Keeping the Moon

  “Later?” Isabel said.

  “You said you’d help me get ready,” I told her. “For my date.”

  “Oh, sure,” she said. “Just come over in a little while. Give me some time to work this out. Okay?”

  “Okay,” I said. And I crossed my fingers for both of them as she walked through the yard toward home.

  Around eight o’clock, when it was just beginning to get dark, Norman pulled in to the driveway. I stood at my window and watched him unload some groceries; there was celery poking out of one bag. He went around the side of the house, his sunglasses perched on his head, toward his apartment. But just as he turned the corner he looked up at me.

  I stepped back. I’d already changed my outfit twice, and finally decided to carry an optional shirt so Isabel could make the final decision.

  Mira was parked in front of the television, eating carrot sticks and settling in for an evening of pay-per-view Cage Fighting before the eclipse. She was painting her toenails.

  “I’ll see you at twelve-fifteen,” I told her as I stood behind her chair, watching a wrestler I didn’t recognize pull the Lasso Brothers off the sides of the cage by their legs.

  She turned around and smiled. “Okay,” she said. “Meet me out front.”

  I picked up my shirt and walked next door, stopping at the hedge when I saw Isabel sitting on the porch, still in the same outfit. She had a beer in her hand.

  “The card didn’t work?” I said.

  She shook her head. “I don’t know what to do,” she said, running her finger around the mouth of the bottle. “I mean, I’ve never seen her like this.”

  “She’ll be okay,” I said.

  “I don’t know.” The house was lit up and empty. I wondered if Morgan had even come out of the bedroom. “Frank’s supposed to be picking me up for a party in fifteen minutes and I don’t even think I can leave her.”

  “Well,” I said, holding up my shirt, “you can at least help me get ready. Which one?”

  She glanced up. “I don’t know, Colie.”

  “Come on, Isabel.”

  She put down her beer. “I can’t help you, okay? Not tonight. This is—this is just too much.”

  “But you promised.”

  “Well,” she said, shaking her head, “I’m sorry.”

  I just stood there. Behind Mira’s house I could see the light spilling out from Norman’s room. “I can’t do it without you,” I said. “You know how to do the makeup and my hair, and everything. If it wasn’t for you—”

  “No,” she said. Her voice was tired. “That’s not true.”

  “What am I going to do?” I asked her. “I can’t just go like this.”

  “Of course you can,” she said. “You’re beautiful, Colie.”

  “Stop it,” I said. She sounded like my mother through all those Fat Years: You’re beautiful. You have such a pretty face.

  “You don’t need me.” She stood up. “You never did. I didn’t do anything but dye your hair and smear on a bunch of makeup. What you were that night at the beach was just you, Colie. It was all you. Because for once, you believed in yourself. You believed you were beautiful and so did the rest of the world.”

  The rest of the world. “No,” I said.

  “It’s true.” And she smiled, a sort of sad half smile. “It’s like the hidden secret that no one tells you. We can all be beautiful girls, Colie. It’s so easy. It’s like Dorothy clicking her heels to go home. You could do it all along.”

  Inside the house I heard a door open, then shut. There was a flash of something that had to be Morgan.

  Isabel turned around. She’d seen it too. “Go on,” she said. “Have fun, Colie. A first date is a big thing. Enjoy it.”

  “But—” I said. There was so much I wanted to say, to ask her. Frank was already pulling up, even as Isabel walked to the door and knocked on it again.

  “Morgan,” she said. She sounded so tired. “Please let me in.”

  I backed off the porch as Frank got out of the car. And then I slipped back to Mira’s and up to my room, to get myself ready for my date and the moon.

  Norman was waiting for me with candles lit, a funky quilt spread across the floor, and soft music—the Dead, naturally—playing in the background.

  “I’ve been slaving over this,” he said. “I hope you’re hungry.”

  “I am,” I said. I’d decided on the first shirt I’d chosen and very little makeup, pulling my hair back the way it had been at the fireworks. I left my lip ring in and told myself to stand up straight, shoulders back. I wanted to believe Isabel, but I had my doubts.

  “You look great,” Norman said. “Here. Have an appetizer.”

  For the menu, he had made what he called Moon Food, in honor of the eclipse.

  We had small cheese quiches to start. “So you have your cow, the dish and the spoon,” he said. Then salad, with blue cheese dressing—which as kids, we all knew came from the moon—and fresh fish from the river on the sound side, the Moonakis (a stretch, he said, but he’d run out of ideas). And finally, Moon Pies for dessert.

  “You,” I said, pointing the last bit of my Moon Pie at him, “can do wonders with a hot plate.”

  “It’s a gift,” he explained. He was on his second Moon Pie—his favorite food, I’d learned.

  “I bet,” I said. I looked around the room. During all those hours of sitting I had memorized the portraits, the mobiles, the mannequins, everything: I knew them all by heart. The only thing new was in a far corner, covered with a sheet, leaning against the wall.

  “You know,” I said, “all this time I’ve been wondering about that painting.”

  “Which one?”

