There is a Woman in the Moon, hidden behind the pock-faced surface but there all the same. She skulks at the edges and plays peak-a-boo, gazing around the silvery disk at us. Watching, always watching, often angry, controlling everything like a housecat who silently runs your life without making a single real demand. She flexes her passion twice daily, a rhythm, a heartbeat, rock to rock and meant to remind mere mortals that even when we can’t see her or will not acknowledge her, she’s still there.

How she got there is the conundrum. She belongs here, was sucked from the whole, leaving a planetary void filled with her tears. Her lover is the sandy shore, now nothing more than a distant memory, loved from afar, and still she laps to reach down and kiss him, make love to him, punish him.

Banished and alone, the Woman in the Moon plots and connives, occasionally flaring out her energy like blue waves of ethereal hair, rays meant to touch but never enlighten, for her shame is concealed and profound, hidden at her back, even as she stares right at you. See now, don’t look, she’ll hide again and only become angrier.

I know this story is true. It was told to me by my grandmother, on the night of a blue moon when I was ten yours old and could not sleep.

I know it’s true because she never lied. She always spoke the truth. And she comfortingly smelled of aged Port wine.

*

A maddening clicking sound like a snap … snap … whirrrr … snap echoed along the metal MRI tube. My head lay cradled, braced in foam rubber forms to keep it still and the technician actually had the nerve to tell me I couldn’t swallow during that particular series of pictures. How does a person do that? Not swallow when they want to, only because they’re not supposed to? I blinked, sighed and unintentionally swallowed. Shuddered. Maybe it was quick enough not to cause a problem? Silver walls closed in and I slammed my eyes shut against the chilled discomfort of it.
           
Snap … snap … whirrrr … snap.
           
The last time I was treated to an MRI was two years earlier after a nasty fall at the slopes. The doctors suspected a torn rotator cuff and even though I was in pain, I had the luxury of time, so I waited for the “open MRI”. This time, it was an emergency.
           
For three days, everything seemed like an emergency.
           
The sound around me shifted, thumped then it felt like the magnetic machine let out a frustrated huff.
           
“Mrs. uh … Car … Carin … uh… Ms. Ross, we’re going to have to start over. This particular series is critical and you can’t swallow. So, swallow a few times right now to get it out of your system and let’s try again,” rumbled a nasally, tinny voce that resonated from the tip of my head to my toes. “Ms. Ross, everything all right?” she said and my irritation grew. “Ms. Ross? Oh, um, well duh. Tell you what, if you’re okay, move your foot, please.”
           
For a moment I felt like punishing her, like keeping my foot still as death. For Christ’s sake, my name is Carrie Ricci-Ross. No doubt she couldn’t pronounce Carina properly with the flowery Italian rolling “r”, or was about to say the name like a low-bred hillbilly – CAReena – but it doesn’t matter, I don’t use it. Carrie. It’s what I wrote on the form. Why do they insist on using the name from the insurance papers? Carrie Ricci-Ross! Can’t she read?
           
Startled, I jumped as she placed a cool hand on my ankle. “Ms. Ross?” she called, her voice now a hallow version, far away although not really that far, just outside the pipe I was jammed into. It only felt like a million miles away, like everything else since this happened. I jerked my foot free. “Are you okay? Can we start again?”
           
I wiggled my toes.
           
That time I planned to let the machine’s rhythm relax me, wash away the anger and irritation – change the monumental inconvenience of it into a day at the beach. Of course that didn’t work and my mind returned to the twisted maze of trying to figure out what happened, how it happened and maybe even why it happened.  Medical technology can’t answer everything, or they’d have explanations for all those human interest miracles I read about in the paper. This wasn’t my first time at the rodeo, or the first series of tests I’d endured over the past seventy two hours. A tangled knot inside my chest warned that I might be the only one to unravel this mystery. I’ve never been good at mysteries, especially the kind that directly affect me.
           
