Mending the Moon (39 page)

“Doesn't that violate the premise?” asks Anna Clark. “I mean, the whole idea is that he shows up whenever you think of him. He's always in the room. So why did they put him in a different room?”

“Yeah,” says Amy. “And why's Archipelago in the Good Guy room instead of the Bad Guy room? And where's Erasmus?”

“She doesn't belong in the Bad Guy room either,” Anna says. “She keeps saying she's not a Minion. Remember Bumfuck, and the pizza in the alley?”

Jeremy shakes his head. Anna's perfectly groomed from the top of her blond head to the tips of her Gucci pumps. She may be wearing tastefully faded blue jeans, but she has a Coach bag slung over her shoulder and flawlessly lacquered fingernails. Even hearing her say the word “Bumfuck” is some heavy cognitive dissonance.

She just doesn't look like a CC fan, even as broad-based as the fandom is. She looks like somebody's mom. She
is
somebody's mom.

Was.

“She joined forces with EE last month,” Jeremy says. “Remember? So he'd help her get to Cosmos? But now she's helped Cosmos, so I guess she's on his side after all.”

“The museum installation went in months ago,” Amy says. “Do you think they knew what would happen? Got inside info from the CC Four somehow?”

“Maybe they moved her, Aim. Anyway, I'm hungry. Anybody else want lunch?”

“I do!” VB's been trailing grumpily behind them. Amy and Anna invited her to come to the SF museum so maybe she'd start understanding CC better, but Jeremy doesn't think she's been trying very hard. She seems oppressed by Seattle, overwhelmed, like a plant ripped out of its natural ground. She's clearly desperate to get back home to Reno. He wonders how much of that is her breakdown, and how much she's always been like that. Limited. Needing what she knows.

He still doesn't like her, but he feels a lot sorrier for her than he did before Mom died.

On the other hand, he really likes Seattle: all the coffee shops and buses that will actually take you places—Reno has a bus system, but it's crappy—and the energy of the streets, and the fact that he doesn't feel like a sore thumb here. There are a lot more non-whites here than in Reno. Reno's better now than when he was little, but it's still not as no-big-deal mixed as Seattle. Or San Francisco, yeah. He went there with Mom a few times, but he didn't know anyone. He was just there with Mom, which always made him feel a little self-conscious no matter what the population around him was like.

He feels guilty even thinking this way.

He loves Mom. He's grateful to Mom. He wishes more than anything that she were alive. But he'd also, more than ever, really like to get out of Reno for a while, and he's starting to feel like maybe he's actually ready to think about a move.

If Mom were still here, he thinks she'd approve.

He's fallen behind the others—VB's in the lead now, heading to the snack bar—and Amy turns to check on him. “You okay?”

“Yeah. Just thinking.”

But he stops thinking about cities to think about lunch. The snack bar's pretty crappy, the usual hot dogs and chips, and VB groans. “I had a hot dog yesterday. I don't know if I can handle another so soon.”

Anna laughs. “There's a little restaurant not far from here. Excellent chef. Let's go there. My treat.”

The three Reno-ites, Gore-Tex-clad ducklings, follow her outside. It's still raining, but there's intermittent sun. Anna leads them a few blocks to a French bistro, a fashionably distressed hole-in-the-wall, all heavy wooden farm tables and butcher-block paper placemats, where the staff clearly knows her. They're the only people there. Amy sits down and looks around, blinking. VB picks up a menu as if it might bite her, and peers at it. When she speaks, she sounds strangled. “This is—a bit much. There must be something between this and hot dogs.”

“We're here,” Anna says, “and I love this place. Let me be generous. I'm not trying to atone for anything. I'm just buying lunch. Sometimes lunch is only lunch.”

Jeremy picks up his menu. Anna, deftly, covers the price column with her napkin. “Don't look at that. Just look at the food.”

“Okay.” He does. It looks delicious: consommés and pâtés and reductions and truffle oil and artisanal cheeses. His mouth waters. “This reminds me of Fourth Street Bistro. In Reno. Mom took me there for my birthday.”

