Maybe the Moon (2 page)

I was wrong. Renee slipped into my life as deftly and unceremoniously as Mom had slipped out. To Aunt Edie, she became my reason for staying here: the “old friend” with a car who would love to room with me and was not opposed to paying rent. She even drove me to Baker for the funeral, where, predictably, she wept buckets during the eulogy, much to the bafflement of the other mourners. By the time we got back to Los Angeles we were a functioning unit. Renee had become an old hand at waiting for me to climb down from the car, or asking the waitress at Denny’s for a phone book for me to sit on, or fending off the small children and large dogs I invariably attract in public places. She was natural and un-nursy about this too, as if she performed these courtesies for all her friends.

Better still, she never stopped being my fan. If anything, her fascination with my career seemed to escalate as we settled into comfy sisterhood. One day I showed her my listing in
The Guinness Book of World Records
. She was so impressed that she made a Xerox of the page and kept a copy in her purse, so that the girls at The Fabric Barn—or the post office or the checkout counter at Ralph’s, for all I know—could see for themselves that she, Renee Marie Blalock, was now sharing a house with the World’s Shortest Mobile Adult Human.

I feel a little fraudulent about this, since the Guinness listing I showed her was about four years out of date. In 1985 the World’s Shortest title was copped by a twenty-nine-inch Yugoslavian, who appeared, so help me God, out of thin air. Mom and I went so far as to call the Guinness offices in New York to ask if this foreign pretender had legs, and we were given the most incredible runaround. One of these days, having bragged once too often, Renee will be challenged by some troublemaker with a more recent edition, and I’ll have some serious explaining to do.

It’s well past dark now, and a nice spring rain has begun to fall, sluicing off the awnings and shellacking the banana leaves just outside our sliding glass door. We have a pink spotlight on that part of the yard, so the general effect, if you squint your eyes just so, is of a rosy-hued aquarium. I half expect to see a school of huge red fish, or a giant crimson octopus, maybe, come shimmering past the door.

Renee has turned off the TV and is studying an old issue of
Us
as if she’s expecting a pop quiz. She hasn’t spied on me in a long time, so I figure she’s pleased with my activity, or at least has decided that benign neglect is the best policy. I’m lying stomach-down on my favorite cushion, my “tuffet,” as Renee insists on calling it, even though I explained to her years ago that a tuffet is either a small stool or a tuft of grass. The cushion is covered in a dusty-rose tapestry depicting unicorns and a maiden with a conical hat. It isn’t antique or anything, but I like it because it fits my body, and because Mom gave it to me on my birthday the year before she died.

I’ll tell you about the rest of the room, in case you need it for set decoration. Against one wall there’s an old green corduroy sofa (where Renee is sitting), which needs reupholstering in the worst kind of way. We’ve covered the most gruesome splits with strategically positioned pillows, though God only knows who we’re fooling. The bookshelf next to it is one of those cheapo wicker numbers, the bottom two units of which are reserved for my own library: a boxed Tolkien, half a dozen recent star bios, and a book of Mapplethorpe portraits that’s so huge I peruse it only when I’m in need of serious exercise.

The walls of the living room are painted Caribbean Coral, a shade that looks subtle and warm on the little paper strip at the hardware store but is distinctly reminiscent of a whore’s nail polish when actually applied. We both hate it and plan to redecorate one of these days, but the money just isn’t there at the moment. I’d like to try for something stark and Japanesy, but Renee seems to have her heart set on pink-and-green chintz, a Laura Ashley nightmare. I may have to be firm with her.

There are three lights in the room—a plain brass floor lamp, a ceramic black-panther lamp with a ball-fringed shade, and a small plastic modern thing that clips onto the stereo cabinet just below the shelf where Mr. Woods lives. I bought that damned panther on an impulse five years ago at a junk shop on Melrose, mostly because my friend Jeff, who was with me at the time, said it was an extremely valuable example of fifties kitsch. Others have been less convinced. Mom wanted to toss it the moment she saw it, and Renee has seconded the motion on several occasions. I think I’m beginning to agree with them; there’s something really depressing about it.

Later, in bed.

Renee is in her room now, giggling on the phone with her latest squeeze, a guy named Royal she met at The Sizzler last week. She has yet to bring him around here, but I’ve got a great mental image of him already: rumpled black clothes, an iodine-colored tan, and long hair slicked back to a ratty little ponytail. Renee says he’s a Scientologist and makes his own beer, and she seems enormously impressed by both things. Sometimes I just don’t know about her.

