Remember The Moon Page 3

  “I bet you never talk about it.”

  I pretended not to know what she meant. “About what?”

  “Your dad, his death.” She settled back into her chair, prepared to listen, eyes still locked on mine.

  “What’s there to say? He’s dead.” I began ripping the round cardboard coaster advertising Orangina into bits. “Yeah, I know, Jay. I was there, remember?”

  “Hey, that was ten years ago. I grieved. It sucked. And now I barely remember him.”

  She gave me the tiniest smirk, apparently expecting my reluctance.

  “You sound like Marc. He wouldn’t talk about it either.” She turned to look at the tourists who streamed out of the entry gate trying to escape the late afternoon heat bearing down on the ancient, leafless streets. I watched a black crow hop around beside us, picking up pieces of popcorn off the ground with his beak.

  A car horn honked. On the road below, a man drove by in a tiny red Fiat, waving at someone in the street. My father had once owned a pale yellow ‘67 Karmann Ghia with its smiling, friendly headlight eyes. At seven, I sat helpless in the passenger seat in a motel parking lot beside a busy Toronto thoroughfare, my dad hidden slightly under the tiny hood. We’d been to a baseball game with his friend, Paul. We were speeding along happily, singing “Rocket Man”, the words flying away in the wind when a loud clinking noise interrupted us and the car slowed. My dad managed to steer us to the side of the road. When we stopped, he looked at me with his lips and cheeks puffed out, eyebrows cocked in a look of resignation.

  “We seem to have a bit of a problem, J.J. How ‘bout you get out and push and I’ll steer?” Cars whizzed by, their gusts rocking the car as he turned to face forward, his back ramrod straight, gripping the steering wheel at ten o’clock and two o’clock, waiting for me to hop out and push the car.

  “I’m only seven, Dad.” I was used to my dad’s jokes. “I can’t push a car!” He let out a howl of laughter.

  “I’m kidding, Monkey! You steer, I’ll push.”

  “Really?”

  “You can handle it.” He stood up on the driver seat, climbed over me and hopped over the side onto the shoulder. I climbed into his seat tentatively, holding the steering wheel tight until I felt the car lurch forward with my dad’s push from the back of the car. Panicking, I twisted the wheel back and forth fast, veering the car toward traffic.

  “Other way! Other way! Just hold it there! That’s it!” Panic turned to thrill as the car slowly inched its way into the parking lot of the motel, its entire weight in my hands.

  “OK, now put your foot on the brake!”

  I had no idea which pedal was the brake, plus I had to lower myself off the seat to reach the pedals.

  “I don’t know which one!”

  “The left one!”

  I dangled my foot down, searching for a pedal, bending my head to look under the steering wheel. Finally I saw it and stomped on it. The car stopped suddenly and I heard the weight of my dad’s body slam against the back of the car and he let out a groan.

  “OK. Yup. You found the brake. Good job, J.J.”

  He came around the front of the car, popped the tiny hood, pulled out the long dipstick, and checked the belt, entirely exhausting his ability to diagnose the problem.

  “Looks like we’re going be late for dinner.” He smiled. “Might have to find a place to have a burger. Good thing we’re near a phone booth. I’ll just go call your ma and a tow truck.” When he came back, my dad told me to keep steering as he pushed me around the motel parking lot, laughing as I commanded, “Faster, faster!” I learned to brake smoothly that day.

  The car honked again and I was back in Italy with Maya gazing at me expectantly.

  “You OK?”

  “Yeah. Fine. Just thinking of my dad. I haven’t thought about him in a long time.”

  She turned her head and looked at me from the corner of her eye, suspiciously. “He was a great guy.” She patted the top of my hand.

  “Yeah.”

  We were silent for a while.

  “Where are you staying?” I asked.

  “Amalfi.”

  “We could get the bus back together. My place is on the way to Amalfi.”

  “That would be great, yeah,” Maya said, smiling.

