Dark Moon

by Lori Handeland

  ‘Wow,’ Frankie said. ‘That was fun.’

  She set the phone on the counter, realized she was holding her camera in the other hand, and set that down too. Wasn’t the first time she’d clutched the device like a security blanket.

  She headed for the stairs, intent on her bed and few hours of real sleep, her mind still on the weird phone call. Why would Hannah think Charley would come here? Why had she seemed jittery and a little scared?

  Why would you think you know what the woman feels, thinks or even sounds like when she’s anything?

  Frankie didn’t know Hannah Blackwell at all. She didn’t want to.

  For years Frankie had thought of the woman as the twenty-three-year-old bimbo Charley had left her for. But Hannah was no longer twenty-three or a bimbo. She was the forty-seven-year-old owner/editor of You, a fashion magazine in a time when magazines were tanking and being over forty in fashion meant you were on your way down the other side of the mountain. She would probably lose her company soon. Frankie should feel sorry for her. But she didn’t.

  The front door rattled. Frankie paused with her foot on the first step leading to the second floor, listening for a wind gust that would explain said rattling, but the late spring night was still.

  The knob turned right-left, right-left.

  Tick-tock. Tick-tock.

  ‘Fancy? Open up.’

  Frankie felt a chill so deep it made her dizzy. Only Charley had ever called her Fancy.

  Though she’d just gotten off the phone with his wife, she still couldn’t believe he was here.

  Tick-tock, tick-tock.

  And trying the door as if he expected it to open.

  ‘My key doesn’t work.’

  ‘No shit.’ She’d changed the locks the day after she’d seen him kissing her.

  ‘I’m tired. I’ve been traveling forever.’

  Frankie swirled her finger in the air—the universal sign for whoop-de-doo.

  ‘I can see your shadow on the floor.’

  Sure enough, she’d moved closer and the light from the TV outlined her silhouette on the reclaimed wood of the entry hall, her shadow clearly visible through the frosted glass windowpane to the side of the door.

  Frankie stepped back. She didn’t want to let him in. She didn’t have to. This was her house and it was the middle of the night.

  ‘I forgot to call again, didn’t I?’

  The hair on her arms prickled. Something was very wrong. Charley hadn’t forgotten to call in twenty-four years. That’s what divorce meant. He no longer had to call; she no longer had to care when he didn’t.

  ‘Come on, baby. Let me in.’

  An odd sound escaped. It would have been a sob, if she hadn’t cried herself sick over this man long ago. It almost sounded like a laugh, but nothing was funny about this. Even though it must be a joke.

  It just had to be.

  ‘Fancy, come on.’

  Charley sounded exactly as he had all those years ago whenever he’d come home late, forgotten to call, or left for some misbegotten corner of the earth without telling her.

  And none of that had ever mattered. She’d known the man she was marrying; she’d understood his passion, his conviction, his need to record how he saw the world through a camera. She’d shared that passion, but where Frankie saw light and color, contrast and composition—the way the world came together—Charley saw how the world came apart.

  They said it was his gift; Frankie’d always thought it more of a curse. Charley’s view of life had been pretty damn dark. She’d spent a lot of her time lightening him up. Dragging him into the sun after he’d spent weeks in the rain. And if it insisted on raining, then she’d dragged him out anyway and convinced him to dance. There was nothing like dancing in the rain to make even the most jaded soul laugh.

  Tick-tock.

  The distant sound of Charley’s laughter died. What the hell was wrong with her? Zoning off, thinking about her lying, cheating ex-husband’s laughter and smiling like a fool.

  ‘Fancy, please.’

  Her smile faded as she shivered at the tone—desperation laced with terror. The last time she’d heard him speak like that—

  Frankie opened the door.

  Charley walked right inside. His duffel hit the ground. He set his camera bag next to it more gently. The twin thuds brought back the past with dizzying clarity. How many times had she stood in this hallway and heard those exact same sounds?

  More than she could count—but not for a long, long time. Back when her breasts didn’t need a super bra to keep them from meeting her waist and her ass didn’t kiss her thighs with every step.

  ‘I know I should have called, but I didn’t want to wake you.’ He shut the door, turning with a smile as his arms opened wide. His head tilted.

