Maybe the Moon

one—he was liable to turn poisonous on the spot.
    “He might pump you,” said Jeff. “So play dumb. Callum thinks Leonard smells a rat.”
    “Why would he pump me?”
    “Well…he knows you know Callum.”
    “Yeah, but he thinks I think that Callum’s still back in Maine.”
    “No he doesn’t. Callum told him he ran into you at Icon.”
    “Oh.”
    “Leonard even called a few days ago, asking what you were up to.”
    You should’ve seen me perk up at that one. “Leonard called Callum about me?”
    “Yep.”
    “Why?”
    “He didn’t say. Or at least Callum didn’t bother to tell me if he did.”
    “He called me too,” I told him. “Just about the same time. He said he might have a role for me. Something big, apparently.”
    “He didn’t mention Callum, did he?”
    I was annoyed, frankly, that Jeff had skated so blithely around the news of my Big Break. He was the one, after all, who’d insisted that birthday parties weren’t my real career, and here he was, in all his self-centered glory, ignoring the first hopeful light to appear on my horizon in months. “I told you,” I said curtly. “We didn’t discuss your snuggle bunny.”
    “What’s the matter?” he asked.
    “Nothing.”
    “I knew you were mad at me.”
    “I’m not mad at you,” I told him wearily.
    “But you think I’m being a fool, don’t you? Or a hypocrite.”
    “No.”
    “It’s not like he can’t change. I was closeted once myself. It’s all just a process, really. If I’m there to encourage him and influence him in that direction, just think how it could be, Cadence. This wholesome kid that everybody loves like a little brother, who grows up to be an all-American heartthrob—a homo heartthrob, thank you, who doesn’t care who knows it. It would rock the world if he did it with a little class. He’d change the course of history.”
    This altruistic speech reminded me of one Mom used to make about Paul Newman. She loved him above all other actors, worshiping at the shrine of those amazing eyes, even unto death. It was always a guilty pleasure, though, because Mom believed “her” Paul to be a secret Jew, a man who’d concealed his heritage to become a matinee idol. Still, she clung to the hope that one day he would declare himself, stand up somewhere, and proclaim, “I am a Jew” and justify all her years of belief in his potential as a mensch. She was certain that day had arrived when he started pushing popcorn and salad dressing and turning the proceeds over to liberal causes. Any moment now, Mom insisted, Paul would break the news the easiest way—through delicious food—with the introduction of Paul Newman’s Gefilte Fish or Newman’s Own Family-Style Matzo Ball Soup. She waited and waited for that moment of truth, reading labels religiously, but all she ever got for her faith was marinara sauce.
    I couldn’t help thinking that was exactly what lay ahead for Jeff, but I tried to be gentle about it. “What you say makes sense,” I said, “in an ideal world.”
    “Meaning?”
    “Well…Callum can’t change the course of history if they won’t hire him in the first place.”
    “Who says they won’t? Who wrote this rule?”
    “It’s just there, Jeff.”
    “It’s there because creeps like Leonard Lord won’t get off their asses and challenge it.”
    “In part, yes.”
    “Well, we have to start asking why not. Why can’t there be gay movie stars?”
    “Maybe so.” I let him hear me yawn, since I was ready to turn in. Frankly, I wasn’t sure whether this brave new crusade was for real or just his impromptu justification for an affair that seems to be going nowhere fast.
    He got the message and let me go, after asking me to thank Renee for dinner and bidding me a civilized good night. I dropped the phone on the floor, snapped off the lamp, and beat a retreat into dreamland, burrowing into sheets that still smelled of Neil and the musky remains of our afternoon delight.

15
    S OMETHING UGLY HAPPENED TO R ENEE LAST NIGHT, SO SHE’S taken the day off from work, at my urging. She’s on the sofa now, stretched out in her ragged pink nightgown, all that yellow hair tangled up like last year’s Christmas lights, pressing an ice pack against her cheek. I made the ice pack myself, from a Ziploc bag and an old kitchen mitt. It seems to help a little, though Renee’s expression remains gloomy. Her depression has less to do with the incident, I think, than with the sudden, unflattering