A spasm of chills radiated over my flesh, I did my best not to think about swallowing and forced my thought to go back three stupid days and explore every possibility. My logic is good, memory sharp, and aside from the weight of the total isolation I was experiencing, there was no better place to start this curious journey than the company Displaced-Holiday party Sunday evening. That seemed the last time everything was normal.
           
Carter, Baker & Baumann is the biggest advertising agency in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania – which isn’t saying a lot, as no one would truly consider Pittsburgh a big city. It’s been called the “Little Big Town” and the “Big Town that thinks it’s a City”, but never quiet held the qualities of a big city. Geographically it sits in the crotch of three rivers and is limited by hills, tunnels and traffic-choking bridges. Several affluent national and international corporations call it home, mostly because the cost of living is so gentle and if one doesn’t mind the ever vacillating weather, it’s a very pleasant place to work and live. 
           
The reason Carter, Baker & Baumann is the biggest ad agency in this town has more to do with a big city attitude than anything else. CB&B likes to think and function way outside of the obliterated box. For example, while the rest of the world is celebrating the winter holidays, having lavish Christmas parties for employees and clients and doing their damn best to outdo each other, CB&B just keeps plowing ahead. Our holiday celebration waits until February, Groundhog Day, to be exact. Ten years ago when this practice was instituted, it didn’t sit well with the staff, but management stood strong and proved it to be a powerful, maniacal tool. While the rest of the industry smiled and donned beautiful clothes, drank too much and nursed hangovers, CB&B toiled away and made money. We handled the overload of holiday advertising easily because there simply was nowhere else to be. We avoid other parties, even those hosted by clients, explaining that we’d rather they do fantastic business during the holidays than see our shining faces at their courtesy bars. Other agencies’ clients sniffed this out and began handing over nice sized portions of their holiday budgets to us. CB&B grew exponentially by sneaking pennies from our competitor’s pockets while they pointed and laughed, joking that we worked for Ebenezer Scrooge.
           
The party-mood delay helped keep us all focused through the crazy period and right past the year-end accounting crunch. We were ahead of the numbers before the numbers could even be established, and as the economy crumbled and tanked, CB&B continued to prosper and grow.
           
February second is not the optimum day for a major company party. Yes, it’s still winter but totally inappropriate for Christmas trees and brightly wrapped gifts. Colleen Baumann set the pace early, determining that if her staff had to wait for a well deserved celebration, it would be a whopper, even without the red bows and twinkle lights. Last Friday we all gathered for a two day extravaganza at Seven Springs Mountain Resort to collect our due. CB&B never left you hungry and this year, I was in line for the golden ring.
           
Every employee would receive a gift, the value based on their annual performance. In addition, each would receive a bonus based on their November to February above and beyond push. These rewards could be substantial and there wasn’t one staff member who didn’t attend, even May Lee Ling, our very pregnant and about to pop media buyer.

This year, Mike could attend. My husband, Michael Ross, is an efficiency technology developer and he travels. A lot. I mean really, a lot, and having him available for the company shindig was a combined rush and disappointment. Exploring my marriage wasn’t high on my agenda, so I spent the time pretended we were just dating, still trying to impress each other. It wasn’t far from the truth. After fifteen years of marriage to someone I almost never see, I think I may still love him. I may even still like him. We’re strangers.

Thinking of these things, I caught the dance, the swirling lights flashing behind my eyelids. They popped and juggled, bounced around with the pinging of the MRI drone. I held my breath. They passed. These little lights had nothing to do with my illness, or condition, or affliction, or whatever was happening to me. They’ve been with me since childhood, and often show themselves when I’m forced to deal with dichotomy. 

The happy-couple pretending went well, even in the lovely hotel bed, but on the final evening, just after I was offered a full partnership adding Ricci-Ross to all those other names on the door, things just seemed to crumble. His attention smoothly and completely floated away from me and onto others of interest to him, May Lee in particular, with her lovely almond shaped eyes and heavy belly.

“What’s his problem?” My secretary, Barb, would be moving up the ladder at my side, but we’d always been close. When I hired her, she was the first interviewee with enough nerve to tell me the lapel pin on my jacket was upside down. It was the deal breaker. Six applicants and only one with the balls to call out my ruse. I liked her then and like her even more now.

