Maybe the Moon

ago, at that. I am a husk of a person, nothing more, a burned-out organism tumbling toward oblivion.
    When I get like this, Renee turns hideously chirpy, trying to snap me out of it. It never works, but I usually end up faking at least a partial recovery, just to get her off my case. Last night, in an effort to cheer, she made my favorite meal (pot roast) and regaled me with half a dozen Jeffrey Dahmer jokes she’d heard at work. I groaned and laughed as much as I could, pretended to be my old self again, and went to bed early, crying myself to sleep. I had another long, vivid dream about Mom.
    In this one we were attending a sort of premiere party for my new video. Renee was there too, and Neil and Jeff and Tread and Philip Blenheim and even Aunt Edie, fresh off the bus from Baker. Mom had her hair in the sort of beehive she stopped wearing about the time I was born. She looked really modern like that—so out she was in—and I told her so, which thrilled her no end. The video was on an endless loop projected onto a huge cube above the buffet table. Philip Blenheim was impressed by my voice and how thin I looked. When I introduced him to Aunt Edie, she got way too gushy about Mr. Woods , but Philip took it all in stride and winked at me secretly, one professional to another. He offered me a role in his next film, but I played hard to get and said something vague about an obligation to Marty Scorsese.
    Then the scene shifted abruptly, and Mom and I were on a bluff above the Pacific. It was sunset, and Mom’s skin was all golden and smooth, like a nymph in a Maxfield Parrish painting. She sat next to me, brushing my hair and singing softly. When I told her I thought she was dead, she laughed and said she’d just been in Palm Springs, developing a miniseries about Lya Graf—a real person I’ll tell you about later. Mom said an executive at Fox, somebody just under Barry Diller and extremely excited about the project, thought I’d be perfect for the role. I squealed and hugged her and felt a warming rush of relief. I thought she’d left me for good, and here she was, lovelier than ever and so real I could smell her Jean Naté, making big plans for our future as if she’d never been away.

    On with the shitty news: Janet Glidden called this morning to say she’d been having “problems in the lab” and that we might have to reshoot the video. I hit the ceiling and called her a “total incompetent” who didn’t deserve to be working with “real professionals.” Even as I said it, this sounded pompous, so I called her back a few minutes later and apologized. She was so shaken that my raging disappointment was instantly replaced by raging guilt. The project is a goner, obviously; I might as well face that now and be done withit. To spend another day lip-syncing in that stuffy greenhouse would only prolong the agony. I bowed out as nicely as I could, but Janet didn’t take it very well. Too bad. The way I see it, if she has to start over again, she might as well start with somebody else.
    I called Neil to fill him in, figuring Janet would probably call to cry on his shoulder. He was more than sympathetic and even tried to take responsibility for the whole mess. I can’t believe how nice he is.
    We’ve had no gigs for a week and won’t for another two or three. Neil says not to worry about it, that things usually slow down in the fall. He seemed to be enjoying the break, actually. His kid was there for the weekend, and I could hear him romping and giggling in the background.
    Aunt Edie called a little while ago, but I didn’t pick up. How the woman does it I’ll never know. The moment my life begins to fall apart, she homes in on me like a buzzard circling dead meat. She left a message on the machine about running into Lanny March at a gas station in Baker. Lanny March was a boy I hung out with in high school and haven’t seen since. We played Clue together after school and went to the occasional movie, so Aunt Edie regards him as a vaguely romantic figure in my life, which he wasn’t at all. He was probably a big homo, come to think of it, given his sweetly bemused demeanor and his enduring passion for Bernadette Peters. Aunt Edie only mentioned him to remind me that everyone who really cares about me still lives in Baker.
    Aunt Edie is Mom’s slightly younger sister, though you’d never believe those two came from the same womb. Aunt Edie is so uptight she makes Marilyn Quayle look like the Whore