Maybe the Moon

to them.”
    “Makes sense. It’s a long evening. They could have hair failure.”
    He smiled.
    “What else?”
    “Callum’s two seats away from ‘Miss Foster.’”
    “You’re kidding.”
    “No.”
    “What else?” I asked.
    He smiled. “No more. You’ll overload.”
    “I fucking love this!”
    “No shit,” he said.
    Later, the stage manager heard us laughing and came to introduce himself. He led us to a dressing room, where the elf already awaited, dormant in his coffin—a metal crate with a big lock,designed to safeguard all that costly machinery. I remembered it from the old days, with nothing like fondness. As promised, the dressing room was all mine, which had obviously been no big deal, since the other performers will arrive at the hotel in evening clothes and take the stage that way. In fact, as far as I can tell, I’m the only person who even requires a place to change.
    The stage manager said the MC for the evening will be Fleet Parker. (The obvious choice, when you think about it, given the number of Blenheim films in which he’s flashed those lovely silicone pecs.) I make my entrance at the very end, just after Callum, who’ll plug his new movie and talk about what a great dad Philip was to him on the set. Then Fleet will come back and say a few more words, prompting Philip to leave the imperial box he’s been occupying all evening and join the actor onstage. They talk a while—yodda, yodda, yodda—which leads to my cue. I toddle on adorably, hand Philip the award (which is hideous), issue my heart-warming prerecorded message, and toddle off again.
    “It’s fairly straightforward,” the stage manager said, summing up. “Just a quick fix for the audience and off again, before it wears off. The element of surprise is what we’re going for here.”
    “Gotcha.”
    “How long should she be suited?” asked Jeff.
    “Before, you mean?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Oh, an hour or so. They want you here at seven, but you won’t have to put on the rig until about nine. There’ll be somebody here to help with that.”
    “That’s what I’m here for,” said Jeff.
    “No. I mean somebody to check the wiring, make sure everything’s up.”
    “Oh.”
    “Will you be with her backstage?”
    “Oh, yeah,” said Jeff, trying to sound like a voice of authority.
    The stage manager’s brow creased ever so slightly, so I added: “I need somebody…you know…” I widened my eyes and left thesentence unfinished as if to suggest that the stage manager could easily imagine the sort of personal, unmentionable services a person like me might require.
    “Right,” he said, nodding, not really wanting to know.
    Our first small storm cloud had passed, so I was gladder than ever I’d asked Jeff to remove his WE’RE HERE, WE’RE QUEER button before we entered the ballroom. The way I saw it, the fewer waves we made, the better.
    The stage manager was called away about a lighting problem, which enabled us to case out the place on our own. There was a fairly short, straight route from the dressing room to the stage, so the gauntlet I’d have to run as myself wasn’t as bad as it might have been. As for mikes, there were several on stands along the edge of the stage, so Jeff agreed to bolt out and leave one on the floor during the brief moment of darkness before my entrance. I should grab it on my way to Philip, Jeff said, and just start singing.
    “What if it’s dead?” I asked.
    “I’ll find you a live one.”
    I told him, if he didn’t, he’d be dead.
    “What about the award?”
    “What about it?”
    “Can you carry that and the microphone?”
    “Fuck, no.” This fairly crucial logistical point hadn’t even occurred to me.
    “OK…then leave the award.”
    I popped my eyes at him. “He has to get the award, Jeff.”
    “Why?”
    “He just does. I’m not trying to ruin his evening.”
    “Then come back and get it. Or I’ll bring it to you.”
    “That’s not very graceful.”
    He shrugged. “A coup d’état never is.”
    “If you’re trying to make me nervous,” I told him, “you’re doing a swell job.”
    He gave me a droopy-eyed smile. “Take the award out with you, then, and put it down when you pick up the mike. And takeyour time about it—work it. You know what to do. A spot’ll follow you the whole way, so make it into shtick. This isn’t anybody walking onto that stage, Cady. You will have their attention. And you’ve got some good props to work with.”
    This