“Don’t have a clue. Last time we talked about Mike’s problems was New Year’s Eve, ‘99. We were negotiating weather patterns in Belize … or if his trip to Shanghai was superfluous … or …”

“If he’d stored enough bottled water in the basement for the millennium?”

I snorted. “That might be it.” Mike is an ubber-cautious type. Barb and I gathered our warm coats and strolled out onto the grand terrace. Fireworks. Leave it to Ms. Baumann to think of everything, but the display was distorted by fog and soft floating snowflakes. Brilliant tints glowed all around us like watercolors dissolving in a pitcher. There were bright flashes and loud booms, but no distinct flaming bursts, only a diluted finger paint kind of world that made me feel like a five-year old. It was magical, but few thought it was entertaining enough to stick around in the freezing cold, so we had the terrace to ourselves.

“He still, you know, at it?”

I turned and glared. “At it? The Goodtime Geisha? Yes, Mike’s still with his Japanese lover. She gets him six months out of the year and I get him, oh, ninety days.”

“How can you stand it?”

“Happy marriages don’t grow on money trees. Mike and I chose success. This is the price. It’s fine. It was a good deal.”

“And,” she leaned close, “Gary?”

“Gary Carter is not a subject for discussion.”

“Come on, woman,” she pushed down her fluffy knit hat, sufficiently smashing any semblance of a hairstyle beneath. Barb is not model material. She’s five foot nothing, broad in the caboose, wears minimal makeup but knows how to smile like a real champion. All the most important attributes for the perfect career-climbing sidekick rolled into one, that’s my Barbie doll. I tilted my head and huffed. “Come on,” she whined. “You know I live vicariously through you.”

Could I ever tell her I lived vicariously through her? Barb had a fantastic marriage, was about to celebrate her twentieth anniversary and her eldest son’s high school graduation. She had a quaint house in the North Hills with a nice yard her wonderful husband maintained, even the flower primping and weeding part. She had everything I don’t. Glancing behind through the glass French doors at the partiers, I noticed Barbie’s Ken had my husband’s full attention at the moment. They were sharing a Bud Light and chatting like old friends. I groaned. “What do you want to know?”

“Everything.”

A loud boom forewarned the grand finale so we leaned close, like two old crows on an electric wire, whispering gossip. “He … fulfills my needs.”

“Your needs? Carrie, Carter’s the damn founding father of the company, all he cares about is CB&B.”

“Don’t forget the newly added ‘R-R’,” I teased. She wouldn’t be sidetracked.

“He’s twenty years older than you and has that balding spot right here.” Barb patted the back of her hat.

“He’s kind to me, always has been.”

“Is he the reason you came to CB&B?”

“I knew him before I joined the staff, but no.”

“Is he the reason you just got a partnership?”

I grinned. “What can I say, I give good head. Can we change the subject?”

“Why?” She sashayed to the railing and looked up, stuck out her tongue and received Holy Communion with the snow. “It’s the only thing keeping me warm out here. Oh, check it out, the clouds are breaking up. Oh … my … God!”

It looked like a scene from a Cecil B. DeMille film, breathtaking, strange, too bizarre to be real. The moon was brilliant white and circled with a thousand stars in a small, cramped opening in the thick cloud cover. Blackness made the light seem more luminous, then the grand finale began, spewing flashes of color, spitting up to that moon but only one brave rocket reached it and a bloody slice of red flare cut the moon in half just before she tucked herself safe again behind the thick blanket.

“I have never seen anything like that.” Barb had whispered the way you would in a church or library.

“I know,” I said, just as quietly.

“What are you going to do?”

I, like my secretary, looked up, mesmerized by what we’d just seen. “I have no idea. I won’t leave Mike and give him the satisfaction of getting his sushi on a silver platter at my hands.”

“Are you happy with him?”

Maybe we were afraid to look at each other; maybe we liked the privacy of a dark confessional. Together we observed as winter clouds reflected the snowy ground below, knowing that behind them hid the bleeding moon. “No, I’m not happy with him.”

