Lovers’ Moon
by Erik Svehaug
All through kindergarten, I’d kept to myself, mostly missing my mom. My dad seemed happier with my two older brothers, all of them being boys, so I didn’t really have any friends. In first grade, Jess hung back when we chose our reading books, picture books really. She said: “Have you read The Hungry Caterpillar?” which meant “I am not afraid of your pain and you are okay.”
She saw I liked to eat lunch alone near the pasture alongside the building. “Hi, Sally. I brought chips” meant “I see you, and want to be near you.” We slipped into closeness.
Soon, we completed each other’s sentences and later forged notes for each other’s sick days. I climbed out of my bedroom window when I knew my dad was asleep. She could walk right out her front door while her mom was passed out on the couch.
With friendship, we became fearless. In sixth grade, we coughed and hacked our way through a pack of cigarettes. By middle school, we sneaked into the drive-in, stole booze from the cabinet, hitchhiked out to the lake. We were in Orchestra together. She played the piano, and I played the violin.
When our ninth-grade class was done with its American Sable rabbit, we adopted the pet together. That led to 4-H, with boots and hats and hay in our pockets, and we loved it. Sybil the Sable rabbit was a hit, since she was cuddly and beautiful. She won ribbons within the first month.
Soon, Jess was teaching piano to some of the littlest kids at the club and I was organizing potlucks. They liked us because we were sassy and pretty and carefree. We decided to set up a talent show, and I got permission to use the big 4-H building.
“Make me cry,” Jess said about my violin solo to come and kissed my cheek. Then she took her seat off to the side, and I mounted the steps to the stage.
I welcomed the crowd of folks to our little corn feed and show and tried to talk slowly so my eyes had time to travel all the faces spread out in the horse arena, everybody sitting on hay bales for $2.50 each. The tumble of conversations wouldn’t stop till the music started.
I introduced Tony pounding on his guitar, then Pete juggling baseballs and basketballs. He managed to knock over my music stand.
My turn was coming.
I suddenly got scared to show an arena full of onlookers what I enjoy doing in private. I stepped up but couldn’t find my bow. It wasn’t on the stand. Panic grabbed and shook me like a rat in its teeth. My purple glitter nails looked stupid. I tried not to look awkward while my eyes roved the floor, mottled in light and shadows. Then, I realized I could call a distraction. I made sweet Jess come up on the stage for her Scott Joplin recital using the upright. She did “The Entertainer” and got cheers.
I announced a break for 15 minutes. Behind the curtain, I searched the entire stage for the bow.
Would anyone want to take it? I climbed down one of the ladders in the big Escher-like barn, reasoning that it might have fallen way down. I placed each booted foot carefully on the rung below to avoid stepping on the hem of my long denim skirt.
The rungs were solid and reassuring. Warm air moved up the ladder shaft into the skirt and made my cheeks glow.
Down under, Randy, the building manager, was warning the two bare-chested stall muckers to clean up their language. The insults they had been directing at each other they now directed at him. When he left, they silently forked straw and horse apples into a cart, straw bits and ammonia sachet filling the air.
I perched on the rungs above them, like a curious parrot. I said: “You better put your shirts on, too. Not everyone wants to see you naked.” They were probably both in their twenties and had shaved their heads. The one who looked better bald looked up at me and shook his head slightly.
The other dropped his fork and jumped onto a slab bench in the stall, reached up with both hands and grabbed a ceiling rafter. He began to do chin-ups, his muscles bulging, sweat shining.
Then I saw his feet were hooked under the bench, lifting it, lowering it.
The first worker pitched his fork and grabbed a rafter in his stall with his right hand, left hand squeezing his right wrist. He began to snap up and down, chin to beam, faster and faster.
I quietly returned up the ladder, while they worked it out, eyeing each other, waiting for weakness. Some girls would have stayed for the outcome.
I went up the ladder into the dark to look again at our makeshift stage and maybe find a flashlight. At the landing, I stepped off toward a dim light. I felt a lump underfoot and picked it up. In hazy light, I saw my bow with its fuzzy white strands, the little mother of pearl shining in the grip.
Still in the half light, I retrieved my violin. I played a scale quietly, making sure nothing was broken. Uncertain, I played a little louder, until I had some nice round notes, plump and playful as any I had managed before. When I finished, applause broke out behind me, and the lights came up as I turned. The curtains had been pulled to the side, still swaying, and Jess and the little crew of volunteers were clapping and urging me to play another. The audience was gathering.
My mind was empty of the tunes I had prepared.
“Lovers’ Moon,” whispered Jess from the wing, which meant, “You are my one and only.” After a pause, it finally came to me, too. She was my one and only.
Things went very well from there.
Copyright © 2021 by Erik Svehaug
