Burning Moon (5 page)

I met my fiancé, Michael,
ex-fiancé
I mean, when I was still in college. I was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, full of youthful optimism and my half-full glass runneth over.

Michael and I met at a very pretentious play, which might as well have been written in Greek, because I wasn't able to extrapolate a single syllable of sense out of it. The play had been written, directed, and acted in by my stepsister—my mother briefly married a theater director when I was five.

The marriage had lasted only eight months, but I still remain best of friends with my stepsister, Stormy-Rain. (The story goes that Stormy was literally born in the rain. I'm not sure how true this is, but I always loved to tell everyone that.)

People are surprised that Stormy and I are so close, because she is the complete antithesis of me; for starters, she wears a lot of knitted scarves and crushed velvet (even in summer). She lives hand to mouth as a theater actress, director, astrologer, and tarot card reader. She has also been known to fire juggle on occasion.

Personally, I think we were forced to bond during those terrible eight months, when our parents were either violently fighting or drunk, high, and partying.

But as much as I love Stormy—and I really do—I'd been dreading her play all week. I'd never enjoyed or understood any of them, and the evening always ended with the inevitable “So what did you think?”

I reflected on some of the answers I'd lavished on her over the years. You see, I'd had the foresight to kidnap one of my mother's theater books,
Acting for Theater: The Joy of the Fourth Wall
and used it as a reference. This had furnished me with the following answers:

“Mmmmm, wow, you really took that character off the paper and reassembled her with a profound* three-dimensional depth.”

or

“Mmmmm, wow, I thought the use of kitchen sink staging techniques really highlighted the fullness of your character and her profound* complexities.”

*Note: I use the word
profound
a lot, because it is the word du jour with the theater ilk.

As usual, Stormy's play confounded me. She rolled on the stage, cried out for her mother, and bathed in a tub of green water. But what was different about that night was that I happened to be sitting next to the most gorgeous man I'd ever seen.

Michael was good-looking, no doubt about it. He was tall, muscular, and blond with blue eyes and an incredible smile, which was something I'd been looking forward to seeing while walking down the aisle. He ticked all my requisite aesthetic requirements and then some. Although right now, I wished Michael looked more like a short, fat, hairy hobbit with leprosy and a limp so he'd never be able to find another girlfriend again and would die a sad, lonely, and pathetic death in a damp sewer somewhere.

The attraction between us had been instant and mutual, and we'd found ourselves stealing glances at each other throughout the play. During the second half, when he turned to me and whispered, “What the hell is going on?” I knew I wanted to get to know him better.

We went for coffee after the play and worked out that his brother was the graphic designer who'd made the poster for
A Mother's Jealous Tears
—obviously the reason for the green water—and that he'd been given a free ticket and felt obliged to go. During our initial conversation, we established that he was a computer systems analyst (very professional), his family belonged to a country club (very respectable), he owned his own house (very upwardly mobile), and we enjoyed several of the same hobbies, TV shows, music, and movies. We also seemed to have the same ideals: He also wanted marriage and kids and dogs and a big house.

He was perfect. He crossed all my t's and dotted the i's. It was even better when everyone said they liked him. So when he'd started playing golf with my dad and my brothers, I knew I was in love.

And Michael said he felt the same way, too.

The funny thing, though, the thing I can't wrap my head around, is that our relationship had been perfect. We never fought, conversation was always easy, and we fell into a predictable, comfortable daily routine.
So what had happened?

I'd played our entire relationship over in my mind, looking for the telltale signs of dissatisfaction. But I couldn't find any. Unless I was missing something? Stormy-Rain had said something to me once that was suddenly reverberating in my ears. “
You know, if a guy's not getting it regularly, he's going to go looking for it somewhere else!
”

My blood ran cold. He was a red-blooded male after all, and one who could probably get sex a million times a day with a million different women. Hot, thin women. God, my mind was spinning. My thoughts were going haywire, and once again I was overcome with an urge to phone him. I needed to speak to him.

I reached for my phone and realized it was off. I suspected that my friends and family were panicking by now and had probably sent out search and rescue helicopters and sniffer dogs, so I dropped them all a reassuring message.

And then I logged on to Facebook, went straight to his page, and scanned. Nothing.

Twitter. Nothing.

Instagram. Nothing.

I dialed his number and it immediately went to voice mail, and hearing his voice made me feel sick.

My heart started pounding and I broke into a cold sweat. Panic washed over me in waves.

I dialed again. Voice mail.

I dialed again. Voice mail.

Again. Voice mail.

Should I leave a message? But what would I say?

“Hey Michael, it's me, Lilly. I was just calling to ask why the fuck you left me at the altar you bastard asshole jerk-face. Anyway, chat soon, bye.”

I was relieved when I heard a knock at the door, and I decided to take it as a sign that I should leave well enough alone. I was still wet from my bath and opened the door in my towel, just as Damian was coming up the stairs.

“Good evening.” A man in a black suit greeted us both. “Your dinner is ready.”

“What dinner?”

“The romantic dinner on the beach that Mr. Edwards”—he turned and looked at Damian now—“that Mr. Edwards organized for your wedding night.”

“That sounds great, I'm starving,” Damian said.

“No, I don't think so!” My tone was fierce, and the man in the suit looked surprised.

“But it's all arranged, and it's very beautiful.”

“No thanks,” I quickly said.

Damian jumped in; he was making a habit of that. “Would you mind giving us five minutes?”

The man in the suit left and Damian stepped forward.

“But aren't you hungry?” he asked.

“I am but…” The very mention of the word
food
made my stomach growl and my mouth water.

“It's not like I'm going to play footsie with you under the table or anything, if that's what you're worried about.”

