Keeping the Moon(4)
Author: Sarah Dessen

“The cat,” I said, verifying.

“Norman,” she corrected me.

“Oh, Norman,” I said, looking outside where I’d last seen him. “He does seem kind of spacey.”

“He does?” She raised her eyebrows. “Well, it is summer. The heat gets to him, you know. You should see the hairballs he coughs up.”

I looked back outside. “Norman does?”

“The cat,” she said. “Cat Norman.” She pointed under a chair by the door where he’d settled himself and was now licking his back leg, loudly.

“Oh,” I said. “I thought you meant . . .”

“Oh, Norman,” she said, and then she burst out laughing, one hand covering her mouth. She had deep dimples, like a child’s. “Oh, no, not that Norman. I mean, he might have hairballs, with all that long hair of his. But I’ve never seen him coughing anything up. . . .”

“I just didn’t know,” I said in a low voice, and I had that sudden flash that I was fat again, could feel it on me, like I always did when someone laughed at me.

“Well,” she said, linking her arm in mine, “it’s an honest mistake. Cat Norman was, after all, named after Norman Norman. They are so much alike in temperament. Not to mention they both move slower than molasses.”

“Norman Norman,” I repeated, as we stepped into the back room. It was big and sunny and, like the porch, ran the length of the house. On the TV another match was in progress, with two small redheaded men in black trunks circling each other.

“But I need them both desperately,” Mira said dramatically, glancing at the TV and then back at me. “If Norman Norman didn’t live downstairs I’d have no one to open jars for me, and Cat Norman is my baby.”

“Norman lives downstairs?” I said.

“Oh, yes,” she said easily, sitting down in the overstuffed chair across from the television and folding the kimono neatly over her legs. On the wall was a large painting of Mira and Cat Norman sitting on the grass in front of the house. In the painting she had on a white dress and pink sunglasses shaped like stars; she was smiling. Cat Norman was beside her, his back arched as her hand brushed over him. “He stays in the downstairs room. He’s no trouble. I forget he’s there half the time.”

As I sat down I took in the view of the ocean, the water blue and sparkling. There was a path that led down to the beach, and when I craned my neck I could see an open door and then Norman, dragging one of the headless mannequins. To the right of the path I could see a smaller house, painted the same white as Mira’s. There was a clothesline beside it, with a row of brightly colored clothes flapping in the wind.

“So,” she said, settling back in her chair. “How was the trip?”

“Good.”

“And your mother?”

“Good.”

She nodded, flashing her dimples. “Did that hurt?”

“What?”

“That thing in your lip,” she said. “Ouch.”

“No,” I told her. “It didn’t.”

She nodded again. We were running out of topics. I glanced around the room. Everything was old, with a kind of tacky charm, and in need of some sort of repair: a rocking chair missing a few back slats, a small chest of drawers with faded pink paint and no knobs, a cracked fishtank full of seashells and marbles.

And then, as I looked more closely, I saw the notes. Just like the one out front, they were on index cards, written in nice block printing. WINDOW STICKS ON LEFT SIDE, it said next to the back door. CENTER LIGHT SWITCH DOES NOT WORK was posted by a switchplate on the other side of the room. And, taped to the TV set, right by the channel knob, my personal favorite: JIGGLE TO GET 11.

It was going to be a long summer.

“Oh, my!” Mira said suddenly, startling me. She lurched forward in her chair toward the television; like the cat, it took a second for everything to catch up. “Just look at that horrible El Gigantico. This isn’t even his match and he’s going in to attack that poor little Rex Runyon.”

“What?” I said, confused.

“Look!” She pointed toward the screen. “El Gigantico’s girl-friend, Lola Baby, left him for Rex Runyon last week. And now he’s going to beat poor Rex to a pulp. Oh, no. Why don’t the referees stop him? It’s just ludicrous.”

I just looked at her; she was leaning forward, eyes fixed on the screen. “Well,” I said, “it is all—”

“Oh!” One hand flew to her mouth, her pink toes wiggling as she reacted to something on the screen. “He’s pulling that figure-four move. Poor Rex. Oh, he’s going to feel that tomorrow. I don’t even know why El Gigantico cares about that Lola anyway, she’s just as trashy as she can be. . . .”

“Mira,” I said, “you know it’s . . .” She tore her eyes away from poor Rex Runyon, who was having his head slammed into the corner of the ring, repeatedly, while the crowd counted along.

“Know it’s what?” she said brightly. And I wished for a moment that she had a sign too, some index card with instructions to let me know how to proceed.

“Nothing. I . . . I forgot what I was going to say,” I said, and she settled back into the action. I was new here. I wasn’t about to be the one to tell her that it was all fake.

So I watched with her as Rex Runyon got a second wind and came back at El Gigantico, jumping on his back and bringing him to the mat like David slaying Goliath. The sun slowly set over the water while, downstairs, Norman dragged in the rest of his mannequins neck-first. Mira clapped her hands and cheered, with absolute faith, while Cat Norman sat in the windowsill, licking his paws one by one, as my summer began.

Chapter two

We watched wrestling for about an hour. There were four matches, several arguments, and two referees chucked into the action and beaten severely.

“So,” Mira said finally, clicking off the TV as the local news came on, “I am dying for a grilled chicken salad. Are you hungry?”

“Yeah,” I said, realizing I was.

“Well, there’s a place just up on the corner,” she told me. “The food is great.”

“Okay,” I said, getting up and digging into my pocket for the money my mother had slipped me as I’d gotten on the train.

“Wait, wait. It’s your first night. Let me treat.” She picked up her purse—a big pink vinyl thing, which had to be a thrift shop find—drew out her wallet, and selected a twenty, which she held out to me.