Anna winces. “And that's a good memory, I hope? Jeremy, I'm not trying to be your mother—”

“Of course not. You didn't know. And even if you had. Like you said. It's just lunch. And yeah. It's a good memory.”

The waiter arrives with water and warm, aromatic bread, and soft herbed butter, and cunning little bowls of yuppie olives. The four of them smooth over the social awkwardness by eating. Jeremy wishes Aunt Rosie was here, because he feels more comfortable with her than with any of the others, even Amy, but she had no interest in the museum. She went to church with Hen and Tom and Greg instead. Yesterday, when the plans were being made, Anna offered to pick up the others and bring them here.

He wonders how Mom and Anna would have gotten along, if they'd ever met. But he thinks he knows. He can just see Anna walking into the library, being polite enough but clearly viewing Mom and the other staff as The Help. He can just see Mom, afterward, rolling her eyes, hear her complaining about the Rich-Lady types. She got them in her book groups often enough. “They're not stupid, but too many of them are wearing blinders made of money, and they don't even know it. And listen to me, with all this ‘they' stuff, as if those women aren't just people like the rest of us.” She'd laugh and say, “Do as I say, Jer, not as I do.”

But Anna
is
different. Nice enough. Generous, certainly. Really pretty smart when she talks about CC. But also from another planet, in ways Jeremy can't quite pin down, and maybe it's just the money, but maybe it's something else. He doesn't know.

He still hasn't told her about the Mom-Percy CC connection. He will tell her, he wants to tell her, but not with the others here. She's working so hard at being nice to them, and he doesn't want to drop any bombs today. They all need a break. The information will keep, like so much else.

They busy themselves with the bread and olives, and then with appetizers. Amy's ordered a chilled fruit soup that clearly delights her, and Jeremy's pretty happy with his crab cakes, although he'd have done the sauce differently. It's a ginger tomato sauce, and he isn't sure those work together. He thinks something else would be better with the ginger. Something tart and sweet. Orange zest, just a hint, maybe, so it wouldn't overpower the crab.

VB's picking at her house salad, looking miserable. Jeremy still feels sorry for her. “Hey, Prof Bellamy, you want some of my crab cake?”

She glares at him. “Would you
please
call me Veronique? Or Vera? It's what your mother called me, and you're not my student anymore.”

“Yeah, okay. Sure. Would you like some crab cake?”

“No. Thank you. I'm crabby enough, wouldn't you say?” Amy giggles, and Jeremy blinks. VB tried to make a joke. Oh, Lord. And he knows he should laugh, but her delivery was so flat that he can't. “I'm sorry I'm grouchy,” she says. “I want to get home, that's all.”

“You all leave tomorrow?” Anna asks.

“Yes. I need to get back to my cats. Amy, have you registered for fall semester?”

She has. She reels off a string of courses which immediately makes Jeremy's ears glaze. He feels Anna's eyes on him. “And what about you, Jeremy? Are you looking forward to getting home?”

He shrugs. “I don't know. I guess. Not really. I have to figure things out. Things I don't really want to think about yet, because they're too much work.” They're all looking at him. He sighs and says, “I think maybe, in a few years, or sooner if I can swing it, I want to try living in a real city. Here, or San Francisco.” He looks down at the crab cake. “Maybe go to culinary school.” He blinks. Actually, he thinks maybe he
does
want to do that, and it's the closest thing he's had to a plan of his own for years. Maybe forever. “But, you know, none of that right away. I have to figure out what to do with the house first. What to do with Mom's ashes. It's stupid to be hung up on that, but I am. Have been.”

“Culinary school's a lot pricier than UNR,” VB says, frowning.

“Yeah. I know.” She thinks he's a shitty student. Well, he
has
been a shitty student.

Anna clears her throat. “When the time comes, talk to me.”

VB jerks back and turns bright red. “Oh God, that wasn't what I meant. I wasn't suggesting that you—I wouldn't—I—”

“I know you weren't.” Anna's voice is mild, completely matter-of-fact. “Jeremy, you know I have resources. Talk to me if I might be able to help. That's all. I'm not promising anything right now. We'll see what it looks like when we get there.”

