Waking the Moon

something—something to reimburse you for your time?”

Justine dropped her arms, staring at Annie with those huge black eyes, and burst into laughter. “Pay me! No way, girl—”

“Aw, Justine, you made all those overseas phone calls! I know this was more trouble than you thought—”

Justine grabbed Annie by the chin. “Cherie! You and Helen are both my friends. Just remember me when you’re rich and famous— really rich, and really famous.

“Besides,” she said, letting go of Annie’s chin and leaning down to kiss her noisily on the cheek, “I charged those calls to a client. And—”

She laughed again, swinging her vinyl bag through the hazy air. “You could never afford me, girlfriend.”

“Justine…” Annie took her hand and squeezed it. “I can’t thank you enough. Really.”

Justine nodded. “I know.” She clattered down the steps, stopped and looked back. “It is sad about Jose Malabar, uh? I will miss his columns in the Beacon.”

“Me too,” Annie sighed. “Me fucking too.”

Justine sauntered off, and Annie waved sadly after her. When the tall silhouette disappeared into the shadows at river’s edge, Annie hitched her knapsack over her shoulder and began walking away from the Javits Center. At the corner she hailed a cab.

“Penn Station,” she said, and slumped into the seat. As the taxi careened in and out of traffic she took out the paper Justine had given her and studied it again, finally put it aside and rummaged through her restaurant chits and airline stubs until she found a tattered Amtrak schedule.

TRAIN # 177 THE SENATOR DAILY/WEEKENDS DEPART PENN STATION 9:45 P.M. ARRIVE UNION STATION, D.C. 1:13 A.M.

“Well,” she said softly to herself. Looks like old home week for the archangels.

At Penn Station she paid for her ticket in cash—Helen had her credit cards—found a liquor store and bought a bottle of Pernod, because she remembered that was what her college friends used to drink. At 7:55 she boarded the train and collapsed into a seat. She took out a narrow sheaf of twenties—half of what remained of her cash— and stuck it in her right sneaker. Then she, Annie Harmon, who never, ever drank, spent the next few hours choking down Pernod until she finally passed out, somewhere around Wilmington, Delaware. She didn’t wake up until they pulled into Union Station, an hour later than the Senator’s scheduled arrival time and much too late for the Metro to still be running. The few other passengers trudged to where a handful of BMWs and Audis and Volvo wagons were waiting for them. Annie brought up the end of the parade, stumbling a little.

When she got outside she looked around blearily. It had been a few years since she’d been in D.C. It was like getting that first whiff of ocean air: just one deep breath and it all came back to her, the swampy heat and soot and honeysuckle, the sound of traffic a few blocks away in the old riot corridor and an ambulance wailing along North Capitol Street.

“Great,” she muttered. At least they’d cleaned up Union Station.

A solitary cab was parked beside the curb in front of the station.

“I guess I need to find someplace that’s still open,” Annie announced thickly to the driver as she slid into the backseat. “I mean a hotel or something. There a Day’s Inn around here?”

The engine started with a thrumming roar. “I’ll take care of you, young lady, now don’t you worry,” the driver said in a deep, oddly comforting voice. Annie winced. She must sound like a hick. A drunken hick; this guy would never believe she’d lived here once. She stared defiantly at the back of his head, trying to remember the name of some other hotel, but her brain felt damp and empty. “Don’t you worry at all.”

“Yeah, okay.” Annie glanced at his medallion, just in case he tried to overcharge her. Yellow Cab Number 393: easy enough to remember. “Maybe the Phoenix, then. Or the Tiber Creek…”

The taxi swung out into the empty traffic circle, with its carefully arranged plantings of red, white, and blue petunias. Annie thought of how she should have called Helen, let her know she was coming down here, but then Helen would just worry. Fuck it, Helen would worry no matter what. And Annie’s lover was right, the cloak-and-dagger stuff was getting old. Their money was running low, people were starting to wonder where she was; Labrys had started calling about getting her back into the studio.

And it was probably a really stupid idea to come down here to D.C., especially since Annie didn’t have a number or address or anything for Sweeney Cassidy. She wasn’t even certain that Sweeney still lived here, although she was pretty sure Baby Joe had told her that she did; and even if she did find Sweeney, it might be too late to stop Angelica’s little game of Ten Little College Friends…

Somehow, somewhere between Union Station and the Old Executive Office Building, Annie must have fallen asleep. Because the next thing she knew, she was being helped gently from the cab’s backseat and led into the softly glowing lobby of the Hay-Adams, which was not anyplace she ordinarily would have been caught dead in, not to mention being a place neither she nor Labrys Music could possibly afford.

“Hey,” Annie mumbled. “This is—maybe I just better—”

But before she could say anything else, or even really wake up, she was in an elevator, and then she was in a richly carpeted hallway, and stumbling into a room; and then she was lying on a bed fully clothed with a warm blanket pulled up around her chin against the arctic air-conditioning, and there were voices whispering, and someone saying, “Of course, we understand,” and finally the sound of a door closing and blissful, peaceful silence.

When she woke up it was late morning. The phone was ringing to inform her that checkout time was noon.

“Unless you’ll be staying another night?” The voice on the other end suggested.

Annie shook her head, dazed. “Huh? Oh—no, I mean, I think there’s been a mistake. I—”

“Your bill’s already been taken care of. Just leave your key at the front desk as you depart.”

“What?” But the voice had already rung off.

She was still wearing the fatigues and sleeveless flannel shirt she’d had on last night; the same clothes she’d had on for several days, including her sneakers. She was too confused and hung over to feel panicky yet, but she figured she should get out of here fast, before someone figured out there’d been a mistake.

Although maybe there’s time for a quick shower, she thought, gazing wistfully to where the bathroom door was cracked open. She tried to stand, had to pause and give her head a chance to stop reeling. How do people drink?

After her shower she felt better. She found her knapsack set carefully on a mahogany table, beside a brass lamp. Next to it was a message pad printed with a nice engraving of the Hay-Adams Hotel, circa 1923. She stared at the pad curiously, suddenly grabbed it.

“What the hell?”

Bold black letters marched across the paper where someone had written a message in Magic Marker. Annie’s hands began to tremble as she read.

KATHERINE CASSIDY

19A NINTH STREET NE

547-8903

Compliments of a friend and Handsome Brown.

So the summer passed. And in spite of the dreadful heat, the rumors of imminent disaster at the museum, and the usual threats of gang violence, random shootings, environmental cataclysm, and inflation, I was happier than I had ever been in my life.

If you had asked me what I was most afraid of, it wouldn’t have been any of those awful things. It would have been that Dylan would wake up one morning and suddenly remember that he was only eighteen and I was