Undressing the Moon

by T. Greenwood

  “They will. Thank you.” He leaned over and hugged her.

  “Now me,” I said, handing Quinn a box. Inside was a little jade elephant I’d bought at the Chinese restaurant in St. J. where Blue’s mother took us one night after the movies. “It’s for luck. For your first race,” I said.

  “Thank you,” he said, hugging me hard. “I’ll keep it right here.” He took his parka, unzipped the little pocket above the pass from Mum, and slipped it inside.

  Before work, Daddy had dropped off a honey-baked ham, Quinn’s favorite, and the three of us ate until our stomachs hurt. Boo left after dinner. Quinn and I played Monopoly until I went bankrupt. And then Quinn went to bed. While he was sleeping, I took the Phillips-head screwdriver out of the toolbox where he had put it and looked around for something to unscrew. Finally, I took all the knobs off the kitchen cabinets and put them in a pile on the kitchen table. The kitchen looked strange without any knobs or handles, and I put them all back on.

  After that day, Boo brought us other packages with more things Mum had taken with her inside: a can of shoe polish, a stapler, four pairs of Daddy’s wool socks. Those I took and pulled onto my feet. At Christmas, she sent me candles that smelled like Nilla Wafers and the pair of purple glass earrings I’d all but forgotten.

  I wondered where she was, and thought she must be doing well. With each returned item, I knew she was that much closer to being free.

  I have started giving things away. Little things, so that no one notices. When Quinn came to visit from Colorado, I sent him back home to his wife with three sweaters I said were too big for me now and a dress I said never fit me at all. His wife, Kayla, is a skier too. She is tall like me, but her muscles are strong. I gave my bonsai tree to my friend Lizzie, explaining that I didn’t know how to take care of it. I gave my cookie cutters and a rolling pin as housewarming gifts to my friends Doug and Susan, who just moved in together. I slip things into Becca’s pockets when she comes over: a silver cigarette case, paperback books, playing cards with the Empire State Building on them. She never mentions my little gifts; she knows I would deny that they ever belonged to me.

  The things I can’t give away are the ones no one would want anyway: the old pair of slippers that look like two tired moose, the antique sewing machine from Boo’s shop that doesn’t work, my empty perfume bottles and my books of lists. I have never kept diaries, but my life is documented in hundreds of spiral notebooks. One notebook for each type of list. Groceries, Christmas Gifts, Books to Read, Books Read, Bills, Birds, Borrowed Things, Names, News, and Movies Seen. I am compulsive about my lists. Classification helps me understand where I’m going and where I’ve been. I worry about what will happen to them.

  I’m also worried about Bog. He’s old, and he smells terrible. He’s a hemophiliac, so I can’t brush his teeth without endangering his life. But I love him, and I hope that someone will be willing to take him too—along with my collection of butterfly wings, my box of buttons, and all my broken pairs of sunglasses.

  Becca wants me to make a recording of my voice, just for her to keep, she says. I don’t have my voice on tape. Not even my speaking voice. Becca says it’s important to her, but I’m hesitant. It’s been a long time since I sang anywhere but in my kitchen over the hum of the dishwasher or in the bathtub while the water is still running. I worry that it’s not the way she remembers it. I worry that the cancer may be changing it, turning it like autumn leaves into something brittle.

  I went to Mr. Hammer’s house on Sunday for my first music lesson. Quinn dropped me off on his way to Jay Peak.

  “Why’s he doing this?” Quinn asked.

  “He says I need lessons,” I said.

  “Isn’t it a little creepy that he wants you to go to his house?” Quinn looked in the rearview mirror at a spot he missed when he was shaving.

  “No,” I said. “The only day he can do it is Sunday, and the chorus uses the auditorium on Sundays. He has a piano at his house. Plus, we live just up the road.”

  “Well, be careful,” he said as we pulled up in front of the little house.

  “I will,” I said, rolling my eyes.

  Mr. Hammer held the door open for me as I stomped the snow off my boots and stepped into his warm house.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  It was bright inside, sunshine streaming through the stained-glass windows, illuminating dust in red and orange and blue. It made me think of Mum. He motioned toward an upright piano against one wall and said, “This is where we’ll start.”

