Chocolate Chocolate Moons Read online

“Nobody.”

  “Nobody?” they chorus again, realizing that I actually had a life before they were born. “Really?”

  Flo approaches, head bobbing like a sunflower on a celery stalk. For the first time, I am happy to see her. “Well,” she says, overhearing the end of the conversation. “I’m afraid you’re going to see his picture everywhere. He’s a celebrity! Everyone eats Congress Drugs’ Freedom Plan foods, and everyone wants to know Drew Barron.”

  “A celebrity?” I feel faint.

  Billings shouts, “Are you guys coming or not?” He points. “We’re going over here.”

  Cortland shoves me toward Billings. He stands in front of a floor-to-ceiling wall of water complete with darting fish. A sign next to the wall says “Coming Soon: Hellas Planitia Ocean.” I cautiously extend my arm into it and feel nothing but air. Billings grabs my hand before I can pull back. Yank! I’m through. The others follow like children behind the Pied Piper.

  Billings drives his rover to a clear domed slideway, a transparent covered highway that allows cars to park on it as the road moves. He keys our destination, activates a prepay with his finger, and waits while the rover slides into an empty slot. The motor turns off. He rotates his seat so he faces us.

  Lois peers at the petite bracelets that circle Flo’s bird-like wrists. “Are you a fashion model?”

  “Hardly,” smiles Flo, flattered. She adjusts a jade-and-gold earring and straightens her back. “I work for Tasters and Spitters Inc., an independent food-rating company. I take one bite, give it a rating, and then spit it out. I never swallow. I’ve a doctorate from Lite on the Mayo Clinic.”

  I turn my head away and stick out my tongue.

  “I’m so glad I was able to come to the spaceport today,” Flo says. “I tasted a Tootsie Target yesterday and I didn’t feel right for hours.”

  “I heard that story on the transport news before we arrived. I can’t imagine how the people who ate them felt,” I say.

  “Tootsie Targets, Vanilla Craters, Chocolate Moons, they’re all the same to me: little bombs of empty calories.”

  “Ever tempted to swallow?”

  “Swallow?” Flo pales, coughs, puts her hand to her throat. “Never.” Then she brightens. “You know, those people might have a legal case against the Culinary Institute’s Candy Universe.”

  No one says anything.

  Then Lois removes her sunglasses and cranes her neck to get a better look at the sky. “Does the sky have to be pink? The Moon’s dome came in every color.”

  “But it was artificial,” Billings says. “Now you’re seeing the real sky. Didn’t you girls learn any science on the Moon?”

  “We’re not into atmospheres, are we Becky?”

  Becky nods. “You know, atmosphere’s not important when you live in a place that doesn’t have one.”

  For a long time, we are all silent as we whiz past miles of pocked, dried red ground with patches of sprouting green moss. Billings watches the road. Flo inserts an earpiece. The twins study a periodic chart of nail polish colors. Cortland falls asleep. My eyes droop. I wonder if Drew and I had stayed together would we have divorced.

  Billings directs the rover to an exit that says “New Chicago.” Finally he says, “We’re here! Biggest city on Mars, right at the base of Olympic Mons Mountain, largest volcanic cone in the solar system.” He points to a blue building. “We live over there, on the east side of Baba Ganoush Plaza. Your furnished condo is on the other side. But don’t get too comfortable. I have big plans.”

  5

  DREW MORTGAGES HIS soul and gets a low subprime mortgage for a condo in New Chicago’s most expensive region, River Area. Hotel Cap Antibodies is across the street. Its St. Trophy Bar attracts a fast crowd who likes to buy expensive distractions. It’s a favorite of Roderick Packarod, a.k.a. “Rocket,” bookie to the stars and pharmaceutical wholesaler known for having a pinky in every pill.

  The St. Trophy is dark, noisy and crowded. Drew finds a seat at the end of the long polished bar next to a man with slicked back hair wearing a shiny purple jacket, striped pink shirt and black trousers. He watches him rip a red package that says “Nutrition Plus” and add it to his drink. The drink fizzes over the rim of the glass leaving an unpleasant smell.

  Drew wriggles his nose. “How can you drink that stuff?”

  Rocket looks him in the eye then drains his glass. “It’s my special Metamucil Collins.” He extends a hand. “Rocket Packarod. First time here?”

