Page 25 of The Sun and the Moon
But by action.
“And you do?” Moira asks, sounding surprised but giving him a little wink. It’s weird to see her playful in this way. Caring, like she wants to make sure Rick is in on it with her, but I have a hard time believing she’s not setting him up somehow.
The waiter retreats, leaving the bottle to the side of our dining space, tucked neatly inside a bucket of ice.
“Pilots are some of the most superstitious people on the planet,” Rick says. He looks at Sydney, mouth spreading in a grin. “You still wear the little birdie?”
“Every time I fly,” she says. “Wheels aren’t going up without it.”
My hands go clammy. Something about this makes me feel trepidatious, but I don’t know why. It’s like the way it feels when a storm is brewing in the distant sky. Crackling, darkening, but still not close enough to make you batten down the hatches.
“And you live by this superstition…” Moira offers that Mona Lisa smile of hers, the one that seems to sayI know something you don’t know, but I’ll never tell. “Why? Because you have reason to believe, or because you don’t?” This question could be for either of them, but my mother only directs it toward Sydney.
“I don’t get the question,” Sydney says with a cultivated boredom. “Sorry.” Shrug.
My mother doesn’t flinch.
“Let’s see,” Moira says, setting her champagne flute down on the table. Her fingernails tap the stem once. “Sometime in the past—before you started wearing thelittle birdie?” She quirks her brow in question.
“A birdie pin I got her,” Rick says, sounding proud. “Because she’s my little Birdie girl.”
“How sweet,” my mother says, her eyes drifting to Rick briefly, softening momentarily, before returning to Sydney. “Sometime before you started wearing the pin, you either had an experience that made you believe you needed this charm to keep you safe, or you didn’t, and you began wearing the charm as a precaution created from a shared belief. Between you two, possibly?”
I watch the Sinclairs for their reactions.
Rick’s eyes shimmer with love, adoration, a little bit of dazzled wonder. It becomes clear that he’s been taken in by not only her beauty but also the air of mystery about her; Moira has captured his imagination. Something she is especially gifted in doing. This is a ride he wants to take, no matter how uncomfortable it gets.
Sydney’s posture has stiffened. Gone is the boredom, the shrug she was able to deliver only a moment ago. She’s on alert. And she’s right to be.
“It’s not hard to figure out. Dad was a pilot. He said pilots are superstitious. I’m the daughter of a pilot who became one.”
“But you don’t question it?” Moira asks.
“It’s not that serious,” Sydney says, clearly trying to maintain her chill demeanor.
“Oh, but it is.” My mother’s fingers graze the curve of the glass. “People seek out patterns, hold on to charms and mantras,interrogate tarot cards, all as a way to try to safeguard against a future that is unknown.”
“If this is some part of your sales speech—”
“Birdie,” Rick interjects, and then smiles awkwardly, nervous Dad mode engaging.
“I just mean, sorry—you’re a psychic. Don’t you sell certainty based on the superstitious, pattern-seeking nature of human beings by reading their supposed future?”
“No one sells certainty.” She smiles again. “But I do offer acertaincomfort to people who seek my help.”
Sydney leans forward, the shimmery gold of champagne bubbling in her glass as she moves.
“Right. Fate and destiny and all that jazz is kind of your bread and butter,” she says, her eyes sparkling. I press the rim of my glass to my lips in an attempt to hide my smirk.
“My bread and butter?” Moira repeats. There it is again. Mona Lisa intent on playing her games. “What a funny idea. I suppose if we want to put it in such crude terms, my bread and butter is more…” She twists the champagne flute in her hand, thinking. “I would say it’s selling something more like hope.”
Jesus Christ. I’m wishing we had launched into this conversation after the broken first-sip rule of toasting. Hearing my mother talking about herself like some kind of healer makes my stomach sour.
Sydney snorts. “And how is that different from my little birdie pin?” She flips her hair over her shoulder.
“I didn’t say it was.” Moira crinkles her nose.
Mayday! Mayday!
