Free Meet Me in the Moon Room by Ray Vukcevich

head.
    Sunshine turned the refrigerator into a gleaming white block, an alien monolith that had popped into existence among our chrome pots and wooden bowls. From somewhere far away came the tiny tinkle tinkle of an ice-cream truck. I looked at the window over the sink, and in a flutter of squawks and black wings, birds fled the feeder.
    “It’s easy to see what happened,” I said. “You were right, Jane. Someone peeked. But we didn’t. And because we didn’t, by the time we looked, we’d split off into a reality in which the comet never existed in the first place. We’re saved!”
    “Oh, Daddy.” Sacha hugged me quickly, then ran off to the bathroom.
    “Okay,” Jane said, “you can have every other weekend. But we take the cat.”
    “What cat?” I asked.

There Is Danger

    T here is danger in regarding her as a goddess, danger in speculating about the lazy smile she directs at me over the Dover sole, the lemony finger bowls, the steaming rice, and bright green spears of asparagus, her gray eyes dancing with golden candlelight, danger in the provocative tilt of her head, her long chestnut hair flowing over her bare shoulder.
    Selena reaches over the table and traces her fingertips softly over my hand. My hair bursts into flames. I know she notices, but she chooses not to comment. Our waiter runs over and pours a pitcher of ice water over my head.
    My ears will be red. I’ll have to wear a big bandage, like a white turban, to work tomorrow. The women will arch their eyebrows at me. Most of the men will pretend not to notice. Ed Cory in the office next door will come over and give me a shot to the ribs with his elbow and say, “I can see you’ve been out with Selena again.” I’ll tell him I may be getting too old for this. After all, I’ll say, the Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy could have been my older brother.
    I wave our waiter away, assuring him that I really am A-OK. Really. It’s nothing. Selena picks at her fish.
    “It was wonderful at the beach today,” I say.
    Our grandchildren played together. My little Amy sat in the sand not so much timid as awestruck, her mouth a little O, blue eyes wide, staring up at Selena’s Bradley who stood over her with his hands on his hips, his stomach pouching out over his diaper like he’d already discovered the joys and sorrows of beer. The waves came in, the waves went out, but the children only had eyes for one another. I watched Selena rise from the ocean like Aphrodite (but there is danger in that thought), shaking the water from her long, slender body, then running easily up the beach to us, seagulls marking her time with their cries. There was sand tangled in the hair at the back of my thighs. My chest felt warm. Selena dropped down beside us and dug into the big wicker picnic basket. Amy rolled over in the sand to watch, and I grabbed her and lifted her into the air then plunged her down to growl into her stomach. She giggled and slapped at my ears. Bradley put grape soda fingers on my shoulder and looked up at me with his deep brown eyes, so I grabbed him too, and growled into his stomach. When I put the children down, they scampered to Selena. She gave them each a sandwich. The sandwiches looked as big as hardbound books in their small hands. Children know it; they know where to go; men are not nurturing.
    “Wasn’t it, though?” she says. “I hope the children didn’t get too much sun.”
    We finish our fish.
    “Let’s dance,” Selena says. She knows I dance mechanically but will do almost anything to touch her. We go onto the floor. The music tries to chase me around like a garden hose after a dirty dog, but I won’t let it. I take a small shuffle step to the right and point with both hands to the left (little six-shooters), then I take a small shuffle step to the left and point to the right. This is the way I do these modern dances.
    Selena rocks; she rolls; she remembers Woodstock. Her hair flies around her face. Her skirt swirls, dipping between