God, I was torn! I was starving, but the idea of a romantic dinner with Damian on the beach, well, that was just weird. I started mentally making a list of pros and cons, but my stomach wasn't having it. It needed food.
Oh, what the hell, I guess.
Besides, maybe I could get someone to take a picture of us and post it on Instagram with a soft-focus romantic filter and make Michael jealous.

“Okay, give me a minute to get ready.”

There've been a few moments in my life when I've been overwhelmed by something so beautiful that it literally took my breath away. Like when I tried on my wedding dress for the first time or met my baby niece for the first time. And right now was one of those moments. Looking around, I could see that this location had been carefully planned, manipulated, and manufactured for optimal romance.

“One hundred percent romance guaranteed or your money back.”

The actual setting was magnificent: The dinner was laid out on a table for two on a sandy embankment. You had to walk through warm, ankle-deep water to get there. In the middle of the embankment, in the middle of a heart made of candles placed on the sand, was a tentlike structure. It was open on all sides and draped with thin white curtains that were waving rhythmically in the warm breeze. The small table was scattered with pink flowers and more candles and was flanked by two chairs also draped in white fabric. All in all, it was the most romantic thing I'd ever seen.

It was stunning, and the feelings that it evoked in me were very overpowering; it simultaneously stole my breath away and reached deep inside and tickled every one of my senses. It really was…it was…well, it's really hard to describe, I don't even think I have the adjectives to do it justice. In fact, feel free to insert them yourself.

It looked like a
           
 (insert adjective).

It made me feel like
           
 (insert adverb).

Etc.

I hope I've painted this picture accurately enough, because it's important for you to visualize it correctly in order to understand why my next reaction was so surprising. Because despite its manifold beauty described by the endless bounty of adjectives, all I could do was look at it all and laugh.

And, oh, how I laughed. I laughed like a cackle of hyenas.

My shoulders shuddered as I struggled to get enough air into my lungs, gasping in between the shrieks. This was not a normal laughter, either—this was hysteria. And I wasn't able to stop it. In fact, the more I tried to control it, the worse it got. The laughter escalated until I had tears rolling down my face and was whimpering—at some stage, I think I heard myself snort. My ribs hurt, my stomach and my mouth hurt. I looked up at Damian—expecting him to be backing away from me with a look of terror on his face, clutching a fork in case he needed to stab and subdue me—but he wasn't. He was smiling at me.

“It's so, so,
so
romantic,” I spluttered in between the crazed laughter. “It's the most romantic thing I've even seen and this has officially been the most unromantic day of my entire life. The irony.” I grabbed my stomach—it was hurting so badly.

Someone behind us cleared his throat and Damian and I turned to find the waiter staring at us. He looked frightened. This set Damian off, and soon we were both laughing.

There's that corny saying about laughter being the best medicine. But it really is, because when our laughter had finally tapered off, I felt better than I'd felt in days! A momentary lightness settled in, providing me with some much-needed relief.

We sat down at our little table for two, and I pulled the menu toward me, excited by the prospect of
real
food and the decision I'd made to no longer watch what I ate. Getting fat was the least of my worries. But after reading the menu several times, it soon became clear to me that I had absolutely
no
idea what they were trying to serve us.

The menu claimed the dishes were “an adventure in molecular gastronomy,” and the kinds of foods listed included seared scallop ravioli on a bed of deconstructed salad with balsamic pearls sprinkled with truffle ashes. Ashes? I kept reading and the word
deconstructed
appeared three more times, along with other confusing phrases such as
sweet and sour pineapple veal
,
ginger bubbles
, and
edible sea stones
.

“Um…” I looked up at Damian, hoping he was feeling the same way and that I wasn't just some uncultured slob with no appreciation for the art of modern cuisine.

“Is it me or is this a little…” I was searching for the words.

“Disdainfully avant-garde, a pretentious wank!”

“Wow, you don't pull any punches.”

“Well, I have very strong feelings about this type of food.” His face was totally serious when he said this.

“Pray tell.” I was intrigued again.

“Well, my parents
love
this kind of cooking. It's expensive and denotes good taste and culture, you see.” He said this last part in a very posh-sounding accent, which made me laugh. “We once went to this restaurant in France where they actually served crab ice cream.”

“No they didn't.”

“It's true, you can Google it,” he challenged.

I pulled my phone out and typed the words into the search bar. The signal was slow, but I finally found what I was looking for. I read a few lines and recoiled. “Not just that, but I see it also serves bacon-and-egg ice cream.” What did we do before we had the ability to access information instantly?

“It was disgusting,” he added. “But it was very,
very
expensive.”

I looked up and we smiled at each other and our eyes locked for a few seconds. The strangest feeling rushed through me; I couldn't quite put my finger on it, and as I was trying to, Damian broke eye contact.

“Hi.” He waved his arm in the direction of the waiter. “Hi, please can we have your other menu?”

“I beg your pardon.” The confused waiter looked at him blankly.

“You know, the one with the normal food on it.”

I tried to hide my snicker. I certainly didn't want to offend anyone.

But still the waiter gave him a blank look.

So he tried again. “Let me put it this way. Can I get a hamburger with fries and, Lilly, what do you want?”

“The same, thanks.”

The waiter, although thrown, smiled cordially and walked off, splashing through the water as he went and finally disappearing over the beach and into the hotel.

And then I realized we were totally, I mean
totally
, alone.

In the most romantic place in the world.

Oh, did I mention we were
totally
alone and that it was ridiculously
romantic
?

I shuffled in my seat a bit. We exchanged a few awkward smiles, drank a bit of champagne, and moved our napkins around on the table a lot. At one stage I picked up a flower and smelled it…