  “Hey, I’m staying at this little pensione on the road between Positano and Amalfi,” I said. “You can walk down to the water from there and swim in a tiny grotto. They also have amazing four-course dinners for next to nothing. Feel like a swim?”

  “Are you trying to change the subject?” Her lips turned up in another sly smile.

  “I’ll take that as a yes.” I laughed.

  The bus deposited us at a stop a short distance from the pensione. We walked along the ocean side of the winding highway, buffeted by the wind of speeding busses that careened along the narrow road. We entered a gap in a long whitewashed wall just a few feet from the edge of the highway. A glazed oval tile adorned with red and blue flowers marked the pensione’s name. We walked down narrow white steps that led into a tiny garden. On the ocean side of the garden, tall, pencil-thin Cyprus guarded the cliff’s edge. A narrow set of steps carved into the rock face hugged the rugged cliff side as they descended crookedly toward the water.

  “Oh, wow. That looks steep!” Maya hesitated at the top of the steps, but I knew she would not back down from the challenge.

  “C’mon! Let’s check it out!”

  We descended the steps, Maya in front. She touched the rock face on her right for balance and held the flimsy rope rail. She avoided looking down to her left. Along the way, carved into the cliff wall, were tiny arch-ceilinged alcoves – shrines, tiled with images of Jesus and filled with candles. She stopped in front of one, caressing Jesus’s shiny tiled face.

  “Are these meant to mark the places where people have toppled to their deaths?”

  “Wimp.” I laughed. “Keep going. It’ll be worth it, I promise.”

  At sea level, poised on a large slab of rock, we stood watching the huge swells crash just a few feet below us into the cliff side along either side of our platform. The true strength of the ocean expressed itself in the loudly pounding swells, the size of oil tankers.

  “It sure is humbling, isn’t it?” I said.

  “Yes it is,” she whispered. A shiver shot up the back of my neck as Maya took my hand.

  “You ready?” I asked as I stripped off my shirt and shoes, wearing just my shorts.

  “Oh. God. Won’t those waves smash us against the cliff?”

  “You have to wait until the wave is out, then jump in and swim to the grotto before the next wave hits. There’s a ledge you can stand on just inside the entrance. C’mon, you can do it!” I pulled her closer to the edge. She tentatively removed her shorts, revealing sexy red panties that took my breath away. She then slowly unbuttoned her shirt and revealed a matching red bra. The bony child-like figure of my memory had grown womanly curves. Pale, untanned patches of skin created by her obvious habit of tanning in a bikini caused me to turn away to prevent myself from licking a pale coin of flesh between her breasts.

  “Ready?” I asked. She took a tentative step closer to the edge of the rock platform and looked into the sea.

  “Ready as I’ll ever be...”

  “One, two, threeeeee!”

  We jumped, holding hands, just as a wave pulled away from the cliff wall. We were pulled away with it but swam toward the grotto’s opening and a new wave pushed us into the cool dankness. Just inside, we scampered onto another outcropping of rock to avoid the full force of the wave as it thundered into the entrance. We sat for a few minutes breathing heavily, our skin goose-pimpling as our eyes adjusted to the dark. On the water’s surface, pools of sunlight reflected onto the ceiling of the grotto, creating an undulating constellation. Long, limestone stalactites blistered down from the ceiling, threatening us with their menacing fangs. F
rom their tips, large droplets of water fell into pools etched into the rocks by their Chinese torture dripping, creating a cacophony of high pitched tones, echoing throughout the cave in a methodic beat.

  “Oh, wow!” Tiny flecks of gold reflected off Maya's freckled skin as she looked up at the ceiling. “It’s so magical.” Her voice reverberated off the walls.

  “A temple of the sea, so to speak,” I offered.

  “It’s very beautiful, but it’s also kind of claustrophobic. I feel as if I’m in some sort of underworld.”

  “Maybe this is where you go when you die.” I laughed. “I guess you don’t want to see where some of these passages go, then?” I pointed to one of the tunnels leading off the main chamber.

