Blue Moon

by Luanne Rice

  “Okay,” she whispered through her tears.

  T.J. ran down the stairs, grabbed his coat. Belinda sat at the kitchen table, books and papers all over the place. “Where are you going?” she asked.

  “Nowhere,” he said, pulling on his gloves.

  Just then, the back door opened and Josie raced in. Shit, that meant his mother was home. Now he’d have to invent some bogus emergency-study story. Josie stood in front of him, saying his name over and over in sign language.

  “Not now, okay Joze?” he asked.

  His parents walked in together, their faces solemn.

  “Daddy, you’re home early!” Belinda said.

  “Sweetheart, will you take Josie upstairs for a few minutes?” his father asked.

  “Sure,” Belinda said. Her face lit up as she glanced from her father to T.J., smelling blood. T.J. wondered what he was about to be busted for; all he could think of was getting to Alison.

  Josie stood right in front of T.J., moving her hands insistently, and Belinda had to practically drag her away, making signs of her own.

  “Do we all have to learn that?” T.J. asked, pointing after his sisters.

  “Sit down,” his father said.

  T.J. sat at the table. His mother had been standing by the door, her back to the wall, but now she came forward. She had a very serious look on her face as she brought something from behind her back.

  “What’s that?” T.J. asked, face-to-face with the champagne bottle he and Alison had drained the last time he’d taken the truck. Shit! He’d meant to throw it into the state park Dumpster, but Alison had said she wanted it for a souvenir.

  “What does it look like?” his father asked.

  “Like a wine bottle.”

  “Yeah, how was it?” his father asked.

  “What do you mean?” T.J.’s heart was pounding. He didn’t care about the inquisition. He’d deny he drank it, and what were they going to do? Fingerprint the bottle? But he couldn’t stand thinking of Alison crying at her window, imagining he’d forgotten about her.

  His father slammed the bottle down so hard, Belinda’s history book bounced off the table. “You’ve been driving around in my truck, haven’t you?” he yelled. “You drank this whole bottle of champagne, and then you got behind the wheel?”

  “I did not!” T.J. slapped his hands on the table. He knew he sounded frantic. He hoped his parents took it for being wrongly accused. He could just see Alison, her face pressed against the glass, looking down the dark driveway.

  “Don’t lie, T.J.,” his mother said. She was trying to sound calm, but she had a little shake in her voice.

  “I don’t even have my license! How could I drive your truck?” He looked back and forth between his parents, realizing how stupid he sounded. They’d both taught him to drive.

  “I wouldn’t drive alone without a license,” he said. “And I definitely wouldn’t drink if I did. Drunk driving is totally wrong.”

  “That’s true,” Cass said. “I’m glad to hear you say that.”

  “You know how many kids get killed every year drinking and driving?” his father asked, a little less insane.

  “A lot,” T.J. said, nodding vigorously. “They show us movies at school, worse than horror movies, with smashed cars and kids all decapitated and mangled. Believe me, I would never drink and drive,” he said, remembering how he’d felt after the champagne, how he’d had to close one eye just to drive straight. How he’d pulled over to the side for Alison to throw up, and then, while he was helping her back into the truck, how he’d thrown up all over his own shoes. Thank God Alison didn’t even remember.

  “We saw it happen,” his mother said. “Remember Mark Costello, Billy?”

  “Mark Costello was in our class,” his father said, as if T.J. hadn’t heard the story ten times before. But T.J. knew he had to listen patiently if he was ever going to convince his parents he was innocent and make it over to Alison’s before she did something desperate.

  “Mark and his girlfriend Sally,” his dad started.

  “Sally Sheffield,” his mom supplied.

  “Right. Mark and Sally came to our senior prom in his new Chevy Nova. Graduation present from his parents. Mark was going to go to Notre Dame, football scholarship. He was a big guy, thought he could hold his liquor. He had a bottle with him, offered it to all his friends.”

  “Sally had one, too,” his mom said. “Vodka. She said no one would ever know we were drinking because it didn’t have any smell. I took a sip.”