A little while ago she came in here and told me that I’d just bounced a check to Dr. Baughman, my dentist, for work he did three months ago. When I told her I hadn’t heard the phone ring, she looked confused for a moment, then said: “Oh…no, it didn’t. I knew about it earlier, but I didn’t wanna spoil your concentration.”

While I was writing our opus, she meant. Now it would only spoil my sleep.

“His helper, that girl with the big eyebrows…”

“Wendy,” I said.

“Right. She called me at work today.”

I could actually feel my face turn hot. “She didn’t try here first?”

“Well, no…I mean, she
might’ve
, but…”

“She didn’t. I was here all day.”

“Oh.”

“In the future, Renee, would you please tell her that I’m a big girl and can handle my own finances?” Maybe this sounds a little bitchy, but I get so tired of being patronized by people who think that small means dependent. Even my own mom, may she rest in peace, pulled this shit on occasion. Once, when I was about twenty-five and we were visiting Universal, a casting director, this really hip lady who seemed to like me a lot, offered to take us to lunch at the commissary. Mom put on her best Donna Reed face and said: “That’s nice of you, thanks. I just fed her.” I didn’t say a word at the time, but I was pissed at my mother for days. How could she have made me sound so much like a hamster?

Renee looked cowed. “She didn’t really call about you. She was confirming my appointment tomorrow.”

“Oh.”

“She was just…you know, killing two birds with one stone.”

This made me feel a little better, but not much. Wendy still should’ve called me personally. “How much do I owe?” I asked.

“Two hundred and seventy-four dollars.”

“Shit.”

Renee ducked her head, and I was pretty sure I knew what was coming next. “I could loan you some.”

“No,” I said firmly. “Thanks.”

“Maybe I should start paying rent. It isn’t really fair that…”

“Fuck that, Renee. You do enough as it is.” I smoothed the bedclothes, reviewing the options. I’d bounced three checks in a week, and there were no reinforcements in sight. Another loan from Renee would be a temporary solution at best. When all was said and done, I needed work and fast if I was to maintain my sacred independence.

“What about Aunt Edie?” Renee asked.

“What about her?”

“Couldn’t she loan you some?”

I gave her a menacing look, knowing she knew better. The slightest whiff of my impoverishment would have Aunt Edie on my doorstep in three minutes. And nothing would please her more. I might be desperate, but not that desperate. There are worse fates than starvation.

“Well…” Renee fidgeted with the neck of her sweater, fresh out of solutions. “Want some cocoa, then?”

“Get outa here. Go call your studmuffin.”

“But what are you gonna…?”

“It’s OK,” I assured her, shooing her out of the room. “I’ll give Leonard a call first thing.”

Leonard is my agent, the source of all hope and despair. I signed on with him after finishing
Mr. Woods
. The first job he landed for me was a role in a horror flick called
Bugaboo
, in which I played a zombie and appeared on screen for exactly four seconds toward the end. An unsuspecting housewife—Suzi Kenton, remember her?—opens the door of her refrigerator and finds yours truly crouching on the bottom shelf next to the orange juice.

This was a real advance for me, believe it or not, because you actually got to see my face (albeit gray and scabby-looking) and it filled the entire screen. According to Aunt Edie, who never tells a lie, that one brief, shining moment in the light of the Kelvinator was so recognizably mine that theatergoers in Baker actually stood and cheered. This isn’t possible, since all they’ve got there is a drive-in, but I knew what the old bat was trying to say. In the eyes of the people she cared about, I was legitimate at last—a real movie star—no longer just a dwarf in rubber. I won’t pretend it didn’t feel good.

Since then everything and nothing has happened. There was a brief period in the late eighties when I worked in performance. I was more or less adopted by a space in downtown Los Angeles, where I was in great demand by artists doing pieces on alienation and absurdity. They were gentle, surprisingly naive kids, who took
endless pains to guard against what they referred to as “the exploitation of the differently abled.” This got to be old fast, so I pulled two of them aside one day and told them not to sweat it, that I was an actress first and foremost, that
of course
I would play an oil-slick mutant for them, that I would sit on a banana and spin if it was in the goddamned script and they paid me something for it.

This seemed to relax them, and we got along famously after that. My mom, who thought Liberace was avant-garde, came to one of the presentations and left in horror and confusion, though she pretended afterwards to find it “interesting.” I have no doubt Renee would feel the same way if I were still in performance, so it’s probably just as well that I’m not. Besides, the money was pretty awful (if not nonexistent), and the work was unconnected with the Industry, so I was getting nowhere fast.

