Keeping The Moon(28)

When we ran up onto the front porch, soaked, I was completely out of breath. I leaned against the door and closed my eyes.

Norman was still holding my hand, his palm warm against mine.

“Man,” he said. He was grinning, but shakily. “That was intense.”

“I can’t believe we made it,” I said.

He smiled, then looked down at our hands. I let go, quickly, without even thinking.

Norman slid his hand into his pocket.

I felt something. Something wet and hairy, brushing across my leg with slow, ambling laziness.

“Meow,” Cat Norman said simply, parking his big butt by my foot and looking up at me. “Meow.”

“I hate you,” I told him. He didn’t flinch.

“Dumb cat,” Norman said, reaching down to scoop him up. He opened the door and dropped him inside.

The wind was dying down now, the rain reduced to a constant stream, rattling through the gutters and overflowing the drainpipe. I

was sure Cat Norman had already found his way to Mira’s side, to be gathered up in her arms and forgiven, as always.

“Well,” Norman said suddenly.

“Well,” I said.

He leaned closer to me, squinting. “You look different,” he pronounced. “Don’t you?”

I touched a hand to my dripping hair, remembering my afternoon in Isabel’s hands. “Yeah,” I said. “I guess I do.”

He nodded, smiling. “It looks good,” he told me, in that slow, earnest way of his. “It does.”

“Thanks.” All I could think of was him holding my hand, tight, as we ran into the storm. Hippie Norman. So not the guy for me.

But still.

Stop it, I told myself. No matter how nice he was acting, he’d heard what Caroline Dawes had said. Of course he wanted to hold my

hand. And do everything else that you do with girls like me.

“I have to go in,” I said abruptly.

“Oh, right,” he said quickly, a bit surprised. He glanced at the painting. “I guess I’ll just take this over later, when it

stops raining.”

“Okay,” I said. ” ‘Bye, Norman.”

“Yeah. Uh, ‘bye.” And he started backing off the porch, down the steps. ‘“Bye,” he called again when he was halfway across

the yard.

I went in and shut the door. He’d only grabbed my hand out of instinct, to pull me along. I knew that.

But I waited, watching him until he was out of sight, before I turned and went up the stairs.

Mira was in her room with Cat Norman; I could hear her alternately cooing and chastizing him. I closed the windows in the back

room, gathering up the papers and placemats, then turned off a few lights and went outside to retrieve the wind chimes from the

birdbath, where they’d landed. The inside of the house felt unsteady and loose, like it had been breathing hard, all the pent-up

air pushed out and away.

In Mira’s studio, cards were strewn everywhere, some open, some shut. As I collected them I read each one, each separate way of

saying I’m sorry…

...for your loss, for it is hard to lose one who added so much.

...for he was a good man, a good father, and a good friend.

...from all of us who worked with her, and whose lives she touched.

... he was a friend and companion, and I will miss seeing you two walking each morning together.

Dead ex-husbands, dead co-workers, even dead dogs. Thousands of apologies over the years.

I dried myself off and fixed some soup, then sat down to watch wrestling, out of habit, alone, as Mira moved around upstairs,

running water for her nightly bath. Rex Runyon and Lola Baby had reconciled, but there were already problems. The Sting Ray and Mr.

Marvel’s partnership was being sorely tested by several ongoing defeats to Tiny and Whitey, and during a match between some

unknown and the Swift Snake the referee was thrown completely out of the ring onto the ground, landing with a crash. And the crowd

roared.

During a commercial I flipped a few channels and found my mother: some news program was covering her antifat crusade through

Europe. She was in London now. On TV my mother looked even better than in person: her skin glowed, her smile was broad. For the

first time I realized how similar she and Mira were—the way they waved their hands around excitedly while they talked, drawing you

in.

“So, Kiki,” said the interviewer, a round-faced Englishman with a clipped accent, “I understand you have a new philosophy

you’re speaking about on this trip.”

“That’s right, Martin!” my mother replied cheerily in her go-go-go infomercial voice. “I’m speaking to everyone out there who

sees themselves as a caterpillar, but knows that somewhere in them lives a butterfly.”

“A caterpillar?” Martin looked skeptical.

“Yes.” My mother leaned forward, fixing her eyes on him. She said, “There are a lot of people out there, Martin, who are

watching this as they’ve watched a million other fitness shows and infomercials, longing for results. But they’re caterpillars,

watching butterflies. And there’s a crucial step in there. They still have to become.”