The Moon and More (27 page)

The next morning, when I woke up, someone was moving the furniture.

I could hear it immediately, the sound of large objects being pushed and pulled. I pressed my pillow over my ears, trying to dip back into dreaming, but no luck. Saturday morning, seven thirty. I was up.

More scraping, more dragging, followed by a large thud as something hit the floor. I threw off the covers, got out of bed, and went to investigate. When I pushed open my door, however, it moved only about an inch before meeting something solid and refusing to go farther.

I tried again. No luck. Finally, by using my entire body weight, I managed to get it open enough to see out, only to find myself facing the glass doors of the breakfront from our dining room.

“What the hell?” I said, to my own face, dimly reflected back at me. It wasn’t just the china cabinet that had relocated; there was also the coffee table, the dining-room table, several chairs, and my dad’s beloved recliner—all packed into the narrow hall outside my bedroom, as if, en masse, they were making a run for it.

“Hello?” I called down the hallway towards the stairs. With all the noise, though, nobody heard me. I considered just staying put until whatever project was going on was finished, but then my tendency towards claustrophobia hit. I tried the door again. It moved another millimeter. The window it was.

There is probably something more humiliating than climbing out of your own bedroom window in full view of the neighbors early on a weekend morning. But really, I was hard-pressed to think of what it might be as I wriggled through, landed on my behind in the damp grass in my pajamas, and turned to see that Mr. Varance, the elderly widower to our right, had caught the whole show. He raised up his rose clippers in greeting; I waved back. Then I got to my feet and went around the house to the back door.

My mother was at the sink, already dressed, rinsing out a coffee cup. She didn’t see me until she was turning off the water, at which point she shrieked, jumping backwards and disappearing, momentarily, from my view. When she popped up again, she was pissed.

“What are you doing?” she huffed at me, through the glass. “You scared me to death!”

“I was barricaded in my room,” I replied. “The window was the only way out.”

In response, she turned, looking behind her at my dad, who was at that very moment carrying the couch onto the side deck. Morris, at the opposite end, was already outside. “Oh,” she said. “Sorry. I think he thought—”

“Can you let me in, please?” I interrupted her, aware of my damp backside and the fact that Mr. Varance could probably still see it.

She scurried over to the door and unlocked it, then held it open as I came in. “I think he thought,” she said again, “that you were already gone.”

“My car is here,” I pointed out. “And it’s not even eight on a Saturday.”

“I’m not driving this train,” she said, holding up one hand. “Take it up with him.”

When I turned to my dad to do just that, I instead found myself facing Morris, who was grinning. “Nice jammies,” he said. “You always sleep in the grass?”

I looked down. There were green clippings all across my tank top and midsection. Of course the lawn had been mowed yesterday. “What are you even doing here?” I asked him.

“Working,” he replied, as if this was something he actually did, ever.

“All right, let’s get that love seat out and that should do it,” my dad said, walking back into the room. When he saw me, he said, “Whoa. What happened to you?”

“I had to climb out the window,” I replied.

“Why’s that?” I just looked at him. “Oh, right. The hallway. Well, you knew the floors were getting started today. Can’t do them with the furniture here.”

“How was I supposed to know that, again?”

He bent over one end of the love seat, gesturing for Morris to get the other one. “About the floors?”

“Yes.”

“Because,” he said, squaring his shoulders and lifting, “we did the trim, then painted. Floors are next.”

As if I had some kind of flow chart in my mind, keeping up with every step of this never-ending remodel. “I’m not a contractor, Dad.”

“No,” he said, holding up his end of the couch, “but you are in our way. Scoot, now, we’ve got work to do.”

I moved aside as they passed by, taking the love seat out the door I’d come in. My mom, standing across the empty room, held up two coffee mugs, a questioning look of her face. When I nodded, she gestured for me to follow her down the hall to Amber’s room.

“You’d think,” I said as we walked, “he could leave me a note or something.”

“I think the plan was to let you know when you got home last night,” she replied. “But you were … late.”

Whoops. I bit my lip, remembering how far past curfew I’d actually walked in from the First True Date the evening before. Late enough that my dad had gone to bed, something he rarely did before everyone was in and accounted for.

