Under the Dusty Moon (21 page)

“You sure you're not grounded?” I asked.

“Oh, no, I absolutely am. But my folks said we could take the day before they lock me up for the rest of my life.”

“I guess we better enjoy it then.”

“I think it's our duty,” Shaun said. “So do you want to head down to the Island a bit early? To hang out on the beach and stuff before the show starts?”

“Yeah,” I said, trying to figure out how I was going to swing meeting up with Lucy, too, “that's fine.”

“Aw, come on,” he said, “it's going to be great. Micky Wayne!”

I pictured it: Mom in her element with Ken watching her from backstage, scribbling in some tiny little notebook, trying to capture the impossible magic she radiated when she performed and probably getting off in the process. But I didn't want to disappoint Shaun, he'd been basically perfect to me. The faded letters of his
T-shirt
seemed like a flashing neon sign.
DUSTY MOON. DUSTY MOON
. Was he ever going to see me the same way again once he knew the truth? There was just no way.

Shaun went upstairs to tell his parents we were going, and I sent out a pair of texts.

To Lucy I texted,
Hey! Going to the beach with Shaun before the show tonight, but text me when you're heading over and we'll meet you there.

I knew Lucy wouldn't be thrilled at this, but at least I wasn't ditching her completely.

And then I texted Mom. Two words were all I needed:
I'm alive
.

Shaun and I caught the Queen streetcar headed toward the Island ferry docks, and I shivered as we passed the spot where I'd been doored all those weeks before. It felt like forever ago. Shaun held my arm and traced the tan line where my cast had been with his index finger.

“Don't worry,” he whispered into my hair. “This time we'll do it right.”

And then I shivered again.

A
fter
a few transit snarls, we got to the docks a little before noon. Even though the concert wasn't going to start until four or five, the crowds were already starting to swell around the ticket booths and it took us forever just to get up to the front. Shaun wasn't the only one wearing a Dusty Moon shirt, either. We spotted at least five other people wearing the same T and Shaun exchanged a knowing nod with each one of them.

“This is going to be so great!” he said, squeezing me to his side. “The whole lineup's great, but I seriously can't wait to see Micky Wayne. I hear she toured Japan this summer. Isn't that cool?”

It was going to take another fifteen minutes, tops, before Shaun put what he knew about my mom together and figured out what my big secret was. “Yeah,” I said nonchalantly, “really cool.”

When we finally snaked our way to the front of the line, Shaun paid for both of our tickets.

“M'lady,” he said, holding one out to me.

“Oh no,” I said, “no, no, no, no. We're not going down that road. No m'lady.”

“Yes, m'lady,” he said, as we handed over our tickets to the woman standing by the ferry gates.

The concert crowd was waiting for the boat to Centre Island, but I pointed to the line for Ward's instead.

“Don't want to go back and visit our friends at Hanlan's Point?” Shaun asked.

“Oh god,” I said, hiding my face with my newly healed right hand. “Worst first date ever.”

“I had fun.”

“You didn't break your arm,” I said, booping his nose.

“Good point.”

The Centre Island ferry arrived, and the band-shirted crowd thinned out a little bit. Finally our ferry docked and Shaun and I climbed aboard with the rest of the assembled crowd. We fought our way to the front of the boat and wrapped our arms around each other. This time I didn't care how cheesy we looked, and knew that we didn't need to take any selfies to prove that we'd been here. Just staring off at the lake with the mist in our faces was perfect. I felt totally myself. And then we took a selfie anyway, just because. Then my phone died. I hadn't charged it, I realized, in a couple of days. Damn.

Eventually we docked and Shaun and I ambled our way toward the beach. We laid ourselves out in the sand, kicked off our shoes and lay there in the sun. Here, everything was beautiful. The city was a
far-away
vision across the lake, and even the hyper concertgoers seemed miles away; they were on a whole other island, after all. I nodded off in the sun with Shaun's faint snores in my ear.

Then, all of a sudden, we heard guitars. It sounded like fifty of them all playing at the same time and we both jolted awake.

“Oh!” Shaun said. “It's starting. I think this is Grey Matters, I hear they're really good. Should we go check it out?”

Why did we have to spoil such an amazing day by going to Mom's stupid concert?

