To See the Moon Again (13 page)

From her brief account, it sounded to Julia as if she had been lucky to get off with only a torn shirt, and she told her so. But Carmen objected to the word
lucky
. Her explanation: Of the many jobs she had held, one was at a karate school, where she often observed evening classes before starting her custodial work. Evidently she had observed well, for when the man pulled onto a gravel road and made his first move, she took him by surprise. “I think I might have broken his nose,” she said. He doubled over, both hands to his face, at which point she opened the door and ran.

“So God prepared me for that,” she said “by giving me some free karate lessons.”

Julia shook her head at this. If God was so gracious, she asked, why didn't he spare her the attack altogether? Why didn't he provide a ride for her with a kind woman who gave her money and a good, warm meal instead of a bad man who turned on her and left her stranded on a deserted country road?

Carmen answered promptly. “He sometimes lets us suffer the consequences of our foolish choices to teach us lessons.” She leaned forward. “And anyway, he did provide a kind woman who gave me food and clothes, and a place to sleep besides. He led me here to you.”

Julia could only stare at her. There was no way to reconcile such simple-minded Sunday school ignorance with the girl's obvious intelligence and with what she had been through. If one of her students had written a story with a character like this girl, Julia's criticism would have been ruthless:
Are you writing fantasy or realism? Either way, the character is unbelievable. Try for convincing complexity.

So here was another reason she needed to stay—so that Julia could try to adjust her faulty thinking, open her eyes to the real world. She would start out with something very basic. For example, the fact that good things could usually be traced to identifiable causes, such as hard work or natural aptitude, but bad things often happened for no reason. Watch the news any night of the week for proof. In the lives of people as a whole, the ratio of abrupt calamity to sudden good fortune was maybe fifty to one, probably more like a hundred to one, maybe higher.

She would try to help the girl understand the need for bold, positive action in order to make more good things happen instead of depending on will-o'-the-wispy things like prayer.

•   •   •

B
Y
the time the talk at the kitchen table was done, the sky had gone from blue to mauve. With the overhead light off, the kitchen was growing dim, yet Julia had the strange sense of seeing Carmen in sharper focus. Perhaps it was because for the first time she was allowing herself a long, close, head-on look at the girl.

Carmen was the first to rise from the table. Picking up her glass, she went to the sink and filled it with water, then drank it down all at once. Julia turned on the overhead light and started clearing the table.

Carmen said, “A light that shines in a dark place makes everything visible.”

Julia had no reply for this. She carefully placed the plates and bowls and glasses between the spokes and ribs of the dishwasher as Carmen gathered up the silverware and wiped the table. They moved back and forth slowly, deliberately, without talking. Julia put away the leftover pizza, and Carmen took the empty box out to the recycle bin.

“You probably want me to leave more than ever now,” Carmen said at last. “Now that you know all those things about me.” She was standing in the doorway leading into the living room, the expression on her face guarded. One thing she must have learned, finally, was not to hope too quickly.

In an instant Julia's thoughts settled themselves into one perfectly clear resolution:
She must not suffer again.
But just as quickly the truth came to her:
I have no power over suffering, hers or mine or anyone else's. No one does. What will happen will happen.

Julia turned and began wiping the countertops. She spoke slowly. “No, I don't want you to leave. I want you to stay.”

There was a long silence before Carmen replied. “I've been praying you'd say that, but now I can't think of anything to say back.”

Another silence as Julia absorbed the fact that God was getting credit for her change of heart. Well, no matter.

“I believe in angels,” Carmen said. “Guardian angels.”

“No doubt,” Julia said. She continued wiping the counter.

“If they got paid, mine would be rich, even at minimum wage.”

Julia said nothing. She was wiping the same spot over and over now.

“And if they got overtime, he'd be a billionaire. Or she. Well,
it
—angels really aren't male or female, you know. They neither marry nor are given in marriage.”

Obviously, there was no predicting what would come out of this girl's mouth next. After all the hard, plain words of the past couple of hours, now these frivolous ones.

Julia knew it was her turn to say something. Something wise and meaningful. She imagined an empty dialogue bubble above her head, waiting to be filled in. She knew the girl was still at the doorway, and she turned to face her.

