Mending the Moon (27 page)

She drives east on 80, past craggy red-rock cliffs. The road parallels the Truckee River. She feels ten pounds lighter each mile she drives from Reno; soon she'll be weightless. And indeed, she feels like she's floating by the time she takes Exit 83 to Wadsworth, and from there turns onto Route 447, the road that leads past Pyramid Lake to the Black Rock Desert.

As often as she's made this drive, Veronique always forgets how beautiful it is, how calming she finds this journey into the desert, into the white of salt flats and green of sagebrush, all of it cradled in the bowl of brown mountains and blue sky. From emptiness into emptiness: the drive will sweep the cobwebs out of her mind and the ache out of her heart, and leave her refreshed and tranquil. This was the right thing to do.

Despite the clouds and the snow still clinging to the mountaintops and lying in patches on the ground, wildflowers bloom along the side of the road. Veronique cracks her window to let the smell of sagebrush flood the car. As vulnerable and exposed as she's felt lately on campus, she feels safe in the desert.

Melinda always loved this trip. Veronique can almost hear her, commenting on the shape of clouds and shadows. She can feel Melinda in the car, in the passenger's seat. She knows that if she turns her head, the illusion will vanish, so she only looks ahead, at the road and the desert, so demanding and austere.

In a few more miles she reaches Nixon, one of the tiny towns on the Paiute reservation around the lake. She decides to get gas, despite her nearly full tank; this is remote country, and you can't be too careful. When she came out here with Melinda, they always bought snacks from the convenience store, too. Melinda usually ate sensibly, fruit and vegetables and whole grains, but on road trips she gleefully indulged in junk food: potato chips, Hostess cupcakes, sickly-sweet orange soda that fizzed going down the throat and left an aftertaste of aluminum scrapings.

In Melinda's honor, Veronique will buy junk food.

Inside the store, a Paiute guy in a Tribal Police uniform chats amiably with the woman behind the counter. They look up as Veronique walks in, then look away. An Anglo tourist. Nothing to see here: Veronique is a transient who'll buy her junk food and soon be gone, no one with whom they need to concern themselves.

After her most recent encounter with police, Veronique revels in this anonymity.

She uses the restroom, finds her chips and cupcakes—the chocolate ones with the white squiggles on top—and, at the last minute, substitutes root beer for orange soda. The sugar content is just as high, without the aluminum scrapings.

The clerk, bored, takes Veronique's money, efficiently counting out change without breaking the rhythm of her conversation with the cop. The car waits outside, gleaming a dull gray. Seventy-some miles to Gerlach, nine miles farther to Planet X.
How many miles by candlelight?

Once Veronique has her loot in the car, she discovers that she can't bear the thought of eating any of it. Never mind: it will keep. “This stuff has a shelf life measured in geological epochs,” Melinda told her once. “That's why it's junk food.” Stomach soured, Veronique sets out, driving into the growing dimness of the desert. The clouds have become so thick that she turns on her headlights.

The road's a ribbon. You can see for miles here, towns visible hours before you reach them, because towns plant trees and have lights. Hands steady now on the steering wheel, Veronique gazes into the distance, squinting. That small group of trees, still visible in the gloaming, is Empire, which she'll reach in an hour or so. Beyond Empire the road curls left, toward the mountains and a larger oasis: Gerlach.

Neither place much deserves to be called a town. Empire's a few houses and many trucks huddled around a gypsum mine; Veronique's car travels through and past it in an eyeblink. Gerlach—a restaurant, a hotel, several bars, and a scattering of houses, made famous by Burning Man—takes two blinks, three if you slow down to the twenty-five miles posted on the signs. Veronique cruises through town at forty. Nobody's out here, and there are no other cars on the road.

A few minutes later, she takes a left onto the washboard road leading to the pottery studio. The trees here are tall, rustling, with clouds caught in their branches. Veronique parks the car and gets out, inhaling the tang of sagebrush. Somewhere a bird sings, its voice bright liquid.