  “Okay.”

  “Sit down,” he said. “Would you like something? Some water? Juice?”

  “No, thanks,” I said, sitting down on the piano bench. “I’m not going to learn the piano, am I?”

  “Not unless you want to,” he said, disappearing into the little kitchen off the living room. He came back with two glasses of water. He set them both on the small table near the piano and sat down next to me on the piano bench.

  “No thanks. I’ll stick to singing, I think,” I said, smiling.

  He rested his fingers on the piano keys and plunked a couple of notes.

  I didn’t know what I should be doing.

  He played something I didn’t recognize, softly, like he was only thinking about playing it for real. It was pretty. His fingers kept moving over the keys, the lightest fingers I have ever seen. It sounded like the music was turned down. Barely audible, but beautiful. When the song was finished, his fingers lingered on the keys, on the silence.

  “Should I start singing?” I asked. “I don’t know the words to that one.”

  He picked up his hands and looked at me. When he smiled, I noticed that his bottom teeth were a little crooked. I also noticed the faintest dimple in his left cheek. He could easily have been a boy instead of a man.

  “No, you don’t need to sing today. I’m just listening to you breathe. It helps me to figure out where to begin.”

  I thought about breathing, and coughed. He handed me a glass of water, which I accepted.

  After I went home, I lay down on my bed, closed my eyes, and listened to myself breathe. I’d never paid attention before, to the rhythms of my breath. It seemed strange to me, that he was sitting there the whole time, listening to something I didn’t even know I was doing. It felt as if he’d overheard my dreams.

  Blue’s breath sounded like small drums. We were sitting on the curb by the theater, waiting for his mother to come get us. I didn’t want him to know I was listening to him breathing, so I said, “What do you want for Christmas?”

  He tilted his head to look at me, his eyes the soft brown of melted chocolate. Then he leaned and put his head on my shoulder. “I want you,” he whispered, and his breath turned into rain trembling on glass.

  “Me?” I said, punching him a little too hard in the arm.

  “Mmm-hmm,” he said. “Well, you and a motorcycle.”

  It was cold outside, so cold our breath came out in clouds and mixed together in front of our faces.

  “Why are you named Blue?” I asked, as he laid his head back on my shoulder.

  “When I was born I almost died. I had a twin brother and we both got tangled up in the umbilical cord. I was blue because I couldn’t breathe.”

  “What happened to your brother?”

  “He died,” he said.

  I looked at him, horrified.

  “It’s just a nickname.” He shrugged. “My real name’s Jim.”

  And then as I watched the air in front of us, each stream of Blue’s breath was suddenly miraculous.

  Nighttime is the worst time here. Evenings are when I allow myself to be afraid.

  I dread sunset, the slow descent of darkness, and the flickering of streetlights outside. As soon as the sun begins to disappear, I fill my rooms with light, even the ones I’m not using. I have begun collecting lamps; there is one on each table, each shelf, each countertop. I have advised Boo to keep her eye out for the stained glass of a Tiffany shade, the sparkle of som
ething beaded, the smooth arch of a brass stand. I am fighting darkness.

  Becca used to leave me in the late afternoons. Her house is up on Kinsey Hill, a good long drive from town. She would come to my apartment after school and sit with me, leaving to make it home before dark. She isn’t fond of nighttime, either. Now, most nights she just curls up on my couch to sleep. She says it’s because she doesn’t like to drive at night, but I know she stays to make me feel safe.

  Last night Becca fell asleep and I watched her curl into herself, like a cat or a flower. She would have been embarrassed to know I was watching her; she sleeps with her mouth open, and she snores, too. But what she can’t understand is how pacifying it is for me to know that someone else besides myself is breathing in this house. When I can’t hear my own breath, at least I can hear hers. She brought her favorite pillow from home. During the day, she puts it on the rocking chair by the window, the chair illuminated by a green glass lamp. But on the nights when she does go home, when there are lessons to plan or pipes to keep from freezing, I am alone, with only the orange glow of secondhand lamps to keep me company. Bog does his best to protect me, but most noises fail to wake him, and he seems to have forgotten how to bark.

