Maybe the Moon

anyway?”
    Neil smiled. “Just a dad name.”
    I stuck out my hand to the kid. “I like Danny better. Unless it’s short for Danforth.”
    The kid shook my hand dutifully, if lamely, without meeting my eyes.
    Linda laughed, getting my little joke. “Don’t worry, it isn’t.”
    “I had a feeling.”
    “Here’s his eardrops.” The ex-Mrs. Riccarton handed Neil a brown paper sack. “The directions are on it.”
    “Gotcha.”
    “You can reach me at Vonda’s after six tonight.”
    “Fine.”
    “Nice to see you, Cady.”
    I told her it was nice to see her.
    “Behave yourself, now.”
    For one creepy moment I thought she was talking to me, until I saw her patting her son on the head. Three mechanical pats, evenly spaced. It was the gesture Neil had once described to me, one of cold economy and bloodlessness, the gesture I’ve always imagined my father to have made the last time he laid eyes on me.
    Linda left without ever setting foot in the apartment. I wondered if this was their usual practice or if she was conveying a message to Neil about my presence there. As soon as the door was shut, Danny made a beeline past me into the hallway, bound for his bedroom.
    “Hey, Skeeter, slow it down!” Neil yelled after his son, with a look of jovial exasperation. I knew he was trying to keep it light on my account. “He has to check on all his shit,” he said, “make sure it’s still there.”
    I smiled at him.
    “I’m sorry about this.”
    “Is it usually that quick?”
    “What?”
    “The changing of the guard.”
    “That was pretty good,” he said. “She used to let him go on the sidewalk and wait till I waved from the window.”
    I took that in for a moment, then said: “He’s cute.”
    He nodded.
    “He’s lucky to have a dad like you.”
    He shrugged. “I just do the regular stuff and hope it’s right.”
    “Like I said, lucky. Lots of people don’t get that. I certainly didn’t.” I smiled at him. “Must be why I go for big guys.” I made myself blush with this little display of self-analysis, so I didn’t give him time to respond. “I should go, Neil. This is too much for him at once.”
    Neil looked cowed. “He knows who you are, Cady.”
    “The lady who sings with you.”
    “That,” he said, nodding, “and a friend.”
    “Whatever.” I began looking for the portable phone, thinking I’d call the cab myself. Neil usually keeps the phone on the carpet while I’m around, but he’d returned it to its cradle on the bar in his feverish preparations for Linda’s arrival. I was about to ask him to hand it to me, when Danny emerged from the hallway.
    “Oh, hi,” I said.
    “Hey.”
    “Your dad tells me you play keyboard too.”
    “Yeah. A little.”
    “He says you’re terrific.”
    He shrugged sullenly.
    “Danny, look at people when they’re talking to you.” This was his father, beginning to crack under the pressure. “He’s a great keyboardist. You wanna show Ms. Roth, Skeeter?”
    “No.”
    “Why not?”
    “I’m tired.”
    “Neil, I think it’s best—”
    “Tired? It’s ten o’clock in the morning.”
    “Well, I don’t wanna do it!” The kid spun on his heels and stomped off to his bedroom.
    Neil gave me an apologetic look.
    “I don’t blame him,” I said.
    “No. He knows better than that. I have to deal with this. Hang on, OK?”
    Neil left in pursuit of his son. I heaved a sigh for all of us and leaned against the end of the sofa, suddenly realizing I had to pee. Luckily, the bathroom door was open, so I slipped in and pulled it shut after me—as much as I could, at least—by gripping the side of the door.
    Once inside and seated, I discovered that I was adjacent to the room where the father-son drama was unfolding. I heard only snatches of their dialogue, like that on a car radio when you pass through a long tunnel, but there was no mistaking the stern but reasonable drone of a modern parental reprimand. I made out the words “rude and unkind” and “not how I raised you” and “not her fault she’s that way.” And then from Danny: “I don’t care” and “weird” and “grosses me out.”
    I peed and beat a retreat as fast as I could. My purse was in Neil’s bedroom, so I went there and picked it up and returned to the living room. Neil came out a minute or so later, with his hand laid lightly on Danny’s shoulder, as if the poor kid were a minimum-security prisoner being taken into custody.
    “So,” said Neil, much too