The Pull of the Moon_ A Novel - By Elizabeth Berg Page 0,4

what are we doing? Why are we doing this? Martin will be moving against me, moaning a little, and I’ll be thinking, I need to clean that oven.

When we’re through, we’ll go down to the kitchen for a snack, and I’ll think, this is how we are most affectionate, when we stand hip to hip spreading mustard on bread, feeding each other bites of Swiss cheese and smoked ham. Why not skip the other part?

Well, it’s time to go to wherever I’m going. But I have to do something first—a favor. This morning, I went for breakfast in the motel dining room and the waiter began rather suddenly talking about angels. I had mentioned the moon because it had still been out, that wispy kind of disappearing moon, a blue-white color—and he said, oh are you a moon person? I had no idea what that meant, really, and yet I answered, yes I was. And he said he was too, and that also he was an angel person. I said is that right, and I was waiting for him to ask what I wanted, which was French toast, but he didn’t. He kept talking about how angels were such a strong feminine presence in his life and that the moon was feminine too, of course. I began looking around a bit to see if anyone else thought he was a little crazy, but then I thought, well, I’m not in a hurry. It’s not a bad thing to talk about angels.

I remembered when Martin and I went to Paris and we were in a very small restaurant, maybe four tables, and the waiter there began to tell us about his wife learning to ride a bicycle at age thirty-eight—he spoke wonderful English—but Martin made the tiniest movement with his wrist and the waiter saw, and knew, and stopped talking about his wife and told us about the specials. I was sad about that, I’d been interested in him, a French person telling a French story. I’d thought, I’ll bet if I were here alone, he’d have told me a lot about his family, about himself. As it was, I felt that Martin was in charge, that the city belonged to him and he was letting me hold on to one edge of it like I held onto his hand. Like the young children I saw out on a field trip one day holding on to a rope.

But anyway, my waiter told me how he saw angels in dreams and they never spoke but it seemed to him they were getting ready to, and then he all of a sudden remembered what he was supposed to be doing and he asked me what would I like. And I said, French toast, which seemed so mundane, considering, and he said, oh that was a good choice, that was his favorite. And I said, well why didn’t he join me, apparently I was the only one in his station. He got this look, and he played around nervously with his collar and then he said well he’d love to. And he came out with two platters of thick-cut French toast—extra-large servings, he said, winking—and he sat down with me and tucked his napkin into the neck of his shirt and then—why not?—I did the same and we began eating with some relish. And then the manager came over and said, “Lawrence, what do you think you’re doing?” And there was this awful stillness, the couple across the room holding their forks midair. I started to say something and the manager—so young, actually impressed with himself—said, no no, I’m asking Lawrence. And Lawrence said, why, he was eating breakfast. And after a moment the manager said he was fired. Right now. I said, wait a minute, I asked him to join me, he didn’t have any other customers. I was getting kind of excited like when a good fight starts. Lawrence said no, it was his fault, he’s always had trouble with boundaries. He asked would I mind giving him a ride home, though, he didn’t have a car, he’d never had one because he didn’t understand how they worked. I said, well you don’t have to understand how they work to drive one. He said, how can you just assume such amazing things, get behind the wheel trusting your life to this car not knowing anything about it. I said, well, you fly don’t you? and he said yes but that he understood