Last Summer at Mars Hill Read Free Page B

But usually there was no warning. If he closed his eyes while looking at Them, Their image still appeared on the cloudy scrim of his inner eye, like gilded tears. But that was all. No voices, no scent of rose petals, no rapping at the door. You felt better after seeing Them, the way you felt better after seeing a rainbow or an eagle above the Bay. But there was nothing really magical about Them, except the fact that They existed at all. They never spoke, or did anything special, at least nothing you could sense. They were just there ; but Their presence meant everything at Mars Hill.
    They were there now: flickering above the altar, sending blots of gold dancing across the limp flowers and faded photograph. He wanted to point Them out to Moony, but he’d tried before and she’d gotten mad at him.
    “You think I’m some kind of idiot like my mother?” she’d stormed, sweeping that day’s offering of irises from the altar onto the floor. “Give me a break, Jason!”
    Okay, I gave you a break, he thought now. Now I’ll give you another.
    Look, Moony, there They are! he thought, then said, “Moony. Look—”
    He pointed, shrugging his shoulder so she’d have to move. But already They were gone.
    “What?” Moony murmured. He shook his head, sighing.
    “That picture,” he said, and fumbled at his pocket for his cigarettes. “That stupid old picture that Diana took. Can you believe it’s still here?”
    Moony lifted her head and rubbed her eyes, red and swollen. “Oh, I can believe anything,” she said bitterly, and filled her mug with more coffee.
    In Martin Dionysos’s kitchen, Ariel drank a cup of nettle tea and watched avidly as her friend ate a bowl of mung bean sprouts and nutritional yeast. Just like in Annie Hall, she thought. Amazing.
    “So now she knows and you’re surprised she’s pissed at you.” Martin raised another forkful of sprouts to his mouth, angling delicately to keep any from falling to the floor. He raised one blond eyebrow as he chewed, looking like some hardscrabble New Englander’s idea of Satan, California surfer boy gone to seed. Long gray-blond hair that was thinner than it had been a year ago, skin that wasn’t so much tanned as an even pale bronze, with that little goatee and those piercing blue eyes, the same color as the Bay stretching outside the window behind him. Oh, yes: and a gold hoop earring and a heart tattoo that enclosed the name JOHN and a T-shirt with the pink triangle and SILENCE=DEATH printed in stern block letters. Satan on vacation.
    “I’m not surprised ,” Ariel said, a little crossly. “I’m just, mmm, disappointed. That she got so upset.”
    Martin’s other eyebrow arched. “ Disappointed ? As in, ‘Moony, darling, I have breast cancer (which I have kept a secret from you for seven months) and I am very disappointed that you are not self-actualized enough to deal with this without falling to pieces’?”
    “She didn’t fall to pieces.” Ariel’s crossness went over the line into full-blown annoyance. She frowned and jabbed a spoon into her tea. “I wish she’d fall to pieces, she’s always so—” She waved the hand holding the spoon, sending green droplets raining onto Martin’s knee. “—so something .”
    “Self-assured?”
    “I guess. Self-assured and smug, you know? Why is it teenagers are always so fucking smug?”
    “Because they share a great secret,” Martin said mildly, and took another bite of sprouts.
    “Oh, yeah? What’s that?”
    “Their parents are all assholes.”
    Ariel snorted with laughter, leaned forward to get her teacup out of the danger zone and onto the table. “Oh, Martin,” she said. Suddenly her eyes were filled with tears. “Damn it all to hell… ”
    Martin put his bowl on the table and stepped over to take her in his arms. He didn’t say anything, and for a moment Ariel flashed back to the previous spring, the same tableau only in reverse, with her holding Martin while he sobbed uncontrollably