Maybe the Moon

guess.”
    “Maybe?”
    “The kid needed his space, Cady.”
    “And I was just gonna pester him, beg him for jobs, make your life complicated.”
    He considered that for a moment, then said: “Something like that.”
    “So you lied.”
    “Yes…OK, yes.”
    We shared a moment of silence over that one.
    Finally, Leonard said meekly: “You can be pretty…persistent, you know.”
    I grunted.
    “I admire that, though. I admire it a lot. Don’t get me wrong.”
    I was beginning to think I could make Leonard say or do anything, confess to the sins of the whole sorry town. I felt a little giddy with the power of it. Nothing makes you stronger, I guess, than saying no and meaning it to someone who really needs you for something. Given time, I might have found other ways to torment him, but I suddenly felt bone tired, drained of energy. I’m ready to be done with this for good, I realize. All I want now is to lie in Neil’s arms and have a good cry.
    “I have to go,” I said.
    “I want you to think about it,” Leonard said. “I don’t want you to turn it down yet.”
    “I just did, Leonard.”
    “I’ll call you back in a day or so. You’ve had a lot thrown at you at once. I won’t talk to Philip about it yet. He can find somebody else, I’m sure, but that’s not what I want. I want you to be there, playing the role you created. It’s just good karma all the way around.”
    Good karma ? All else had failed, so Leonard was stooping to metaphysics. I might have felt sorry for him, if the approach hadn’t been so patently out of character. Everything Leonard knows about karma he learned from an afternoon of shopping at The Bodhi Tree with Shirley MacLaine.

    Two hours later.
    I just got a call from Callum—the first in ages. I let the machine take it:
    “Hi, Cady, this is Callum. Leonard told me about—uh—your reaction to Philip’s tribute. I just want you to know that I’d really like for you to be there. I’m sure Philip would too. He really does have great admiration for you. It looks like an incredible evening too, and it wouldn’t be the same without you. I hope I didn’t do anything to upset you. Leonard seems to think I might have. I’m still at the Chateau. Call me, OK?”
    Yeah, right.

    After supper.
    I tried to reach Neil several times this evening, but there was no answer. Renee, meanwhile, thinks I’ve gone off my gourd. When I told her about turning down the tribute, she stared at me in open-mouthed horror. “Gah, Cady…”
    “Save your breath. I’ve heard all the arguments.”
    “But if he said he was sorry…”
    “Who?”
    “Blenheim.”
    “He hasn’t said shit. He let Leonard and Callum do his dirty work.”
    “He must not be mad at you, though. He wouldn’t have asked you.”
    “I don’t give a shit whether he’s mad or not. I’m mad.”
    Seeing the truth of this, Renee let the subject drop, but her expression has since grown more and more petulant. She just sits there on the sofa, stuffing her face with Mini Oreos and sulking into her magazine. The message is clear enough: I’ve been a fool and a hothead, guilty of excessive pride. What’s more, I’m being punished by her silence because I willfully deprived her of a glamorous evening.
    We have a weird relationship, Renee and I. Sometimes I’m her parent and sometimes she’s mine. I’m not sure which mode we’re in at the moment, but I resent her attitude. If she wants a littleglamour in her boring existence, she can find it on her own for once. I’ve had it up to here. All I want is a life I can live on my own terms.

    Neil just called, so I told him what happened. He offered to come by and pick me up, take me back to his place.
    Sounds like a plan to me.

20
    I T WAS RAINING HARD WHEN N EIL BROUGHT ME TO HIS APARTMENT . The white brick building had turned the color of dishwater in the downpour, grim as an old Kleenex, while the Astro Turf lawn shimmered brighter than ever, a glossy, nuclear green. I’d left home in a hurry, without a raincoat, so Neil made me walk under his as we headed to the elevator—a peculiar four-legged, two-armed, one-headed creature lumbering along under a leaden sky. From where I stood, about knee-high to Neil, it was a place of safety and peace: my own little terrarium, toasty warm, smelling deliciously of denim. I could have stayed under there for hours.
    Upstairs, he made me cocoa. He had learned of my favorite comfort food a week or so earlier and had gone out and