The Moonlit Earth

The Moonlit Earth



Forty-eight Hours Earlier
Cathedral Beach

After thirty years, Megan still didn’t know how to say no to her mother. She was fairly good at deflection. And she was a veritable master at dumping the most unpleasant questions her mother could come up with at the feet of her cousin Lucas, who was so wealthy he could pay her mother to accept whatever answer he gave, even if it wasn’t the one her mother had been looking for. (Gifting was the term he used. Megan preferred to call it light bribery.) But turning down a simple request from her mother remained one of Megan’s great personal challenges, right up there with making it all the way through a Russian novel and keeping her grocery list someplace where she wouldn’t mistake it for scrap paper and toss it in the trash.
That’s why she needed about fifteen minutes to stare at the cocktail dress her mother had brought to her as a welcome-home gift. She held it up by its hanger as she walked with it across the room. She picked up the hem in her free hand and changed the angle several times. She cleared her throat and grunted.
This is only a dress, she told herself. One incredibly, profoundly ugly dress. Even if she is testing me with it, that doesn’t change the fact that it’s just a dress.
The material had a metallic luster but it still looked like the kind of maroon velour you would find on the seats of a late ’80s Honda Civic. The spaghetti straps were lined with tiny rhinestones and there was a contained explosion of taffeta on the right shoulder that was supposed to be a flower, but it looked more like a gift bow assembled by a special-needs student. It was the bow that got her. It sent a maternal message that turned Megan’s stomach. Look, my daughter is home after her ill-advised sojourn in Northern California, and yes, she screwed up her life and isn’t exactly ripe for the picking anymore, but she’s still fairly soft and shiny. Try a squeeze.
“How long is the party?” Megan asked. She had meant it to be an offhand question; but of course, all her mother heard was her daughter inquiring as to how long she would have to wear the dreaded gift. Lilah closed the distance between them with several sharp clicks of her high heels against the bare hardwood floor, and tugged the dress from her daughter’s grip.
“Perhaps if there was some hemp in it,” her mother whispered. “Mom, really. Please. It’s great.”
“The party is a fund-raiser for the Moonlight Foundation, as I told you already, and while we don’t have to stay very long, a lot of people will be there who want to see you so I would appreciate it if you would be a good sport and allow us to make the rounds, as they say.”
“And what does the Moonlight Foundation do again?”
“Oh, gosh. I can barely remember. Something with babies, I think.”
“Crack babies?”

Copyright © 2010 by Christopher Rice