  “You did?” T.J. asked, wondering if it would be too much to add “Gee.”

  “Anyway, Mark kept drinking all through the prom,” his dad said. “No one thought he was drunk. He and Sally danced every dance, they stopped at every table and talked to their friends. After graduation a lot of us were going to work, others to college, so we wouldn’t be seeing each other so much anymore. He offered everyone hits from his bottle.”

  “What happened?” T.J. asked.

  “We all decided to head for the lighthouse, to look at the stars,” his dad said.

  “To park,” his mom said.

  “Anyway, Mark and Sally took off in the Nova, and your mom and I were right behind them in my Camaro. Mark’s car was weaving down the road, and I said to your mom, ‘They’re going to crash.’ And they did. We were at the stoplight at Memorial Highway and Overlook Road, and they went straight through the red light into a truck.”

  “They died?” T.J. asked.

  “Yeah,” his dad said. “They died.”

  “It was the worst thing I ever saw,” his mom said. “You know that movie you’ve seen at school? It was worse than that. We were right behind them, we tried to help them …”

  “What did you see?” T.J. asked, both curious and squeamish.

  His mom just shook her head.

  “That sounds awful,” T.J. said. “Wow. That’s horrible. You must have hated seeing that—no wonder you never drink and drive.” He hoped his parents didn’t know exactly to the ounce what they had in the cupboards downstairs.

  “Glad you see it that way, Teej,” his dad said.

  “I’m sorry about your wine getting stolen,” he said. “But can I go now? I have a wicked important math test tomorrow, and I have to study with Alison.”

  “No, you’re grounded,” his mom said.

  “What! You can’t be serious, I didn’t do anything! She’s expecting me, you have to let me go.”

  “You’re grounded,” his dad said.

  T.J. thought his head was going to explode. Alison …

  “Call Alison and tell her you can’t make it,” his mom said, and at that moment T.J. hated her so much, he couldn’t stand it. “Make it quick, though. No phone, no going out, no nothing for two weeks. Got that, T.J.?”

  T.J. couldn’t open his mouth, he felt so furious.

  “Just think about that, grounded for two weeks, the next time you feel the urge to drink a little champagne and take a spin. No way are you getting killed like Mark and Sally. I don’t care if you hate me, but that’s not going to happen,” his mom yelled, working herself up. “And if you had Alison in that truck with you, you’d better have been wearing a condom.”

  T.J. had never seen her so mad. He left the kitchen, stomped upstairs. His hand shook, lifting the receiver to call Alison. You could tell, when his parents told the story of Mark and Sally, that they’d been his age once. They kept giving each other love looks that they’d tried to disguise with super-stern lecture frowns. T.J. thought of that as he dialed Alison’s number.

  “Hello?” she answered, her voice so small and trembly T.J. thought his heart would break.

  “My parents are such assholes,” he said. “I’m grounded.”

  “Why?” she asked.

  “Some stupid reason,” he said. “It doesn’t matter. They hate me.”

  “It all goes back to your sister’s accident,” Alison said.

  “I know. I can’t even stay on now. I can’t use the
phone.”

  “Oh, T.J.,” Alison said.

  “I know,” T.J. said.

  “They’re so unfair,” she whispered hotly.

  “My father’ll be gone in a few days,” T.J. whispered back. “Maybe even tomorrow. I’ll be able to sneak out then.”

  “And there’s always school.”

  “I never thought I’d look forward to school,” T.J. said.

  “I knew something had happened. I was watching for you out my window, and more than twenty minutes went by.”

  “You know I want to be there.”

  “Did they look in your wallet?” Alison whispered. “Did they find your condoms?”

  “No, it wasn’t that,” T.J. said.

  “Good,” Alison said.

  “I need you, Alison,” he said. “I need you so much.”

  She giggled suddenly, a nervous burst that surprised him. “You just think you do,” she said.

  T.J. held the receiver, listening to her breathe, wondering if she could hear his heart pounding through the phone line. Sometimes when Alison snapped right out of her blues, went from sounding sweet to tough, T.J. would feel all turned around. He wondered if he’d ever understand what made her tick. He just sat there, listening to her breathe, until his mother knocked softly on the door, told him to hang up and get ready for dinner.

