Laughing Down the Moon (17 page)

“How do you know then?” I asked.

“Okay, so last year, I started to pay attention to how many blaring car horns I could hear close by every time my dad drove me someplace. I tested my theory and counted fourteen honks in one trip from my parents’ home to my house when my dad drove me and zero honks when my sister drove me the same route a few nights later. So I know, you know?”

I laughed in response.

“And then!” she continued. “And then when my mom drives it feels like I’m in the middle of a badly behaved ocean on a small boat. She slows down and speeds up and slows down and speeds up and slows down and speeds up constantly.” I began to feel seasick myself. “I don’t think it’s just because I can’t see that I am more aware of this—I think it’s just really shoddy driving. Oh! And both of them have bad eyesight and refuse to spend any extra money on new glasses for themselves. They complain about it all the time, but aren’t willing to do anything. Speaking of complaining, listen to me! I’m sorry, Allura, I think it’s sort of funny—here I am complaining about all of their complaining!”

“It’s okay,” I assured her. And it was; I would have gladly listened to her talk about anything.

“I just miss being able to drive myself sometimes,” she said.

“I bet you do,” I commiserated. “But at the same time, you probably save a bundle in car insurance!” That was a stupid joke, but she laughed at it anyway.

“Thank you for pointing that out,” she mused.

I spun in my desk chair and stopped when it made an almighty squeak that Dwight copied. I smiled at him and looked past his perch into the dull day beyond the window. The sleet and snow from the night before was short-lived. We were back to somber grays and browns. I spun my chair away from the window and let the colors of my books and office artwork warm me.

“Hey Shiloh?” I wanted to ask something I’d wondered a lot about ever since our first date. “What do you miss the most about being able to see?”

“Hmm, good question.” She was quiet for a moment and then said, “Well, of course, I wish I could see people’s faces, like yours. I wonder what you look like. But that’s not what I miss the most because you can tell me and I can feel your face, if you let me, and I can still remember what my family and friends look like.” She was quiet again, and I didn’t say anything to fill the silence. “I think,” she began, “that I miss taking really big steps the most.”

“Big steps?” I echoed.

“Yes, I miss being able to really walk, or no, to run! I miss being able to take big steps without worrying about running into something.” We were both quiet again, and then she asked me, “What do you think you’d miss if you couldn’t see anything anymore?”

“Whoa, I don’t know,” I said, “let me think…wow, I just don’t know! I’d miss everything, I think. But for what I’d miss the most, I can’t say for sure. I think I’d miss seeing people smile—especially people I care about. I think, but I don’t know for sure.”

“You get used to it, eventually,” she said. “You get used to listening for how people are feeling.”

“Really?” I asked. I was amazed and perplexed.

“Yeah, you get to a place where you can tell what a person’s face is doing just by how they sound,” she explained. “I think I’m luckier than some of the kids I work with who have been blind since birth. They have to sort out other people’s emotions in a totally different way, but I can still picture what people’s faces do depending on how they are feeling.”

“Wow,” was all I could think to say. Wow.

“Like you,” Shiloh said, “you are almost always smiling when we talk.” She sounded shy.

“I am, it’s true,” I said, getting shy myself. What was this, junior high? What the hell was she doing to me?

“It’s funny,” she said.

“What is?”

“Well, no one has ever asked me what I miss most before. Everyone I know is either not thinking about my blindness, or in denial about it, or not caring.” She said this in a matter-of-fact tone.

“Sorry,” I said, “I know you are a million other things in addition to being blind, but…I do think about it.” Goddess, did I offend her?

“No, I honestly like that you think about it, it makes me feel, I don’t know, like you…like you are taking every aspect into consideration, like you care what I feel and…all that.” She trailed off and became silent.

I had never heard her so much at a loss for words. My heart went soft.

“No one has asked?”

“Well, an occupational therapist asked me a thousand questions when I first knew that this was permanent. But none of my friends or family asked me anything at all. My family makes sure I have what I need like rides and groceries and help around the house, but my last serious ex…well, she was with me while I was losing my sight, and I think she chose to just pretend it wasn’t happening, you know? She never asked me anything about what I missed or what I wanted…or anything, really. Can you imagine losing your vision and your partner pretending like it wasn’t happening?”