Somehow Carmen had gone from standing up to sitting down, folded up inside the door frame, her back against one side, her feet against the other. Her face was buried in her hands, but she made no sound.

Displays of emotion always embarrassed Julia. She could only be grateful that Carmen hadn't rushed at her, embraced her, and burst into sobs. She turned back to the sink and took her time rinsing the dishcloth, wringing it out, hanging it over the dish drainer to dry. She looked out the window and cleared her throat. “I noticed that house down by Dr. Boyer's has a
Sold
sign on it now,” she said. So much for wise and meaningful.

“It's a couple in their forties,” Carmen said. “He works at the post office, and she's a kindergarten teacher.” Her voice sounded steady, so maybe her tears were already over.

Or maybe she needed a little more time. “Well, I wish the one across the street would sell,” Julia said, still facing the window. “It's been empty for almost three months. At least someone could come mow the lawn. It's not the most scenic view.”

“A woman went through it yesterday with a real estate guy,” Carmen said. “She was in an SUV with a Florida license.”

Julia laughed. “Where does she work?”

“I don't know, but I'm guessing something medical. She had on blue scrubs and white rubber-soled shoes.”

Julia said, “Well, I'm going to sit on the back porch and read a little while.”

Carmen got to her feet. “Uh, Aunt Julia, there's more . . . if you want to ask more questions. I mean, I didn't tell you every detail, so . . .”

Julia held up a hand. “No, we've talked a long time. You've told me enough.”

Carmen hesitated, then said, “Well, maybe I'll take a warm bath if it's okay.”

Julia nodded, and Carmen turned and left. Seconds later Julia heard the tub water running in the hall bath. She couldn't name all the feelings inside her right now, but she knew one of them was fear at the thought of how close she had come to turning the girl out. And another was relief that she hadn't. And mixed in was a good bit of anxiety about how all of this was going to work.

S
INGING
TO
P
LANTS

July and August passed in a swelter of record-breaking temperatures, but the first week of September brought with it a welcome mildness. They needed rain, but at least there was a break in the heat, a reminder that cooler days were coming. Of all the seasons, Julia had always liked fall best, with its colorful drifts of leaves and earlier evenings. She also liked fall because it was when school started again and she could return to her comfortable routine. Not this year, of course, but every passing season would bring her closer.

She was feeling especially restless right now since it was the first week of classes at Millard-Temple and she wondered how her courses were going. She wished she could make herself invisible and sit in on some of them. On second thought, she didn't wish that at all, for what if the interim teacher was too good, what if his lectures were too engaging, the students too attentive? No, it was safer to pretend that things were going poorly, that the best students were waiting for her return to sign up for her classes.

It was the Friday after Labor Day, going on toward lunchtime, and Julia and Carmen were sitting on the back porch together, Carmen on the glider looking through job listings in the newspaper and Julia in the wicker rocking chair with a book of essays in her lap. The radio was on, tuned in to NPR, and Stravinsky's
Firebird Suite
was playing, though too softly for its full effect.

“Hey, here's a job I could do,” Carmen said from the glider. “It's a companion for an elderly gentleman. That's what the ad says—‘companion needed for elderly gentleman.' Isn't that quaint? That might be interesting.” She took a slurpy sip of her coffee, which was mostly warm milk with a dribble of coffee and lots of sugar.

Julia looked up from her book. “Interesting? More like dangerous. Remember the elderly gentleman who was on the news the other night for killing his neighbor and dumping his body in a well?” The man had looked like a harmless old grandfather.

Carmen cocked her head toward the radio. “Wait, did you hear that? Didn't that part sound like something from
Peer Gynt
? I wonder if Stravinsky did that on purpose? Who came first—Stravinsky or Grieg?” She looked over at Julia expectantly.

Julia had heard nothing that sounded like
Peer Gynt
, but she hadn't been listening closely. “Grieg, I think,” she said, “but I'm not sure. I'm not the expert on music you seem to think I am.”

Carmen looked back at the newspaper. “The ad says ‘Good pay,' so he must be rich.”

“
And
the elderly gentleman in Columbia,” Julia said, “who ran the meth lab and had a whole stockpile of explosives he was planning to use to blow up the governor's mansion . . . remember him?” They had seen him on television a few nights ago, being led from his house in handcuffs, the stereotypical Southern redneck. Scruffy beard, missing teeth, beer belly, wife-beater shirt.