“Let's hang out here a little while longer,” I said. “I mean, Micky isn't even going on 'til, like, nine, right? It's only, what, like four o'clock now?”

Shaun checked his phone. “Oh man, it's six.”

“Guess our brains have been frying pretty steadily in the sun.”

“Yeah,” he said, “seriously. So you and Micky Wayne are pretty good friends, eh? You on a
first-name
basis now?”

“Heh, yeah,” I said, laughing off my mistake. “We're tight.”

How much longer could I pull this off? How much longer could I keep him distracted enough not to ask questions? “Come on,” I said, “let's go for a walk.”

Shaun looked reluctant.

“Let's find somewhere a bit more … private, okay?” I took his hand and squeezed tight.

“Oh,” he said, his eyes flashing to life. “Yeah, okay, let's go.”

We ambled our way down the main road of the Island, which was really just a small paved path.

“I hope she plays ‘Stranded in Daylight,'” Shaun said. “I mean, your good friend Micky Wayne. You think she will?”

“Stranded in Daylight” had been Dusty Moon's biggest hit, and Mom hated when people called it out when she played solo. Still, she usually wound up dredging it out for an encore because it made people lose their minds, even if was just her and her backup band covering an old song.

“Maybe,” I said, “but she'll probably be mostly playing her solo stuff.”

“Yeah, I like her solo stuff, too, but you can't touch those old Dusty Moon songs. They're just so good, you know?”

“
Uh-huh
,” I said, scanning the field in front of us for a secluded spot, becoming less and less turned on by the moment. “Why don't we try to find a place over here?”

We walked off the path toward some bushes. The sun was already dipping lower in the sky, and the light was becoming a soft, warm glow. We found a tiny clearing in the middle of the brush and sat down
cross-legged
with our knees touching.

Shaun pulled a joint out of his pocket. “I was saving this for Micky Wayne's set, but, like, maybe we should just smoke it now.”

“Yeah,” I said, stretching my legs out in the grass. “Sounds good.”

We passed the joint back and forth. I'd already built up a decent tolerance from smoking with Shaun that summer, and I hardly coughed at all.

“Lie down with me,” I said, spreading my arms and legs out like I was making snow angels in the tall grass.

Shaun lay down on top and started kissing me. I kissed him back, hard. And suddenly we'd disappeared into a cloud of hands and arms and mouths and tongues. He tasted like smoke and salt. I pulled his shirt up over his head and planted a line of kisses from his belly­button to his neck.

He protested for half a second, acting shocked.

“Whoa,” he whispered in my ear.

I unbuttoned his shorts and he slid them down to his knees.

My head was perfectly cloudy as Shaun pulled off my shirt too. He was this amazing, practically glowing, person. And I loved him. I did. I loved the mole on his back and his little bit of belly. I loved his pudgy cheeks and his high forehead. I loved his hair, freshly buzzed again, that I couldn't stop rubbing.

“I love you,” I said quietly, before raising my hand to my lips, as if trying to stuff the words back in after it was already too late.

“I love you, too,” he said, taking my hand away from my mouth and kissing my fingers.

How many girls had he slept with before?

It didn't matter, it really didn't.

I was ready.

I pulled up my skirt and wiggled out of my underwear. It wasn't nearly as graceful or as sexy as I'd pictured it in my head. “Condom?” I whispered in his ear.

“Oh, yeah,” he said, kneeling up and reaching down into the back pocket of his shorts, which were on the ground now, around his ankles. He fished out his wallet, unfolded it and pulled out a square purple packet. I grabbed the waist of his boxers and tugged them down. He looked up at me, his face a mix of disbelief and total giddy joy.

Carefully, he tore off one edge of the packet, slipped the condom out and tossed the wrapper aside. I flashed briefly back to health class as he carefully rolled the condom down.

“You ready?” he whispered, as I lay back down.

“
Uh-huh
,” I said, pulling him down with me, keeping my mouth on his. I kissed him hard and then it happened.

It hurt about as much as everybody said it would. And my butt was itchy, because apparently I hadn't realized we'd been sitting on an anthill the whole time. But the sun was going down and the eager moon was already out and the last strains of Grey Matters' set were pounding through the still, humid air, and it was amazing. Kind of. It was over pretty quickly.

