“What’s to tell, Moonbeam?” Fen said, patting his lap to invite Frida. She happily jumped up and stood on his chest to lick his face. “Whoa! Too much, pup.”
“Calm, Frida,” I told her, accidently touching Fen’s hand as I settled her down.
He didn’t seem to mind. His eyes were sharp tonight, watching me. Observing. Never leaving me, even when I was talking to Moonbeam. I could feel his gaze on my face, and it sent a little wave of warm chills down my arms.
“There you go,” Fen said in a low voice, scratching her behind her ear as he spoke to Moonbeam. “She knows you stay up allnight, and that you’re clearly a hippie, living out on your deck, who watches too many old movies. Eventually I guess you’ll decide if she’s cool enough to browse your vinyl. I already told her that Victory Vinyl’s been trading with you since before the festival existed, back in the nineties. Now he stays as far away from the festival grounds as possible.”
“Fen’s being purposely vague,” the old man said in a strained voice, causing me to look up at him. “I was Condor Festival’s first lawsuit, settled out of court.”
Huh. Something shifted in a dusty corner of my brain. I’d heard about a settlement, back in the early days of the festival. I only vaguely remembered why. But I felt uncomfortable admitting this, so I just said, “No one’s told me about this.” Which was the truth.
“Figured as much. See, I got married the second year of the festival,” he explained, “and my wife fell off some elevated seating they’d rigged up out in the big field. The crowd surged, rammed into it, and knocked her off. Lung collapsed. Couldn’t save her in time. They tried to blame it on drug overdose, but she had asthma.”
“Oh God. That’s…” I shook my head, unable to get the picture of a stampede out of my mind. “I’m so sorry.”
He nodded. “I know you’ve experienced your own tragedy at the dam.”
“I was fortunate,” I said in a low voice. I flicked my eyes toward Fen’s face to find him looking back at me.
“You were,” Moonbeam murmured. “Tina wasn’t,unfortunately, and I still miss her. But we bonded over music, and she wanted to be at the festival. So in a way, she died doing something she loved, as strange as that sounds.”
It did. It was terrible and heartbreaking, and I was so sad for him. But I couldn’t say that. So I just said, “I’m very sorry, Moonbeam.”
“It’s okay,” he replied. “I didn’t tell you to make you sad. It’s good to share, though.”
Maybe it helped him a little to talk about it. Surely he couldn’t have a ton of people to talk to, living like this. “How long were you married?” I asked.
“Two weeks. She lived in Fresno but would come to the lake every summer to hike. She liked birds and swimming. Outdoorsy type. She also loved seeing shows outside, and that’s how we met. I worked at a bar on the Strip called the Anchor, and she came in to see local bands play.”
I knew that one. Not personally, but it was close to Betty’s on the Pier, my nemesis. A few of the bars by the lake had stages that were either out on the docks or on patios that faced the lake.
“Yeah, for me, Tina wasthe one,” Moonbeam said. “Looking back now, I knew it for a year before I ever asked her out, but I wanted my freedom. That’s my biggest regret. Not even the festival. Just waiting so long. We could’ve had more time.”
“My mom died of an aneurysm when I was five,” I said. “I don’t remember much about her. Just small things, like her reading a book to me, and the chair she sat in—it had a pillow with roses on it. Mostly know her face from looking at pictures.” Ishook my head. “Anyway, it was thirteen years ago, and my dad still misses her. He says that a lot too—that he wishes they had more time.”
He nodded and squinted. “Yeah, it’s funny how it lingers on. You get better, but it lingers. That’s why I stay here. I don’t go to the festival. Don’t like crowds. Don’t like a lot of people, honestly.”
“Especially not my father,” Fen said. “We have a lot in common.”
“True,” Moonbeam said with a small smile. Then he looked up at his ginger cat. “I think they’re going to stay up there, so you can probably let your little one roam free. The doors are all closed, so there’s no place to get loose besides what you see here. I keep things tight. You like mint tea?”
“Uh…?”
“It’s good if you add sugar,” Fen told me, gently knocking his shoulder against mine before offering to help me off the couch, eyeing his friend all the while, who was watching us. “Come on, Moonbeam, I brought the record you wanted in my backpack. Can I show her your Beatles?”
“Slow down, man. You’re always in a such a hurry.…”
It was easy to see how Moonbeam could feel that way out here, so isolated, with nothing but two cats for company. As we drank tea, he opened up about the fact that he hadn’t left the house for more than a short walk in years—how he didn’t need to, because everything came to him, and the settlement he’d received from Sarafian Events would provide for him until he died. Andthere was something pleasant about his little refuge. I could see why Fen liked the man, and why he spent a lot of time out here, clearing his head.
“Music and conversation,” Fen told me as we looked through Moonbeam’s record collection, all neatly tucked into plastic sleeves to protect them from the elements. “And the stars.”
But also the sadness. Because there was some of that here too. An abiding, soft sadness that clung to all the records and furniture like a hug that went on too long. The lake wasn’t healing this man. He was sitting here, nursing his pain, standing guard over the spirit of his dead wife. He wasn’t letting go.
And that’s when I knew that maybe there was some kind of twisted logic in what Mad Dog had told me. “Get back on the board,” I whispered.
“Huh?” Fen said, giving me a strange look.
I shook my head. “Just something my dad says. But… if I asked you to take me somewhere tonight, would you? You’re not going to like it.”