  “You can. But I think I’ll stay right here, thanks.” We sat together in quiet reverence, feeling both cradled and threatened each time a wave entered and then retreated. My heart began beating fast with my desire to pull Maya close and kiss her, each beat surely amplified throughout the chamber.

  Maya turned to look at me, her eyes soft, and I leaned over and kissed her gently on the lips. It felt at that moment as if we had known each other a thousand years, a feeling I had never felt with any other girl.

  “Wow,” she said as she pulled away, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. “I wonder what would’ve happened if we’d done that ten years ago?”

  “I wanted to.”

  “You did?”

  “Don’t pretend you didn’t know that.”

  “OK. I guess I did know. But you were just a kid to me then. A lowly freshman.”

  “Yeah.”

  We sat in silence for a long time, mesmerized by the iridescent mural of rock deposits painting the walls and ceiling of the grotto. I wanted to stay in this grotto forever, savoring the moment. Maya shivered.

  “You ready?” I asked.

  She nodded. “How’re we going to do this?”

  “Same way we got here. When a wave goes out, swim like crazy back to the rock platform.” Her eyes widened, but she took a deep breath and looked determined.

  “Ready?” I asked, as a wave began to move out of the grotto. Maya nodded.

  “Now!”

  Blinded, I re-emerged into sunlight. I looked around for Maya, who was already scrambling onto the rock. I swam over and hauled myself out, flopping into a puddle beside her prone figure. For a moment it felt as if I hovered a few inches above my own body, with nothing underneath for support, but still able to feel every lump and pucker of warm rock against my back. I closed my eyes against the bright light and clasped my hands behind my neck, trying to re-ground myself, the sun on my face pulsing red to the beat of my heart against the back of my eyelids. When I opened them, the sun seemed to have shifted, emitting a slightly different range of color, as if the Earth had begun spinning in a new direction during our time inside the grotto. Maya lay beside me, eyes closed, still breathing heavily, skin glistening, a large drop of seawater pooled in her navel. I wanted to lean over and suck out the water but remained rooted to the rock, paralyzed by the unusual sensations in my body. After some time, a minute or an hour, Maya wiggled towards me.

  “Wow, I feel sort of dizzy, like I’m not quite a part of my body,” Maya said as she reached out for my hand, rolling onto her side, her other palm flat against the rock, steadying herself.

  “I thought it was just me,” I said, pulling her into my arms. We held onto each other for a while, as if together we might be more successful reorienting ourselves in this brand new universe. Our eyes connected, transfixed, neither of us able to break the spell. Her eyes took on the indigo-green of the water crashing around us, eyes that seemed to reflect the possibilities of a million lifetimes.

  ***

  Sometime later, hair still dripping down our backs and our dry clothes now pulled over our wet ones, we sat on the flowered seat cushions of the pensione’s dining room, a vine-canopied rooftop balcony that teetered high above the ocean.

  We held hands across the crisp white tablecloth. I didn’t want to let go, certain that without her to ground me I might float away from her forever. Antipasto was followed by homemade spaghetti with a fresh tomato sauce.

  “How did you ever find this place?” She took a sip of wine, hair brushed off her face and drying in the light ocean breeze. “It’s so beautiful!” The ocean, draped in silky shades of mauve and tangerine, looked like a perfect Hallmark sunset scene.

  “One of my dad’s buddies, actually. Did you ever meet Gay Paul?” Maya shook her head. “He and a bunch of his friends come here. I trust his taste. It’s a little more expensive than staying in a youth hostel, but cheaper than hotels in Amalfi or Positano because Praiano is on the highway between them and is harder to reach. Do you want me to see if they have an extra room for tonight? It would be a nice change from the youth hostel.” Maya gave me a look, but didn’t reply. I hadn’t meant to assume something sexual between us; I simply dreaded the thought of having to say goodbye to her, now that I’d found her again. I worried I may have ruined the magic of the night.

  “Sorry,” I added. “I hope you didn’t take my invitation to stay as a come on.”

  “Isn’t it?”

  “No... Well... Maybe it was.”

  “I kind of hoped it was.”