  I pointed to the far wall, where the man was leaning against the car, still laughing. “That one. Is it your dad?”

  He nodded. “Yeah.”

  “He posed for you?”

  “No.” He ripped open the plastic of another Moon Pie. “I did it from a photograph. It was taken the day he opened his first dealership, the one by the bridge. See that car there? It was the first one he sold.”

  “Wow,” I said, looking at it more closely. “It’s really well done, Norman. He must have liked it.”

  “I don’t know,” he said quietly. “He’s never seen it.” He paused. “I didn’t want to show it to him, because I knew how he felt about my work. But I’ve always loved that picture, you know? There’s something so cool about capturing a person at a time when they’re really just, like, the best they can be. Or have been.”

  I thought about this, taking in his dad’s broad smile.

  “That’s why I keep it there,” he added, brushing crumbs off his lap. “It’s the way I want to think of him.”

  We sat there, not talking, for a few minutes. He ate the Moon Pie; only skinny people can scarf down junk food like that. Finally, I said, “Norman?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Are you ever going to show me the painting?”

  “Man,” he said. “You are, like, so impatient.”

  “I am not,” I said. “I’ve been waiting forever.”

  “Okay, okay.” He stood up and went over to the corner, picking up the painting and bringing it over to rest against the bright pink belly of one of the mannequins. Then, he handed me a bandana. “Tie that on.”

  “Why?” I said, but I did it anyway. “Norman, you are way too into ceremony.”

  “It’s important.” I could hear him moving around, adjusting things, before he came to sit beside me. “Okay,” he said. “Take a look.”

  I pulled off the blindfold. Beside me, Norman watched me see myself for the first time.

  And it was me. At least, it was a girl who looked like me. She was sitting on the back stoop of the restaurant, legs crossed and dangling down. She had her head slightly tilted, as if she had just been asked something and was waiting for the right moment to respond, smiling slightly behind the sunglasses that were perched on her nose, barely reflecting part of a blue sky.

&n
bsp; The girl was something else, though. Something I hadn’t expected. She was beautiful.

  Not in the cookie-cutter way of all the faces encircling Isabel’s mirror. And not in the easy, almost effortless style of a girl like Caroline Dawes. This girl who stared back at me, with her lip ring and her half smile—not quite earned—knew she wasn’t like the others. She knew the secret. And she’d clicked her heels three times to find her way home.

  “Oh, my God,” I said to Norman, reaching forward to touch the painting, which still didn’t seem real. My own face, bumpy and textured beneath my fingers, stared back at me. “Is this how you see me?”

  “Colie.” He was right beside me. “That’s how you are.”

  I turned to look at him, studying his face the way, for all those weeks, he had studied mine. I wanted to remember it, not just in this moment, but from the whole summer into forever.

  “Norman,” I said. “It’s wonderful.”

  And then he reached forward, as he had in my mind so many times, brushing my cheek as he tucked that one piece of hair behind my ear. This time, he left his hand there.

  I thought of so many things as he leaned in to kiss me: that swirling universe, a million protractors tinkling and finally, that other girl—me, too—who sat on that back stoop and smiled as if she didn’t even know or care about the sign over her head.

  Last Chance.

  We were still kissing when I suddenly heard music. Loud, crazy, boisterous music from the little house.

  “What’s that?” I said, pulling back and listening.

  “Isabel,” Norman said into my hair. “Her whole life is high volume.”

  “No,” I said, gently untangling my fingers from his as I got up and walked to the door. “Isabel’s out with Frank. The only one there is—”

  The music cranked up louder. It was disco, wild and wonderful, beats pounding, a woman’s voice climbing and falling over them.

  At first I was afraid, I was petrified . . .

  “Morgan,” I said. “It’s Morgan.” And when I went out into the yard, by the birdfeeders, I could see her. She danced across the brightly lit kitchen, arms waving over her head, hips shaking.

  Either she had gone totally crazy, or Morgan was having a breakthrough.

  “Come on,” I said to Norman. “Let’s go.”

  The song ended while we crossed the yard. Then it started again. As I pulled the front door open, I had a sudden worry that I wouldn’t be able to handle what was going to happen. But by that point, she’d already seen me.

  “Colie!” she yelled, waving me inside. “Come on in!”

  I stepped over the threshold, with Norman right behind me; he closed his hand around mine. “Morgan?” I said. “What’s going on?”

  “Norman!” she shrieked, running over to us. “Look at you two! You’re so cute together!”

  The music was so loud we were all screaming.

  “Morgan,” I yelled, “are you okay?”

  She was bobbing up and down, shaking her head back and forth, but suddenly she stopped. “Come on,” she said. “Dance with me.”

  “Oh, no,” I said. “I don’t—”

  “Please,” she said. She put her hand over mine and squeezed, hard. I looked into her eyes and remembered that first day I’d seen her at the Last Chance.

  “Morgan,” I said.

