The Moon Stands Still by Sibella Giorello

Author:Sibella Giorello [Giorello, Sibella]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Running Girl Productions
Published: 2017-04-30T23:00:00+00:00

For the first time since I’d moved in with her last August, Eleanor wasn’t drinking her 5:00 p.m. medicinal cocktail when I got home from the asylum.

After feeding Madame extra treats in the empty kitchen, I walked upstairs and found Eleanor propped up on her king-sized bed, eyes closed. She looked like she was floating on a sea of peach satin. On her lap, face down, was a salacious Hollywood biography of some 1940s movie star. I tiptoed past her room, took a hot shower, and changed clothes.

When I came back, Eleanor was reading the book.

She lowered it, gazing at me over the cover. “Give me permission to break a promise.”

“Sorry. Can’t.” I walked over, sitting on the edge of the bed. The nightstand displayed an array of prescription bottles, lined up like an army of toy soldiers, labels like battle notes. This morning Marvelous had come by, extracting promises. And now I echoed them. “You promised to stay in bed and take your medicine.”

“Oh, Raleigh, not you, too.”

“You promised.”

“I am nearly three times your age and have managed to behave very bad that entire time. Don’t ruin my life with rules.”

“I want you to keep behaving bad—after you rest and take your medicine.”

She eyed me. “Are you staying home tonight?”

“Why?”

“Because I want you to get out of here.”

I glanced at the pill bottles.

“Oh, please,” she said. “There’s nothing narcotic among them.” Raising her chin, she bellowed her line at the crystal chandelier. “All rooms are lonely when there’s only one person in them.”

“Then why would you want me to leave?”

“Because it’s Alma Winemiller!” she cried. “That’s who said that. Summer and Smoke. And I’m turning into Alma—a woman so desperately lonely she picked up an even lonelier man. Oh, Raleigh, my life has come to this!”

“Eleanor—”

“Listen to me!” She pushed herself up, rising on the satin raft. “Get out of here! Go do something—break the law, get arrested.”

“I’ll lose my job.”

She leaned forward, pushing me off the bed. “Then go kiss Jack for all he’s worth—and then walk away, leaving him wanting more! But for God’s sake, Raleigh, don’t stay in this house with an old woman!”

I searched her face for signs of dementia. Medically impaired thinking. Anything. But she was as clear as the voice that had returned to full volume. I backed out of the room.

“And if you come home before midnight,” she hollered, “I will never speak to you again.”

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