It just about killed me to hear Shiloh ask this. “No, I can’t imagine.”

“Yeah, she just never brought it up. She left me to sort it out for myself. It was weird, too, because she was a good person, but only after we broke up did she start realizing, I think, that it was real. That I really would never get my sight back. She calls or comes over a few times a year, and she’s more helpful now than she was when I was first fully blind and we were still together.”

“I don’t know what that would be like,” I said, “to watch your partner lose her vision, but it must have been really hard for you to feel like she wasn’t there for you one hundred percent.” I hoped I didn’t sound like I was taking her ex’s side. That must have been really difficult for both of them, but especially for Shiloh.

“Everyone I’ve dated since then has tiptoed around the issue. No one has asked how to help or anything. It’s like not mentioning it will make it go away. As if.” Her laugh sounded genuine and warm, not derisive in that way most people sounded when they laughed after saying “as if.”

“You’ve dated a lot since losing your sight?” I had to ask despite not wanting to hear the answer. Shiloh’s romantic history had nothing to do with me, but I knew I’d be even more hesitant to fall further for her if she replied that she had dated many women.

“I guess about five or six, no…seven women. That’s it. And no one asked about being blind. They couldn’t joke about it, we didn’t talk about it, nothing.”

“Whoa,” I managed to utter. Seven women. None worked out. Why did I think I might be the one? My odds were not looking good here.

“Yeah, but hey, that was then, right? And here we are now and all I know is that you are asking me, so thank you for that,” she said.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Jest Between Friends

The cloak that Veronica gave me on the night of All Samhain’s Silent Supper hung heavy over my naked shoulders, and I laughed at my reflection in the full-length bedroom mirror. I looked like a dominatrix ready to overtake some unsuspecting victim. I pulled the cloak closed over my nakedness and held it tightly to myself as I twirled in front of the mirror. Where had Veronica found such perfection? It was as if it were made for me. I opened it up again and searched inside for a tag in the deep green satin lining. Nothing. The outside was a paler green crushed velvet with gauzy glitter looped here and there in swirls and crescents. The cloak had no buttons or hooks. It would catch the wind, giving it even more life than it already seemed to possess.

Earlier between writing my article and answering the phone, which seemed unusually overworked today, I read
Drawing Down the Moon
, the book Veronica had given me. I had been looking for some new ideas on how and when to do a ritual of gratitude. I had several motivations behind this ritual, the two at the top of the list being Dwight and Shiloh. But the book was more about the history of Paganism. So much oppression and fear down through the ages was dismal although I still appreciated Veronica’s gift. The book was fascinating, if not inspiring. But I’d look elsewhere as it needed to be much shorter than the Drawing Down the Moon ritual. Tonight, after seeing Patrick and Trisha, I’d come home, cast a circle outdoors, light a couple of candles and again give thanks for these new developments.

But at the moment, I had to get ready. I let the cloak slide down my arms, feeling the slippery lining whisk across my skin. I laid the cloak over the back of the chair and turned to look in the mirror. My body looked more angular than I had realized. I knew my clothes weren’t fitting well anymore; my skirts needed belts, and the belts needed tightening. I turned my back to the mirror and twisted to look back over my shoulder. My butt looked small and insignificant. I didn’t want an insignificant butt; I wanted some real significance back there.

Maybe I could lift more at the gym, or start eating more, or both. I had eaten my fill on my last date with Shiloh because, even though we laughed most of the evening away, spelling out naughty words and flirting, we sat and drank and nibbled until the pizza box and wine bottle were both empty. It had been the first time in a long, long time that I had helped anyone to empty a pizza box. But even so I was torn between fear of my being just another woman Shiloh had dated and the fear of being more than that to her. I knew how relationships went. They were satisfying at the beginning, comfortable during the middle and hellish at the end. Did I really want that again? My heart hollered yes, but my mind trembled no. Shiloh had dated seven women since her last serious relationship. That seemed like a lot. Perhaps she was a serial dater, and I’d just wind up being number eight on a long list of adoring fans. Of course, I’d dated more than seven women on my way to my big relationship with Mickey. And I wasn’t a serial dater, so maybe I shouldn’t be so apprehensive about Shiloh’s track record.

