Maybe the Moon

parents.”
    “C’mon.”
    Neil shrugged. “They know about Mr. Woods , at least. Linda said they did.”
    “Oh, swell. Do they expect me to wear the suit?”
    Neil smiled benignly, refusing to buy into my cynicism. “It’s next Saturday,” he said. “I thought we could make a day of it. I’ve never seen Catalina myself.” He was almost coy about the way he dropped the locale, a frisky light dancing in his eyes while he waited for it to register on me.
    “Catalina? The island?”
    He nodded.
    “They’re having the funeral there?”
    “That’s where they live,” he explained, enjoying himself immensely. “In Avalon. Janet grew up there.”
    “Nobody grows up there.”
    “Janet did.” He widened his eyes at me teasingly. “Ever been there?”
    I had to admit I hadn’t. I know the place mostly from a couple of old songs and that line of swimsuits. The island is largely wilderness, I’ve heard, and Avalon is a toy town, a tourist mecca that enjoyed a boom in the twenties and thirties and hasn’t been the same since. They still have glass-bottom boats and salt-water taffy and that huge circular ballroom, the one so often depicted on sheet music, presiding over the harbor. As one of the songs goes, it’s just “twenty-six miles across the sea,” but no one I know has ever set foot there.
    Neil was waiting for my answer. “So what do you say?”
    “God, Neil. I just don’t know.”
    “It would help me a lot if you came.”
    “Why?”
    “Aside from the pleasure of your company?”
    “Yeah. Aside from that.”
    “Well…Linda’s gonna be there.”
    “Oh.”
    “I don’t wanna get stuck with her all day. On an island.”
    “What a thing to say about somebody you married.”
    “Yeah…well…what can I tell you?”
    “How fierce is she, anyway?”
    “Not too.”
    I gave him a dubious look.
    He laughed. “Not at all. It would just help to have someone there.”
    “A buffer.”
    “No, a friend.”
    “A friendly buffer. Is it a day trip?”
    “It can be.”
    “A boat or something?”
    “Or a plane,” he said, “if you want.”
    I told him I preferred the boat.

    I’m writing this in bed. Renee is out at the movies ( Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey ) with her friend Lorrie from The Fabric Barn. I feel truly shitty, but it’s nice to have the house to myself, to be able to play my Nino Rota albums without provoking one of Renee’s oh-poo-not-again expressions. There’s a nondescript little breeze stirring my curtains, and the moon has just popped into view, red as a pumpkin. A scoop or two of rum raisin ice cream would lift my spirits considerably, but I’m just too tired—or too drained, maybe—to make the trek into the kitchen and haul out the ladder to the freezer.
    Jeff called about an hour ago. We had the longest talk we’ve had in ages. They’ve started shooting Callum’s film, and it’s a closed set, so I think Jeff is on his own these days, except for a few stolen late-nighters at the Chateau Marmont. He seems as smitten as ever with Callum, but he’s surprisingly ungenerous with the particulars. I guess he’s superstitious about blowing a good thing. So to speak.
    When he asked about my own schedule, I told him that so far I’d only been booked for a funeral.
    “Oh, yeah?” he said blandly. “Anybody I know?”
    I explained to him briefly about Janet, identifying her simply as “the woman who was doing my video.” He said almost nothing in response, and I wondered if her death came across as self-indulgent (if such a thing can be said about suicide) in the harsh light of his own experience. Most of the people Jeff knows are just trying to stay alive.
    “So what happens now?” he asked.
    “About what?”
    “The video.”
    “Oh, it was pretty much of a disaster already.”
    No, I didn’t tell him about my tantrum. Don’t ask me why. Maybe I am feeling guilty.
    “Too bad,” he said. “Sounded like a good idea.”
    “Well…ya lose some, ya lose some.”
    Jeff laughed ruefully. “That’s the fucking truth.”
    “Are you writing?”
    “Some.”
    “That means none, right?” That settled it: he had to be in love. He only writes when he’s in pain.
    “Cadence…”
    “ I’m writing.”
    “Good for you.”
    “I’ve got a snazzy new journal and everything.”
    “So what are you writing about?” He made a real effort to sound pleasant about it, but I could tell he found it impertinent that a rank amateur was frolicking so carelessly in his