To See the Moon Again (14 page)

“Why?” Julia said.

“She hated that tour guide. She said the woman talked so fast nobody could understand her. And she didn't have an ounce of fun in her bones, got all mad about the questions, told Fawna she was out of order and couldn't ask any more.”

“So she hid under the bed to get even with a tour guide?”

“Yeah, I know, it was dumb. But it was hilarious the way she told it. She tried on an old dress that was on top of the bed, and she sat at Louisa May Alcott's desk, and she went through all the books in the bookcase and drew pictures of Charlie Brown and Snoopy in them. She could draw all the
Peanuts
characters perfectly. She showed me. And she took a ceramic owl off a shelf as a keepsake. I think Louisa May Alcott collected owls.”

“Sounds like she was stringing you along,” Julia said.

“She showed me the owl.” Carmen laughed. “Yeah, I know, she could've been totally making it all up. Maybe the owl came from Walmart. But I think she really did it. That girl was crazy. She took a picture on her phone of herself sitting at the desk wearing the dress. She showed me that, too, but it was kind of dark and blurry.”

Julia said, “A place like that would have some kind of security system.”

Carmen shrugged. “But she didn't break in, see, so why would an alarm go off? In the morning she just hid under the bed again and waited for the tours to start so she could crawl out and blend in with them. She said it was a different guide that day. He was nicer and talked slower.”

Julia rocked back and forth ever so slightly in her wicker chair, studying Carmen for any small sign that she might be teasing.

Carmen shot her a wide-eyed, innocent smile and took another sip of her coffee before bending over the crossword puzzle again.

“Then there's always the possibility,” Julia said, “that you never met anybody named Fawna on a train. Maybe this is just another one of your stories.”

“I still think about her,” Carmen said without looking up. “Lots of times I stop and say, ‘I wonder where Fawna is now and what she's doing?'” She chewed on her bottom lip for a moment. “Oh, I know this one. It's easy. Five letters, starting with A. ‘Tree kin to birch.' A-s-p-e-n, aspen.” She looked up and smiled. “That's the name of a ski resort in Colorado, too, did you know that?”

•   •   •

J
ULIA
got up and went inside. She returned the book of essays to the shelf in the living room and came back to the porch door. “How about going somewhere for a quick lunch?” she said. “You drive, and then we can run by the post office and library.”

Carmen put the newspaper and pencil aside. “Okay, but my treat this time. Dr. Boyer paid me yesterday.” She stood up and stretched. “I've been to Mark Twain's house. Did I ever tell you that? I didn't sneak in, though. I paid. Did you know Mark Twain's bed was switched around backward? He slept with his head up against the footboard and his feet down by the headboard. Said he wasn't going to spend all that money on a fancy carved headboard unless he could look at it while he was in bed.” She laughed. “Funny guy, Mark Twain.” Then, abruptly serious, she added, “Too bad he was such . . . an infidel.”

Julia went to get her purse. When she returned, Carmen was stooped in front of the plant stand by the screen door, singing to one of the African violets, the one that was supposed to have frilly fuchsia flowers, though it hadn't yet bloomed. They had recently heard a story on NPR about a former opera singer who experimented with her prizewinning houseplants by singing to them in different languages. She claimed that singing in French produced the largest blooms. Carmen had been fascinated by the story.

“
Ouvrez votre coeur, petite fleur, et chantez-nous une belle chanson
,” she was singing now, over and over. It was the refrain of a song she had learned from her father, in English of course, but she had asked Dr. Boyer to write it down for her in French.
Open your heart, little flower, and sing us a beautiful song.

F
ROM
E
AST
TO
W
EST

A few weeks later, Julia was in Matthew's bedroom in the middle of the night. She didn't hear the door open, but suddenly Carmen was standing there, squinting against the light in an oversized gray T-shirt and black pajama pants.

“Aunt Julia, are you okay? You need some help with those?”

Julia dumped the armful of sport coats onto the bed, which was already covered with other clothing: suits, shirts, pants, neckties.

“No, but thanks anyway,” Julia said. “I couldn't sleep again, so I thought I'd get up and put myself to work.” She put a hand on top of the rollers in her hair. “I know I'm a sight. I wasn't expecting company. Sorry I woke you up.”

Carmen shook her head. “I woke myself up. Then I saw the light under the door.”

Julia picked up a necktie she had dropped on the floor and added it to the others on the bed. “Goodness knows I've put this project off long enough. I thought maybe it would force me to get motivated if I emptied the whole closet first.”

“Do you put those things in your hair every night?” Carmen asked. “Maybe that's why you can't sleep.”

Julia said, “Some of us have to get our curls the hard way.”

Carmen walked over to the bed. “All these clothes belonged to one man?” She touched the sport coat on top, a brown wool herringbone. “Daddy had one suit. Just one. It was dark blue.”

