Envious Moon Read Free Page A

on. Occasionally someone or other would drift into the room and look at the leather-bound books on the wall, or sit in the big chairs and talk in hushed whispers, hiding their words from Victor who would pretend not to listen. And then, for a while, Victor was all alone. He could hear voices from the other room and once O’Brien poked his head in but that was it. So he did one of those impulsive things that people will do when left alone in someone else’s house. He lifted the corner of the Persian rug that covered most of the parquet floor. He told me he didn’t know exactly why he did it; he thought that perhaps he wanted to see if the wood was a different color as a result of being protected by the rug. Regardless, what he saw when he lifted the rug was dust mostly, but then some five or six feet in, was an envelope that appeared to be overflowing with green bills.
    Victor dropped the rug. He looked around and waited for someone to come back into the room. A full ten minutes passed and then the door opened and an elderly couple came in and sat down in the big chairs in front of the fireplace. They made themselves comfortable and Victor gave up hope of being able to lift the rug again.
    When Victor told me this, I stopped him. “Tell me about it again,” I said.
    â€œTell you what,” Victor said.
    â€œThe whole thing,” I said, and Victor sighed for I was always making him say things twice. But he was a good sport and started from the beginning and when he reached the part about the money, I said, “You sure it was money.”
    â€œOf course, I’m sure. It was money. Tons of it.”
    â€œWhy didn’t you grab it?”
    â€œBecause I thought someone was going to come in.”
    â€œAnd did someone?”
    â€œWell, that couple. Then O’Brien. He was just talking about how fucking rich these people were. Over and over.”
    I said, “I think I would’ve grabbed it.” Though the truth was I didn’t know if this was true or not. Chances are I would have done exactly what Victor did.
    â€œI should’ve,” Victor said, and then he told me that the house was empty now, but that all the things were still inside, which meant that the money was there, under the rug. I asked him how he knew this and he said he heard some of the caterers talking and they said it would be six months before the place was cleaned out. We talked about how the woman had lived alone and had no family. How there was no one for that money to go to. And once we reached this point in the conversation, I think we both knew what we were going to do. We had always been good kids and had opportunities to not be and had not taken them. But it was the summer and we were best friends and sometimes when you’re young like that you’ll do things together that you won’t do by yourself. Victor said the house would be open.
    â€œHow do you know that?” I asked.
    He shrugged. “It’s on the island. It’s only rich people. Why would they lock it?”
    â€œThat makes sense,” I said, and we were walking down the road now, down the road toward doing this thing, in our minds anyway. We began to joke about what we would do with all that money, and talking about how much there actually was. The more we talked about it, the more money there was. Enough money to pay for four years of college. Plus, anything else we wanted to do. We joked about how I would go to college and Victor could come live with me. Then after I would be a lawyer or something and we could share a big house together. Have lots of girls. It seemed so easy. We would ride my skiff out to the island at night and sneak into the house. Find the money. And I wasn’t only thinking of myself. I thought too of my mother, of Berta, who cooked in a hot kitchen all day and who, at night, moaned in bed because her back hurt so bad. And I think it probably hurt even more than she let on, for the