She seems to be the only customer. Is the place closed? Will she have to leave? But she sees the potter standing on the porch of his workshop; perhaps the sound of her car has called him outside. He waves; she waves back, and meanders, relaxing, into the closest of the three gallery buildings, groping for a light switch as she enters. She won't ask permission. Let him come find her if he wants her to leave.

Clean lines, beautiful forms: everything here is both lovely and useful. Peace settles over Veronique like a blanket. Her knee doesn't even hurt. What pill could possibly work this well? She gazes at plates and bowls, mugs and vases, sets of plain dishes and one-of-a-kind pieces, shaped like fantastical sea creatures here where water falls so rarely. In the track lighting, the pieces gleam as if wet with surf.

The Great Basin was an ocean once. Melinda talked about that all the time, about ichthyosaurs and the delicate whorls of marine shells etched in desert rock. Veronique picks up a small round pot, ridged like a sea urchin. Cool and heavy in her hands, it could be the fossil of a creature that actually lived here, millennia ago. She turns it, admiring how old it looks, how organic, reveling in the feel of the ridges against her skin.

The pot doesn't want to go back on the display table. It wants to come home with her. She looks at the price tag and feels a slight pang. It's pricy, yes, but not quite the extravagance she'd planned driving out here. And she's not ready to leave.

She wants to stay, wants to let the oceanic expanse of the desert dissolve her heart to sand. She wants to stay here and breathe. She even has an excuse for dallying: outside, a few white flakes swirl past the dark trees. The cats would be furious at her if she missed their evening feeding time, but they have a clean litter box and enough water and dry food for several days. They'd be fine, if indignant.

Cradling the sea-urchin pot against her chest, she turns and finds herself facing a display of business cards. Planet X Guest House. Veronique smiles, and takes one, and goes to find the potter.

*   *   *

Melinda guzzles her Nixon-bought orange soda and lets out a huge belch. Veronique, hands on the wheel, snorts. “That stuff'll dissolve your stomach, you know.”

“I doubt it. You're thinking of Coke. Anyway, it's my birthday. This is the one day a year I consciously court carcinogens, remember?”

Veronique laughs. “What did the carcinogens cost? I should pay for them, since it's your birthday.”

“Don't be silly. You're going to buy me a piece of expensive pottery; I'll buy my own Ring-Dings.” Melinda pauses, watching her friend's profile, and then says, “It's lovely of you to do this, Veronique.”

“You always say that. I enjoy it, you know.”

Melinda pushes a wisp of hair behind one ear. “This time, you should buy yourself something. You never do.”

“I did, actually. Years ago. Sarabeth and I drove out here, and we agonized for what seemed like hours, and we picked out a gorgeous pot. And when we got it home, well, it was still gorgeous, but the magic was gone. For me, the Planet X stuff is more beautiful at Planet X. Those pieces need to be with their kind. For me, it's more of a museum than a store.” She glances at Melinda. “They look great at your house. They wouldn't at mine.”

Melinda doesn't believe this. Veronique's decorating scheme is spare and Southwestern; the pots would fit beautifully. Melinda's interior design is, to put it kindly, eclectic. The pots Veronique's bought her are hardly visible in all the clutter, but Melinda loves them anyway. She knows they're there, even if no one else would without an archeological excavation.

“What happened to it?” she asks Veronique. “The pot? I've never seen it, have I?”

Veronique waves a hand, as if to shoo away a mosquito. “Sarabeth took it. She always liked it better than I did, anyway.”

“Well, you should get yourself something. To replace that vase Nepotuk broke. You have a place ready-made for it.”

Veronique smiles vaguely, but waves her hand again, and Melinda decides that sometime this year, she'll drive Veronique out here and treat her to a pot. She can tell that Veronique won't buy one for herself. For that matter, Melinda—lover of large jewelry and chunky handknits and art glass and artists' cooperatives—has never seen Veronique buy anything impractical for herself, never seen her invest in beauty for its own sake. As far as Melinda knows, Veronique hasn't even dated anyone since Sarabeth left.

