Love Over Moon Street

  Love Over Moon Street by Saxon Bennett

  This is a work of fiction; names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Published by Square Pegs Ink

  Text copyright © Saxon Bennett

  All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without the author's permission.

  Chapter One

  Sparky and the Eye-Biter

  Sparky McAlester stood in her open doorway and stared.

  “What are you looking at?” the woman there said, not being snotty about it, but putting one hand on her hip and staring back with interest. Her other hand was holding a macaroni casserole or what appeared to be one. Sparky wasn’t sure.

  “Your hair,” Sparky said.

  “Oh, that. I’m in the process of highlighting. I’m aiming for magenta, but I really think it’s going to be more of a purple with magenta overtones. It turns out different every time.”

  She had her hair wrapped in tinfoil strips with purplish goo smeared over the top two inches of protruding hair. She looked like a sci-fi Medusa. She was also wearing striped black and white leggings, a yellow vinyl miniskirt and a black T-shirt with an accordion logo on the front.

  The woman now stared at Sparky. “Epic Sonic Ouch. What happened to your eye? Or maybe a better question would be, who did that to your eye?”

  Sparky stuck her hands in her back pockets and suffered an existential crisis. She could dig into the myriad pile of implausible happenings that could have produced such an odd and unlikely injury, or she could admit what happened. She wasn’t ready for the why, but she could do the who.

  “Not saying? Or is this going to be the old ‘I walked into a door’ thing? Or you could just tell me to piss off and mind my own business,” the woman said.

  “My girlfriend, my ex-girlfriend, bit it.”

  “That’s good.”

  Sparky was confused. “Good that my girlfriend bit my eye?”

  “No, good that she’s your ex-girlfriend.”

  “Oh,” Sparky said.

  “I brought you dinner since I figured you wouldn’t be in the mood for cooking, or if you were you would have to unpack all your kitchen boxes to find cookware, which would also be a drag.” She appeared to think about this. “I’ll have to get you a plate and some silverware.”

  She was about to dash off before Sparky said, “But who are you?”

  “I’m your neighbor. Lexus Lewis at your service.” She thrust the casserole dish at Sparky, who grabbed it before it dropped to the floor.

  “Lexus? Like the car?” Sparky said.

  “Yeah, I live downstairs in Apartment Number 1 with my girlfriend. Her name’s Chevrolet.”

  Sparky stood dumbfounded. “Really?”

  Lexus smirked. “No, silly. I’m kidding. Her name is Cheryl. I just wanted to welcome you to Moon Street on the part of all the Moonies. I’m like the Welcome Wagon.”

  “Moonies?” Sparky hoped she hadn’t moved into some kind of commune situation. She’d gotten the apartment because she was handy. Her uncle’s friend, Mr. Agassiz, wanted her to fix up one of the other apartments and do some light maintenance on the rest. She’d get free rent in exchange—a perfect arrangement for a homeless person. Sparky worked as an electrician for her Uncle Milton, but she had needed an apartment quick and this one had presented itself.

  “That’s what we call ourselves. We live on Moon Street so we’re Moonies, get it? Everything about us is special and different. Like the way the apartments are numbered. You’re in Apartment Number 2, which is on the second floor. Down the hall is Vibro in Number 3, and we live right under you on the first floor in Apartment Number 1. Down the hall from us is Apartment Number 4, which is vacant. It’s like clockwise if you start at my apartment.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Sparky said. She had given it no thought whatsoever, other than she lived in Apartment Number 2 and would be renovating Number 4. “I’m the new maintenance go-to girl.”

  “Really? How cool is that. So do we call you ‘go-to-girl,’ or do you have a name?” She raised an eyebrow and appraised her.

  “I’m Sparky McAlester.”

  “Sparky as in electricity?”

  Sparky blushed. “Actually, I am an electrician.”

  “No way! That’s super cool.”