  As if he could eat.

  Belinda thought the lasagna was delicious, but she didn’t know if she should say anything. It was as if someone had cast a spell of silence over the table. Her parents sat opposite each other, giving each other “we’re doing the right thing” looks. Belinda knew her parents weren’t the punishing types, that when they said “It’s going to hurt me more than it hurts you,” they probably meant it.

  “How’s school, Bel?” her father asked.

  “Great, Daddy.”

  He winked at her. She loved having her father home. Both her parents were fun, but her mother could get pretty serious when she was home alone with Josie for too long.

  “T.J., eat your dinner,” her mother said.

  “Not hungry.”

  “It’s delicious,” Belinda said.

  “I’m not hungry!” T.J. said. Belinda wondered what he’d done to get grounded. She figured it had something to do with his tragic life with Alison.

  “Can I be excused?” T.J. asked.

  “Okay. Do your homework,” Mom said.

  Everyone relaxed when he left. They heard him clomping up the stairs. If Belinda had been in charge, she would have given him exactly fifteen seconds, then picked up the kitchen extension to see if he was calling Alison.

  “Hang in there,” her father said.

  “It ain’t easy,” her mom said.

  “Whatever he did, he deserves it,” Belinda said.

  “Hey, you’ll be fifteen someday,” her father said.

  Josie banged her cast on the table. She had an angry frown on her face, and she had her new doll in a headlock.

  “What?” Mom asked, crouching down to Josie’s level.

  “Daddy!” Josie said. Only she pronounced it “Dah-dee,” the way people did when they were babies.

  “What?” her dad asked, cutting another piece of lasagna.

  “Daddy, I’m talking!” Josie was signing, “Hi, Daddy.”

  “Pretty dolly,” her dad said. “That’s a very pretty dolly.”

  Josie looked blank.

  “Billy …” her mother said.

  “What?” he asked, surprised.

  “Listen.”

  “Hey, Joze,” he said. “Josie-Posie. Your brother T.J. thought that up.”

  “Better than what he used to call me,” Belinda said. “Bel from hell.”

  “That’s right.” Her father laughed. He cut a tiny piece of lasagna and tried to feed it to Josie.

  Josie looked insulted. “Big girl!” she said. She was still signing “Hi, Daddy.” When he didn’t reply, she started with her little tantrum drumroll, “Eh, eh, eh …”

  “Oh, God,” Belinda said. “Daddy, just say, ‘Hi, Josie.’”

  “You can’t just have a generic conversation with her,” Mom said. “She’s trying to tell you something. She’s not asking for lasagna.”

  “Sorry,” her dad said, looking as if he’d been beaten.

  “Give me your hand,” Belinda said. Her father’s palm felt like leather. She tried to form it into the signs Zach had taught her. “’Hi, Josie.’ Like that,” Belinda said.

  But her father pulled his hand back and began eating again. “I’m too old to learn mumbo jumbo,” he said.

  Her mom pushed back her chair so hard, Belinda thought it might fall over. She scraped her plate into the garbage.

  “Eh, eh, eh! Eh, eh, eh!” Josie said, louder.

  “Dad, it’s easy,” Belinda said. But she was afraid if she took his hand, he’d pull it back again.

  “Easy for you, maybe,” her dad said. He bent down low like her mom, something he hardly ever did, and looked Josie in the eye. “Hi, Josie. Hi, Josie,” he said.

  But Josie was shaking her head back and forth. “Eeeeeeeeh” she screamed. “Eeeeeeh!”

  Belinda pushed her plate away. She felt bad, but she couldn’t stand when Josie got like this. She bet her mom wished they hadn’t grounded T.J.; he was the only one who could get to Josie when she was this upset. Belinda looked at her mother, standing at the sink with her back to them, and her father, sitting at his place, staring at his plate, and Josie, waving her arms all over like a tiny maniacal red-faced dictator.