Except that one night we were visited by a star: Ikey St. Jacques, the black child actor who used to play the adorable seven-year-old on
What It Is
! Little Ikey sat in the very back of the bleachers, all duded up in silver and burgundy, in the company of an extremely long-legged adult female. Word of his presence spread through the space like wildfire. The other cast members did their best to look blasé about it, of course, but they were clearly stunned that such a recognizable icon was in our midst. Frankly, I’d had my suspicions about the kid for years, so it didn’t surprise me a bit when he came backstage and confessed.

It wasn’t that easy for him to do, either, logistically speaking, since he was forced to wade through the refuse of the night’s performance, great gooey wads of surgical gauze smeared with stage blood and about two dozen rubber baby dolls in varying states of dismemberment. His friend was waiting for him in the car, he said, but he just had to tell me that I was wonderful, a great actress, that he’d been totally inspired by my performance, since he himself was a little person and really seventeen years old, not seven. I shrugged and said, “What else is new?” and we both laughed and became buddies on the spot, exchanging phone numbers. His real friends
called him Isaac, he said, so I should do the same. Before he left, he told me some great stories about other closet midgets in Hollywood, some of which, I promise you, would curl your hair.

Imagine my excitement when Isaac called a week later to say that he’d proposed a little people episode for
What It Is
! and that he wanted me to guest star. (That was just the way he put it.) I was to play a clown who meets Ikey at a Dallas mall and teaches him about the true nature of compassion. How I was to accomplish this inspiring feat of liberalism Isaac didn’t say, but he assured me the role would be both touchingly hilarious and cutting-edge, a surefire candidate for the Emmy.

No sooner had I phoned half the population of Baker to spread the good news than Isaac called to say the project had been killed—by his own producers, no less. They were desperately afraid that another little person on the show might provoke a discussion of the subject in the press, thereby blowing Ikey’s cover. It was just too risky, they said, given that the kid’s voice had already changed drastically and he was “in grave danger of becoming a grotesque.” Isaac had fought for the idea tooth and nail, or so he assured me, but the powers that be were unbending. My long-awaited showcase role never even got to the script stage.

To his credit, Isaac called out of the blue about six months ago to see how I was doing, but I didn’t have much to report, career-wise. I had picked up some money doing phone solicitations for a carpet-cleaning service in Reseda, but the work had proved boring beyond belief. My boss there had said some nice things about my speaking voice, however, so it made me consider the possibility of radio work. Since Isaac seemed to think that might be a good approach, I phoned Leonard Lord, my intrepid agent, and asked him to keep an eye open. He told me his contacts in that arena were minimal, but he’d put the word out and see what he could do. I haven’t heard from him since.

That’s enough for tonight. It’s late and I’m beginning to depress myself. The rain clouds have shifted a bit, and there’s the oddest lit
tle nail paring of a moon hanging in my bedroom window. I’ll concentrate on that and the nice warm breeze that’s rippling my curtains. Things could be worse, after all, and I’ve always been able to cope. I have my friends and my talent and my commitment, and I know there’s a place for me in the firmament of Hollywood.

If not, I’ll get a new agent.

A
WEEK LATER
. O
N MY AIR MATTRESS IN THE BACKYARD
.

I’ve just read my first entry and can’t believe how dismal it sounds. Oh, well. I could blame it on the wrong time of the month, I suppose, but I don’t think you’d be fooled for long. The truth is, it’s the wrong time of the century. I don’t know when this happened, or how. The world simply changed when I wasn’t looking—when I was out eating a cheeseburger, maybe, or buying a magazine or catching a flick in Westwood—so that when I got back it was utterly different, an alien place filled with people I’d never known and customs as inscrutable to me as the control panel on my VCR.

This morning, for example, I looked out the window and saw a huge yellow ribbon tied around my lamppost. I put aside my sewing and went outside, glaring up at this plastic monstrosity and wondering for a moment if Renee could be responsible. It was just beyond my grasp, but I managed to yank it down after a few graceless leaps. No sooner had I done so than Mrs. Bob Stoate, my next-door neighbor, came running across her perfect lawn in a neat little seersucker shirtwaist.

“Cady, what are you doing?” She looked as though she’d caught me selling dope to her kids.

I told her I was taking the tacky thing down.

“But Bob and me got them for the whole street.”

I peered up and down, in both directions, and saw what she meant: there was a ribbon at every single house. “Well, that was very nice of Bob and you, but this is my front yard, and I don’t want it.”

She flinched a little. “It’s an American tradition.”

