Maybe the Moon

then.”
    “Because we weren’t fucking yet.”
    She winced at my naughty word. “What does that have to do with it?”
    “Everything,” I told her. “Everything. It was fine for us to be friends; it just made him look like a nice guy. It is not fine for us to be fucking. People will think he’s perverted. Especially his family members…”
    “Oh, now…”
    “I’m serious, Renee. Think about it. It’s of crucial importance in this culture where dicks get put.”
    She blushed like a virgin. “Do you think she knows?”
    “I’m not sure.”
    “Well, then…”
    “It doesn’t matter. The point is, he’ll never cop to it.”
    “Well, maybe later.”
    “No. Never. And certainly not to that kid he spends half his life with. Daddy can’t have this for a girlfriend.”
    Renee looked at the floor.
    “I knew this was coming,” I added gently. “I just didn’t know when. This is the way it works, you know. Eventually. You can ignore it or not. I went for not.”
    Renee looked up at me balefully and started to get quivery-lipped.
    “The thing is,” I said, “it was stupid of me to think I could pull it off. I knew what the rules were.”
    “But he’s such a nice guy.”
    “As nice as they get,” I said.
    She was holding the gown as if she might decide at any moment to use it as Kleenex, so I took it away from her. “If you’re gonna blubber, go in the other room.”
    “Aren’t you sad?” she asked.
    “I can’t afford to be,” I said. “I have a show to do.”

23
    I ’ VE JUST HAD A WEIRD THOUGHT . W HAT IF ALL THE NOISE around my debut flushes out my father? He’s out there somewhere, presumably, still in his fifties. What if he’s flipping channels one night, or flipping through a magazine, and comes across this multi-talented dwarf with a distinctive name. Will fame be enough to make him seek me out after twenty-seven years? Will he show up here one day soon, filled with remorse, or at least with respect for the life I’ve made for myself? Will I forgive him if he does?
    No, no, and no.

24
    T HREE HOURS TO GO .
    I should be napping, I guess, but I’m sitting on shpilkes , as Mom used to say about twice a day. I also want to get this down while I can, since there’ll be lots more to tell you after tonight.
    Jeff took me to the tech rehearsal this morning at the Beverly Hilton. Leonard was there for a while and made a big gushy show of hugging me. When I introduced him to Jeff, such a look passed between the two of them you could’ve hung laundry on it. Part of this has to do with Gut Reaction furor and part with the fact that each regards the other as Callum’s corrupter—so Leonard obviously saw Jeff as an infiltrator of sorts, a loose cannon with a backstage pass. They were civil to each other, though, at least on the surface.
    When I remarked on how skinny Leonard looked, he rattled on so long about his latest diet (a woman brings him Baggies of greens once a week) that I thought he must have thought that I thought he had AIDS. That would be just like Leonard, to think that. For all I know, he does have AIDS; he’s not the sort of guy you’d hear it from first. He looked pretty good, at any rate—tanner than ever. His concern over Jeff’s presence may have worked for me in some ways, since it allowed me to cast myself in a less dangerous light. Itried to project an air of coolheaded competence, one that said I was just there to do my job and go home, a solid no-nonsense professional.
    The ballroom was bigger than I’d imagined. (One of the biggest, according to Leonard, which is why the Hilton does so many of these industry events.) The place was empty except for a few techies, a few stray producers. The stage was fairly small, since the all-star audience was obviously the whole show. To make for good television, the guests would be seated cabaret-style on tiers surrounding the stage—a great big drinkless party full of startlingly familiar faces. Some of the chairs were labeled with masking tape and Magic Marker, so Jeff sprang from tier to tier, reconnoitering on my behalf. When he returned, grinning like a bandit, he took a piece of tape off his arm and stuck it on mine. It said: MRS. FORTENSKY .
    “Put that back!” I said.
    “Why?”
    “Because…” I took off the tape and gave it back to him. “I want Mrs. Fortensky to have a good seat.”
    He laughed.
    “Is there a ‘Mr. Fortensky’?” I asked.
    “Of course,” he said, “and a ‘Mr. Eber’ next