February 18, 1987
Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic

Luna Alberti stood a good twenty feet from the building’s entrance, basking under the glow of the glorious Pizza Hut sign. The true entirety of her mood on this moonless eve could only be encompassed by a single-word, she decided. Fabulous.

She had spent an hour this morning under the cruel, blazing grip of the blow-drier. Provisional pain is a small price to pay for perennial beauty, her mother had told her since she was young. She could feel the eyes on her. They were always on her. It was kind of flattering, actually, this constant attention. It almost made everything else okay. Almost.

Luna looked down at her watch, then up at the sky. Her friends should be here by now. She did that a lot, the whole watch-sky jig. Her father joked that she must be the reincarnation of some vastly awesome and expansively cool Roman housewife, tasked with fetching water from the nearest stream by and nominuteafter five o’clock, if not to be sacrificed upon the altar of the water-fetching god, Waterfetchius, trusting only in the sun’s trek across the sky to hold her in punctuality. (Her dad was one for backstories.)

Her friend, Maria, was one infamous for the typical Dominican untimeliness. To be “five minutes away” must be immediately translated as “just leaving the house.” Luna concluded she had yet another fifteen minutes to wait. Unless they were already inside, enjoying the wondrous contemporaneous miracles of fast-food pizza.

Then she saw him.

In retrospect, Luna believed she noticed him not because of the shock of white skin and unruly blond hair (a rarity amidst the sea of tan island individuals), but because he was not looking at her. Everyone was always looking at her. How could someone be so utterly and wholly aloof to the hot momma over here? she scoffed. So she did what any rational human would do. She went over to him.

“Luna,” she said, thrusting an extended hand at his face.

He blinked, quite taken aback. “Uh, hello,” he muttered distractedly, turning away. He had an accent, Luna noted. German, maybe? In case you did not catch the above, let me repeat: he turned away.


Our dear protagonist was appalled. No one in the history of the entire frickin’ world had turned away from her! Who did this idiotic, self-absorbed, frankly not unattractive individual think he was? Then she paused. To relate to you the gravity of Luna pausing, I will bestow you with a story:

At the ankle-biting age of one and a quarter (because months seem to matter at this point in your life. Example: “My baby is 18 months old!”), an infantile Luna could be found gamboling in the Dominican sand. It was the white kind - the kind that felt soft on your skin but slipped through your fingers before you could hold it in your palm. As you may imagine, this was by no means sand optimal for castle-building. Little Luna found that out soon enough. She commenced to throw clammy fistfuls of sand in a fit of rage. Her angelic visage contorted into a demonic furor, and soon enough, she was left gasping for air.

Her parents acknowledged the situation with a weary sigh. Their cheeks and arms were sporting a haunting red hue, for the sand might be soft to a soft touch, but it hurt like a sucker with the momentum of a Hulkish toddler.

“Oh my little ogre,” exhaled her father, rubbing his victimized face and gathering his child up in his arms. The little girl/ogre had already exhausted herself and fallen into the grip of Hypnos, falling quite comically, face first into the scattered sand. As he picked her up, his brow furrowed at her expression - a simple, contented smile plastered on her youthful features.

“You really shouldn’t call her an ogre, Roberto,” Luna’s mother yawned.

“Oh, she can’t heaaar me,” he yawned in return.

They gazed down at their sleeping angel. “When you get mad, mi hija, remember to count to ten. That little Italian temper of yours is gonna get you in trouble one day.”

In that moment, right before all three of them fell into a kaput slumber (right on the beach, may I add), Roberto realized two things: 1. Luna’s first word would most probably be ogre, and 2. that little temper would be her end.

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So where were we? Pausing, right. Luna would not allow herself to get mad. Not today. Today, she was fabulous. No one, not even this foolish stranger, would ruin that for her.

“Have you seen Maria?” she asked in a little voice, afraid her big voice would turn into her ogre voice (as her father referred to it).

“Nein,” the tall boy responded dismissively. “I do not know a Maria.”

Luna suppressed a giggle. His r’s resembled the final breath of a dying cat. Or what she imagined that to sound like. She exhaled, christening this stranger inexcusably rude. As she walked away, making sure her hips were swinging to an appropriate degree, she knew the blond one was watching her intently.

February 21, 1987

Riiiing. Riiiiiing.

“CAN SOMEONE GET OFF THEIR LAZY ASSES AND GET THAT DEMONIC PHONE!” screeched Luna’s mom from the shower.

Let’s get ourselves up to date with this character, if you allow it. Despite what some may say, people do change. Luna’s mother was no longer the fun-loving, beach-sleeping woman she once was. As her life clock struck forty, she had come to a time all middle-aged women seem to encounter: the infamous mid-life crisis. This unconventional lady sought an unconventional relief - a church. So she went and joined up her nearest conservative place of worship. Let us be honest: we all wallow in our superiority over others. Luna’s mom reveled in her “predominant” faith and reveled likewise in making everyone else know their inferiority. People seem to believe in the equation church = nice. Luna soon found a billion fallacies in the above.