I walked back to the house, dragging the ribbon behind me. “And I thought it was just a stupid song.”

She hollered after me. “We only did it because we figured you couldn’t…”

“Reach,” she was going to say, but she caught herself just in time.

“The war is over,” I yelled. “Stop gloating.”

“We’re just showing the boys how we feel!”

True enough, when you think about it. Like everybody else around here, the Bob Stoates can barely contain their delight over finally having kicked some foreign butt. The shame of Vietnam is behind them at last, magically erased by that nifty little Super Bowl of a war they all just watched on television. Never mind that we flattened a country, polluted an ocean, and incinerated two hundred thousand people—the Bob Stoates are once again proud to be Americans.

When I reached the front door, I turned to see Mrs. Bob Stoate watching me in murderous silence, her darkest suspicions confirmed. I gave her a cheery wave and slammed the door. By now, no doubt, she’s called her husband at his place of business—a Toyota dealership, if I remember correctly—to inform him of my traitorous behavior. By tonight the whole family will know the score, which is fine with me, since their open hostility is preferable to the sugary Christian condescension they’ve heaped on me for years.

If I had any sense at all, I’d sell this dump and move to
Hollywood or Santa Monica, where some of the neighbors might still think of Tony Orlando as a bad joke. I couldn’t afford to buy a house, but I could rent something nice and still have a little mad money in the bank. I’ve always envisioned myself in a twenties hacienda with tiles on the roof and a fountain splashing in the courtyard. It wouldn’t work for Renee, of course, since The Fabric Barn would be too much of a commute for her, and she’d probably be intimidated by the scary prospect of moving to that side of Mulholland Drive.

Not that we’re a set that can’t be broken. One of these days, I promise you, Renee will meet some slow-footed mesomorph who reminds her of Ham and be history in no time. And why not? She owes me nothing and vice versa. It’s comforting, really, to know that she and I can live together and be this close and still maintain the sanctity of our personal agendas. Since she’s out for True Love and I’m out for Stardom, we almost never stumble over each other on the Road to Success.

In case you’re wondering, the beer-making Scientologist is no more. Renee ran afoul of him on the second date when she discovered a portrait of L. Ron Hubbard over his dresser and found out what a Scientologist is. Until then, she said, she’d thought it was “some sort of complicated scientist,” which explains why she sounded so impressed earlier. Turns out the guy was only recruiting, since he spent the whole night telling Renee how L. Ron had made a new woman out of Kirstie Alley. Renee was pretty rattled by it, and seems to have sworn off men for a while. I say this because she’s sleeping with her Mr. Woods doll again, a telltale sign if ever there was one.

I called Leonard the morning after my last entry and asked him if he’d had any nibbles from the radio people.

“Not really, doll.”

“Where did you call?”

He waited a tad too long before saying: “Around.”

He hadn’t called shit, of course, having totally forgotten about me since my last call, but I decided not to force the issue. As neglectful as Leonard can be, he’s a name agent, with fingers in lots of important pies. I signed on with him a decade ago, when he was still in his twenties and hanging out on the lot with
Mr. Woods
. He was representing Callum Duff, the cute ten-year-old who played the elf’s human friend. We just started gabbing outside the honey wagon one day. I was half in rubber at the time, sweat pouring down my face, hardly at my cutest, and the next thing I knew I was part of Leonard’s stable.

In the beginning, I think he was swept along by the novelty of knowing me. He’d call me once or twice a month to collect my latest anecdotes and to gossip about his tight little circle of friends, which, if you believed him, consisted exclusively of a handful of other gay men, Dolly Parton, and Cher. The jobs didn’t exactly roll in, but I worked steadily, mostly in horror films, mugging my little heart out in this refrigerator or that.

Once, a year or so after we’d met, Leonard invited me to sing at a party he and his lover were throwing at their fancy new house in the Hollywood Hills. On the engraved invitation, the event was billed as
An Evening with Mr. Woods
. I stood on a red-lacquered baby grand in a postmodern atrium full of white plaster sculpture and did my funkiest rendition of “Stand by Your Man.” The guys loved it, and I enjoyed myself thoroughly, though I’d come there largely in the hope of meeting Dolly and/or Cher. Leonard, the little slimeball, had all but promised as much when he’d asked me to perform.

Since then our contact has been strictly professional and always initiated by me. Leonard’s star has risen dramatically in recent years, judging from the caliber of his clients. I see his name in the trades all the time, or in the local social columns in the company of serious power brokers like Barry Diller, Sandy Gallin, and David Geffen. I’m happy for him, I guess, but so far his success hasn’t exactly rubbed off on me.

