Chapter 3

Luna was almost disappointed when she actually reached her friend’s house because she hadn’t had much cause for driving recently and she had missed the time alone to think and to be fully herself.

The entrance to the grounds of A.J’s sprawling mansion of a house was a riot of green foliage. Once you ducked past the front gate it felt like entering a jungle and always served to block out the city noise. One couldn’t even tell what color the house was until you were right next to it due to all of the vegetables and fruit trees and herbs that grew along the property.

A.J’s mother and Rebecca’s best friend, Maria Jorden, was the owner of The Lions’ Den which was a large-scale, high-end restaurant that boasted a menu full of locally grown plants and vegetables supplied by Maria’s own gardens which ran through the sprawling acre of land that they lived on.

The entire stretch of path to the house was framed by many separate pergolas with hanging baskets and opening for all of the branching pathways through the chaotic garden. Luna took one of these baskets down and picked some of the visibly ripe fruits and veggies along her way, even going as far as to take one of the branching pathways to reach more of the seldom seen plants.

By the time she reached the front door of A.J’s and Maria’s house, her basket was full to the brim with tomatoes, strawberries and some carrots and she noted that she needed to let Maria know that the squash would probably need to be picked soon. She knocked briefly on the glass door as a courtesy but let herself in with her key.

Luna had to duck low to avoid the plants hanging from the ceiling right in front of the door. Those are new. She bobbed and weaved around the hanging baskets as she called out “Mom! I’m here to pick up A.J”.

Hearing a crash from the living room she turned and headed that way, although it could have just been a cat or parrot knocking over a pot during a rousing chase. Stepping into the living room Luna looked down to avoid the bright morning sunlight streaming in from the floor to ceiling windows that were more like glass walls. Blinking away the glare, Luna glanced all around, from the gleaming white marble floors and the black marble columns to the multiple terracotta pots full of vibrant green plants to the oak beams in the white ceiling.

She didn’t see Maria anywhere so she righted the tropical tree that was knocked over and glared at the cat who had scattered the second the plant had fallen and was now peering at her from behind the oak door frame. Looking down, she checked to see what had enticed the cat to its mischief and found one of the chameleons clinging tightly to a low branch, its eyes swiveling like mad. Sighing, She dislodged the frightened creature and moved it too one of the sturdier trees, higher up so the cat couldn’t see it.

The nickname of the house was the glass menagerie because of the large windows all over the house and all of the different animals lounging on every available surface, including hamsters, bunnies (although most of those were kept outside), sugar gliders, snakes and (of course) cats and parrots and lizards (including but not limited to chameleons, bearded dragons and iguanas).

In fact, the only animals that Maria refused to get were dogs. When asked why not she would just respond with “Well, they’re not very good conversationalists, are they?” and leave it at that. Which confused the fuck out of everyone except Rebecca who would just roll her eyes good- naturedly and shake her head at the woman.

Though most of the floorplan was open concept only broken up by the staircase and the columns on the main floor, the house was a gigantic. It was four stories tall with over 20 rooms, and she didn’t relish the thought of having to search all over for her people, so Luna just stayed very still and listened for her friend and Maria. Eventually she heard crashing coming from up to her left and then there were sounds of a mad scramble then crashing noises and two voices crying out expletives.

Rather than going to check what was going on, she just headed to the sun room, qualifying as such because the entire room was made of glass including the ceiling so it counted as more of a sun room than the rest of the sun filled house. According to Maria at least. Once there, she flopped down on the couch and placed an arm over her eyes to block out the light.

She knew it a was a mistake to lay down the second she did so but it was as if her exhaustion just needed her to settle for a minute for it to sink its claws deep into her brain and drag her under. The second her eyes slid shut, she was out. She was trapped.

Luna awoke to find herself whimpering as tears rolled down her cheeks and her hands shook at her in front of her face. The area around her was so bright that she had to shield her eyes and she was so disoriented that for a minute she couldn’t even place the voice of the person sitting in front of her, pressing a tissue into her hand.

“Here Luna. Take these.” The voice said as delicate hands pressed a wad of tissues into her palm. Blinking up at her best friend, her blond hair glowing in the light, Luna’s hands instinctively reached up to brush the brightly colored feathers from A.Js hair but her friend just ducked from her clumsy hand.

“Ah ah ah. Please don’t mess with those. It took hours for mom to thread them into my hair. Not to mention it took for-fucking-ever to get them out of the birds’ cages and clean.”

When Luna was able to focus on her friend, she marveled at her beauty. Sometimes it just caught her off guard how wonderful and bright the girl before her was. A.J was much shorter than Luna, being only 5’1” but her friend had so much confidence and energy that she seemed to take up a room with her presence. Fortunately, her friend was holding herself in so as to not overwhelm her and Luna appreciated it.

Her chin length blond bob managed to look soft and curly while also being wild and spikey at the ends. The wild effect was enhanced by the aqua blue that was dyed into the tips of her hair and the multi-colored feathers, that Luna could now see were purposefully threaded through it, had at first looked like she had gotten into a fight with a flock of her mother’s tropical birds. Which wouldn’t be the first time.