Maybe the Moon

and dropped a small bomb on me.
    “Don’t get mad,” he began.
    “What is it?”
    “I know what you told me, but…”
    “ What , Jeff?”
    “Neil is outside.”
    “Oh, fuck.”
    “He left a note on the door. I had to tell him.”
    “Left it where? Here?”
    “At the house.”
    “What did it say?”
    “He just wondered where you were. He’s a great guy, Cadence.”
    “You’ve talked to him?”
    “Some. Yeah.”
    Don’t ask me why, but I immediately got paranoid. The very thought of those two guys getting together to discuss me was supremely unnerving. I had no choice but to bully Jeff with sarcasm. “Have you two been bonding or something?”
    “Cadence…”
    “You have, haven’t you? That’s cute.”
    “Piss off.”
    “You’ve been reading to each other from Iron John .”
    “Do you want your purse?”
    He held it in front of me without waiting for an answer, so I took it from him and began fixing my face.
    “You know,” he said, sulking, “that shows how little you know about me.”
    “How’s that?”
    “ Iron John is the last thing I’d read. Fags don’t need that Hairy Man shit. We’ve always been tribal.”
    “Who cares? How do I look?”
    “Even.”
    “ Even ?”
    “The lipstick is on the lips, Cadence. What do you want me to say?”
    I stuck out my tongue at him.
    “I’ll send him in,” he said.

    Neil was in his nice gabardine slacks, looking ominously well shaven and dressed. “Hi.”
    “Hi.”
    “You look good,” he said.
    “Better than you expected?”
    He shrugged, smiling.
    “You heard about…the caper?”
    He nodded.
    “Pretty nuts, huh?”
    Another nod, another smile.
    “That’s why I didn’t tell you,” I said.
    “I figured.”
    “You’re such a pussy.”
    “I know.”
    “Well, stop it, then,” I said. “It’s not healthy to be that scared.”
    Unfinished business hung in the air like ozone after a thunderstorm.
    “I plan to tell them about us,” he said.
    “Forget it.”
    “No. I want to.”
    “It doesn’t matter.”
    “It does to me.”
    “Why?”
    “I don’t know…but it does.” He sat on the edge of the bed and looked around. “I should’ve brought you flowers. These are nice.”
    “I’ve got flowers out the ass,” I told him. “Or somebody does. I left a bunch back at my dressing room.”
    “I’ll bet you did.” He reached over tentatively and stroked the side of my face. “I brought you something else, though.”
    “What?”
    “Is this a good time?”
    “Well, no,” I said, “now that you mention it, but a week from Thursday might work out.”
    “I just wondered about disturbing your roommates.”
    “What is it, for God’s sake?”
    He smiled and stood up. “I’ll get it.”
    He left the room and returned sheepishly a moment later with a bulky wooden four-wheeled object that had to be turned on its side before it would fit through the door. I didn’t realize what it was until he rolled it across the floor and I saw two sturdy little steps jutting out from one side.
    “My stage,” I said.
    “Or pedestal…whichever you prefer.”
    “My stage-pedestal.”
    “See…” He knelt next to the thing and fiddled with something at the bottom. “I put a little brake down here that stabilizes it once it’s in place….”
    “So I don’t slalom into the audience during the big finale.”
    He laughed. “Exactly.”
    “Good thinking.”
    Curiosity, I noticed, had gotten the best of Mrs. Haywood, who was leaning so far out of her bed she looked as if she’d hit the floor any second. “It’s a pedestal,” I yelled.
    “For what?” she called back.
    “For me.”
    “Oh.”
    “She hates me,” I told Neil under my breath. “She was the star here until I arrived.”

29
    N EIL STAYED AS LONG AS THEY’D LET HIM, THEN TOOK MY pedestal home with him, since the nurses kept tripping over it. I dreamed about it last night, though, dreamed that it was still here, next to the bed, keeping me company while I slept. I woke to the sound of it—or dreamed that I woke—just before dawn, recognizing the whir of those tiny wheels across the linoleum. I opened an eye and waited, perfectly still. The dark plywood mass was next to me, moving slowly toward the foot of the bed like a giant tortoise. Nobody was visible from here, so whoever—or whatever—propelled it was most certainly under the bed.
    I sat up. The pedestal stopped in its tracks, playing dead. I almost giggled, since it reminded me of one of those