”
“He thinks you’re hot.” He looks at her out from under his dark eyebrows in a way that she knows he thinks so, too. His brown irises have chlorophyll-like flecks of green.
“Dysfunctional way of showing it,” she says, surprised. She wishes she could just enjoy the new attention, but it’s hard to forget old defenses.
“He’s got good taste. Speaking of”—Moony pulls a package from his jacket pocket—“Gummy bear?”
“Thanks.” Summer takes a red and a white one. She should have brought her flask. Being with Moony is awesome, but these other people are annoying, ADD jocks on steroids.
Moony asks, “Know the game?”
“Yeah, I played until I was eleven.” And her friend Katie was a nationally ranked midfielder in tenth grade. Supposedly, Katie and her boyfriend, Justin, showed up as freshmen at Dartmouth in September.
“What position?” He pops gummy bears into his mouth.
“Defense mostly.”
“Why’d you stop?”
“Um, just got sick of it. Might have had something to do with when I finally got my dad to a game. Playoffs. He made a scene,” she says, matter-of-factly.
“What happened?”
She picks at her jacket zipper again. “He was drinking from his ‘water bottle,’ um, actually full of white rum.”
Moony’s cheek twitches.
“I’d gotten the wind knocked out of me and was lying on the field. He wasn’t watching. The coach helped me off and sent in a replacement. Only now, my dad stands up in the bleachers and yells, ‘Get back out there, Summer!’” She doesn’t mention that he added, you pussy! because it makes him sound so awful, and he wasn’t. He was just loaded. She continues, determined to finish the story. “Then he yelled, ‘Never everr, everrrr back down’ and then he fell backward into a row of parents.” She chuckles. “You see the irony, right?”
Moony looks horrified. “Uh.”
“Probably no one in your family drinks, since your dad is Muslim. Am I right?”
He shakes his head. “Sweeping generalization. Dad drinks occasionally. Mom, too. Her dad had some issues.”
“Happy to hear it. So you have a clue.”
“Yes.” He looks at her for a moment. “I had issues. With painkillers. Last year.”
“Really? What kind of issues?”
He pulls at his collar. “Was taking too many.” His look says, obviously.
“Sounds like fun.” She grins.
Moony smiles in spite of himself. “No, it wasn’t.” He prompts, “Said he died, when you were twelve…”
“Yeah.”
“Alcohol?”
She knows it played a part—the ball bullets past them. Three players suddenly surround them. Six muscular legs, in shorts, high blue or white socks and shin guards are jumping and straining in front of her. One of the French team players has to throw the ball back in from where they’re sitting, in the way.
Summer stands up. Moony struggles and she gives him her hand. He hesitates, then takes it. She pulls. The moment she registers how nice it is to be holding his hand, she lets go too fast and he almost keels over. “Sorry!” she says. Her cheeks heat as he stands on his own.
“So yeah, my dad,” she says, “he died of a stroke. By the time I got to the hospital, he was already brain dead. They unhooked his life support late that night.” She remembers how cold it was. And the nice guy in the corridor. Light snow flurries swirling beneath the tall hospital parking lot lights.
Tomorrow is December already. Seventeen days until the anniversary.
Moony’s looking at her. “I’m really sorry.”
“Thanks.”
Moony says nothing, but she can tell he’s listening.
“He would have lived if someone found him sooner,” she adds, thinking of Mom, never where she’s supposed to be. “He was unconscious in the bathroom for hours before anyone even realized.” Summer massages a dark tightness between her eyebrows, then turns it into a dozen bright snowflakes and sends them off.
“What about you?” she asks. “When did your folks split up?”
“After I got out of hospital. Was eleven.” Like a Brit, he doesn’t use an article before ‘hospital.’
“Really? What crap timing.”
He looks down at his deformed hand. “Accident was a huge strain.”
“That sucks.”
He nods but focuses on the game now. The other team is close to making a goal. “New goalie,” he says. “Got to get it out of there—whoa! See that?”
A PAIS player just kicked the ball and it’s soaring through the air deep into enemy territory. Moony bellows, “Go, Tobias!” as a guy heads it to Josh, easy as pie, who shoots it straight into the French team’s goal.
Everyone explodes into cheers. The guys body-slam each other and hoot. Moony waves his cane. Even Summer claps and high-fives Moony.
Now it’s one to zero.
She dares to ask, “Were you … ever afraid … that you wouldn’t get better? Be a
ble to walk again, and all?”
Moony says, “No. I knew I’d get better. Could stand any pain, was a matter of when I’d be back to normal.” He pauses. “Not quite there yet.” The corners of his mouth turn up. “Once I could walk without help, like eighteen months after the accident, then I had mental problems.”
“You still do.”
He laughs for real. “I know.”
“I’m kidding. But why then?”
“Not unusual. At all. You’ve recovered, but reality sets in. Realize you’re always going to be a gimp. Have pain, memory, bowel problems.”
“Thanks for sharing.”
“Certain things forever out of reach.” He says all this so evenly, she realizes he’s working not to sound down. How does he keep so positive and energetic about school and activities, she wonders. About life.
It’s raining by the time the ref blows his whistle. Game over. PAIS won, 1–0.
On the ride back, the boys discuss and rehash each play. Tired and sinking, Summer sits quietly and wishes the middle seat didn’t separate her from Moony.
Josh’s mom lets them off at the avenue Foch entrance into the Étoile, across from the Arc de Triomphe. Summer observes the madness that is right-of-way in the six-lane, twelve-spoke roundabout and blurts out to Moony, “Want to … go have a coffee or something?” She doesn’t want the time with him to end.
“Got a doctor’s appointment,” he says.
She believes him, but her disappointment spasms like he just said she’s a fat, vicious liar and drunk and he never wants to see her again. Then tossed in a foul Sicilian curse on all her future offspring.
What is she thinking? It’s hopeless. She already knows she can’t do this. Be with someone. And find flipping purpose. It’s absurd. She can’t even keep a friend.
She will never get better.
Moony’s watching her closely. “I’ll limp you to your train,” he says. “And see you tomorrow. 16:00.”
She puts on a smile. “Oh, I’ll just walk home from here. I’m close.” She’s still not capable of the Métro. She can’t help herself—she scans the crowds, half expecting to run into Kurt.
As if reading her mind, Moony asks, “What about that guy? At Les Puces?”
“Which guy?” But she knows.
“That … Arab guy.”