“I lost track of the time,” I said. “Sorry.”

She said nothing to this as she pushed the door open, revealing Amber, her now-blonde head buried under the covers. We walked over to the bed, where my mom nudged her aside, making a narrow space for us to share. She pulled up the comforter over our legs, handed me my coffee, and we settled in.

“I don’t understand,” I said, after a couple of sips, “why he can’t just let it be.”

“Who?”

“Dad. And the house. Why is this”—I swirled my hand in the general direction of the door—“always going on?”

She shrugged. “Don Quixote had windmills. The Wright
brothers had the sky. Your dad has home improvement.”

“But it was fine like it was before the
last
project. And the one before that, actually.”

“Well, fine is a relative term. And your dad has always wanted better than that for us.” She twisted her cup in her hands. “You see a perfectly good dining room and kitchen. He sees the potential for a great one.”

“Right now I just see furniture in the hallway and us in Amber’s bed.”

“Which,” my sister’s voice came, muffled by the pillow, “I bet is looking pretty good to you right now, huh, Miss Get-Out-of-My-Room-or-Else?”

I kicked her, albeit gently, with my foot. “You owe me.”

“Says you.” She grunted, turning over. “And for the record, I was actually sleeping before you two decided to pig-pile in here. Some of us have to work today, you know.”

Amber, as part of her cosmetology school training, spent one morning a week shampooing and sweeping up hair at a local salon. From the way she talked about it, you would have thought it was the chain gang. I kicked her again. This time, she kicked me back.

“Girls,” my mom said, in the same tired voice I’d heard her utter this word at least a million times before.

For a moment, we just sat there not talking, the only sound the sputtering of some kind of machine starting up down in the living room. Finally my mom said, “The floor issue aside, Emaline, you really haven’t been around here much lately. I miss you.”

“You see me at work every day.”

“True,” she agreed. “But it’s not the same. And with you leaving at the end of the summer …”

“It’s still June,” I pointed out now. “I leave in August. We’ve got weeks.”

“And you have a new boyfriend,” she replied, taking a sip of her coffee.

I looked at her. “This isn’t about Theo.”

“No, it’s about Mom being codependent,” Amber said from underneath the comforter, her voice muffled. “God, you’d think she was going to be left on a desert island alone or something. Hello, the rest of us will still be here. Only Emaline is going anyplace.”

My mom sniffed. “But she is going.”

“You did fine when Margo left,” I told her.

“I gained fifteen pounds!”

Whoops. I’d forgotten about the onset of her sudden, and serious, Twix bar habit. “It’s not fair to make me feel bad for going to school. You would have killed me if I hadn’t gone.”

“Says the Smart One and the Favorite,” Amber added.

“I have no favorites,” my mom said, another of her mantras. To me she added, “I just thought you’d be home more this summer. And then you and Luke broke up, and …”

“So this
is
about Theo,” I said.

“Yep,” Amber replied.

“Not exactly,” my mom protested. “He seems perfectly nice. And I do want you to be happy. But it’s just … different. And so suddenly so.”

I felt tired just hearing this. Mostly because, even though
I was perfectly happy with my life and love life as it was, I seemed to be the only one. Luke had his faults, too, but at least he’d been familiar. Theo was Not From Here, didn’t drive, wore girl jeans, and was monopolizing my time, all of which were apparently punishable offenses. The thing was, he wasn’t getting penalized. Just me.

“Luke cheated on me,” I reminded my mother, again. “With a girl he met at Tallyho.”

“Plus,” Amber added, “he’s already got a new girlfriend anyway.”

I turned, looking down at her. “What?”

“You didn’t know?” she asked. I shook my head. “Oh. Sorry.”

“Who is she?”

“This friend of Brooke’s, Jacqueline Best. She was my year. You know her, red hair, really pretty. Drives that black convertible.”

None of these were ringing bells, for which I was actually kind of grateful. In some cases, and especially small towns, it’s better when it’s the devil—or girl—you don’t know.

“My yearbook’s over on that shelf,” Amber offered. “If you want, you can look her up, critique her outfit, black out her eyes.”