  Sparky had never met anyone over the age of four who thought her name was cool. Her mother and father couldn’t agree on her name beforehand. After she was born, her mother had passed out from her difficult delivery. In the interim of her mother’s unconsciousness, her father named her Sparky because, as he told it, she was the sparkle of his eye. As her mother told it, he named her that so she’d be forced to become an electrician and work in the family business.

  “I’m going to get you a plate and fork. I’ll be right back,” Lexus said, and with that she was gone, leaving the door wide open.

  Lexus flew into their apartment. “Honey, didn’t we have some paper plates and forks and stuff? I swore we did.” She rummaged around in the cupboards under the kitchen island.

  Dr. Cheryl Hammond sat in her scrubs, poring over a stack of papers and groaning.

  Lexus pulled her head out of the cupboard long enough to say, “What’s wrong?” and then went back to rummaging.

  “I wish you had a penis.”

  Lexus banged her head on the counter when she popped up. “I do have one. It’s in the top drawer of the dresser and you like it.” She smiled and wiggled her eyebrows lasciviously.

  Cheryl looked up from the stack of papers she was perusing. “A real one. It would be so much easier to adopt if we were married and you were a man.”

  Lexus flipped into her best Queen Latifah, big black woman, impression and said, “Honey”—she executed a perfect neck wiggle—“Darlin’, I’d do practically anything in the world for you, but growing a penis is not one of them. Nuh uh, not today, not ever.” She waggled her finger to accentuate the point. “However, if the same-sex marriage bill goes through, I would consider marrying you.”

  Cheryl looked up, defeat written on her face. “I want a baby.”

  Lexus came over and nuzzled her neck. “I know.”

  They’d tried. Well, Cheryl had, but nothing would take. Lexus had had an endometrial ablation, so for her pregnancy wasn’t an option. This was something they didn’t talk about. The adoption circus wasn’t cutting them any favors. There were too many “normal” couples on the waiting list.

  Lexus brightened. “The universe will get us one. I can feel it. He or she is coming. We just have to be patient.”

  Cheryl stared at her, perplexed and daunted. Her lovely, flighty, brilliant girlfriend lived life like it was meant to be fun. If only Cheryl could do the same, but she saw too much. She knew working in the Emergency Room at Med Central did this to her, but it was also the place where she felt most alive—helping people in dire need of help. Maybe she’d been a Mother Teresa kind of person in one of her previous lifetimes and she couldn’t get her reincarnations out of the service loop. Perhaps the ER was her final loop and next time she’d live in Candy Land with Lexus, who most likely would continue to pogo stick her way through the universe.

  “And you know this because?”

  “Because I believe. You keep focusing on how hard this is.” Lexus pointed at the paperwork. “While I am manifesting. We could always get a puppy. Do you know where the plastic cutlery got off to?”

  “I took the rest of it to work. We needed it for Gertie’s baby shower.” The recollection plunged Cheryl de
eper down the rabbit hole of depression.

  “Don’t go there,” Lexus said.

  Cheryl sighed. Lexus was right, of course. Being blue didn’t help anything. “What do you need it for?”

  “I made Sparky a macaroni casserole, only I forgot she might need something to eat it with. It doesn’t look like she was having a good day, what with her eye and all.”

  “Who is Sparky?”

  “She’s our new neighbor and she is also the maintenance person. She just moved into Number 2 upstairs.”

  “What’s wrong with her eye?”

  “Her girlfriend bit it.”

  “What?”

  “Well, her ex-girlfriend, actually.” Lexus gave up on paper plates and plastic cutlery and got a plate and silverware from the cupboard and drawer.

  “Bit her eye?” Cheryl said.

  “Yeah, it looks like it hurts.”

  “Did she go to the doctor?”

  “I don’t know. She doesn’t look like the doctor-going type, but I’ll ask her. Be right back.” Lexus darted upstairs, leaving the door to the apartment open.

  Cheryl didn’t ask what a doctor-going type looked like.

  * * *

  Lexus knocked on Sparky’s door.

  “Who is it?” Sparky said, her heart pounding. Wesson couldn’t have found her already, could she? Then she remembered Lexus.