  “You were? It’s not too soon since...?”

  “Marc? He ran off with a beautiful singer from Texas named Annabelle. I don’t even know where he is.”

  “Wow. That’s harsh.”

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to imply–”

  “That I’d just be your boy toy?” She looked horrified for a moment, until I grinned. “Kidding. I’ll be your boy toy anytime.”

  “Then do I have to get a separate room?”

  I laughed as heat shot to my groin. “Not at all!”

  When the shiny gray skin of a white fish slathered in a lemony butter was all that remained on our plates and the tall glass carafe of the local Casavecchia was almost empty and we were feeling the heat of the day and the wine in the pinkness of our cheeks, we dragged our chairs closer together and held hands, sleepily taking in the view. The ocean was black now except for the diminishing highway of blue-white moonlight jetting between us and the giant sphere that rose high into the sky. I wondered what goofy smile was on my face, thinking how unbelievable this trip had suddenly become. What were the chances? Maya Willis of all people? Without Marcus Pellegrino? Suddenly I knew without a doubt that Maya was the woman I would marry.

  “You know, this moon reminds me of the moon the night your father died. It was so bright that night. It didn’t seem possible that someone could drown in such bright moonlight.”

  “Yeah,” I managed, trying to catch my breath, not allowing my eyes to meet hers. I wanted my father to be far from my thoughts. I didn’t want him ruining this night and yet, with my reunion with Maya came memories of him. I used the edge of my fork to scoop a chunk of almondine chocolate cake into my mouth, not knowing what to say.

  “Have you ever heard the myth of Selene, Goddess of the moon?”

  I shook my head, this time lifting my gaze to look at her.

  “She had a lover. A mortal lover. An incredibly good-looking lover who was a hunter or possibly a king. The important part is that he was really good-looking.” She winked, and again, heat shot from my face to my crotch.

  “His name was Endymion, which in Greek means ‘to dive in’, so he is thought to be the personification of sleep or the sunset or something like that. Anyway, poor Selene fell madly in love with him. Blinded with love or maybe lust, she asked Zeus to give Endymion eternal life. She wanted Endymion to stay young forever so he would never leave her. Instead, Zeus granted her wish by giving him eternal sleep. The only way Selene could see him was at night when he slept. He obviously didn’t sleep much though, because they had fifty daughters together.”

  “That’s a lot of daughters. How do you know so much
about Pompeii and Greek mythology anyway?”

  “Classical Studies. An art college pre-requisite. But it fascinated me. I kind of wished I’d taken classics at a regular university rather than art school. I think I would have loved those academic types. Anyway, when I heard the myth, it made me think of your dad. Maybe it was the moon that night. But I liked the idea of him resting in an eternal sleep. What do you think, Jay?”

  I stood up and took her hand, pulling her in the direction of my room. I turned and took a last look at the moon over the water. It seemed to be smiling at me.

  “I think I will never forget this moon. ”

  The moon that night and the cat’s eyes that Maya showed me in Pompeii that day, their iridescence lighting the way, guided a traveler through darkness. Those glinting markings and grooves in the road were all that remained of an existence now lost, routes once traveled, clues that led people to their journey’s end. Each tiny coincidence, each chance meeting, each shared moon is just another reflective clue guiding our journeymen selves to our ultimate destination.

  Chapter Three

  FLOATING AWAY

  As a dead man, I felt more alive than when I was alive. My vision had a peculiar clarity, allowing me the ability to see individual needles on the conifers that balanced on a high, windswept cliff all the way across the Sound, a mile away from where I had crashed. I detected a spectrum of color I had not seen before, minute shades of green, yellow, and brown. I knew I was dead – my drowned body below me bobbed under the water, strapped into the seat, my hands floating up over my head. I hovered over myself, both below the water’s surface and above it at once. I reached out to touch a soft white-crested wave, surprised when the deep indigo wash disintegrated beneath my fingers, a dizzying, disorienting experience. Logic fell away, no longer necessary for comprehending my experiences.