Which is just what she would have done—half the girls’ pictures in her class had already been defaced in this way. Amber was known for having a long, ever-changing list of enemies. “No, thanks,” I said. “I’ve moved on, too, remember?”

She shrugged. “Up to you.”

I pushed myself off the bed, taking my mug with me. Immediately, Amber took up the space I’d vacated, burying her
head again. I said to my mom, “You know, I thought you’d be glad I’m not dragging around all summer, crying about my broken heart.”

“Of course I am,” she replied. “It’s just …” She trailed off, shaking her head. The half-finished sentences were the worst, as if she expected me to somehow fill in the blanks for her.

I forced myself to take a breath before saying, “Just what?”

I was standing in the half-open door now, with her still on the bed, her legs pulled up to her chest. I watched as she closed her eyes, then looked up at the ceiling for a long moment. Finally, she said, “You’re my baby. And I’m just really going to miss you, honey. That’s all.”

I bit my lip. “I’m going to miss you, too. But I’m not gone yet. Okay?”

She nodded, her eyes filling with tears. Oh, for God’s sake, I thought, but just like that, I was gone, too, my vision blurring. I could handle just about anything but seeing my mother cry. It struck at something deep and primal in me, flipping a switch I couldn’t reach no matter how I contorted myself. I put my mug down, then walked over to the bed and slid in beside her, looping my arms around her waist.

“I love you,” she whispered into my hair. “To the moon and more.”

This time, it was easy to know what to say. “The moon and more.”

We stayed like that for a minute, the sounds from the living room muffled in the distance. Finally, Amber broke the silence. “Whenever you all are done, I could
really
use some coffee. I think it’s the least you can do for co-opting my bed.”

My mom elbowed her—more gently than I would have—then laughed. “Fine. But only because I need to get going anyway.”

We started down the hallway, where the sputtering was still going. The living room, kitchen, and dining room were all empty now, sunlight slanting in on the bare floors. Morris and my dad were bent over some kind of compressor, a big floor sander now between them. From what I could see, the hardwood was just fine. Then again, I’d just see a windmill and an open sky, too, never feeling the need to conquer either. You think it’s all obvious and straightforward, this world. But really, it’s all in who is doing the looking.

“OKAY, SO WHAT I was thinking was that we’d take out these prints, and you could …”

“Holy crap. Is that
marble
over there on those countertops?”

Ivy pressed her lips together, which meant she was doing her best not to scream, berate, or otherwise verbally abuse someone. This was an effort that, in my experience at least, she made only when it came to Clyde.

“I have no idea,” she told him, her voice flat. “But as I was saying, about the prints …”

“It can’t be marble,” Clyde said, craning his neck to look at the kitchen again. “Nobody would be stupid enough to spend money on that for a rental, would they, Emaline?”

I glanced at Ivy again, having learned my lesson about commentary from the peanut gallery while she was filming. She sighed, giving me a nod. I said, “It’s granite.”

“You sure?”

“Yep. It’s on the Web site write-up.”

“Man.” Clyde whistled between his teeth. “Granite. Add that up with just the fridge over there and you’ve got more money than the value of my entire house.”

“I’m sure that’s not true,” Ivy said.

“Pretty close.”

“Would you like to prove it? I’ll grab a camera and we can go there right now.”

Now I bit
my
lip, ducking over the payroll sheet I was filling out at the kitchen island. It was odd to admit, but at times like this, I actually felt kind of bad for Ivy. She was so desperate to get into Clyde’s head, to win his trust and open access to his world, and yet she kept doing things that did the exact opposite. Like when he balked at her suggestion that they do interviews at his home, she told him to come here. Bad, bad idea.

“Why?” Theo had asked me earlier, when I’d come with the sandwiches from Da Vinci’s I’d picked up for our lunch, only to find him busy getting the main room set up for filming. “This is a great space.”

“This is a mansion.”

He put down the light he was carrying, then glanced around, as if seeing it all for the first time. “You think?”

“You don’t?”

“It’s a rental house,” he replied, shrugging. “I mean, it’s nice. But it’s not a Central Park penthouse.”