  Last week I woke up in the middle of the night and couldn’t breathe. Under covers, I could have been under a collapsed building. Panicked, I reached out to the nightstand and knocked against it, hard, signaling to Becca. And only moments after she came into the room, bleary-eyed, like a sleepwalker, she was on the phone with the hospital. In my nightgown, a wool coat, and boots, I followed her down the narrow stairwell to her car, trying to slow my heart and save my breath. But when the car doors wouldn’t open and Becca left me standing in the cold, midnight driveway, to run upstairs for hot water to melt the frozen locks, I almost let my legs buckle beneath me, almost sat down on the gravel driveway. Almost let myself crumble. But within seconds, she was back with a silver pan of hot water, the locks came loose, and she was helping me into the passenger seat, whispering, “Everything’s going to be fine, don’t worry one bit. Everything’s okay.”

  This midnight trip to the hospital to restore my breath made me realize the power of fear. It can make me weak. It can make me throw up my hands; it can make me lose. If Becca hadn’t been with me, hadn’t set up camp in my living room, I believe I would have simply sat down in the driveway and waited until the building crushed me.

  Becca and I go to the movies every Sunday now. I look forward to the weekends because of this. Quimby just opened a one-screen theater, and they change the movie every week. We’ll go see anything. Inside the dark theater, I am able to suspend everything for a couple of hours. Like a magician’s assistant, rising above the table at his command. At the movies, I have learned how to defy the laws of nature. At the movies, I am only floating above the world in which I wake up choking at night.

  Today we went to see a romantic comedy, one of those ditzy films with a pretty actress and a handsome actor who can’t stand each other and then realize that they’ve been in love all along. There was a scene in which the female character is grocery shopping, trying to decide which cantaloupe to pick from the mountain of cantaloupes in the produce section when she sees her nemesis/true love in the next aisle with his obnoxious current girlfriend. As the couple turns their cart toward the female lead, the cantaloupe slips and then the entire pyramid of melons is falling around her. I laughed out loud despite myself, but Becca, who was sitting next to me with a giant bucket of popcorn between her knees, was silent. When I glanced at her, the light from the screen reflected in her wet eyes, caught in the tears that streaked down her cheeks. She kept staring at the screen, as the fruit kept tumbling, burying the girl, and cried silently. I looked away, felt my own throat grow thick, the muscles in my neck tightening.

  One snowy night in December, Roxanne and Daddy got in a fight at the Lodge right after closing time. In the strange glow of the parking lot, Daddy leaned against his car, his arms shielding him from Roxanne’s angry fists. I imagined him cowering, crouching as she beat him. I imagined her voice like a crumpled paper bag, scratchy, humiliating him. And then what must have happened, what I know must have happened, was that Daddy finally had enough. On the backs of my eyes when I closed them, I could see her ringed fingers striking his temples and cheekbones, the neon sign in the bar window making everything red. He stood up then; I could see his hands reaching for her shoulders, squeezing her shoulders, restraining her. Keeping her from killing him. And then I heard her voice turn from scratchy to screaming, a horror movie scream, loud enough to wake someone. And then someone called 911. And then Daddy woke us up with a collect call made from the courthouse jail in Quimby.

  The next morning, after Daddy was released on bail but didn’t come home, Child Protective Services came to visit me and Quinn. Quinn was getting ready to head out the door to hitch a ride to the mountain, when a lady who smelled like vinegar stuck her head into our door and looked around. I guess she was looking for Daddy. Quinn did all the talking, and I sat staring at cartoons on the TV, sitting on the floor crosslegged in my pajamas with a bowl of cereal in my lap like I did when I was little. It seemed like hours before she left. My cereal was too soggy to eat by the time she walked back out our door.

  We didn’t even talk to Boo about it. We both knew that she’d chosen to live her life alone, that, unlike Mum, she’d made up her mind before it was too late. The last thing she needed was two nearly grown kids moving into her small house. That’s how Quinn came to be my legal guardian. Legal made me think of papers and file cabinets. Guardian made me think of angels.

  Roxanne didn’t press charges against Daddy; she even allowed him back into her home, after all he’d done, and Quinn and I were on our own. The following morning, when we got ready for school, I got in the passenger side of Mum’s old car. I felt grown. I felt older than the Pond, the rocks, and the trees.