When Shaun finally lay still on top of me and breathed out heavily, I smiled up at him. He rolled off and wrapped his arms around me, kissing my neck, my ears, my cheek and my forehead.

“Hey,” he whispered, his voice, his eyes, his everything soft.

This fuzzy little bit of afterglow. Maybe this was what it was all about. This peaceful moment. This stillness. Minus the ants.

I didn't have long to think about it, though, because soon enough we heard voices, two of them, coming toward us.

“Shit!” I said, feeling around in the grass for where my underwear had landed. I smoothed down my skirt and jammed my shirt back over my head, backwards at first, while Shaun struggled to get rid of the condom and pull up his pants and underwear at the same time.

“I don't know,” said a man's voice, “I think the worst of it is already over.”

“It's just the timing's not right. And I'm sorry to have dragged you into all this.” A woman's voice. Oh no.

“Do you hear that?” asked the man.

“Oh, Ken, don't bother …”

“Fuck!” I mouthed to Shaun, as he triumphantly zipped up his shorts.

“What the hell?!”

“J
esus
, Vic!”

“Mom!”

“What the —”

“Oh, god …”

“I'm so, so sorry.”

Our voices
ping-ponged
and ricocheted off one another and then out into the suddenly quiet night air, but Mom's voice rose above us all.

“What the hell are you doing?” she demanded. “I thought you were breaking up with this guy! Now I find you naked in the bushes? Honestly, Vic, what's going on?”

Oh no.

“You were, you were going … you, wait, what?” Shaun looked, not surprisingly, impossibly bewildered by the situation.

Me: “I wasn't, I'm not —”

Shaun: “We weren't —”

Mom: “You didn't —”

Me: “We just —”

Ken: “Maybe we —”

Shaun turned to me. In his total shock, having only just made the connection. “Your mom is Micky Wayne?”

“She sure is,” Mom said coldly.

“Look,” I said, “can you just give us a second here?”

“Yeah,” said Ken, desperately avoiding eye contact. “Maybe we should just go.”

“Oh no,” fumed Mom, “you two get your … your stuff together. We'll be waiting for you by that tree over there. You've got one minute.” And then she and Ken stalked off.

Shaun and I were both standing up now, facing each other.

“What the hell was that?” Shaun whispered.

“That's her,” I whispered back, trying to brace myself for the conversation to come.

“Your mom?”

“Yeah.”

“— is Micky Wayne?”

“Haven't we covered this?”

“Why didn't you tell me?” he asked, his eyes practically bugging out of his head.

“For this exact reason!” I
whisper-shouted
. “Come on, let's get this over with.”

Shaun followed behind me without another word.

When we found Mom and Ken, standing by a nearby tree, Mom was already sucking hard on a cigarette. She'd quit for good a few years ago, and it was the first time I'd seen her light up since then. She kept a tally in pencil on the inside of her closet of the number of days that she'd gone without a cigarette. She'd have to paint over it and start again.

“Okay,” she said, dropping the cigarette to the ground and grinding it out with the toe of her cowboy boot. “You two,” she pointed at Shaun and Ken, “get going. I don't care where. Ken, we'll talk later. Shaun?” She tried to soften her tone, but it didn't really work. “It was nice to meet you.”

“Okay,” said Ken, steering Shaun away from us.

Shaun looked back over his shoulder. “Uh, bye,” he said, “It was, uh, nice to meet you, too.”

But he wouldn't even meet my eye.

I couldn't imagine how awkward Ken and Shaun's conversation was going to be en route to wherever they were headed, but I knew it wouldn't be half as bad as what Mom had in store for me.

She was all dressed up for the show. The cowboy boots she'd had forever were matched with a sleeveless green vintage dress she'd bought in Kensington just before she left for Japan. Her hair was braided and done up and she had a lot more makeup on than usual but it looked good, like someone else had done it for her. She really did look like a rock star. A rock star who was about to murder me in cold blood.

“Let's take a walk,” Mom said, forcing herself to breathe slowly.

I nodded, as if I had any choice in the matter, and followed her.

“So,” she said, “Shaun. You didn't break up with him?”

“No,” I said, looking down at the ground and kicking at a stray pebble in my path.

“You lied to me to keep me off your trail?”

“
Uh-huh
,” I said. Sometimes she was so
dead-on
it was scary.

“And you just slept with him.”