  His hair, no longer dark, but neither was hers, remained thick and curly despite his age. His eyes shone blue against his perpetual tan, maintained by a hundred dusty, sunny countries. The only signs of his age were more lines on his face and a slight stoop to his slim shoulders. He was still tall, thin and handsome.

  Jerk.

  ‘I guess I woke you anyway. Sorry, baby.’

  Frankie’s mouth hung open. She snapped it shut, then crossed her arms over her chest. She’d interrupted her editing long enough to remove the bra that left marks on her shoulders and ribs to put on a very old tank top and equally old pajama bottoms. Not that this man hadn’t seen it all. But he hadn’t seen it the way it was now, and she didn’t want him to.

  Another perk of divorce.

  ‘This isn’t funny,’ Frankie said.

  Charley dropped his arms, clueing into the fact that she wasn’t going to walk into them anytime soon. ‘Why would it be funny?’

  He appeared honestly confused. Charley was many things—smart, talented, expansive—but a great actor wasn’t one of them. He was genuine in a way few people were. Which was probably why he was so damn good at his job. He could talk to anyone—from a Maasai warrior to the newly elected President of the United States—and his sincerity charmed them. Charley truly wanted to connect with his subjects—and who wasn’t charmed by legitimate interest? With his incredible ability to record someone’s essence through the lens of his camera, he told stories without words.

  When Charley Blackwell looked at you, you felt special. When he took your picture, you became immortal. People trusted Charley. They loved him. Frankie had.

  When he broke her heart, he broke it forever. Sure, she’d survived. Didn’t we all? But she was never again the woman she’d been before she’d lost him.

  Frankie’s hands seemed empty without her camera. She felt more naked without it than without her bra. With a camera, Frankie could distance anyone just by bringing the viewfinder to her eye.

  It also made a great weapon. Just ask Charley. He’d saved himself in countless dicey situations by bashing someone in the head with his Nikon. Right now, she really wanted to bash him.

  ‘What the fuck are you doing here, Charley?’

  ‘I live here.’

  He sounded so certain she pinched herself to see if, maybe, this was a dream. It was strange enough.

  Her fingernails left half moon marks in her arm; the pinch pinched. She didn’t wake up.

  ‘You don’t live here anymore.’

  He laughed—the big, booming Charley-laugh she’d fallen in love with. ‘Did you toss my clothes on the lawn again?’

  ‘I only did that once.’ Of course the time he’d really deserved it—the time he’d admitted to boinking an editorial assistant, worse to loving an editorial assistant—she’d been too devastated to do anything but curl into a ball and cry.

  ‘Seemed like more.’

  Frankie made a soft sound of amusement and his smile deepened. He grabbed her hand before she could stop him. ‘Let’s go to bed. I’m beat.’ He started up the stairs, tugging her along.

  She hung back. ‘What is wrong with you?’

  Because there was something wrong. V
ery.

  ‘Nothing that twelve hours in the sack with you won’t cure.’

  Frankie shook her head to try and make the weird buzzing in her ears stop.

  Charley took it as a ‘no,’ which it also was. ‘Still working? Okay.’

  He continued up the stairs, his hiking boots silent on the new plush carpet, but instead of going into what had once been their bedroom on the left, he turned into the room on the right. He immediately came out. For the first time since he’d walked through her door, uncertainty flickered across his face. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘You tell me.’

  He glanced into the room again, then back. ‘Where’s Lisa?’

  Gooseflesh broke out everywhere on Frankie’s body. She tried to breathe, but the air she drew into her lungs tasted like fire, burned like it too. Maybe there was a fire, because her eyes suddenly watered as if smoke billowed all around.

  Why would he ask that? How could he ask that?

  Their daughter was dead.

  ‘Did you let Lisa stay at a friend’s? You knew I was coming home and that I’d want to see her.’

  Frankie stood in the foyer, gaping like a kamikaze goldfish that had flipped from the bowl and onto the floor. She could not draw in enough air.

  ‘Fancy? You okay?’

  Neither of them was okay, but one of them was less okay than the other. Right now, as black dots began to dance in front of her eyes, Frankie wasn’t sure which one that was.

