Biting the Moon by Martha Grimes

Sue. She does charity work. We have a dog, too. His name is Jules, and he likes to watch us play badminton, so he can chase the badminton birds. When one goes outside the fence, he retrieves it.”
    They went on to discuss the Oliviers for a while, with both of them embellishing the lives of the family. How Marcus loved to paint and how Swan was a pianist. And how Jules would sit on the line of the net, his head going back and forth, back and forth, watching the badminton bird rise and descend. They piled on details until the vague and airy outline of the Oliviers threatened to collapse. And then they stopped.
    After a silence, Mary said, “To make this trip, we’d need money. A lot.”
    â€œI still have almost three hundred dollars.”
    â€œWe’d need more than that. We’d be gone a few days. We’d have to pay for gas and food and motels. I’d have to go to the bank and get some of my own money. It’s not that I mind, it’s just that sometimes it’s hard to convince the bank person that I need it.” But when was the last time she’d had to? Not in months, for she needed nothing beyond what the trustee would send her every month for food and clothes and spending money. He himself paid Rosella’s salary out of his trustee’s account.
    â€œI’ll pay you back.”
    Mary frowned. The would of this discussion had turned to will, as if it were decided, and Mary wasn’t sure she liked this being taken for granted. “I’ll think about it.”
    â€œOkay.”
    Mary was left then to think about it. She would much prefer to argue about it. She lay with her hands behind her head.
    â€œI can go in the bank with you,” said Andi.
    â€œNo. You’d tell him I need triple-bypass surgery. Good night.” Mary turned over on her side and watched the pale night beyond the window. She could see the small blooms of cactus, the shapes of rocks. It might be, she thought, what the landscape of the moon looks like. Sleepily, she thought of driving and driving and driving through it. Idaho. Idaho. She formed the word soundlessly, thinking it must be Indian.

15
    As they sat eating blue-corn pancakes, Rosella said, “Tomkin’s car is busted. I thought maybe we could drive into the city and Tomkin could drive you back in our car.” Rosella turned another pancake on the grill.
    â€œBut then how would Tomkin get back?” He was Rosella’s friend and was to have picked her up this morning. Driving into the city was exactly what Mary wanted. She exchanged a look with Andi.
    â€œHim? Easy, he’s got a lot of friends with cars.” Rosella plopped another pancake on Mary’s plate. “Just don’t let me catch you driving that car, miss. I know what you get up to, don’t think I don’t.”
    â€œ Me ? I’m only fourteen, for heaven’s sakes!”
    Rosella grunted. “You’re only fourteen when it suits you. Rest of the time you’re a hundred fourteen.”
    Mary poured a thick band of syrup over her pancake. “Andi can drive. Legally.” Mary looked across the table at Andi, who smiled—who beamed —at Rosella.
    Rosella looked at Andi with deep suspicion. “Who says?”
    â€œRosella, I’m seventeen. Do you know anyone who doesn’t learn to drive by then?”
    â€œYes, plenty. Zuni don’t think driving cars is what life’s all about.”
    Andi ignored this. “Learning to drive, it’s like being baptized; it’s like a Vision Quest.”
    Rosella raised her eyebrows over her coffee cup. “What do you know about Vision Quests, eh?”
    Andi started in on a long description, little of which was authentic, most of it a litter of specifics tossed out so carelessly that it was hard to separate fact from fancy. There was a detailed accounting of eagle-feathered headdresses and the summer solstice “when you go back for the