“Mmhmm.”

“For the first time?” She stopped walking and looked me in the eye.

“
Uh-huh
,” I said, swallowing the little bit of puke that had suddenly welled up in my throat.

“Oh, baby.”

Suddenly her arms were around me in a hug so tight that it felt like it might have been some kind of punishment. And then, just as suddenly, she let go.

“You were safe? He used protection? He didn't pressure you?” Boom, boom, boom. Interrogation time.

“Yeah, yes, no, of course he didn't,” I said. “I wanted to. We wanted to.”

“Okay,” she said, exhaling. “Okay.”

She sat down on a bench lining the path and I took a seat beside her. She pulled out another cigarette from a pack she must have bought that morning and lit it, sucking hard and then exhaling smoke.

“You definitely win some kind of prize,” she finally said. “Worst First Time Ever.”

“You gonna make me a trophy?” I asked.

“Oh yeah,” she said, fanning her smoke away from me, “an anatomically correct one.”

“You're so gross,” I said, joining in on the fanning. The wind kept blowing it right into my face.

“Says the girl whose butt is covered in ant bites.”

“Mom!”

“What,” she said, “it's true, isn't it?”

I slid my butt back and forth along the bench to scratch the bites that were already welling up under my shorts. “Maybe,” I admitted. “But how did you know?”

“I'm not sure how exactly you missed seeing the giant anthill you guys were sitting on.”

“I figured it out a bit too late,” I said. “I guess we were kind of distracted.”

“It's like they say — once bitten, twice shy.”

“You are actually the worst person in the world,” I said. “Ever. I hope you're aware of it.”

“I most certainly am,” she said, exhaling and then putting out her cigarette.

And just like that, we were back to where we'd started. Well, almost.

“I'm sorry,” I said. “Sorry I ran out last night.”

“You went over to Shaun's place, huh?” she asked.

“
Uh-huh
.”

“And what did his parents think of that?”

“I met them this morning,” I said. “They were pretty mad, I think, but it was okay. They made me breakfast.”

“Wow,” Mom said, “Shaun must've put in a good word for you.”

“I guess.”

“But you are not pulling this crap with me anymore, you understand? You're seventeen, not
twenty-seven
. Even if I sometimes forget.”

I nodded.

“No more secrets,” she said. “None. Okay?”

I nodded again.

“And I'm sorry, too,” she said. “I know it hasn't been a great summer for me, you know, as a mom. But I really want to make it up to you, okay? I've been working extra shifts at the café, and I borrowed some money from your gran, and I think you should come with me to Europe. Six weeks on the road, we're going to see amazing things. We'll get you a tutor so you won't even have to miss much school.”

Finally, finally, finally. Though it was kind of too late. I had my own life now, but that was all right. It was mostly just the thought that counted, anyway.

“That's all right,” I said, “I think I'll stay. There's, you know, good stuff here.”

“Yeah?” she said, like she wasn't sure she'd heard me right.

“Yeah,” I said. “There's, like, one more thing that I didn't tell you.”

“You didn't get a tattoo, did you?” Mom said, checking my arms and legs for evidence.

“You wish,” I said. “It's nothing like that. See, Lucy and I made this game.”

“What kind of game?” Mom asked.

“On her computer. It's pretty basic, but it turned out kind of cool. Anyway, we presented it to this group called She Shoots. They're this, like, feminist collective. They teach
game-making
and stuff. Anyway, Lucy and I want to go back and take some of their workshops and become actual members. They really liked us. It was pretty amazing.”

“Wait a minute,” Mom said, “She Shoots?”

“What,” I said, “you've heard of them?”

“Of course,” she said. “Sasha, the one who runs it? She comes by the café all the time. She's friends with Sal. I wish you'd told me you guys were going. I would have introduced you!”

I wasn't surprised at all that it turned out Mom had a She Shoots connection, but I was proud that Lucy and I had gone into it on our own.

“Nah,” I said, “it was better this way. But anyway, that's how I met Ken.”

“Right,” she said, “now I get it. He said that he'd run into you at the space where he works.”

“Yup,” I said. “He just missed our presentation.”

“Too bad. So how many people were there?” Mom asked. “You and Lucy just got up and talked about your game?”

“Yeah, it was pretty scary, but everyone there was really nice. There were, like, forty or fifty people there.”