“Um,” he says, but fortunately the main course comes, and they all busy themselves with their food again. Thank God for food. They share little bites of what they're eating, and Amy, teasing, asks Jeremy to critique it, and he does—cautiously, because Anna likes this place and he does, too, and he doesn't want to hurt anyone's feelings, but he does have opinions—and the chef comes over and they chat about local markets and spices and preparations, and, Jeremy has to admit, it's a hell of a lot more fun than talking about
Cranford
.

After the chef's left, Anna claps her hands. “Dessert. I want chocolate, and I'm not going to let the rest of you sit there and watch me eat it. You have to have dessert, too.”

Amy nudges Jeremy with her elbow. “You could open your own restaurant. With a CC theme.”

“Or Guatemalan,” says VB. “If you ever decide to research the culture. That would give you a fun reason to travel there.”

“Or only desserts,” says Anna. “I'm definitely going for the chocolate decadence. What are the rest of you having?”

*   *   *

Veronique's working her way through a deliciously tangy lemon ice—the least expensive of the dessert options, because she's still appalled that Anna's showering them with charity like this—when Amy asks the question she's been dreading. “What about you, Professor Bellamy? You're going back in the fall, right?”

“Veronique,” Vera says. “In this context. Unless you think you won't be able to revert to formality if you ever take one of my classes again.” Why is the child even asking about this, in front of Percy Clark's mother?

Raised by wolves.

“Yes, I'm going back in the fall. I'm teaching 101 and a British lit survey.”
Not
Women & Lit. She doubts she'll ever be asked to teach that again.

“I thought you wanted to retire?” Jeremy says. “Mom says you did.”

Dammit, Melinda! Why did you share that with him?

“I'm working through my retirement options,” Veronique says crisply, because she doesn't want to admit to money problems and then have this creepy rich woman throw money at her. Let Anna Clark find other ways to salve her conscience.

Anna frowns. “Were you hit by the downturn?”

Everyone was hit by the downturn, you nosy bitch, not that it's any of your business. Just because I offered you chocolate yesterday, when I didn't even know yet how addicted you are to it, doesn't make you my friend. “Somewhat,” Veronique says, trying to sound unconcerned, “and there are also property considerations.”

Jeremy, who's been working his way through a massive chunk of bread pudding, stops with his fork halfway to his mouth. “Hey.”

“Hey?” Amy laughs.

“Hey yourself,” Veronique says, and she's about to start talking about Elizabeth Gaskell to change the subject, but Jeremy cuts her off.

“I should've thought of this before, except I couldn't have, because I hadn't thought seriously about leaving Reno. Okay.” He puts down his fork, puts one hand on Amy's shoulder and the other on Veronique's. “You two are friends. Amy and I are friends. Veronique and Mom were friends.”

He doesn't consider himself my friend, Veronique thinks. Well, no, of course not. “Yes?”

“Okay. So. I have this house that's paid for, but I don't want to sell it, partly because I grew up there and partly because I want to put Mom's ashes in the garden, which means I don't want it—you know, out of the family. But I don't want to live there right now, either, and I don't want to rent it to anybody who might trash the place.” He taps Veronique's shoulder. “
You
want to retire, but you're still paying for your house and you don't think you can sell it right now.” He taps Amy's shoulder. “
You've
talked about finding a house to share with friends.
So
”—grinning and expansive, he gestures at both of them —“Amy and her quiet, responsible friends, who are a whole lot like nuns, honest, can move into Veronique's house and pay the mortgage. Veronique can move into Mom's house and not have to pay anything. And I can move
out
of Mom's house and go to San Francisco or wherever without worrying about strangers living in the house, and that way I'll feel comfortable putting Mom in the garden, too.”

He sits back, clearly pleased with himself. “Musical houses! What do you think?”

Veronique feels dizzy. “I don't know if I
want
to live in your house. I love your house, Jeremy, but it's not mine, and it would just remind me of your mother—”

“Tell me about it.”

“—and I don't want to move. I hate moving.”

He waves this away. He's flushed now, excited. “We'll help you. People my age are really good at moving. It's a
free house
!”