  Footsteps pounded down the stairs. Charley smacked her—hard—in the center of her back. She gasped and began to breathe again.

  Charley pulled Frankie into his arms. She was so loopy she let him.

  He smelled exactly the same beneath that gamey, too-long-in-a-plane smell. Since Frankie had met him he’d used a shower gel that brought to mind fresh herbs just sprouted in a sunny garden. Every time she caught a whiff of basil, Frankie thought of Charley. Right after the divorce, she’d been unable to prepare any of her mother’s Italian recipes. The instant Frankie smelled those herbs she’d felt sick. It had been years before she could stomach bruschetta again, and it had once been her favorite.

  Frankie stepped out of Charley’s arms. It wasn’t right. He wasn’t right.

  ‘I’ll see Lisa tomorrow,’ Charley said. ‘I’m beat. You sure you’re okay?’

  Frankie hadn’t said she was—wasn’t in fact—but she nodded, and he ran upstairs and disappeared into their—her—room. Frankie collapsed onto the couch and tried to make sense of things.

  Charley seemed to have forgotten the past twenty-four years. Couldn’t blame him. There’d been many times during them when she’d wanted to. Even odder was that he hadn’t noticed her graying hair, sagging face, rounder body.

  And what about the house? Frankie hadn’t changed much downstairs—new carpet, but the same shade, she was pretty sure she’d painted a few walls; she’d definitely painted the kitchen cabinets to complement the new volcanic rock countertop.

  But Lisa’s room had more changes than the lack of Lisa. It was still a bedroom, but for guests. Frankie had replaced the pink throw rug with white plush, wall-to-wall. The canopy bed was now a Sleep Number, complete with a black upholstered headboard. The quilt wasn’t pink either but bright red. All the stuffed animals were gone.

  Frankie grabbed her computer and Googled stroke. Symptoms were confusion . . .

  ‘I’ll say.’

  Combined with trouble speaking and understanding.

  Well, Charley didn’t understand that he didn’t live here anymore but he’d certainly had no trouble talking. In Frankie’s opinion, he’d had trouble shutting up.

  She continued to read symptoms. Charley hadn’t complained of a headache; he wasn’t vomiting or having trouble seeing or walking. His face hadn’t sagged. His hands and arms worked just fine. Too fine, considering the hug.

  She tried aneurysm next. Those often had no symptoms, but if they did they came on suddenly and consisted of a severe headache, neck pain, nausea, vomiting, sensitivity to light, loss of consciousness and seizures. Couldn’t miss any of those. Charley would never have been able to walk up to her door and stroll around the house as if he still owned the place with such symptoms.

  Frankie’s fingers flew over the keys needed to type: Brain tumor.

  The brain tumor hit parade was similar to the previous options. Changes in speech, hearing, vision, balance, as well as the seizures, were all present on the list but not in Charley. However there were a few that fit his profile—namely personality changes and memory issues.

  ‘Shit.’ Frankie was going to have to call Hannah. She’d hoped she’d be able to Google her way out of it.

  In an attempt to avoid the inevitable for a little while longer, Frankie dialed Irene.

  ‘Bubala, it’s four a.m.’

  ‘You shouldn’t have answered.’

  ‘When haven’t I answered? Especially in the middle of the night. You’d do the same for me.’

  Frankie would. She had.

  Irene and Frankie had been best friends since childhood—back when Irene had been the only Jew in school. She’d been an oddity to others, but to Frankie she’d been Irene from next door. They’d grown up together. They’d shared everything. They still did.

  ‘Charley showed up at my house.’

  Silence came over the line for so long Frankie feared Irene had fallen back asleep. Wouldn’t be the first time.

  ‘Hello?’ she said.

  ‘I’m here. I just . . .’ Irene’s voice trailed off.

  ‘Yeah. That was my reaction too.’

  ‘Why now? Did the shiksa throw him out?’

  Irene tossed Yiddish words into her conversation whenever she could. She said she didn’t want the language to die. Frankie thought she just liked how they sounded.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Frankie said. ‘Though there was something off about her when she called.’

