Summer of the Gypsy Moths (16 page)

“I guess so,” I said. But I checked and rechecked everything carefully, and I made sure that by the time we sealed up the envelope, every number was right.

 

Late that night, the phone woke me. I ignored the ringing, concentrating on listening for the rustle that meant Angel was where she should be. But when the message began to record, I shot upright. My mother's voice.

I raced out of bed and halfway down the stairs, then remembered the extension in Louise's room and ran up a couple of steps, then back down when I remembered we'd unplugged it last week. By the time I skidded into the kitchen, the phone was silent and blinking. I hit play and knelt beside the machine.

“Happy birthday, baby, it's Mom! I can't believe you're twelve…. I feel ancient! I've got a present you're going to love. Well, I guess you're out celebrating with Louise, so I'll talk to you on Saturday. I miss you. Bye!”

I played the message three times. “Happy birthday, baby…. I'll talk to you on Saturday.” As if she had remembered to call every week. I was just about to erase it, but then I thought about how much I had changed and how much Angel had changed. Maybe my mother had changed, too. It was important to stay positive. My mother could change, too.

F
riday was hot again, although clear, not sticky. The renters all pulled out early again, and I headed out to check on my blueberry bushes. Even with the heat, they were looking really good now. In just one week they'd popped out new green leaves and were sprinkled with berries that were actually turning blue.

After I'd weeded in the garden for a while, I went inside to ask Angel if she wanted to come with me to the beach—try a quick swimming lesson. She just rolled her eyes and turned the fan up to high and flipped on the television.

“Today's the day. That Lorraine M. person will probably
call when Louise doesn't show up,” I reminded her. “Let the machine get it, or give her some story.”

By noon, I was floating on my back, rocking in the cool waves, thinking about what I should tell my mother when she called the next day. Whatever it took, I needed to get her here so George could meet her. The parenting courses were a couple of weeks long, I remembered, so she needed to come back by the middle of August anyway, but I wanted her back sooner. Maybe Mrs. Marino had been wrong about not pressing her. Maybe it was exactly what she needed.

I thrashed upright with a gasp, swallowing salt water, when it hit me.

Mrs. Marino's first name was Lorraine. I'd seen it on her desk once—Lorraine Marino.
Lorraine M.

I grabbed my stuff and raced home. A red car was parked behind Louise's, the engine still ticking.

I hurried inside. She was there, standing with Angel. I went weak all over, as if my strength had leaked out through the soles of my feet.

“Remember Mrs. Marino, from Family Services?” Angel asked, a fake smile plastered over her face, which was sand-dollar white. “I was just explaining to her that Louise must have forgotten she was coming.”

“We've had this visit scheduled for a month,” Mrs. Marino said.

“There was an emergency,” Angel said. “Her niece called, all hysterical. Louise went to give her some advice. She's the heart of the town, you know. Everybody comes to her with their problems.”

“Does she have a cell phone?” Mrs. Marino interrupted.

“No, she doesn't like them,” I answered.

This part was true anyway. “Why would I want to give people a way to bother me when I don't want to be bothered?” were her exact words on the subject.

“Does she leave you alone often?” Mrs. Marino pulled out a notebook and jotted something down. I figured it wasn't a good report about Louise.

“No,” I said. “Besides, we're old enough. I'm twelve now. And she remembered my birthday. She just forgot this one thing.”

“Mrs. Marino, would you like some coffee cake? There's some in the freezer. Louise is always prepared,” Angel said, flashing her a lot of teeth.

“Or some of my birthday cake?” I added. “It's delicious.”

The Family Services woman looked confused for a minute, as if she knew she was being sidetracked but she couldn't see exactly where. “Well, that would be nice. You girls could tell me how you're getting along.”

She sat at the table, and I plowed through the mail basket
for my mom's postcard while Angel got some dishes out. It was still there, tucked into the Humane Society brochure. I held it out. “My mom's been in touch a lot. See? She's getting a job. She's going to be back soon for those classes, of course.”

