Maybe the Moon

anecdote.
    “When the guy didn’t call, she went over to his house and left a note on his Harley.”
    “No.”
    “She did. I swear.”
    “God.”
    “She was bragging about it, Cady. She thought she was being really cool.” Renee let go of my foot for a moment to replenish the lotion on her hands. When she squeezed the bottle, it made a noise like a baby with the runs. My foot felt unexplainably deserted and naked, awaiting her there in midair. When her hands finally returned, all sweet-smelling and slippery, they fit me like a glass slipper. “Too cold?” she asked.
    “No. ’S great.”
    “You’d tell me if I got like that, wouldn’t you?”
    “Like what?”
    “Like Lorrie Hasselmeyer.”
    “Oh, God, yes.”
    “I don’t think any guy’s worth begging for.”
    “Fuckin’ A.”
    Renee turned her attention to my other foot and was quiet for a while. Her thoughts hung heavy in the air, endearingly obvious, like the scent of the lotion. I swear to you I knew exactly, almost to the word, what she would say next:
    “Has Neil ever…said anything about me?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “You know,” she said.
    I hesitated, considering several routes, then said: “He’s only seen you twice, Renee.”
    “Three times.”
    “Whatever.”
    “So what did he say?”
    “He said you seemed nice.”
    Her fingers stopped. “Is that all?”
    “Well…he said you had great tits.”
    “You’re kidding!”
    I chuckled. “Yes, I’m kidding.”
    “Gah, Cady, that’s not very nice.”
    “Sorry.”
    She began to work my toes again. “I just thought he might’ve said something.”
    “No,” I said evenly. “Not really.” This sounded too hard, so I added: “Mostly we just talk about work.”
    She seemed to drift away for a moment. “He’s real smart, isn’t he?”
    “I suppose.” Let’s put it this way: Neil is a genius by Renee’s standards. I soft-pedaled it, though, because I know she’s in the process of fixating on him, and I’m not sure he’s ever given a moment’s thought to her. It seems like one more quick way for Renee to get her feelings hurt.

6
    R ENEE WAS A NAVY BRAT, BORN AND RAISED IN S AN D IEGO . Brat status is something we share, in fact, since my dad was a drill sergeant at Fort Irwin, down the road from Barstow. This was half the reason I was named Cadence; the other half had to do with Mom teaching piano. Cadence, apparently, was the only thing my parents had in common. Plus the Cady Mountains were right there, flanking the bleakest stretch of the interstate, so my nickname came ready-made. Mom had a long, boring rap about this, which she rattled off at every audition, come hell or high water.
    Renee’s mom was the military parent—a Wave, I guess you call it. Her dad had some sort of civilian job on the naval base. They were always entering her in beautiful-child contests; she had baby lipsticks and her own batons by the time she was five. When she was a teenager, she ran for Miss San Diego but didn’t get into the finals. Her parents divorced the same year, and Renee, who was a guilt-bearer even then, felt chiefly to blame. One more beauty crown, especially that one, would have saved their marriage, she claims. She moved to L.A. after high school with a guy she met while working at Arby’s. He walked out on her only days after theyfound an apartment in Reseda. I have no idea what the problem was. Renee almost never talks about him.
    Things Renee likes
    Water slides
    The color pink
    The gum that squirts when you bite into it
    Extra mayonnaise
    Stories about Michael Landon’s cancer
    Angora
    Me
    Things I like about Renee
    Her loyalty
    Her flawless skin
    Her sense of color (except in regard to pink)
    Her rice pudding
    The way she has a name for her car without knowing where her battery is
    Her smell after she’s come out of the shower
    Renee talks in her sleep, though she won’t admit it. You can hear her all the way through the door—a sort of ladylike drone, completely unintelligible, that seems somehow intended for an audience. There’s something so formal and melancholy about it, so redolent of loss, that I think of it privately as her Miss San Diego acceptance speech.
    I can’t help wondering if the guys in her life hear the same monologue, and if they’re freaked out by it. Or does she have different dreams when she’s sleeping in other bedrooms?
    I’m afraid I’m making her sound tragic, like Delta Dawn or something, and that’s not the way it is