“Do you hate him enough to make sure he’s never happy?

“I don’t hate Michael.”

“Then let him have his Japanese lover.”

I finally turned to see her profile. A tear slid down her chilled cheek. “Don’t cry for me. Don’t cry for Mike. Trust me, we made this bed, we’ll sleep in it.” My chest had begun to ache. Was it from the cold? From the conversation? Or from watching the moon die like that?

“What do you want, Carrie? I mean really, what do you want?”

Still I watched her profile. “Quiet. Sometimes I just want quiet, inside my head and outside my head. Maybe I need a vacation. Mike offered to take me to Greece with him in June.”

“Sounds nice. You never take vacations … with him. When does he leave town?”

“Tomorrow morning. A ten-fifteen flight to D.C. then on to Tokyo. I hear it lands on her bed.” I slid my arm through Barb’s and together we headed back inside. “Don’t fret. I get mine. We both know our indiscretions; the funny thing is we’ve never once talked about them.”

“Maybe your wish for quiet is coming to you as silence.”

Barbie doll is such a hoot sometimes.

I sipped Courvoisier to heat my freezing limbs then went up to the room. I’d had enough partying, gotten my promotion and all I wanted was some sleep. I don’t know what time Mike came to bed. I dreamed he was in the kitchen at our house, delivering May Lee Ling’s baby on the table and sweating like a pig before announcing it was a boy.

We woke before dawn, checked out and drove two hours to Pittsburgh International. At the curb, we actually looked at each other.

“Congratulations, Carrie.” It was the first words he said to me since before dinner the night before.

“Congratulations to you, too. You’re now married to a major Ad Agency partner.”

His eyes clouded over like the sky last night. His expression, wounded like the moon. “I never forget I’m married, sweetheart. Never.”

“You’ll miss your flight.” A quick kiss, a weak hug and I left. I had a major presentation that morning, it was the reason they made me partner. While they were all still lounging in their comfortable beds and thinking about a hearty mountain breakfast before driving to town, I was working.

The office felt like a mortuary, stuffy, oppressive. I snapped on every light switch along the way. Looking around, I grinned. Within the week I’d have the corner office overlooking the Allegheny River. At my desk, I checked to make sure everything was printed out and prepared. I’d be meeting the client at their offices as ours were officially closed until noon. I checked email, weather and road conditions, phone messages, all the normal things people do when they think nothing is ever going to change and routine is the best way to satisfaction. At ten I checked Mike’s flight; it would take off on time. It wasn’t that I expected him to call when he arrived in Japan, or that I even really cared what time he’d actually be there. It was habit, what a wife does when her husband leaves town. So I did it. That done, I gathered my proposals and briefcase and left, careful to leave all the lights on so that the arriving prodigal staff would know I was there first.

The meeting was scheduled for a conference room I always use at Beshlor Distributors, so I simply nodded to the receptionist and went to set up. Power Point equipment ready and checked, presentation folders at each seat along with a gold pen embossed with the CB&B log, I sat at the head of the conference table and smiled at the dapper men filtering in.

I stood. I opened my mouth … and nothing came out. Nothing but the ugly, guttural sound of a person who simply could not speak.

I shivered, suddenly chilled in the MRI tunnel, suddenly terrified to be tight and alone in there, as if even a heavy thought couldn’t be stuffed in beside me but I couldn’t stop remembering.

In that conference room full of strangers who only knew me by my name and company, I had to make a much better impression. Good Lord, they might think I was drunk or worse. I cleared my throat and tried again. Nothing. Nada. I sounded like a deaf person trying to get someone’s attention. At first the gentlemen at the table worked hard not to show any expression. After my second attempt, one actually chuckled. I began to panic. I couldn’t form a word but my thoughts were clear as a bell. I wanted to stomp over to Laughing Boy and slap him, but instead I had to deal with my knees. They had gone jelly on me and I realized that the worst possible thing on the planet had just happened. I was helpless. I dropped into the chair, feeling weak as a newborn but at least able to remain upright while my heart raced a marathon.