  Drew takes Rocket’s hand. “Yes, first time. I’m Drew Barron.”

  “Not Drew Barron of Congress Drugs’ Freedom Plan who I see in all those flashy ads?”

  Drew smiles. Rocket raises his arm and catches the bartender’s eye. “A double for me and one for my new friend.”

  “No thanks, man. Not my style.”

  Rocket pretends not to hear. He clicks his teeth and thumbs the bartender, who mixes two drinks and serves. The bartender changes the holo’s channel to the robo-dog races, basically keyboards with legs that run around a track. “Ya know, we’re both in the same drug business but at different ends. I’m a wholesale pharmacist.” Rocket reaches into his pocket. “Here, take my card.”

  Drew reads “Roderick Packarod” in large letters. And under it, in smaller letters: “Druggist to the Stars, free delivery from Mercury to Pluto on orders over ten thousand solars.” He turns the card over: “I can get it for you wholesale. No questions asked.”

  “Classy card, isn’t it?” Rocket says admiring one before he slips the rest back into his pocket. “Font’s in Good Times Roman.”

  The bartender puts two drinks in front of them. Rocket adds red packs to each drink. Then he puts his hand on Drew’s arm and leans closer. “Dare you to finish it. If you finish it, I’ll place a hundred-solar bet on Canis Major, the long shot in those robo-dog races. If he wins, I’ll give you the money. If he loses, I’ll just drink another Metamucil Collins. Whaddaya say? You have nothing to lose!”

  Drew takes a deep breath, raises his glass, and gulps it downs. Then their eyes follow the race projected in 3-D around the room.

  “And by a nose-key, the winner is Canis Major!” the announcer says.

  Rocket reaches into his pocket, hands him a hundred solars, and winks. “How about double or nothing on the next one?”

  The drink is more potent than Drew thought and the effects immediate. Two blond girls, dressed in black lace cut down to their navels, overhear the conversation and slither next to him. “Come on. Go for it,” says one. She smiles at Rocket, who whistles, looking at her cleavage.

  Drew nods yes. He wins again. Rocket slaps the bar. “I knew you could do it,” he says. “I wanna stay, but I have a hot date. Let’s meet here again tomorrow?”

  Bottom line: In time Drew becomes a regular at the St. Trophy and in time owes Rocket lots of money.

  Drew meets Kandy Kane, a former Miss Universe, at an art gallery in OhNo, a neighborhood known for trendy art. A nanosecond later she moves into his new condo. She is tall, thin, has blue eyes fringed with long eyelashes, and long, dark, shining hair. Her skin is as smooth as Venusian suede. Although beauty and intelligence can be surgically and genetically enhanced, how far you go depends on the starting point. With the average IQ score now at 160, Kandy’s modest 120 doesn’t quite cut it. But who cares? Visually, Kandy is the real thing—not, as they say, “a Freedom Plan knockoff”—and a sweetheart in every sense of the word. If Kandy’s IQ were one point higher, she would realize how moody and self-absorbed Drew is and pack her bags.

  “My friends say I love you for what you aren’t, sweetheart. What could they mean?”

  “Beats me,” Drew says, peering at his reflection in a mirror.

  Kandy crosses her long legs, encased in skintight silver leggings, and opens the newspaper.

  “Your picture is on Page Six again,” she says, referring to River Area’s society column.

  Drew peeks over her shoulder, breathes in Chanel Number 555, and scans the a
rticle.

  “That’s all for business, baby,” he says, in a voice reserved for small children and pets. His hand slides down the back of her pink cashmere sweater. He glances at the opposite page and stiffens.

  “Is something wrong?” asks Kandy, sensing tension.

  “Someone I knew on Earth’s moon is coming to Mars to interview Sandy Andreas. Her father just bought Mars Media and has put his daughter CC in charge of special reports.”

  “CC?”

  “Her name is Colorful Copies. But her friends called her CC. I can’t imagine she remembers me.”

  Kandy frowns.

  6

  THE THREE-BEDROOM CONDO that Flo and Billings rented for us is lovely and more comfortable than what I left behind. Cortland and Billings travel extensively scouting future locations for Little Green Men Pizza. Flo rarely calls. She is too busy tasting and spitting, that is when she is not with the twins who bond with her like nuts on honey buns. “Aunt Flo” shops with them at Rodeo Dive’s trendy boutiques with their expensive off-planet imports.

