The adult moth will emerge, fully developed, by splitting the pupal skin.
The name Lymantria dispar is composed of two Latin-derived words. Lymantria means “destroyer.” The word dispar is derived from the Latin for “unequal” and it depicts the differing characteristics between the sexes … it is noticeable that the females are bigger than the males. Another important difference between the sexes is that females possess fully formed wings but do not fly.
—The Gypsy Moth: Research Toward Integrated Pest Management, United States Department of Agriculture, 1981
July 4, 1992
Dear Diary,
Hi again! I went back to my last entry and scratched through #4. I scratched it so many times the paper tore through and that just made me even madder. It’s BS that B and me have to hide our feelings for each other. Especially when they are the MOST true pure beautiful good feelings ever. I know if my dad finds out he’ll hit me. Or worse. Maybe he’ll finally hang me on the wall by my hair like he’s always threatening to. Like that’s even something he could do!!!
How could our love be so bad when it feels so good? Before him I hated all the love stories I read about in books. Or saw in movies. AS IF, I remember thinking when I watched Love Story and I even got mad at Penny for blubbering like a baby when Ali MacGraw died. But it IS real. I know that now. You can feel safe with another person. You can feel like a better version of yourself. That’s how I feel in the secret garden.
Tonight’s the stupid 4th of July party at the OCCC. The only reason I’m going is because B promised he’d go with me. And I’m going to do it. I really am. Tonight is the night we’re going to show the whole island who we really are. They’ll be blinded by how beautiful we are together me and B. Just like the gods and goddesses and the way they blinded mere mortals when they appeared in their heavenly form. Avalon won’t know what hit them when they see us loving each other.
B told me how the gypsy moths communicate through pheromones (spelling??). How they let out these chemicals that show the boy moths how to get to the girl moths. And how scientists have made that same chemical in their labs. I wish I could spray the club with that shit tonight. Make EVERYONE in Avalon fall in love just like me and B. It would be peacetime forever after that. No more Wildcat jets made ever again! HA!
My dad is totally going to flip. But WHATEVER. Let him hit me. Let him pull my hair. Let him nail me to the wall. I don’t care. All that matters is that B and me are together. Forever. Knock on wood.
See you later, alligator.
Love,
Maddie Pencott LaRosa
P.S. (So I don’t forget)
Cottage to Castle: Right, right, left, right, left, left
Cottage to Secret Garden: Left, right, left, left, right, left
31.
Veronica
She stepped carefully into the green silk dress and, what do you know, it fit like a glove.
It was the dress she had worn to Admiral and Mrs. Marshall’s Christmas party in 1983—her first East Avalon event after Bob’s promotion to president. An A-line Dior in green crepe with a square neck and chiffon shawl. Now, because of her curved spine, the skirt brushed the tops of her gnarled toes.
She heard something and froze. There was a pinging at her closet window.
A brown speckled gypsy moth was trapped between the window screen and glass. She knew it was a he because females were a creamy white and could not fly. This summer was her fourth gypsy moth infestation on the island. By far the worst. Perhaps, she thought, the females hadn’t even hatched. The males split their cocoons first, their life’s purpose to fly frantic zigzagging patterns in search of a mate. Horny fools on the prowl. She opened the window. Slapped at the screen. The moth flew into the room. She scurried after him, the back of her dress unzipped, swatting the air. He landed on a pink cashmere cardigan tagged for Goodwill. She attacked. Caught him between thumb and forefinger. His furious wings tickled her fingertips before she crushed him between her palms.
She lit the leftover marijuana cigarette, squinting against the rising smoke. The burning weed clamped between her false teeth, she reached back, her shoulder bones creaking, and tried to zip the gown as green as the lawn stretching outside her window. It was useless. She was useless. She’d have to ask Rosalita for help.
She had worked hard to fit in with the ladies of East Avalon. She’d had to, coming from Palmyra. Born, as Bob loved to say, “a beauty queen with cow shit between her toes.” There had been many bridge parties, many ladies’ luncheons, where she feared she stuck out like a lump in mashed potatoes.
She hadn’t quit studying the ladies, even five decades later. Not everyone would call it “work”—she hadn’t perched in her gilded cage long enough to drink that particular brand of Kool-Aid (as the kids said these days). But still, she had toiled. How could she not when so much was at stake? When Bob rose to president, he became one of the most powerful men in the country. His seat reserved, as he often reminded her, at round tables at the Pentagon and the White House. He teed off with Presidents Eisenhower through Bush.
She hadn’t any formal education, but the ladies of East Avalon had taught her all she needed to know, more than she wanted to know, about how to be a woman of wealth. The sucking in, straightening, lacing, tightening, commanding one’s own body like a drill sergeant. She had learned to wear that composure like a diamond-studded girdle, drawn tight so her ribs cracked with every step. She had a few tricks—pinching the meat between thumb and forefinger when she grew drowsy at a political dinner full of Champagne toasts and endless applause, or she’d prick her finger with one of her pearl-tipped hat pins. Her work had paid off. She had been no lump but one of the ladies. Invisible among their ranks. Was it time to surprise the ladies of East Avalon, she wondered, or too early to let the cloak drop at her feet?
Her disguise had required a pricey wardrobe, and, in the last two months, she’d bagged sixty years of it. Jumbo trash bags lined her closet floor. Naked hangers dangled above. Tens of thousands of dollars wasted on cashmere cardigans from Bergdorf’s and long-trained gowns from Saks she’d worn once to galas. Enough golf shirts and slacks for ten lifetimes on the green. Eight Hefty bags of shoes alone. The soles of some unscuffed—only worn inside the store. Pantsuits and skirt suits and so many blouses in silk, linen, and all manner of synthetic fiber. Each bag labeled with its destination. Salvation Army. Goodwill. St. Mary’s Chapel by the Sea. Six bags to be shipped back to Palmyra. An anonymous donation. Her plainest slacks and shirts because no self-respecting Mormon sister would trade eternal life ever after for a sweetheart neckline.