  Maybe that’s why when Blue Henderson asked me if I wanted to go with him to a party at Kyle Kaplan’s house the next weekend, I said yes. Kyle’s parents were on vacation. His older sister and he were home alone. We told Blue’s mother we were going to dinner at the Miss Quimby Diner and then to a dance at school. I told Quinn I was going to a party at Kyle Kaplan’s house, that his parents were gone, but that I’d be safe and that I’d call him if I needed a ride home.

  There were only a few people at the party when we got there. Everyone was sitting on the sofas and the chairs in the living room, looking like kids trying to have a party in a grown-up’s house. Kyle was searching for the key to unlock the liquor cabinet, and his sister, Ann, was on the phone.

  As soon as Kyle found the key and unlocked the doors, unscrewed the caps and poured the drinks, everything changed. The music grew louder, the bass pounding in the floors under our feet. Some of the liquor tasted like candy: peach schnapps, peppermint schnapps, Kahlúa. It felt like Easter or Christmas. I wanted to try a little of every kind. I couldn’t get enough of the sweetness. Blue put his arm around my waist as we sat on stools at the island in Kyle’s mother’s kitchen drinking straight out of the bottles, wiping our mouths with the backs of our hands. Melissa Ball showed up and sat down on the other side of Blue.

  “Hi, Blue,” she said sweetly, grabbing a bottle of rum from the center of the island and unscrewing the cap. “Piper,” she said, raising the bottle in a toast and sipping delicately from it.

  I felt the same warm and melty feeling I felt when Quinn gave me that beer, but warmer and meltier. Liquid. My whole body was fluid. I thought for a second that Blue’s hand might pass right through me.

  “Let’s go to the living room,” I whispered. I leaned into him, smelling the unfamiliar scent of cologne on his neck. I wrinkled my nose, and he pretended he didn’t see me do it.

  We left Melissa, who was now sitting on the island and flirting with Kyle, and went to the living room, where the lights were turned down low and someone had built a fire in the fireplace. This was a nice house, maybe the nicest o
ne I’d ever been inside. I felt a twinge of guilt that I hadn’t asked Becca to come along. There were pictures of Kyle’s family on the walls. In one, they were all wearing red turtlenecks and black pants; in another, blue sweaters with a starched white collar underneath. His mother was pretty, with auburn hair flipped up at the ends. His father looked intelligent: he wore glasses and had a serious face. There were plastercast handprints spray-painted silver: Kyle and Ann’s little hands captured in something close to stone.

  I sat down on the couch, and Blue sat down next to me. We were only a few feet from the fire, and it was making me warm. I pulled my sweater over my head and blew the hair out of my eyes. He put his arm around me and whispered, “You look pretty.”

  “Thanks,” I said, punching him again in the arm. I didn’t know what else to do.

  Then he reached across the coffee table where someone had set a six-pack of beer and handed me one. I twisted the cap off and foam started to spill over the top. Blue motioned for me to drink it, and I did. The bubbles made me want to burp, but I held it inside.

  We sat looking at the fire, listening to the music, drinking beer, and I felt changed. I crossed and uncrossed my legs, for some reason thinking about the way Mum had sat when the owner of the gallery wrote her a check for her artwork.

  Someone turned the music up. It was a slow song, the one that had been on the radio all the time lately.

  “We told my mother we were going to a dance. Maybe we should dance,” Blue teased. He stood up, and reached for my hand.

  “Okay.” I set my empty beer bottle on the coffee table. My knees were liquid, my hands liquid. I caught my knee on the edge of the table and winced.

  “C’mere,” Blue said, pulling me against him gently.

  I allowed my body to fall against his. We were warm from the fire: I could feel the heat from his skin through his jeans and his soft cotton shirt. I loved this song. Sometimes something on the radio could move me, and I’d find myself singing along without realizing it. This was one of those songs. I put my arms around Blue’s neck like the other girls were doing, and he rested his hands on my hips, around my waist. I liked the way it felt. I liked the smell of cologne on his neck when I buried my head there. I liked how I could feel the music running through me, like water into water.