“Wow,” she said, “I can't believe I missed it! Did it go okay?”

“Yeah,” I said, “it did. Anyway, there'll be more games. Lucy and I are going to start our next project soon, and I'm going to illustrate it.”

“You really love this, don't you?” Mom asked, studying the smile on my face.

“I think I might.”

“So what's your next game going to be about, your saintly mother?”

“Easy,” I said. “You better sign me up for one of their workshops first. So I can truly capture your beauty in pixel form.”

“Well,” Mom said, fluffing her hair, “if it's for a good cause.”

“Naturally.”

“Wow, sweets. That's … wow. I'm really proud of you. You know that, right?”

“Thanks, Mom,” I said. “I know.”

“But you're serious about Europe? Just think about it, okay? It'll be an amazing adventure. I know you've got lots going on here, but it's Europe, you know? It's
Europe
. We'll be playing all over. It's going to be amazing.”

And she was right. When I stopped to think about it, she was offering me an unbelievable trip. But it would mean spending six weeks away from Shaun, and could we even afford the extra plane ticket and all the expenses?

“I'll think about it, okay?” I said. “Speaking of which, don't you have, like, an enormous show to play?”

Mom checked her phone. The screen was full of message notifications asking, I'm sure, where the hell she was. “Yeah,” she said, clearly not in much of a hurry. “I guess we better go.”

And we walked, hand in hand, along the path connecting Ward's to Centre Island, though eventually I forced her to pick up the pace.

As we got close enough that we could start to hear the rumblings of the crowd, I turned to her. “Sorry about the stuff with Ken,” I said. “I mean, I don't like that you're dating him, but I guess I shouldn't have said what I said.”

“Thank you,” she said. “I know the timing's awful, but I really like him.”

“The timing wasn't exactly my biggest concern.”

“Yes, sweets, I know that. Anyway, I don't know what's happening. We might take a break or something. Things are going to get messy once the book comes out.”

“Once you see what he's actually written about you?”

“I've read it,” she said. “Well, most of it, anyway. His first draft. It's good, and his publisher's really happy with it. This could be big for me, you know?”

“Because it's going to give all the Dennis truthers more fuel?”

“He didn't write about that stuff,” she said. “Those rumours. He wrote it exactly like I told it to him. That Dennis is gone.”

“Oh,” I said.

“Yeah.”

“So you think it's going to, like, boost your career?”

“It might,” she said. “We're talking about doing a big American tour in the spring. We'll be all over. I think things are finally starting to happen for me again.”

“Yeah?” I said.

We were interrupted by the rising volume of the crowd as we checked in through the side gate of the stage, Mom flashing her Performer lanyard, and taking me under her arm as her
plus-one
.

“There's going to be a lot more touring,” Mom said, as we weaved through the assembled gear and the stray band members heading to and from the stage.

“Good,” I said. “Then maybe you won't walk in on me and Shaun the next time.”

“I am gonna kill you,” she said, just as one of the tech dudes grabbed her for a
super-last
-minute
tune-up
. “Now go on, you know the drill.”

I walked ahead up to the side of the stage where a few familiar
friends-and
-family faces were gathered backstage, waiting for Mom to go on. Among them were Shaun and Ken, who couldn't have looked more relieved to see me. Well, Shaun, anyway. Ken was still a profound shade of red. And just behind Shaun, almost totally lost in his shadow, was Lucy. Oh no.

“Why the hell didn't you answer my texts?” Lucy said, pushing Shaun aside to get to me.

“I'm so, so, so sorry, Luce. Oh my god. I totally forgot.”

“Were you ditching me or something?”

“I wasn't, I swear. My phone died!” I said, taking it out of my bag and waving it in front of her as evidence.

“Whatever,” she said. “At least your mom still checks her phone.”

“Look, I'm sorry, okay? It's been, like, the weirdest day of my life. I'll tell you about it tomorrow.”

“If I'm still speaking to you,” she said.

“Aw, come on,” I said, “you can't resist my charms.”

“Watch me.”

“Uh, hey,” Shaun said, coming over to talk to us when it was clear that our fight had died down. “So … we're really here?”

“It's one of the few perks of putting up with Victoria,” Lucy said.

“It's a pretty good one,” Shaun agreed.