  Life on Mars is a big adjustment. After years of being an average-sized person on the Moon, I am surrounded by tall, ultrathin, stylish people who give me the same disgusted look Flo gave me when we met; ergo, I have no friends. When I look for a job, the only offer I get is to dress as a Chocolate Moon and stand in front of a candy store. And although it comes with an attractive all-you-can-eat policy, my dignity trumps my appetite, so I decline.

  I go into the kitchen and heat a slice of ten-mushroom Green Men Pizza. I sit and pick the mushrooms off the top. There are nine. I can’t believe I came all this way so my husband could work for this company.

  “NO!” Flo yells at Billings. “I’m not moving to Pharaoh City and live in Arabia Terra. I’m no pioneer.”

  “But our competition, Red Planet Pizza, has three thriving outlets.”

  Flo bobs and weaves around him. “It may be up-and-coming, but I’m not up and going. Four generations of my family are in New Chicago, plus all my friends and work. How about your cousin Lawrence? He loves Arabia.”

  Billings rolls his eyes. Finally he gets up and says, “I’ve a better idea.”

  Billings sits in our living room on my favorite floating La-Z-Boy. Bad sign. He is not a sitter. Usually when he visits, he has one foot out the door. I think it has something to do with the pounding music emanating from the twins’ bedroom. But I’m wrong.

  “All I’m telling you,” he says, “is that Pharaoh City is a boom-town. Developers are transforming it so fast environmentalists fear that red Mars is becoming Mars Mall. When you see those new geodesic homes, you’ll never want to live in a condo again.”

  After he leaves I say to Cortland, “If it’s so great he and Flo should go.” He doesn’t answer, but I know we’re going.

  We all pile into our new Chevy Laid Rover. The rover’s license plate carries an ad from the manufacturer that says “Get Laid.” I want it removed because I learned in a history class that the phrase was some kind of ancient war cry shouted during the war of the sexes, and I don’t want people to get the wrong impression. But Cortland says that was then and this is now. And, I should stop believing everything I read, because he knows for a fact that it is something football players said when they made a touchdown.

  Cortland drives to a clear domed slideway, finds a slot, and pushes the red blinking word “Destination” on the dashboard and scrolls to “Pharaoh City.” The motor turns off automatically then restarts as we approach our destination. The twins sit in the back, sulking and snapping at each other.

  “See what you made me do?” Lois screams, pointing to a chip on her pinky’s polish and waving it in front of Becky’s face.

  “How about a Chocolate Moon?” I ask, desperately shaking a box.

  “I would never eat that!” hisses Lois. “Don’t you have any Freedom Plan snacks? Aunt Flo eats only Freedom Plan snacks.”

  “Yeah,” Becky chimes in. “Aunt Flo eats only Freedom Plan snacks.”

  Finally we see several exits for Pharaoh and get off at Nefertiti, a suburb known for luxurious housing developments. I try to get the twins to look, but they are too busy checking their mirrors, putting on lipstick, and fluffing their hair.

  When we park, a too-cheery real estate agent eyes the girls and points us in the direction of the model homes. The twins announce they hate them before they even see them. My stomach knots.

  We enter the first model, a two-story building wrapped around a central courtyard. The kitchen has the latest wave-max appliances, which cook with ninety-degree winds. I touch an electro-spun wall that zings a color change.

  Becky rolls her eyes like a martyr in a medieval painting.

  Lois twirls her hair and bites her cuticles. Yawns.

  I see a large colorful painting in the living room and recognize the style from my art history class at Armstrong University. I pick up a catalog and scan the list. “I knew it,” I say. “It’s a Hallmark! It’s called Get Well Soon. I would prefer Happy Birthday, but that painting’s too expensive.”

  Becky looks over my shoulder and reads the catalog list. “That one isn’t,” she says pointing to My Condolences.

  The girls finally show some interest after they discover that the house temperature can be adjusted around each person, ending the “It’s too hot/It’s too cold” wars.

  Cortland reminds the girls that this year they will be applying to college, and the best music school, King Tut, is in Pharaoh City. He points toward the den and drums his fingers on the wall. “Great music studio!” he says.

  The twins say nothing.

