Maybe the Moon

for five adults didn’t strike me as the ideal setting for our first encounter. It would be tough enough managing the social intrigue among four of us.
    “She used to sing on the set,” Callum told Jeff.
    “I’ll bet she did,” said Jeff.
    “Fuck you.”
    Callum chuckled at our phony friction and kept going. “Remember the time you sang ‘Call Me’ for Mary’s thirtieth birthday?”
    I nodded.
    “Mary Lafferty?” Renee perked up again at the mention of another star from the film.
    Callum confirmed it for her and continued. “I’d never heard your mother play before. She was great.”
    “She used to teach it,” I told him, recalling how Mom had come into her own that day the moment she sat down at the piano. Up until then, I think, the other cast members had seen her simply as my handler, a soft-spoken, slightly ridiculous lady from the desert with no particular claim to their attention. She got a little drunk on all that unexpected glory, not to mention the champagne brought in for the occasion. Remembering all that, I couldn’t help thinking how much Mom would be tickled to know that there’s a pianist in my life again.
    “Whatever happened to her?” asked Jeff. “Mary Lafferty, I mean.”
    I shrugged. “Not working, I guess.”
    “Yes she is,” said Renee. “I saw her on Matlock a few months ago.”
    “Oh, well.” I rolled my eyes just for Jeff. “I stand corrected.”
    Renee lunged ahead, oblivious. “She was such a neat mom in Mr. Woods . I wanted my mom to be just like her.”
    “She was good in that,” said Callum, being gracious again. “She sort of established the prototype, didn’t she?”
    Having no idea what a prototype was, Renee nodded.
    “You know,” I told Callum, “she was free-basing in her trailer.”
    My co-star nodded soberly.
    “How did you know that?”
    “I knew,” he said.
    “You were ten years old, you little fucker!”
    Everybody laughed, even Renee, who usually has a big problem with “dirty” words in mixed company. Jeff gave Callum a jaundiced glance and said: “Why am I not surprised?” There was enough edge to the remark to make me wonder what sort of preexisting tension might have provoked it. It didn’t take long to find out.
    “Mary auditioned for Gut Reaction ,” Callum told us.
    “Oh, really?” I said.
    “What’s Gut Reaction ?” Renee asked.
    I told her it was Callum’s new movie.
    She lit up and turned back to Callum. “Did she get the part?”
    “I’m afraid not.”
    Renee frowned. “Aw. Why not?”
    Callum shrugged. “It wasn’t really right for her. She’s at the stage where she’s not young enough to be a mom anymore and not old enough for good character parts. My agent said she looked a little beat up too.”
    I could just imagine the relish with which Leonard had proclaimed the poor woman toast.
    “Well,” said Renee, “if she’s doing drugs…”
    Callum shook his head. “She got clean years ago.”
    “Oh.”
    “It’s a shame,” said Callum. “Really.”
    “Yeah.” Renee mourned Mary’s career demise for a solemn moment or two, then asked brightly: “What’s the movie about?”
    I noticed Jeff twitch a little in his chair, but he didn’t say anything, just turned to Callum and waited.
    “Well,” said Callum somewhat sheepishly, “it’s your basic action thriller.”
    “I love those,” said Renee.
    “I’m a rookie cop in L.A. whose fourteen-year-old brother gets kidnapped. The chief doesn’t want me on the case because I’m too young and too emotional to deal with it. So I track the guy down in secret, when I’m off duty. It’s just something I have to do. Hence the title. Marcia Yorke is my girlfriend, who works at the DMV, and she ends up more or less solving the case.” Callum smiled. “There’s a strong feminist slant to it.”
    Renee wouldn’t know a strong feminist slant if it walked up and bit her on the ass, but she made a face, anyway, to show how much she approved. “Is that the part Mary Lafferty tried out for?”
    Callum shook his head. “A smaller one. Another cop’s wife.”
    “Oh.”
    I almost reminded Renee that Mary had played Callum’s mother in Mr. Woods , so she would hardly have been a logical candidate for his girlfriend ten years later, but I thought better of it, seeing thenasty little storm cloud that had just gathered over Jeff’s face. “Tell ’em about the kidnapper,” he said.
    Callum looked at him blankly.
    “Go ahead,” said Jeff.
    “I