  Belinda would have thrown her parents an apologetic glance if they’d looked at her, but they didn’t. She pushed in her chair, gathered up her schoolbooks, and headed upstairs. She’d give herself half an hour break, call Emma and Todd before she started studying again. At least she wouldn’t have to fight T.J. for the phone.

  “You were awful to her,” Cass said, staring at the bedroom ceiling.

  “Cass …” Billy flipped onto his stomach, rustling the covers. He made a big deal of inching toward the clock, to see the dial: just past midnight. “I said I was sorry. Now let’s get some sleep.”

  “I can’t,” she said, facing him.

  “I shouldn’t have called her sign language mumbo jumbo. Okay?”

  “Why does it scare you to talk to her?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Billy said, rolling over, scrunching his pillow.

  “You don’t treat her like a person. You treat her like a little deaf puppy.”

  “What do you mean?” he asked, lifting his head to look at her.

  “It’s terrible for her, when she tries to tell you something very specific, and you just ignore it. She wants to show you a sign, and you try to feed her lasagna?”

  “I didn’t understand.”

  “No kidding,” Cass said. “You don’t even try.”

  “That’s bullshit, Cass. I love her.”

  Cass knew he loved their daughter. But she felt he was in over his head. They both were, and had been for a long time. “I think we should look into North Point,” she said.

  “I thought everything between you and me was great,” Billy said sadly. “You seemed so happy on the boat.”

  Suddenly Cass felt like Josie, trying to make a point as clearly as possible, Billy seeming to listen but then replying as if he were in a different conversation. And it made her feel crazy: how could she and Billy go from being so close on the boat to this?

  “You’re shifting all over the place. Listen …” Cass began.

  “You’re the one who’s shifting,” Billy said. “North Point? What happened to kindergarten at Mount Hope? Ever since she lost her hearing, you’ve been against sign language. You didn’t want her set apart from the other little kids. Now you’re talking about a deaf school.”

  “Zach thinks she would do badly at Mount Hope.”

  “Some textbook expert, great. He knows better than we do?”

  “I’m beginning to agree with him,” Cass said.

 
“Her signs mean nothing to me,” Billy said. “I can’t understand what she’s saying. How am I supposed to talk to her if I can’t understand?”

  Cass reached for him, hearing the fear in his voice. “I know,” she said, her arms around his neck. She felt afraid of the same thing.

  The next morning, Josie sat in her chair, paying careful attention to Zach. He had a big cardboard square covered with rows of circles, each a different color. She had already learned to sign “red,” her favorite color, and “green,” the color of her overalls.

  “Very good, Josie,” Zach said. “You learn fast.”

  Josie smiled. She liked when Zach said she learned fast. Yesterday he had said she was smart. Usually Josie felt stupid. Everyone thought she didn’t understand things because she couldn’t hear them, but Josie knew that wasn’t always true. Sometimes she would hear words and not know what they meant.

  “Now let’s learn ‘blue,’” Zach said.

  “Blue car,” Josie said, remembering the game she played with her mother.

  “Blue,” Zach said, signing the word. Then he said “car,” signing it at the same time.

  Josie tried hard to copy the way Zach moved his hands. He reached out and changed the way she was holding her thumb.

  “Like that,” he said, and Josie tried it his way.

  “Very good!” Zach said, making Josie feel proud.

  “Blue car, blue car,” Josie signed over and over. She glanced at him, and then she signed “red car.”

  He laughed, his eyes big, as if he thought she had done something wonderful. Now he signed “green car.”

  Josie wished her father would realize she was smart. He talked to her like she was a baby. He didn’t believe she could learn. Josie knew that, because he always said the same things to her. Like last night: he would ask about her doll, or about the food on her plate, questions he already knew the answers to. He would never try different things with her.

  “Something new?” Josie said to Zach.

  “You want to learn something new? Let’s see …”

  Josie’s mother would invent games like “blue car,” games that felt scary at first because Josie was afraid she might make a mistake, say the words wrong, and look stupid. But no matter how bad Josie’s mistakes were, her mother would keep playing the game, and the next day she’d invent another one. Zach was like that, too.