Mrs. Alberti could be found in perennial rollers wearing a perennial scowl. She prohibited her “scoundrel” of a daughter to wear earrings (“The mark of the devil!”), or make-up (“Have you even read Revelations?!”). But most of all, she joyed in the degrading of her husband. Popular dinner exclamations went along the lines of, “Roberto, you are the anti-Christ!” or “Say hello to Lucifer for me!”. Roberto took it all with a pained sigh, wistfully longing for the woman he had fallen in love with, and vowing, with all his heart, never to step foot in the church that had corrupted his sweet wife into this heinous monster.

*

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Riiiing.

“ROBERTO YOU GOOD-FOR-NOTHING--”

“I’ll get the phone,” Luna said. She glanced at her father sadly. He had aged so much in the past years. His skin sagged a little in places it shouldn’t, not at his age. His eyes were encircled by dark rings, a souvenir of sleepless nights.

“I’ve lost my wife,” he muttered absently, staring at the coffee table. Luna’s heart broke over and over again as she kissed his stubbly cheek. They only had each other in this home for three.

Riiiinn - “Hello, Alberti residence.”

“Uh, hello, is this Luna Alberti?” said a thick German accent. No, it couldn’t be. Pizza Hut rude guy? She winced at the sound of him slaughtering her name.

“Um yes, how can I help you?”

“Oh, eh, I vas just vondering if you vould like to go on a, eh, date vith me?”

Luna blinked. “Come again.”

“A date? Like I pick you up, vee eat pizza and vatch romantic movie and maybe holds hands.”

“How did you get my number?” Luna inquired dubiously.

“Maria.”

“So you do know Maria? I thought you said you didn’t!” Boys are impossible. “Look, bro, I don’t even know your name.”

“Umm... My name is Rupert?” he offered up lamely. Luna could hear him blushing. Her face softened. Okay, it’s mildly creepy how he got my number, she admitted. But he doesn’t know many people here... Or is even vaguely aware of socially acceptable forms of asking people out... But, let’s be real here ladies, he isn’t per se a pain on the eyes.

“Pick me up at eight.”

May 5, 1987

“What is that goddamn tree doing on my roof!!” screamed Roberto. He was still in his bathrobe, holding his morning coffee, a scandalized expression etched on his weary face.

Luna ran outside to see a little rosebush sitting contentedly on their house like a smug toad on a lilypad. Rupert rose up from behind the leaves, holding a bouquet of white flowers and a guilty smile.

“Sorry for vandalizing your roof vith spring, sir,” he grinned apologetically. “In my country, vee plant a tree on ze roof of ze girl vee like vith the arrival of zee first breezes of spring.” Rupert climbed down from the roof and gallantly presented Luna with the roses of white pigmentation. “And your Luna, sir, she is my spring. She is the blossom of my joy and ze ripening of my love.”

Luna accepted the roses with a smile and greeted him with a kiss. That boy sure knew how to make her swoon.

“Well, in my country, we talk like actual men. Get that hideous thing off my roof, boy!” he scowled, walking inside mumbling about idiot Germans, lederhosen, and their imbecile foliage.

June 8, 1987

The greatest loves are the ones that cannot be. Rupert was an exchange student from Germany, as you may or may not have thus far guessed. His year abroad was complete and it was time to bid adieu to sandy beaches and come home to oceans of grass.

Luna knew she could not handle a long-distance relationship; hence, she had done the inevitable, as the inevitable is often done. And thusly, their four months of riding the rollercoaster of romance ended with a startling halt.

Knock-knock. “Luna, it’s lederhosen boy!” she heard her dad grunt.

“Nice to see you, sir!”

Roberto replied with yet another grunt.

Rupert stood crouching in her doorway (it was not made for people of European proportions). “Hey Luna.”

“Hi.”

“Um... I know you and me are not a zing anymore, but I vanted to give you this,” he said, handing her a letter. “And this.” He leaned down and brushed his lips against her cheek. “Good-bye, my Luna. I know we will see each other again.”

Luna did not breathe during the whole encounter, much less say a word. She clutched the letter in her hands as her eyes watered and she watched him walk away.


*

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Dear Luna,

An author once said, “Pain demands to be felt.” Yet, I have noted but another truth. The heart wants to feel pain. Oh, I know what you must think. That’s ludicrous! Nevertheless, the truth has a knack for seeming preposterous, does it not. The heart wants to feel pain, and joy, and want, and the myriad of other emotions too strong and too true to be bound into a category by a mere noun. After all, emotions are the only thing that tell us, “You’re alive.” (Sure, there’s heartbeats and blood-work and all that, but that’s not nearly as metaphorically resonant and literarily exquisite as the above). The heart wants to be alive. And I want to be alive. Here. With you. And I know that means my heart is going to break over and over again, and I know I’m going to feel random bursts of rage, and I know there are going to be times where the open arms of Hades seem like home. But there’s also gonna be those moments of simplicity - just me... and you. And my heart will heal of its pain and anger and despondency in a heartbeat, replaced only by love. And that will make all the anguish okay.

