Maybe the Moon

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    Because of that, Lya became a bigger star than ever. She continued to tour with the circus, finally earning enough money to fulfill her dream of returning home with her parents to their native Germany. Alas, Hitler was in power by then, and the unique imperfection that had won Lya the hearts of children everywhere didn’t play as well in the Third Reich. Both she and her parents were consigned to the death camp at Auschwitz—and eventually to the gas chambers—in the interest of a more perfect race.
    Mom fixated on this story as if it were personal lore, rattling it off with gusto to anyone who’d listen. For years I wondered if it contained an object lesson for me, a subliminal warning that might somehow spare me from Lya’s fate. What was the moral, anyway? Don’t sit on a rich man’s lap? Never try to live with your parents? I was almost a teenager before I realized that the story was merely Mom’s way of linking littleness and Jewishness, of relating her own early experience of outsiderdom to the one I had suffered. Lya Graf was us , rolled into a neat little fable about the supreme unfairness of the world.

12
    T HIS STRANGELY OFF-KILTER DAY STARTED WITH A WEIRD PHONE call from Neil. My first thought was that he’d finally drummed up a gig for us, but that bubble burst as soon as I noticed the peculiar note in his voice. He seemed cowed somehow, unnaturally subdued. After the briefest of preliminaries, he asked if he could come over. When I told him of course he could, he said he just wanted to make sure I was there.
    “As opposed to what?” I said. “Skiing in Gstaad?”
    He gave me the lamest little laugh, clearly in great discomfort.
    “What’s up?”
    “I think it should wait,” he said, “until I’m there.”
    As soon as I hung up I began manufacturing calamities. Leading the list was the notion that I was no longer of use to PortaParty, that an old and valued customer, repelled by my presence, or maybe just my singing, had specifically requested that I not be in attendance at her little Ahmet’s, her little Blake’s, her little Zoe’s birthday party. Neil’s uncomfortable task, as I imagined it, was to break this news to me as gently as possible, hence the need to talk to me in person.
    If the ax was to fall, I decided, I would handle it like Mary,Queen of Scots—looking my best. I shucked off my stretched-out mauve-period T-shirt and climbed into a deep-green sailor suit that brings out my eyes. My hair was beyond redemption, but I slapped on a quick coat of powder and lipstick, then arranged myself artfully on the living room sofa, a back issue of Premiere next to me, opened to an article about Jodie Foster. When Neil arrived, he knocked quietly once or twice, then poked his head through the doorway.
    “Cady?”
    “I’m here. C’mon in.”
    He slouched into the house wearing khaki trousers and a Hawaiian shirt, looking just as hangdog as he had sounded on the phone. Everything about him said supplicant. If he’d been wearing a hat, he’d have held it in both hands.
    I gestured to the armchair. “Take a load off.”
    He lowered his rangy frame onto the worn velveteen. His eyes made a brief, anxious flight around the room before settling on me again. “Nice dress,” he said.
    “This ol’ thing?”
    He smiled feebly and asked if Renee was here.
    “At work,” I told him.
    “Oh.”
    “Some people keep regular hours, you know.” This remark was meant to be chummy, a breezy acknowledgment of our common gypsy bonds, but it was much too close to the subject of employment. I regretted it instantly.
    Neil nodded distractedly and let it go. “Sorry I was so vague on the phone.”
    “Hey.” I shrugged, unable to manage another word. Looking back on it, I think my breathing had stopped completely.
    “It’s about Janet Glidden,” Neil said at last, fixing his eyes on the rug.
    “What about her?”
    He swallowed hard. “She’s dead. She shot herself last week.”
    I can’t tell you what a surge of relief I felt. Well, I am telling you, but I certainly couldn’t tell Neil, or let it show on my face,since he was looking as if he’d just brought word of something truly heartbreaking. What I ended up saying was “Oh, no,” or words to that effect, while I brought my hand to my cheek and left it there for a beat or two.
    Neil nodded. “Linda called this morning.”
    “I’m sorry…?”
    “My ex-wife. Janet’s old friend.”
    “Oh,