  ‘Wait. The shiksa called you? Why?’

  ‘She wanted to ask if Charley was here.’

  ‘Why on earth would he be there?’

  ‘Exactly. Except he is.’

  ‘You didn’t ask him why?’

  ‘He’s . . .’ Now Frankie’s voice trailed off. What was he? ‘Not himself.’

  Except he was himself—of twenty-four years ago.

  Quickly she told Irene what had happened, leaving out the hug. She wasn’t sure why.

  ‘Bullshit,’ Irene said.

  ‘I wouldn’t bullshit you at three a.m.’

  ‘Four,’ Irene corrected. ‘And I wasn’t talking about you. I was talking about him. Shiksa threw him out and he needs a place to stay. He knew you’d never let him past the front door if he wasn’t . . . whatever it is he is.’

  ‘He can afford a hotel.’ Charley could afford several hotels.

  ‘He hates hotels.’

  As he lived most of his life in them, this made sense. Or maybe it didn’t. Frankie had pointed out on many occasions before they’d parted ways, why, if he hated hotels so much, did he continue in a job where he had to make use of so many of them? However, she didn’t think Charley was capable of doing anything else. He had tried.

  Before

  Her chest hurt; her throat went tight. Their lives would forever be divided into before and after that horrible, awful, very, very bad day when their daughter had died.

  ‘Where is he now?’ Irene asked, interrupting memories Frankie didn’t want to have.

  ‘Sleeping. I think.’

  ‘Or getting naked.’

  She had a vivid memory of Charley naked. Charley naked had been a beautiful thing. One of the reasons that finding out he’d been naked with Hannah had nearly ended her. How could he have taken what had been hers alone and given it to someone else?

  ‘Why would he want me when he can have her?’ Frankie asked.

  ‘I always thought of that question the other way: Why would he want her when he could have you?’

  ‘Blond, young, brilliant editor with
her own magazine and a wealthy, connected family? Who wouldn’t want that?’

  ‘Meh.’

  Frankie imagined Irene’s shrug.

  ‘You’re loyal. I appreciate it.’

  ‘I’m not a moron. Youth fades. In fact, hers has. I saw her last week. She didn’t appear well.’

  Maybe that’s what this was. Both Hannah and Charley had been ill. Nothing more than a bad flu, a nasty fever, which—for a man Charley’s age—would be more dangerous than it had been for his child bride. Certainly Hannah wasn’t a child anymore, but she was still closer to one than Charley was.

  ‘Why did you see her?’ Frankie asked.

  ‘Same reason I always see her. Publisher party at her mother’s company.’

  Irene was a literary attorney, Hannah’s mom a bigwig publisher. For some reason Hannah came to the parties, even though she was a magazine editor in DC. Maybe it was the only time she saw her mother. Who knew? Who cared?

  Not Frankie.

  ‘Did you talk to her?’

  ‘That never turns out well.’

  Irene didn’t pull punches. Not in her job—which was why she was one of the most sought after attorneys in the biz—or in social situations—where she was also sought after, though, considering her lack of a mouth filter Frankie couldn’t figure out why.

  ‘Besides, when she sees me she runs like a little girl from a mouse.’

  ‘More like a grown woman from a shark.’

  ‘Whatever works,’ Irene said.

  ‘I’m going to have to call her, aren’t I?’

  ‘You could probably wait until morning. If you want to be nice.’

  ‘Yeah, that’ll happen.’

  Frankie didn’t want to call Hannah. One conversation a night was enough. But she wasn’t going to be able to put it off either, so she might as well get it over with.

  ‘Call me first thing and tell me how it went,’ Irene said. ‘Love ya.’

  ‘You too.’

  Frankie didn’t know what she would have done without Irene. After. Irene had dropped everything and flown to Milwaukee. She’d stayed for weeks. Frankie couldn’t remember how many. Then, when Frankie had found out about Charley and Hannah, Irene had come back and done it again.

  Frankie scrolled through her recent calls. Hannah’s was labeled Private—no number—and she didn’t have it in her contacts for obvious reasons, so she headed up the steps. If Charley were awake, she’d insist he call his wife. If he were asleep, she’d use his phone and do it herself.