At least she has only two cats, and not several dozen, although Melinda can't imagine Veronique hoarding anything. The woman's an emotional anorexic; she might be healthier if she did have several dozen cats. Sometimes Melinda wonders if Veronique was different when Sarabeth was around—Melinda met Vera after the breakup—but she suspects it's just how Veronique's wired. And maybe it's why Sarabeth left, for that matter.

Yes, Melinda thinks, I definitely need to treat her to something. Something more lasting than a meal out. She knows that Veronique will protest, will try to dodge any gift. Melinda will just have to find some way around her formidable defenses.

*   *   *

Anna sits outside, on the deck, in sunshine. It's May, and at last the sun's out. The weather hasn't turned very warm yet, but no matter. All over the city, people are sitting outside, faces like flowers turned up to the sky. This is an annual ritual, the day when the residents of Seattle emerge from hibernation.

Bart sits next to her. They went for a nice long walk earlier, and he's tuckered out. He lies on the sunny teak of the deck, basking, his tail giving an occasional thump.

Anna doesn't know where William is. At one of his support-group meetings, maybe.

She's come out here with her laptop, her knitting, the latest issue of
CC,
and a stack of notecards. The job she needs to do today—much easier in sunshine and fresh air—is to write a set of invitations to Percy's service in two months. It's a small list, and she's almost afraid to send the invites, because it will hurt more if no one comes after getting a handwritten note. But she's Percy's mother, and she owes him the effort of trying to gather people who liked him once, who found good in him. She's also sending invitations to her own circle, people she once considered friends. It's almost a test, to see if they'll come and offer any kind of support.

Marjorie and David are of course already coming. They don't need an invite. Marjorie offered to pay for engraved invitations, but Anna said, “This isn't a wedding. I'll write the notes myself. It will be good for me.” She's not exactly sure how it will be good for her, but she supposes that it represents a kind of reaching out, which is what William and his parents keep telling her she needs to do.

And so she sends a note to her knitting group (“I just wanted to let you know”), to the Stanford CC Club (“In case any of you knew Percy”), to Percy's college roommates and high school friends (“Please pass this along to anyone else who might want to attend”), and, in a kind of desperation, to his pediatrician (“Because you took care of Percy for so many years, I thought you might want to know…”). It all feels like shamefaced begging. None of these people want to know anything about Percy, or about her and William. None of them have bothered to express sympathy, and Anna finds that she no longer views this as a tactful protection of privacy. Writing the notes, she finds herself growing increasingly angry. She knows it's an impossible situation. She can all too easily imagine that if the positions were reversed, if someone she knew had lost a child to suicide after that child had committed an unspeakable crime, she'd sidestep the issue. She wouldn't know what to say. She'd tell herself the family needed space. She'd tell herself she didn't know them well enough to intrude, that surely they were surrounded by loving family and friends. She would, yes, probably blame them, wonder what they'd done to create a child who would do such a thing.

But even if she avoided face-to-face contact, she'd do
something,
even if it was only to send a plant.

Anna is trying very hard not to feel as if something's wrong with her because she isn't surrounded by loving family and friends. She wonders if people are afraid of her now, if they think that she, too, will commit some atrocity.

And so it is a relief, after so many empty words, to write the last two notes, the ones to people who've offered kindness. The first is to Karen, who brought Bart back home. The second is to someone Anna has never met.

Dear Rev. Alphonse-Smith:

In November, you were kind enough to send a few words of sympathy about my son, Percy. I find it ironic that you, who knew and loved the woman my child so terribly and inexplicably murdered, are one of the very few people who reached out to us after his death. My husband and I thank you for that, and we would like to let you know that Percy's long-delayed memorial service will be held on July 24, on what would have been his twenty-third birthday, at the East Shore Unitarian Universalist Church in Bellevue. Please don't think I'm informing you of this so you'll send us a tree! Rather, I ask for your prayers on that day, which will be very difficult for us. William and I are not religious; I myself do not know how to pray, and I do not even know if I believe in prayer. But I know that it will be a comfort to me to know that you are thinking good thoughts on our behalf.

I hope this note is neither offensive nor overly forward, and I hope that everyone who loved Melinda is finding some way to heal.