Julia was surprised he'd had even one suit. From what Carmen said, Jeremiah had hired himself out as a ranch hand most of the time, doing things Julia had seen only on old television westerns—herding cattle, mending fences, branding. And taming wild horses—he had been especially good at that, she said. Also rodeo contests, which was highly unusual for someone who hadn't grown up going to rodeos.

“Lulu was obsessed with that suit after he died,” Carmen continued. “Like it wasn't just Daddy's suit, it was
Daddy
in some eerie way.”

She moved over to the pile of neckties. “A pool of iridescent fish,” she said. “Psychedelic eels.” She ran a hand through them. “Daddy had only one tie I can remember. Blue with yellow crescents. When you think about it, ties are sort of funny—these long, skinny things men hang around their necks. Who do you suppose ever thought that up? Hey, look, here's one that matches my pajamas.” She pulled out a light gray one imprinted with small black and red triangles and draped it around her neck, then moved to the mirror to study the effect.

“Anyway,” she continued, “Lulu was already starting to have problems before Daddy died. She would get all nervous over the littlest things. Daddy always explained it away—said she was just tired.” She paused. “After he died, she started wearing his suit.”

In all the questions Julia had asked, Lulu was a subject she had always avoided. She knew she blamed Lulu for things that weren't her fault—such as the fact that Jeremiah had settled in the West and never once come back home. And even, somehow, the fact that he went hunting and got himself killed. And certainly the fact that he hadn't had a proper funeral, only a scattering of his ashes to the wind. He hadn't even needed his one suit to be buried in.

But now this fact—that Lulu wore his suit after he died. Though Julia didn't want to soften toward her, she couldn't help it. Such a sad thought—a woman so emotionally unsteady that she began wearing her husband's suit.

“Ida and Effie had fits about it,” Carmen said, “but she kept right on wearing it.”

“Wasn't it too big?” Julia asked.

Carmen nodded. “She was shorter than you, and mostly skin and bones. She pretty much quit eating after Daddy died. But she didn't care if the coat was big. She just rolled up the sleeves and said she liked it that way. The pants had to be just right, though—she tore them completely apart and remade them. Spent days on them. She was always real particular about how things fit her around the waist.” She laughed. “And hips. Ida used to call her Snake Hips.”

This came as a surprise to Julia, for every time she had imagined her brother and Lulu over the years, she had always pictured Lulu as a large woman—broad-beamed, thick-waisted, big-breasted, heavy makeup over coarse features, big braying laugh. She had always wondered how her brother could have been attracted to such a woman.

She carried the last armload of sport coats to the bed and deposited them on top of the others. Now for the shoes, all lined up in color groups on the closet floor, each pair neatly polished and fitted with stretchers. This didn't include the running shoes, sneakers, and other casual shoes on the revolving shoe tree.

She began moving them out of the closet, two pairs at a time, and setting them in rows, side by side, next to the desk. She hadn't realized there were so many. Matthew had been partial to lace-ups, though he had six pairs of loafers, too. Expensive brands, all of them, and none of them showed much wear.

Carmen pulled a red necktie out of the pile and studied its checkerboard design. “How could one person wear all these?” she said.

“One at a time,” Julia said.

“What are you going to do with them all?”

“Good question,” Julia said. The easiest thing, of course, would be to fill up the trunk and backseat of the Buick and take the whole lot to the Salvation Army or Goodwill, as she had done months ago with most of the things in his bureau drawers. But she also knew she could sell the clothes on the bed if she wanted to go to the trouble. There was a consignment shop over in Greenville that specialized in high-end men's clothing.

Carmen held up another necktie, a royal blue paisley. “Hey, could I have some of these?”

“What for?”

“For a skirt,” Carmen said. She went on to describe a skirt she had seen a Millard-Temple girl wearing on campus, the whole thing made out of neckties sewn together side by side, with the wider pointed ends forming a saw-tooth hem. She was sure she could find instructions on the Internet. As with all young people, computer skills came easily for Carmen. Somehow these things seemed to be programmed into their brains at birth.

“It sounds like something from the hippie era,” Julia said. “Something you'd wear with love beads and go-go boots. But . . . do you sew?”

Well, yes, as a matter of fact, she did, a little. Another one of her jobs in New England had been at a dry cleaners, where she picked up some free sewing lessons from the alterations woman. She asked Julia about an old sewing machine she had seen in the bottom of the linen closet.

“I haven't used that in years,” Julia said. “I don't even know if it still works. Wait, don't tell me . . . you probably had a job repairing sewing machines, too, right?”

Carmen laughed. “No, but I did rebuild alternators one time for a couple of months.” She pulled out another tie with interlocking silver and lime green hexagons. “I think I'd want this one somewhere in front,” she said, “maybe next to this one.” And she held up another one, rust-orange with wavy yellow and brown stripes.

Julia looked away quickly. A single visual image, only a glance, and suddenly you could be yanked out of the present and back to a different time and place, somewhere you had no desire to be. The rust-orange necktie was one Julia had stared at across a restaurant table as Matthew talked. Over twenty years ago—that was how long it would have been.