  “Not the Eye-Biter.”

  Apparently she wasn’t the only one thinking about the Eye-Biter, Sparky mused, taking a deep breath. “Be right there.”

  Sparky opened the door and stood there holding a potted plant with a red bow attached. She was still undecided as to what to do with it.

  “What’s that?” Lexus asked.

  “It’s a plant.”

  “I know that. But why are you holding it? And why does it have a bow on it? Did someone give it to you?”

  Sparky was surprised—both by Lexus’s ability to assess the situation and the fact that someone had given her a plant.

  “I don’t know where to put it, and someone named Jennifer gave it to me while you were gone. She was extremely friendly. She gave me her phone number.” After Jennifer gave her the plant Sparky had shut the door to discourage any more visitors.

  “Oh, you met the Babylonian. She lives with her girlfriend in Apartment Number 3.”

  “The Babylonian?”

  “Did you have a doctor look at your eye?” Lexus said, peering at it.

  “No.”

  “I told you she wasn’t the doctor-going type,” Lexus yelled, apparently trying to communicate with someone on the floor below.

  There was no immediate reply.

  “I told Cheryl about your eye. I hope you don’t mind, but she is a doctor and you know how they are—she got all curious and stuff. Just wait, she’ll come up in a minute.” Lexus held her finger to her lips.

  “Tell her she should have” came the answer. There was the sound of some scuffling around, and then a woman dressed in magenta scrubs and carrying a black kit bag came upstairs. “Are you going to go see one?” Cheryl asked.

  “I hadn’t planned on it,” Sparky said.

  Lexus pushed past her into the apartment, set the plate and cutlery on the kitchen bar and took the plant out of her hands. Cheryl gave Sparky a perturbed look. “Will you let me look at it?”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  “Not really. Now that I’ve seen your eye, I am obliged by the Hippocratic Oath to render aid.”

  From the depths of the apartment, Lexus called. “Do you have any furniture?”

  “Not yet,” Sparky said over her shoulder.

  “Because?” Lexus said.

  “The Eye-Biter is holding my stuff hostage.”

  “So that’s why you have exactly four belongings: a sleeping bag, a suitcase, a lava lamp and a skateboard?”

  “Would you like to come in?” Sparky said, feeling awkward that Cheryl was standing in the hall.

  “What I’d like to do is look at your eye.”

  “Sure. That’s probably a good idea.”

  Lexus was still holding the plant. “I see where you might have a problem with placement, seeing as you don’t have any furniture. Let’s go to IKEA tomorrow. I have a friend who’ll get us a discount.” She set the plant on the kitchen bar next to the dinner plate and the macaroni casserole.

  “Lexus, there might be monetary constraints involved.”

  “That’s what credit cards are for,” Lexus said, with all the fiscal responsibility of Wilma and Betty in The Flintstones prior to a shopping spree.

  “She’s right,” Sparky said. “I also have my emergency account.”

  “Did you keep it stashed in a coffee can in the attic?” Lexus asked.

  “Actually, I concealed it in the bottom of my lava lamp.”

  “Very ingenious,” Lexus said.

  Cheryl came in and looked around. “Perhaps the traditional ‘sitting on the toilet for the household exam’ will do, seeing as you don’t have a chair.”

  They all crowded into the small bathroom. At least it felt that way to Sparky. She suffered from claustrophobia. She thought it might be one of the symptoms of Post-Traumatic Relationship Disorder.

  Cheryl peered into Sparky’s right eye. “Now how did this really happen?”

  “I told you,” Lexus said, somewhat indignantly.

  “Your girlfriend bit your eye for real?” Cheryl said.

  “Ex-girlfriend,” Sparky corrected. She studied Cheryl. She was pretty and looked to be around Sparky’s own age, as did Lexus—early- to mid-thirties. Sparky wondered if that was another Moonie requirement—that you had to be at least thirty to get an apartment here. Cheryl had shoulder-length brown hair pulled back in a ponytail, a pleasantly oval face and green eyes. She looked like a woman you could trust with your life, which apparently people did.

