Maybe the Moon

left him, reading a Silver Surfer comic book on a bench in the sunshine, his biceps round as cantaloupes under the black polyester of his chauffeur’s jacket. He sprang to his feet when he saw me.
    “Oh, hi. All done?”
    “All done,” I said.
    “Where to?”
    I gave him Neil’s address in North Hollywood.
    “You got it.”
    He opened the door and lifted me into the back seat, following Renee’s example earlier. “Is that a production facility?”
    “An apartment house,” I told him. “My boyfriend’s.”
    He nodded.
    “He’s not expecting me, so you might have to ring his doorbell for me.”
    “Sure,” he said. “Or you can call him. We’ve got a phone.”
    I hate to admit it, but this basic fact of modern life hadn’t even occurred to me, lowly pauper that I am. “Of course,” I said. “Silly me.”
    So I called Neil as we were cruising off the lot, mostly to record the moment.
    “Guess where I am?”
    “Where?”
    “In the back of a limo at Icon.”
    He chuckled. “What happened?”
    “I’m not sure exactly. Feel like a little company?”
    “The littler the better,” he said.
    It took us over half an hour to get there, inching through terrible traffic. When we arrived, Neil was already out by the street, obviously curious as hell.
    “Well, well,” he said, as Marc helped me out.
    “Marc, this is Neil. Neil, Marc.”
    The guys shook hands jovially, their forearms getting hard over it. There’s something really sexy about two guys holding each other off like that, sniffing each other out. I wondered if Marc had expected another little person, instead of someone like Neil, or if he was simply trying to picture the two of us—me and Neil, that is—having hot, pyrotechnical sex. I, for one, was picturing it already, since Neil was in a T-shirt and purple gym shorts and looked like a million bucks. Or whatever that sort of gorgeousness is going for these days.
    “Want me to wait?” asked the driver.
    I looked at Neil. “Do we?”
    Neil’s lip flickered. “Oh, I think so.”
    “How long can you wait?”
    “Well,” said Marc, glancing at his watch, “you’ve got me until six.”
    “Then, maybe…an hour or so?”
    The driver smiled prettily, catching my drift. “Whatever.”

    Upstairs, I kicked off my shoes and crashed on Neil’s bed. Neil lowered the matchstick shades until the light in the room was the color of iced tea. Then he unlaced his high-tops, tugged them off, and flopped down on the bed next to me. Rolling onto his side, he touched the tip of my nose with his forefinger and studied me with mild amusement.
    “OK, where’d you get the footman?”
    I told him briefly what I’ve just told you, except for the part where I called him my boyfriend.
    He smiled when I was done, smoothing my hair back from my forehead. “What a morning,” he said, as if that were all the comment required.
    “Don’t you think it’s weird, though?”
    “What?”
    “Philip showing up like that. Just after Callum had said all that stuff.”
    “Maybe.”
    “And maybe not?”
    “It’s a small world there, isn’t it?”
    “Not that small. Not usually. Philip walked in like he was looking for somebody. It’s like the whole thing was a setup from the beginning.”
    “For what?”
    “I dunno. So we could make up gracefully, I guess.”
    “Yeah.” He didn’t sound too convinced.
    “Look,” I said. “Remember that call I got from my agent a few weeks ago?”
    “Oh, that’s right.”
    “Yeah, well, he said something big was about to happen.”
    “He did. Jesus, you’re right. I hadn’t thought of that.”
    “And then Callum, who has the very same agent, invites me to the studio, sends a limo for me, butters up my ass like it’s corn on the cob…”
    Neil chuckled.
    “ And tells me how Philip never stopped loving me—which is a lie, let’s face it—and then Philip comes strolling in with a shit-eating grin on his face, tells me how fabulously I sing, how great my dear old mother was, and just happens to let it drop that he’s working on a musical. It’s so obvious, Neil. He wants me for something.”
    Neil nodded slowly. “Sure seems like it.”
    “Doesn’t it?”
    “But why wouldn’t your agent just call you?”
    “Because he knew there was bad blood between me and Philip. He got Callum to be go-between to spare Philip the embarrassment. That way Philip didn’t have to apologize. It took a few minutes out of his day, and we all just pretended that