  “I’ve been going crazy,” she said in a rush. “I’ve been crying for almost twenty-four hours straight and I just didn’t know what I was going to do with my life. I mean, nothing is gonna be how I thought anymore. I have to start all over, and that is scaring the hell out of me, Colie. And then I realized that there was nothing else I could do tonight. Except this.”

  The song ended. Then started again.

  At first I was afraid, I was petrified . . .

  “It’s gonna be okay,” I said. It was the first time in a long time that I believed it. “It will.”

  “Come on,” she said, and pulled me gently by the hand. “You’re my friend, Colie. Dance with me.”

  I didn’t want to do it. But I owed Morgan. So I closed my eyes and let her pull me into the middle of the room, into the music.

  I told myself I wouldn’t think about that cafeteria at Central Middle. When I danced—and I did—I thought only of that girl sitting on the back stoop of the Last Chance in her sunglasses and her lip ring. She wouldn’t be afraid to dance, and neither was I.

  The song repeated twice more, and we kept going; me and Morgan shimmying together, laughing, and Norman doing some strange pogo, jumping up and down. Everyone looks goofy dancing. I’d just always been so worried about me that I’d never taken the time to look around.

  The song had started for the fourth time when Morgan suddenly stopped, her eyes on the door. Norman and I were doing the bump and didn’t notice, until he gave me a good knock and sent me flying across the room to the doorway, where I almost crashed into Isabel.

  She was standing there, watching us. Frank was holding her hand.

  I wondered what she was feeling. Maybe that same strange sadness that I’d felt watching the two of them all those nights from my roof.

  Norman and I kept dancing. Isabel was staring at Morgan, and Morgan stared right back.

  “I’m sorry,” Morgan said loudly. Norman and I stopped; I was out of breath. “It wasn’t your fault.”

  “I never wanted to be right about him,” Isabel said. “I was just . . .”

  “I know,” Morgan said. The song stopped for a second. It was suddenly quiet as we all stood there. She stuck out her hand, palm up. “I know.”

  Isabel just looked at her, then slid her hand out of Frank’s. The music started again. It was the wild finish, the buildup to the end, and Norman grabbed me and twirled me around just as Isabel put her hand in Morgan’s, leaned her head back to laugh, and closed her eyes.

  “What is this?” Frank said behind me, as Isabel and Morgan bumped against each other, both of them laughing like crazy.

  “It’s what girls do,” I told him. And then Norman and I moved toward them, forming a wild circle, and we rode out the song together.

  chapter fifteen

  At 12:15, we went to find Mira under her moon.

  Norman was holding my hand, with Isabel and Morgan bringing up the rear. Frank had gone home; we figured the dancing had kind of thrown him.

  “No big deal,” Isabel said. “He was too stuffy anyway.”

  “I’m going to have to start over,” Morgan moaned. “God, I’m going to have to date again.”

  “You’ll be fine,” Isabel said as we stepped over the hedge. “We’ll go someplace new, where there are new men.”

  “Really,” Morgan said. “God, you know, we should. We could go anywhere. And reinvent ourselves, just like in high school.”

  “Only if you promise to have the same hair that you had in high school,” Isabel said with a snort. “Then we’d meet all the men.”

  “That was a nice cut,” Morgan said defensively. “Well, then you have to wear that stupid necklace you always wore, the one with the frog. And those glasses. And—”

  “Okay, okay,” Isabel said. “You win. We go as we are.”

  Frog necklace, I was thinking. Where had I seen—

  Isabel’s cousin. The dork with the glasses.

  I turned back to look at her. She had her arm linked in Morgan’s as they walked, and she was laughing. The blonde hair. The perfect features. The beautiful girl.

  So that was how she knew.

  Now we were under the clear sky, stars scattered above us. And Mira was making her way across the lawn, face upturned to take in the little bit of moon that was left.

  When she got to me, I wanted to say something big, something important to mark this occasion. Because maybe it was her, Isabel, Morgan, and Norman who had finally helped me to become. Or maybe, just maybe, I could have done it all along.

  But I didn’t get the chance. Mira spoke for all of us.

  “Okay,” she said, tilting
her head up to the moon, just a sliver over us. “You can start now.”

  And as we stood there, watching it be taken bit by bit, I looked across the faces of all these people who meant so much to me. Two months ago, when the train pulled into Colby, the thought that I would be who I was now seemed impossible. As impossible, in fact, as keeping the moon.

  But now, as it disappeared, I felt a breeze blow across me. Norman squeezed my hand, and I could see, as the eclipse reached totality, how he must have been scared all those years ago, wrapped in a sleeping bag in his backyard. Because it is so hard, in any life, to believe in what you can’t fully understand.

  So I looked down the line at all my friends, knowing I would always remember this. And then I turned my gaze back up to the sky, and put my faith in that moon and its return.

  About the Author

  Sarah Dessen is the author of Someone Like You (an ALA Best Book for Young Adults, an ALA Quick Pick, a School Library Journal Best Book of the Year, and a barnesandnoble.com Best Teen Novel of 1998), as well as That Summer (an ALA Best Book for Young Adults). She lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

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