Angel carried over my cake and set it on the table. I caught Mrs. Marino's face when she got a look at it with its lopsided layers and runny middle and twelve matches for candles. “Oh, on second thought…,” she said, back-pedaling.

And something snapped. “This is a
beautiful
cake,” I told her. “This is the best cake anyone's ever made me.”

“Oh, well of course it is…. She took the time to make a cake for you. That means a lot.”

“Yes it does,” I said, sliding a quick look at Angel. “It means a lot when someone makes you a cake. So you should be reporting that in your notebook, not anything bad about Louise.”

Mrs. Marino set her jaw and didn't answer. “We'll have to reschedule this.” She thumbed through her notebook. “The thirtieth would work for me, in the afternoon. I'll give her a call Monday to confirm.”

She left, and Angel and I sank to the kitchen chairs, our heads in our hands, our backs rivered with sweat that was only partly from the heat. When we could breathe
normally, I looked across at Angel.

Stop, Access, Think. “Emergency meeting, Angel,” I said. “What are we going to do? The thirtieth's not for a week and a half. Can we stay? Do you still want to? We have to decide this together—equal votes, remember?”

Angel got up and propped the refrigerator door open. The cool air helped calm my panic. She turned to me. “My aunt's got a job cleaning. She doesn't have an apartment yet. But soon.”

“What about the money? Do you have enough?”

Angel got up and counted it. “About two hundred thirty now, with this week's babysitting. Maybe another sixty in tips tomorrow.” Angel calculated. “A hundred forty-five each. Almost halfway there.”

“What do you need it for, anyway?” I asked. Not that I expected Angel would actually tell me.

She went over and stuck her head in the freezer. Then she turned to me, raising her arms to chill them in the cold air streaming out. It reminded me of how she'd made the birds lift on the beach. How she always half wished they would take her with them.

“My mother had a guitar,” she said. “A fado guitar, called a Coimbra, made in Portugal. Very beautiful, very valuable. It got broken in the crash that…” Angel took Louise's coffee cake out and pressed it to her forehead with
her eyes closed. Then she put it back and started again. “She was coming home from singing. She'd stopped at the market, and she had a bag of groceries on the seat beside her. It was so weird—the groceries didn't even spill. There were eggs in the bag. She was going to dye them for my first Easter. Not a single egg was broken.

“When I was little, everyone told me that story, like it was supposed to mean something. ‘The eggs were fine! But the neck of her guitar was broken! And she was…' I don't think it meant anything, and I just wanted them all to shut up about the stupid eggs. But I need to have that guitar fixed. There's a man in Lisbon who can do it. He's going to charge me two hundred dollars, but I have to pack it a special way in a crate he's going to build and ship over here. Then it gets shipped to him to fix, then shipped back…. It's three hundred fifty dollars for everything.” She took a long breath and blew it out in a cloud into the freezer. She shut the door. “My mother's guitar is broken. It was really special to her. I need to fix it.”

Of course, I knew what I should say to her. I knew I should tell her what George had told me about broken things. I knew I should tell her that she didn't have to fix that guitar, because it told a story. But I didn't, because I realized that if she didn't want the money anymore, she might leave. My heart cramped up, and I didn't tell
her what I should have.

“I think we can make it two more changeovers,” I said. “There should be enough money then—you can take three hundred fifty and I'll take what's left. And I will get my mother here by then, so George can meet her and see that she could take Louise's job here.”

“Why don't you just tell him about her?”

For a minute, I didn't know how to explain it. Then my eyes landed on the Humane Society brochure that was still on the table. I handed it to Angel. “Do you think George would have Treb now if he'd just seen his picture in here?”

“What are you talking about? No. You heard the story.”

“See, I don't think so either. I think he had to meet Treb to see what a great dog he was. To even get the idea he might want a dog.” I folded the flyer, so I didn't have to look at those sad puppy eyes. “George needs to meet my mother, too. I'll get her here next week.”