Carmen took another sip of her coffee. “But nobody like that would advertise for a companion, would they? He didn't look like he knew any words that big.” She set her mug down. “And don't forget that poor old man in Greenville who drove his car into the Burger King and killed those two people. Of course, you have to feel sorry for somebody like that. He wasn't a
criminal
. It must be a horrible thing to live with—running over somebody by accident that way.”

How quickly a conversation could go awry. Julia pretended to be reading again. Maybe Carmen would take the hint and stop talking. Or at least change the subject.

But she didn't. “If he'd had somebody to drive him around,” she continued, “it wouldn't have happened. If he'd had a companion like me, for example, he could have said, ‘Hey, Carmen, I need you to take me to Burger King.' And I would've said, ‘Okay, sure, Mr. Elderly Gentleman with slow reflexes, I have my driver's license now, so hop on in, let's go.'” She picked up the paper and rattled it. “So, see, I might save somebody's life by answering this ad. Or maybe a bunch of people. Maybe this elderly gentleman is going to smash into a playground full of children if he doesn't get a companion to drive him around, or . . .”

Julia broke in. “That reminds me. I'm going to need you to drive to the post office after lunch to mail that package for me.” The driver's license was a new acquisition for Carmen, as were a new social security card and a copy of her birth certificate from the county seat in Wyoming where she had been born. She was especially proud of the driver's license. Almost daily now she ran some kind of errand for Julia.

“Sure,” Carmen said. “And don't worry, I'm not going to answer any ad to be a man's companion, elderly or otherwise.” She turned over several pages to the crossword puzzle, then neatly folded the newspaper back and picked up a pencil.

“There's really no need for you to rush into a job,” Julia said. “It's not as if you've been lazing around all summer. You've kept busy around here.” And it was true. The girl had made herself useful not only at the stone house but also at other houses up and down Ivy Dale.

•   •   •

W
ITH
Carmen, you knew why it was called
striking
up a conversation. She didn't hold back. She knew most of the neighbors by name now. She had washed their cars, mowed their yards, weeded their gardens, even helped a single mother and her two little girls move into the house across the street.

She often played with the girls in their yard for hours on Saturdays to keep them out from under their mother's feet. Julia sometimes watched her from the kitchen window as she gave them piggyback rides, taught them jump rope jingles, drew chalk pictures with them in the driveway, read books to them on the front steps.

After learning about Dr. Boyer's knee replacement surgery, Carmen had offered to walk his dog, bring his mail and newspaper to the door, and get his groceries. Over the past two months she had exchanged more words with Dr. Boyer than Julia herself had in over twenty years. Almost daily she came home with a new French phrase, something she had asked him to write down for her.

A few weeks ago she had even rung the doorbell of “the White Ark”—Julia's name for a two-story monstrosity erected ten years ago in an empty lot on the east end of Ivy Dale, which looked totally out of place among the smaller, older, more tastefully appointed homes. The residents of the White Ark were a reclusive older couple who rarely showed themselves outdoors. Year-round their eaves were strung with Christmas lights, the kind that were supposed to look like icicles, and until very recently a collapsed inflatable Santa had been puddled in their front yard, a mass of dirty red-and-white plastic, which was the purpose of Carmen's visit.

The woman who answered the door that day opened it only a few inches and, without saying a word, shook her head at Carmen's offer to clean and fold the Santa, then shut the door firmly. The next day, however, the Santa was gone from the yard and part of the red plastic could be seen spilling out the top of the garbage can in the driveway.

“That woman has the palest, bluest eyes,” Carmen had told Julia, “like one of those Siberian husky dogs. She looked a little . . . furtive. But, you know, she might be deaf now that I think about the way she stared at my mouth while I was talking. And she has a kind of a hooked nose—
aquiline
, is that the word? She's tiny, with this long, wavy silvery hair. But kind of pretty, in an odd, dreamy sort of way, like a confused fairy who's forgotten how to fly, and . . .” These descriptions could go on and on.

All this from a fifteen-second conversation through a three-inch crack. Carmen could make a story out of a stick lying on the ground. Sometime recently she had taken to writing things in an empty journal she had found on one of the bookshelves. Julia had no idea what she wrote. Maybe it was simply a diary of things she did and saw every day, like descriptions of neighbors with aquiline noses.