The men and a few women rushed around like scared monkeys. Several glasses of water were shoved at me, I refused them all. I tried to answer all the questions but could do nothing more than nod. Yes, I was okay, but they were calling an ambulance anyway. No, I didn’t want to lie down, but a mammoth Viking-like associate manager swept me into his tree trunk arms and out onto a sofa. Great, now I was out in the main lobby where everyone could see me. I kept trying to sit up, but hands pushed my shoulders back down. I tried to tell them to leave me alone, but each time I attempted to speak, I felt like my tongue had taken the damn day off, gone numb, forgot its job. I tried to smile, even laugh to indicate that they were making a big fuss over nothing but the only thing that happened were tears. Copious, terrified, uncontrollable tears. Even my sobs sounded wrong.

I suppose I completely freaked when the EMT arrived, because after all the vital readings were taken in front of an audience of my biggest clients and the delivery boy from Big Muffin Tops, I was treated to a shot.

After that, I didn’t even try to talk. The colors were so pretty.

“All right, Ms. Ross, we’re finished.” The horrible MRI experience had finally ended. “Let’s get you back to your room. Any questions?”

If looks could kill. The technician turned slightly red.

“Uh, well, the doctor will have these pictures in a few hours so you may hear from him today.”

I tilted my head.

“Oh, I can’t read them for you … although,” she whispered and leaned down to me, sitting and seething in the hated wheelchair, “you know, techs always know more about these tests than the specialists do. We see them every day. We know when something’s wrong.”

My eyes narrowed and head tilted even further.

“But I can’t tell you what I see. Sorry.”

It took him two whole days to get back from Yokohama. I’d like to say I was indifferent but in truth, I was relieved. Mike sat at my side, held my hand, whispered encouragement and even ran out to Rosario’s to bring my favorite Italian Stallion sandwich for lunch. We shared the hoagie like young lovers beginning their lives together, both sitting cross-legged on my hospital bed and covering the sheets with crusty crumbs and a few drips of grease from the salami. Then Mike brushed the debris away and tucked me in, lying at my side and telling me everything was going to be fine. He was lying. Mike always lied when he didn’t know the truth and if I could have launched into an argument it would have been a doozy. Instead I snuggled, spooned against my husband because he was my husband and I had the need to be close. Protected. Loved, even if it wasn’t real love. Time went by and I pretended loved him back with smiles and patience while he fussed and fluffed pillows.

He was there when Barb came after work to fill me in on the goings on at the office. She never mentioned my condition and never indicated there was even a problem. One would have thought I was on a well planned maternity leave or something. That I was the kind of person content with just nodding and listening. I was a kettle building up steam.

Mike appeared to never leave my side, but I knew when he was gone, even if I was asleep. I knew when he used his international cell to call Japan. I knew when he went home to shower and change. I knew when he cried.

A week passed before Doctor Specialist finally called a powwow; five medical geniuses, my uncomfortable husband and me. All I wanted to do was blast them for wasting so much of my time. It was their job to fix this so I could get on with my life.

“Mr. and Mrs. Ross,” said the first doctor and already I was ticked beyond reason. My name is Carrie Ricci-Ross, not Mrs. Ross. Flashes and sparkles tinkered with my vision then suddenly fogged over and dissipated. Something subtle but major split and trembled in my soul. It felt unimportant but screamed monumental. A demon had made his exit, I could just feel it. The fireflies that had accompanied every event in my life had abandoned me. That was the moment I realized all of my irritation was misplaced. That all of my irritation for the past eight or nine years had been misplaced. That was the moment I felt the moon crack in two and fall apart. There was nothing left to do but listen.

It turned out I was correct. Nothing was wrong. Nothing they could find. I had endured all manner of tests, MRI, ENG, EMG, Angiogram, CT scan and an EEG. Every inch of my spine had been scrutinized, everything I ate or did for weeks was analyzed and considered. I had no muscle damage, no injury, no tumors or growths, no cancer, no stroke. I was in no physical pain or discomfort. The next step, psychiatry.

It too would have no answers. I already knew.