  “I hope this girlfriend of yours realizes that she could have done serious damage to your cornea. Eyes are a very vulnerable part of the body,” Cheryl said. She pulled her penlight from the pocket of her scrubs. “Follow the light with your eye.”

  Sparky did as she was told.

  Cheryl sat on the edge of the tub and stared at her. “I think it’s all right. I’m not an eye doctor. Your vision isn’t impaired in any way?”

  “No.”

  “Okay, well, it appears you only have broken blood vessels. It’s going to take a while to heal.”

  “How long is a while? More than a week?” Sparky said.

  Cheryl bit her lip. “There’s a lot of broken blood vessels. They aren’t going to disappear overnight.”

  Sparky groaned.

  “What?” Cheryl said.

  “It’s just so embarrassing. People will look at me and want to know what happened,” Sparky said. “I don’t want to have to tell them my girlfriend bit my eye.”

  “Ex-girlfriend,” Cheryl said.

  “You could tell them it’s pink eye,” Lexus suggested.

  Sparky looked mortified.

  “Just tell them you don’t want to talk about it,” Cheryl said.

  “Or,” Lexus said, hopping down from the counter, “you could say that you were attacked by mutant Luna moths and one of them flew into your eye.”

  Sparky looked at Cheryl for help. Cheryl shrugged. “She has an overactive imagination.”

  “Well, if you want true stories, tell them that your girlfriend ejaculated into your eye,” Lexus said.

  “What?” Sparky said, horrified. She didn’t know women could do that.

  “I had this friend who did that when she came. You had to be careful. I mean, sometimes it shot across the room. She gave her girlfriend a fat lip.”

  “What did she tell people?” Sparky said.

  “That she walked into a door,” Lexus said. She smiled.

  “Is that possible?” Sparky asked Cheryl.

  “Yes, well, not about the fat lip exactly, and I wish you wouldn’t tell people that story. Patsy was surprised by it and accidentall
y bit her lip badly, and, yes, it swelled up,” Cheryl said.

  Sparky considered the situation. “I’m done making up stories, although that one about the Luna moths is pretty original and the ejaculation one is horrifying.”

  “I know, right? People shouldn’t share those stories, because it sticks. Whenever I see Patsy that story pops up in my head,” Lexus said.

  “Has she hurt you before?” Cheryl asked. She was still staring at Sparky’s eye.

  “Got the scars to prove it,” Sparky replied, trying to sound cavalier.

  Cheryl stood up. “Why don’t you go with Lexus to buy some furniture tomorrow?”

  They exited the bathroom—much to Sparky’s relief, because now that she wasn’t thinking about female ejaculation her claustrophobia was kicking back in. “Are you thinking that if I buy furniture it’ll be harder to go back?”

  “Yes. No one should be allowed to do that to their partner,” Cheryl said.

  Sparky nodded.

  “We’ve got a blow-up camping bed. I’ll bring it up,” Lexus said, scurrying out of the room.

  “Does she always move like that?” Sparky said.

  Cheryl smiled. “Ball of fire.”

  “She’s sweet.”

  “Yes, she is. She can also be a little over the top. I get the sense you’re usually more taciturn with people.”

  Was the woman a mind reader? Sparky wondered. Yes, normally she wouldn’t have even let Lexus into the place, much less had two strangers in her bathroom discussing her domestic situation. “You’re right. But maybe it’s time I start allowing people into my life. I always thought I was so tough and independent, that I could take care of myself, but apparently I haven’t been doing such a hot job of it.”

  “We all need a little help from time to time—it’s part of the human condition. I know she’s probably made you an honorary Moonie, but you can tell her to butt out. She bounces back pretty quick.”

  This proved true when Lexus came in wrestling the blow-up bed. She tripped over the threshold, sailed into the room, face planted on the bed and bounced up, looking surprised and delighted. “Wow, now that’s a trip.”

  “Corny,” Cheryl said.