•   •   •

T
HEY
had been married almost five years at the time. It wasn't a special occasion—not a birthday or Valentine's Day or their anniversary. Just a regular weekday in early spring, as she recalled. On the days she taught an afternoon class, Matthew was in charge of supper. She was rarely hungry at night and could have gone without anything, but those were the early years of their marriage, when Matthew still thought there must be some kind of connection between his effort and her happiness. And so he put himself on kitchen duty two days a week, which also meant their sitting down to eat together, something else she could have done without at the end of a long day.

That evening, however, when she got home, he wasn't wearing his jeans as usual, nor was he working on some home repair project while supper warmed in the oven. He was still dressed in his suit and necktie, sitting on the couch in the living room, watching the news and waiting for her. He had reservations for seven o'clock, he said, at a restaurant in Greenville called the Open Hearth. It was one of his favorite places.

She wasn't in the least interested in going out for dinner in the middle of the week, but something kept her from refusing, maybe the fact that he had reserved a table. He followed her back to the bedroom, where she set her briefcase down and took out the set of freshman themes she had been planning to grade that night. She placed them on her dresser with a sigh.

“Hard day?” Matthew asked.

She didn't look at him. “About like usual.”

“Maybe you should cut back to half time,” he said. It was an old subject, but one he hadn't mentioned in a while. The way he said it now, though gently, suggested the possibility of a renewed campaign.

She said nothing but turned and went into the bathroom.

“If we leave in about ten minutes, that'll get us there on time,” he said through the closed door.

Her argument against working half time was always the same. They needed her income to pay for the house and all the work he was doing on it. And though she never told him this part, the thought of staying home scared her. She was a teacher. That was the only life she knew. She wouldn't know what to do with herself if she had entire days at home. The two afternoons she had now were enough for her. Many Saturdays she went to campus to work in her office, and sometimes Sundays, too.

When she came out of the bathroom, Matthew was looking into the mirror above her dresser, straightening his tie, the rust-orange one with yellow and brown stripes. He rubbed his hands together, gave her a hopeful smile through the mirror, and said he was in the mood for a steak.

The idea came to her suddenly that maybe he had good news of some kind. Maybe Mr. Carrier, his boss, had finally asked him to be a partner. That was something he had been hoping for. He had been with the insurance company for twelve years now. Or maybe they had landed a corporate contract and Mr. Carrier was giving everyone a big bonus.

He walked to the bedroom door, then paused and looked back at her. She made him wait while she pumped a dollop of hand cream into her palm and applied it slowly, working it between her fingers, over the backs of her hands, around her wrists. He turned and left, as if he knew she would never come as long as he stood there. And he was right. She waited another few moments and then followed him.

•   •   •

A
T
the restaurant, he pressed her to order a full meal, though all she really wanted was an appetizer. “We can take home whatever you don't eat,” he said, which was what he always said. She knew he was planning ahead. Restaurant leftovers were a staple for the nights he was on supper duty.

She didn't remember now what she had eaten that night, but Matthew had a steak, charbroiled exactly as he liked it, which was barely. She could still see it bleeding onto the white plate. He made a few attempts at small talk while they ate their salads, but when the entrées came, he fell silent and gave his full attention to eating. Not in an uncouth way, though. Matthew might have grown up in eastern Tennessee, but he had somehow emerged from the hills with impeccable table manners.

She was beginning to think it was just a craving for steak that had motivated the drive to Greenville, but at last the moment came when she learned the real reason.

The restaurant was still moderately full of other diners, for the Open Hearth was the kind of place with a loyal clientele, people with money who ate their dinners late. The interior had been remodeled since the last time they were here—classy touches such as black-framed sepia photographs hanging by long silver chains along the walls, a bank of ferns in a stone planter against the plate glass window, small light fixtures with mica shades suspended above each table, emitting an amber glow. Easy-listening music played softly, piano and strings.

The waitress took their plates. Matthew asked for a cup of decaf coffee, but Julia declined. He also ordered a slice of key lime pie, a dessert he knew Julia liked, and requested two forks. When it came, he slid it to the middle, then reached forward and took a bite onto his fork.

He ate it slowly, then set his fork down and spoke. “I have something to ask you.”

Julia felt a quickening of her pulse. She lifted her eyes to his necktie but no higher. Matthew picked up his coffee and took a sip, then put it down and patted his mouth with his napkin. Julia still hadn't taken a bite of the pie.

But he didn't ask his question right away. First, he told a humorous anecdote about one of his coworkers at the insurance office, the newest employee and one he mentioned frequently. Chet Ambrose, a dyed-in-the-wool Southern boy who had been married less than a year, had come to work that morning with the news that he and his wife were expecting a baby. He had announced it to the entire office, then inverted the empty pockets of his suit pants and said, “See, I'm flat broke. We still have college loans to pay off. A baby was
not
in the plan!” All of which elicited laughter, but not as much as the next part: “We can't figure out how it happened.”