 

That night, the moon rose in a clear sky, flooding my room with a silver glow, as if something magical was about to happen. It was almost full, reminding me that Louise had died exactly four weeks ago. I went over the things that had happened since then. All the things that had changed. It seemed something was missing—not in an alarm-bells way, just missing. I lay quietly listening for Angel's sleeping
sounds and thinking that in a week or so I'd be listening for the little whimper that meant my mom was there, instead.

And that's when I figured out what was missing: For the first time, I didn't hear the gypsy moth caterpillars chewing. That meant they were in their pupae now, growing their wings. In a couple of weeks, they'd emerge. They'd be gypsy moths.

George had called them pests. So had Louise's gardening magazines. I had hated them. But really, what had they done that was so wrong? They'd fed on the leaves in the dark of the night, until they were able to fly.

You had to admire them for that. They did what they needed to do, in the dark so nobody would bother them, getting ready for their big adventure of becoming moths.

I suddenly knew I wasn't going to sleep until I had tried something. I got up and tugged on some clothes. Then I hurried down the stairs and outside, the screen door slapping behind me like a clap of applause.

As I reached the path, I heard a window scrape open.

“Where are you going?” Angel called down.

“It's dark. It's an outgoing tide,” I said. “It's something I need to do. Go back to bed.”

And then I took off down the path, making my way by the light of the moon. Past the brambles, over the rough turf, down the road to the parking lot. I didn't stop until I
got to the head of the beach.

I stood there for what was probably only five minutes but felt like forever. The sky was a vast black bowl, filled with millions of glittering stars. I was what my father had named me now: Stella by Starlight.

Right there, I decided something—someday I would find my father. I would make my mother tell me his name, and I would find him and I would tell him about this night when I was what he named me. I peeled off my clothes and walked to the shoreline.

I heard a voice from the top of the dunes. “Stop! Don't do it! Well, whatever
it
is you're doing. What are you doing, anyway?”

Angel came down to the beach, a blanket around her pajamas.

I laughed. “I'm breaking some rules, Angel. Turning into a moth.” I walked out into the water then, keeping my back to the waves, deeper and deeper, until I was up to my chest. Water is different at night. Better. Softer and more mysterious. I plunged under and rose up.

“Look!” Angel cried, pointing at me.

I looked down. My shoulders streamed with green glowing water, and two neon rivers poured off my arms. When I spun around to see behind me, my hair sprayed an arc of emeralds.

“Oh, my father told me about this!” Angel ran down to the water's edge. “Once in a while, when the water's warm enough, this phosphorescent plankton rides in on the Gulf Stream.” She stepped out of her pajamas and walked in a few feet, bending over to ripple her arms through the water, which lit up as though electric.

Angel came out as far as her waist, and I came in to meet her. The water glowed on our bodies and ran from us like liquid fireflies as we splashed. It was enough to make me wonder about everything I'd thought was true—I'd let go of my rules, and here we were, glowing in the ocean! If Angel and I could glow, what else could we do? Beside us, the waves flashed as they hit the jetty.

“Angel,” I said. “Take a deep breath and fill your lungs, then fall back. I'll catch you. Fall back.”

“I can't,” Angel said.

“You can. I'll catch you.”

“You swear?”

“I swear.”

Angel fell back and I caught her shoulders. “Now arms out, and relax. You're floating.” Gradually, I pulled away until I was supporting her with only one finger under each shoulder blade. And then I let go. “Swimming lesson number one. Gold star.”

Afterward, we climbed onto the jetty. Angel was quiet
for a while, wringing the seawater from her hair, facing the horizon, where the moon lit a silver path.

I knew what she was thinking about. “I think your father was a hero,” I said. “He made sure everyone else was safe.”

She turned back to me, wiping something from her eyes. “He couldn't swim. He died less than a mile from shore. He could probably see it. It was September, the water was warm, he should have been fine. Except he couldn't swim. So stupid!”

“But he was a fisherman.”

“Portuguese fishermen don't learn. It's a
fado
thing—if you fall overboard, it's your destiny to drown.”

“I guess you're right,” I said after a long moment. “I guess I can't understand
fado
.”

Angel was quiet for a long moment also. “Maybe I don't understand it, either.”