Maybe the Moon

traps in the morning.
    I’m writing this on the beach at Santa Monica. Renee has three more days of vacation left and plans to make the most of them. We’re encamped under a new floral-pattern beach umbrella she bought at K mart yesterday. I’m wearing my latest creation: a pink gingham bathing suit, heavily ruffled, that makes me look like a huge Victorian baby. Renee is in a royal-blue bikini, poring over the latest People for the juicy details of Annette Bening’s pregnancy by Warren Beatty. There’s a soft, lulling breeze off the water, and the sky is remarkably clear and blue. Though my housemate doesn’tseem to have noticed, a Chicano guy two blankets over has been giving her the eye for ages, with a nice boner in his Speedos to prove it. I guess I should tell her—sooner or later.

    To catch up:
    Jeff called the morning after I left that message on his machine. “OK, Cadence, what is it?”
    Since he sounded edgy, I decided not to be coy. “Callum Duff is in town,” I said. “He’s been here for several months.”
    He was silent for so long that I wondered if he was mad at me, though I couldn’t think of a reason he should be.
    “You’re entitled to gloat,” I added.
    “How do you know this?”
    “I saw him. We talked.”
    “But you don’t know it’s the same person.”
    “No, but I’ve got a great way to find out.”
    Another pause, and then, furtively: “He’s not there, is he?”
    I chuckled. “No, Jeff. I’ve got a photograph. Taken yesterday.”
    “Oh.”
    “What’s the matter?” I said. “I thought you’d be overjoyed.”
    “You didn’t tell him that I…?”
    “I didn’t tell him a thing. Your name never came up.”
    “Good.”
    “The next move is strictly yours.”
    “No, it isn’t.”
    “Well…whatever.” I let my tinder-dry tone convey the message that it was no big deal to me, since I was beginning to feel vaguely pimpish about the whole affair. He could find his own boyfriends, for all I cared.
    “He had my number, you know, and he never called back.”
    “So?”
    “Well, I can’t just call him now, out of the blue like that. He never even told me where he lived.”
    “Oh, I see.”
    “There’s such a thing as pride.”
    “Mmm.”
    “Where does he live?”
    “Does it matter?”
    “Cadence…”
    “The Chateau Marmont.”
    He made a little murmur, or maybe a grunt, of recognition.
    “That’s where you pictured him, wasn’t it? In a castle?”
    “Very funny.”
    “He’s a dreamboat, Jeff. I see what you mean.”
    “Yeah, well, a fucked-up dreamboat.”
    “Why? Because he didn’t call you back?”
    No answer.
    “Do you wanna see the picture or not?”
    He emitted a protracted groan that meant yes, so I told him he knew where he could find me. He said he’d be on his way as soon as he finished his sit-ups. I hung up and went into the living room to fluff the pillows, feeling the glow I always feel when I lure someone I really like into the soul-sucking reaches of Yellow Ribbon Land.
    He showed up an hour later, bearing wilted carnations he’d bought from “a Hispanic person at a stoplight.” He tried to stay cool about it, but his muffin-round, sandpapery face wore expectation like rouge. After kneeling briefly to bestow a ritual peck on my cheek, he went straight for the photograph.
    “Where was this taken?”
    I told him.
    “I thought you hated it there.”
    “I do. Renee made me go. Is it him, Jeff?”
    He nodded.
    “Are you surprised?”
    “No. Are you?”
    I shook my head and gave him a crooked, apologetic smile.
    “Did he say anything that made you think he was gay?”
    I told him about the girlfriends back in Maine.
    “Oh, great.”
    “Maybe he was just covering,” I suggested.
    “That’s what I mean. He sounds fucked up. And if there really is a girlfriend, forget it.”
    “I think he’s just young, Jeff.”
    He sighed and dropped into the armchair. “Too young. I don’t feel like being a tutor. If he’s still in the closet, I haven’t got time to wait for him.”
    His jaded world-weariness was beginning to annoy me. I settled into my pillow and pointed out that Callum was only ten years his junior.
    “Well, yeah,” he said, “but look what happened in those ten years.”
    I couldn’t argue with that. A decade of living with death and dying can certainly change the way you look at things. Given Callum’s cloistered New England upbringing and Jeff’s growing militancy, it was entirely possible that the