I sighed and left the mirror to its own reflection. I consulted the witches’ calendar on the wall beside the closet door and discovered that today’s color was blue. Right then, blue it was. I went over to my chest of drawers and from the top one pulled out a pair of blue panties and a white bra with blue edging. I checked my reflection again. Geez, I looked even scrawnier in underwear. I would have a double helping of bread tonight, I decided. And in a couple of days, my bangs should be long enough to even them out. Or perhaps I should let a professional deal with it.

From atop my chest of drawers, I pulled a strand of lapis lazuli beads and wound them around my neck into a choker-length necklace. The dab of rosemary oil between my breasts was meant to bring me into the present moment, but instead I found myself thinking of Shiloh again. My plan was to say nothing about her tonight while I was with Trisha and Patrick, just as I hadn’t mentioned her as we celebrated Solschristice. I didn’t want to jinx anything by being overly excited about the whole affair. Even if I might find myself too afraid to unwrap it, she was still that unopened gift under the tree.

Three hours later Patrick was slapping the table demanding to know why I hadn’t yet kissed Shiloh. My plan to savor the wrapped gift had been a good one in theory, but in reality when faced with two sets of really good ears I blew it, spilled my guts and jinxed everything. I was sure of it.

“Really Allura, how could you not end that stormy night with a kiss? It would have been the textbook date,” Patrick said and sighed with mock disgust. He threw his hands up. “You may have botched it up beyond repair.”

“Hmm, I don’t think so, she said she’d enjoyed my company and wanted to know if we could do it again sometime,” I told him, even though I was wondering the same thing. Three dates, three perfect chances and not one kiss.

“Sometime?” he repeated. “Did she really say ‘sometime’?”

“I think so,” I said.

“Well, that’s it then! What does ‘sometime’ mean to
you
, Trisha?” Patrick asked.

“I know you want me to say it means ‘never,’” Trisha began, “but honestly Patrick, look at Allura, what’s not to want to date?”

I hadn’t told them yet that Shiloh was blind because I was still reeling from my not having picked up on it in the first place. But I decided now was the time since Trisha had just alluded to my appearance and with much too much flattery, at that.

“Trisha, you are too kind—thank you for the compliment,” I said, “but I don’t think my looks are what will keep Shiloh coming back for more.”

“Oh, reeeeeallly,” said Patrick, raising his eyebrows and looking more like a leprechaun than the devil I think he was going for. “So you didn’t kiss her after Scrabble, but you did manage to wow her with some other extraordinary skills? Maybe you cast a love spell on her,” Patrick said, wriggling his fingertips at me as if he were bewitching me, “and made her blind to all your evil ways?”

“Uh, no Patrick, she is blind,” I said. “She is blind to all my evil ways and blind to all my not-so-evil ways. She’s blind. Period.”

Both Patrick and Trisha looked at me with their faces wide open and surprised, like I had blindsided them. Figuratively. When I think about it now, I don’t know why they should have been so surprised. There are blind people, after all, and they have to date other people. Now I was just one of those people. And I don’t know why I was surprised that they were surprised, but I was. Truth be told, I was also a little offended, for some reason.

“You’re kidding!” Patrick said in disbelief.

“No,” I said, “I’m not kidding. She can’t see.”

“Wow,” exhaled Trisha, her face returning to its normal glowing Scandinavian-ness.

“Wait, how’d you play Scrabble?” Patrick asked.

“Braille. I feel kind of stupid, because I had seen her or had sort of seen her, noticed her, I guess, is a better way to put it. I noticed her twice before, once at the Y during the non-laugh laugh yoga,” I began explaining, but was cut short.

“Shut up! She was at that infamous yoga class?” Patrick hooted.

“Yes,” I continued, trying to look indignant, “she was. Hey, speaking of the yoga class, Shiloh is the author of that article you gave me on laugh yoga. Pretty bizarre, hey?” I asked.