She studied the girl now, carefully penciling in letters on the crossword puzzle. She always went slowly so as not to have to erase anything. She was sitting with one leg tucked under her, the other swinging back and forth. Her shoelaces were untied but bunched up between the eyelets so the ends didn't dangle and trip her. She claimed that tied laces made her feel trapped in her shoes. These were new sneakers, but not expensive ones. She had refused the ones Julia had wanted to buy her, insisting that she didn't want any at all if she couldn't have the cheap ones.

Julia wasn't ready to drop the subject of a job. “In fact,” she said, “you've stayed so busy I'm going to run out of projects around here before long.”

Carmen said nothing. She was frowning now, tapping her pencil against her foot. “‘Dr. Johnson's pal'?” she said. “Seven letters, the fourth one is a
w
.”

“Boswell,” Julia said. “He wrote a biography of Samuel Johnson.”

Carmen gave a sniffy laugh as she filled the letters in. “Okay, thanks. I wouldn't know either one of them if I met them on the street.”

“You won't be meeting them on the street. They've both been dead for over two hundred years.”

“Yeah?” The girl looked up. “Have you ever thought about how everybody's skeleton looks basically the same? I mean, there are little differences in size and all that, but if you just had everybody's skeleton lined up side by side, it would be impossible to tell a famous person like Barack Obama from a mailman named Joe Schmoe. You know?”

“I can't say I've ever thought about it,” Julia said. Carmen could be very silly—Julia had told her so more than once. At other times she was witty in a way you knew wasn't accidental. Other days, she was neither silly nor witty, but grave and tense as if listening for something. But even on her quiet days she was polite, always polite.

•   •   •

J
ULIA
went back to her book. She turned a few pages and saw an essay by Edith Wharton. She liked Edith Wharton. It came to her now that she would like to read
Ethan Frome
again. She couldn't remember much about the plot except that it involved a young girl and an older man and it was set in New England. Maybe she and Carmen could read the book together.

She suddenly thought of something else that had been on her mind for many weeks now. This seemed like the right time to mention it, as it would support her point about a job.

“You don't want to get a full-time job right now anyway,” she said. She didn't expect an answer, for Carmen was slow to speak when she thought there might be more coming.

Head down, Carmen kept her eyes on the paper, but she was clearly waiting, her pencil poised above the puzzle.

“I want to take a trip sometime in October,” Julia continued, “and I'd like you to go with me. You wouldn't want to have to ask an employer for time off so soon.”

Carmen looked up. “What kind of trip?” She looked worried, as if she thought Julia might be broaching the subject of a trip to Wyoming again.

“To New England,” Julia said. “I'd like to visit the homes of some American authors during my sabbatical. That part of the country is full of them. Frost, Hawthorne, Melville, Dickinson, Mark Twain . . . well, you already know—you lived up there.”

Carmen wrinkled her nose and shook her head. “You can go. I'll stay here and work. I'll help pay for all the things you'll have to charge on your credit card.”

“I thought you liked New England. You're always talking about all the history up there.”

“
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times
,” Carmen said. “I know, I know, that's Dickens. His house isn't up there.”

“Well, I don't want to go by myself,” Julia said. “There are other homes I want to see, too. Edith Wharton and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Harriet Beecher Stowe and Louisa May Alcott and . . .”

“I once met somebody who slept in Louisa May Alcott's bed,” Carmen said.

At times Julia ignored these leaps in a conversation, but at other times the new turn was irresistible, as now.

Julia closed her book. “What are you talking about?”

It was a girl Carmen had met on a train somewhere in New England. This girl—Fawna was her name—was “bumming around for the summer doing random stuff just for fun.” One day she went on a guided tour through Orchard House in Concord, Massachusetts, the house where Louisa May Alcott lived when she wrote
Little Women
. Somehow Fawna managed to slip into one of the groups without paying, and then she kept the guide off balance the whole time by asking funny questions like what they used for toilet tissue back then.

When the guide was finished with her speeches in the upstairs bedrooms and everybody else moved back downstairs, Fawna stayed behind and hid under Louisa's bed, waiting for the house to be locked up for the night. Or so she said.