Serious Moonlight(31)

“Bubble-gum nurse,” she said, showing me her shiny PVC uniform and matching cap with sparkly red cross. She even had a name tag that said NURSE MONA.

But despite her cheery outfit, she looked . . . worried. Something was off. “Is this a bad time? You’re not sick, are you?”

“No. Just feeling blah.” She stuck out her tongue.

“Not sure if it helps, but I come bearing gifts,” I said, showing her a bakery box the color of her wig. “They were out of almond croissants, but I got one orange and three pains au chocolat.”

She sighed. “I love you madly.”

“I know.”

“But extra, because all I’ve been thinking about this morning is Belgian chocolate.”

“Oh!” Now the way she looked made sense. “Cramps?”

“Exactly. Yes. I woke up with cramps.”

“Ugh,” I complained. “Your uterus must have sent out a Bat-Signal to mine because I started my period last night.”

“Darling, sometimes I feel like my uterus controls the entire island. Get inside so we can stuff our faces before I have to leave.” She opened the door to let me in and then locked it. I headed across the lobby, dodging mismatched furniture and her needy cat—Zsa Zsa Gabor, a solid white Persian who couldn’t be petted enough—and set the bakery box down on a purple dining table. Steps away, the theater’s original concessions stand had been converted into a kitchen, but it still had a working popcorn machine and soda fountain, which I thought were the bee’s knees when I was twelve.

And it wasn’t the only thing Aunt Mona had renovated. The women’s bathroom had been converted to make room for a bathtub, and the men’s was now a giant closet with an entire wall of wigs. The projection booth was her bedroom. The theater itself—where she painted and sculpted and sewed fabulous clothes—had all but two rows of seats torn out and skylights installed in the ceiling. The screen still worked, though, and she’d upgraded to digital projection; I’d watched many a movie with her when my grandmother and I were fighting. After I moved in with my grandparents, Grandma tried to forbid Mona from seeing me at all until Mona threatened to take her to court and sue for guardianship. Then Grandma only let her visit me on the weekends in our house. But after I ran away three times in one month—I always came here—Grandma finally relented and allowed me to bike over to Mona’s theater.

I used to think Grandma illogically blamed Mona for my mom’s death. In her eyes, Mona was the weird kid and therefore a bad influence who turned my mom against her. But now I understand that she resented Mona because she got to help raise me when I was younger and Grandma didn’t. Not once did Grandma ever admit any blame in our family’s estrangement, but I knew she felt it. She carried that guilt with her to the grave.

I never wanted to be that stubborn.

“Where are you heading today?” I asked Mona as she stood on tiptoes in pink stockinged feet to fetch plates.

“Don’t ask me.”

“Too late. I’m asking,” I said, plopping down on a mismatched dining chair covered in tiny strawberry people—also a childhood favorite. The wall next to me was adorned in old Broadway posters that she’d “liberated” from the backstage area of her parents’ old open-air theatrical playhouse on the other side of the island—Jesus Christ Superstar, Cats, Rent, Fiddler on the Roof, Cabaret, and several others. Mona said she used to despise musicals when she was growing up—she had a vicious love-hate relationship with her parents—but now that she was older, she could admit that they fueled her early love of costume.

“Go on, tell me,” I encouraged.

She feigned sobbing. “You’re going to judge me.”

“I won’t.”

“Even if I told you I was meeting Leon Snodgrass?”

I swung around in my chair. “Ugh. Ugh! No-o-o-o! What?”

“I told you not to ask!”

“How did this happen? I thought he moved to Texas.”

“He’s back in town for the summer.”

“He cheated on you,” I reminded her.

“Technically we were on a break. I saw someone else too.”

“Out of revenge! He’s a stockbroker who plays golf. He wears monogrammed shirts, and he’s allergic to Zsa Zsa Gabor,” I said as the cat wound around my ankle. Leon Snodgrass was the bane of my existence. A year or so ago, it seemed as if every time I came to the theater to hang out with Mona, there he was, being boring as ever. She needed a wild spirit—someone like her. Not a drab numbers guy who was always using dated slang “ironically” and making stupid jokes.

Aunt Mona sat down next to me on a chair painted to look as if it were covered in dragon scales. “I know. But he was so nice when I saw him on the harbor yesterday. He has a new yacht.”

“Gross.”

“He named it the Spirit of Mona.”

“Are you serious?” I pretended to heave, puffing out my cheeks.

“I know. I know!” she said, scooping up a chocolate-filled pastry. “But how can you turn down a guy who’s named a boat after you? It’s sort of romantic.”

“More like sort of creepy.”

“He says he’s changed. Maybe he has. Maybe I have. I don’t know. Besides, it’s not a date. He asked me to meet him at his grandmother’s house on Hidden Cove to look at her painting collection. They want to know what it’s worth.”