I guess what I’m saying is that I want to try this. I’m not saying the whole long-distance thing is going to be easy. But, Luna, I believe in destiny, but mostly I believe in you and me. And I believe in modern technology such as planes that will take me to you whenever I can go.
Your name, Luna. On our first date, you smiled and told me it meant moon. You know in the movies, when the two lovers look at the sky and swoon about how they are looking at the same moon? I propose we do that. You shine brighter than any star, my Luna. When I gaze at the night and behold its queen, I will think of you, for you, as the moon rules the night, you rule my heart.

Yours forever,

Rupert

As Luna read the letter for the fifth time, she established two things, 1. Rupert could write a million times better than he could talk, and 2. she wanted to try. She really, really, really did.

July 22, 1993


“We are gathered here today in the holy matrimony of two individuals,” spoke the pastor. He smiled at the two children before him, for they were children. Twenty-one and twenty-three? he scoffed. Lord help them.

As Shakespeare did once say, “Love is blind, and lovers cannot see/ The pretty follies which they themselves commit.”

April 19, 1995

Rupert and Luna were sitting on a way too small couch in a way too small apartment watching the only English channel on a way too small TV. They had moved to Japan two years ago to a) pursue Luna’s reporting career and b) get Rupert’s doctorate in medicine (all ingredients for a glamorous life) but had ended up c) eating very non-descript food in an apartment that specialized only in being so small, Rupert would hit his head habitually upon entering.

The phone rang and Rupert paused the television. A phone call is just a phone call until you hear what it relates.

“Oh hi mom!” Luna smiled. The truth of the matter is a child is genetically prone to love their mother. No matter how much they hurt you or compare you to Satan, you always seem to find a place in your heart that is theirs.

Luna’s smile faded as she heard the sobs coming from the other end of the world. “He’s gone Luna he’s gone and it’s my fault and -”

“Wait wait calm down mom. Who’s gone?”

“No no Roberto haaaaaay no how could you let this happen Lord why why me -”

“MOM LISTEN TO ME WHAT’S HAPPENING!” Luna shouted in panic.

Sniffling sobs on the other end. “He’s gone, mija. I found him in the morning. He... he did it himself.”

When your world is falling apart it is not uncommon to not make a sound. Luna sat there holding the phone for ten minutes before the walls of the way too small apartment shook with the thunder of her cries.

April 23, 1995


I have always found weather to be in the business of irony. The funeral took place on a beautiful spring day, the sun bathing down on the black of the coffin.

The pastor, of Mrs. Alberti’s church of course, rambled on of what a great man Roberto was, but would sadly not go to heaven seeing as he had killed himself. He gave a sad little shrug of sympathy. Luna’s temper would have slapped the man on the spot had Rupert not held her hand and kept her sane.

The people filed out of the chairs until only one remained. A widow in black clutching a handkerchief of white, mumbling, “It’s my fault it’s my fault oh Roberto I love you it’s my fault....”

*

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Since I am, after all, the narrator of this tale, I get to choose what to say. Despite what some may say, all love stories are important only for their beginnings and ends. How they met, how they finish. Hence I will summarize the journey.

Rupert and Luna were young. They were good people, but did not how to be good husband and wife. They, I must admit sadly, resembled children attempting to play house. Their love was strong, but not strong enough for Luna’s temper, or Rupert’s dismissive manner, or the scars left by the passing of Roberto. Luna’s father left her with mounds of money, and, soon enough, monetary differences cut at the string as well. Twenty years and three children later, the string finally snapped.

March 16, 2013

Luna had filed the divorce papers earlier today. She sat at her vast marble kitchen countertop, sporting an expensive dress. She stared out the window of her lakefront home. What had happened to the days where non-descript food and way too small apartments was all you needed?

She scribbled on some stationery and laid it on the kitchen table. The paper read,

“Rupert -

It breaks my heart that all love stories don’t end happily. For what it’s worth, I did love you, more than I ever thought it was possible to love another.
- Luna.”

Luna pulled a crumpled, yellowed paper out of her purse, plastered with the uneven calligraphy of a seventeen year old boy. She read it one last time, her lips moving to the words on the page. Luna whispered the last line into the air-conditioned room. “As the moon rules the night, you rule my heart.”

She walked out of their house for the very last time, holding the smeared pen ink to her heart.

Luna closed her eyes and pictured the man she was letting go. With bated breath she sighed, “And you rule mine.”

*

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In all truth, I may have more of a personal intertwining with this particular story than I may have let on. In all truth, these two lovers, and haters, and in-betweeners, they are my parents. Since their love is no more, I decided that it no longer belongs to them, but to me - a product of their love. So I tell their love story - my love story - as I please and how I please.

My mother, Luna, told me once through a flurry of tears that their love was like paper. It had been hit and crumpled to an unreconcilable extent. My mother is a wise woman, but never has she been more wrong. Love does not die. It lives on, even after it is squashed and torn up and thrown out. Some are just too weak, or scared, or tired to tape it back together. It is the only eternal thing in this temporary world, and I, I am living proof of this hypothesis.

I am the product of an unbalanced chemical equation. Two loose reactants and an arrow symbolizing love point straight to me. “Science does not lie,” my teacher says every class period. If she is in fact not lying, then their love, my love, it is by no means a pretty folly.