  Then they wander into the courtyard. They look down at a mosaic of white swans and water lilies in the center of the tiled floor. Large terra-cotta pots hold blooming plants. The twins sink into puffy yellow lounge chairs, put their feet on matching ottomans, tilt their heads, and look up at the sun shining in the pink sky.

  Cortland, sensing an opportune moment, says through the doorway, “Guess who’s coming here to the Ten Plagues Multiplex?” He walks toward them, reaches into his pocket, pulls out some tickets, and waves them back and forth. “Got these just in case you all said yes.” Four blue eyes flash.

  “Oooh, Daddy! Elvis Beethoven,” Becky squeals. “We studied him in school. He wrote nine polkas. Beethoven’s fifth was the theme for the film, 1002. The conductor was some Swedish guy, Ingmar Bergman.”

  “Sorry, I’m sure it was Ingrid Bergman?” Lois corrects.

  “Whatever,” Becky says. “I only remember that he ate wild strawberries and wore a watch that had no hands. He must be a psychic.”

  Flo, having no children of her own, has second thoughts about the girls moving to Pharaoh. She eats half a rice cracker and downs three vitamins Cs. But Billings is overjoyed. Having taken no chance that I would not leave New Chicago, and not realizing I would do almost anything to get out of there, he taps all his contacts at the Culinary Institute whose headquarters are in Pharaoh and lands me a job as a security guard. It comes with a free lunch at its Quantum Corner Café famous for the Olympic Mons soufflé.

  My mouth waters: I can’t wait.

  I overhear Becky say, “Can you believe she’ll be a security guard at the Culinary Institute? It’s like putting a fox in a hen house. I’m so depressed I could eat mascara.”

  “Mascara topped with lipstick,” Lois groans.

  I go into the bathroom and step on my old scale that still registers my weight in Moon pounds. Without dieting I have lost twenty pounds living in heavier gravity, but my metabolism is slowly adjusting.

  7

  KANDY CHECKS HER makeup in a hand held mirror and smiles. The thought of CC coming to Mars flits through her mind like a brief sun shower. She knows that CC is no competition for Drew’s attention. Numero uno is collecting fine art.

  Ever since Drew attended his first auction and acquired a lock of bacon from the head of Francis of Bacon that he keeps under glass with an egg, he’s been a passionate collector.
Now a rare twentieth-century sculpture by the Swiss artist Alberto Giacometti is being auctioned at Park Bengay, and it’s all he talks about.

  The Giacometti is such a news breaker that art historians interrupt their debate on what came first, the gift shop or the museum, and examine theories about Giacometti’s vision. Many think his thin emaciated-looking sculptures are precognitive of what people would look like in the future. But there are serious rumors that the sculpture is a fake, a media ploy by Park Bengay to draw people to its new dance club below its auction house where socialites get heady doing the sweaty Giacometti.

  Drew and Kandy exit a chauffeured white limo and pass through the golden arches of the auction house. No one suspects that with his high life and beautiful girlfriend Drew has big stock market losses and large gambling debts with Rocket Packarod. No, no one suspects.

  Kandy sits up front next to Drew, her beautiful head perched on a long neck encased in a crisp white blouse. Drew drums his fingers and taps his foot. Kandy puts her hand on his arm.

  He pulls away.

  Then the room quiets and the bidding begins.

  Drew stands, gyrates, raises his paddle high over his head again, again, again—until the auctioneer shouts, “Sold to Drew Barron!”

  He runs to the podium, grabs the scrawny twig-limbed sculpture, waves it over his head, and bows.

  Kandy blushes, not knowing if she should be embarrassed or proud.

  Acquiring the Giacometti puts Drew in a class with Mars’ top collectors like Craig Cashew, the Culinary Institute’s CEO, whose love of art rivals his love of food. At the last auction, Craig acquired the coveted brown-on-brown sculpture Jasper’s John and a rare etching of the great English chef from the Falklands, Margaret Thatcher, standing in front of Folsom Prison holding a rolling pin over the head of finance minister johnny Cash.

  Craig Cashew built the Culinary Institute. He took a small gourmet take-out shop and turned it into a complex of restaurants, shops, schools, the Flying Saucer Supermarket, botanical gardens, and farms that consistently rank in the solar system’s top ten tourist attractions. His work on discovering how many sushi make a sashimi is summarized in two ancient, unique and rarely used descriptive words: awesome and amazing.