I didn’t grill him about the radio stuff. Leonard just gets cranky
when you force him to lie. “So,” I said instead, “nothing new, huh?”

He heaved a sigh on my behalf. “’Fraid not, doll.”

“I wouldn’t bug you like this, but things are getting pretty tight.”

“I know.”

I considered several approaches, then said: “It might be a long shot, but I’ve been thinking about
Twin Peaks
.”

“No way.”

“Hear me out, OK? I don’t know what they’re doing next season, but Lynch has used little people before and—”

“It’s toast, Cady.”

“What?”

“
Twin Peaks
is toast. It’s had it. It won’t make it another season.”

“
Toast
?”

He chuckled.

“People say this? Where do you pick this shit up?”

“C’mon,” he said with amused disbelief. “Where have you been?”

“In the Valley, Leonard.” I spoke as sternly as I knew how without sounding angry. “This is what I’m trying to tell you. If you don’t get me out of here soon, I won’t know what
anybody’s
talking about.”

“That’ll be the day,” he said. “You never miss a trick.” He was flattering me now, I realized, a very bad sign indeed, since Leonard resorts to that only when there are no other cards up his sleeve. A small rodent in my stomach warned me to prepare for the worst.

“Look,” he said, “I think I know a guy who can help you.”

“What do you mean?” I was holding my breath now, hoping to hell it wasn’t so.

“His name is Arnie Green. He’s a helluva good guy, an old-timer. He runs an agency in—”

“I know who Arnie Green is, Leonard.”

“Well…”

“He books specialty acts. I’m not a specialty act. I’m an actress.”

“Of course you are, but—”

“He does clowns and sword swallowers, for God’s sake!”

“Cady, look, I’m trying to help you out here.”

Yeah
, I thought.
Out of his life. I’ve finally grown into a nuisance, and he’s putting an end to it once and for all
.

“The thing is,” he added in the gentlest voice I’ve ever heard from him, “you need regular employment, Cady. What’s the point in being so proud? You’re doing phone work, for Christ’s sake. Arnie Green might not be the movies, but at least he would keep you in the public eye.”

“In a dwarf-throwing contest.”

Leonard sighed. “It’s more than that.”

“So you’re dumping me?”

“Did I say that?”

“You never
say
anything, Leonard.”

“I don’t know why you’re so angry at me. I’m just trying to help.”

“I know.” I tried to sound contrite.

“You’ve gotta appreciate…” He cut himself off, obviously avoiding some sort of thin ice.

“What?”

No response.

“What, Leonard? What do I gotta appreciate.”

“That the market just doesn’t call for it. I won’t lie to you, Cady. They’re not writing roles for little people. I don’t like it any more than you do.”

“I don’t want a role written for me. I just want a role. Why does my size have to be an issue? This is the real world, Leonard. Little people can turn up anywhere, just like redheads and queers.”

This was a pretty speech, but a big mistake. Most of my gay friends revel in calling themselves queer now, but Leonard is obviously not among them. It took him a decade just to get to the “gay” stage. I could tell by the long, clammy silence that followed that I’d offended him.

“The thing is,” I said, slogging ahead, “I’m not trying to be
Julia Roberts. They can use me wherever they use a character actress. I can play anything Bette Midler can play. Or Whoopi Goldberg. I could’ve been that psychic in
Ghost
.”

Leonard grunted.

“Why not?”

“Too Zelda Rubinstein.”

He’d brought up her name, I’m sure, just to get back at me for using the Q-word. It was his mean way of telling me that not all little people are failures, but I refused to let it get my goat. “You see the point, though,” I said. “It’s just a question of creative casting.”

“No. It’s more than that.”

“Like what?”

“They’d have to insure you, Cady.”

“So? They have to insure everybody.”

“Well…I’m not sure if they would now.”

“Why the hell not?”

Another tortured pause and then: “How much weight have you gained?”

I couldn’t believe my ears. “Excuse me?”

“I don’t wanna get personal, Cady.”

“Go ahead. Be my guest.”

“Look…”

“What is this, Leonard? You haven’t laid eyes on me for two years. Do I
sound
fat?”

“People talk, OK?”

I had a brief, delicious fantasy in which Bruce Willis and Demi Moore, or maybe the Redgrave sisters, were gossiping over dinner at Spago:
Have you seen Cadence Roth lately? Is she a porker or what
? Coming back down to earth, I decided that one of Leonard’s lovepuppies must’ve seen me at brunch in West Hollywood one Sunday. “And what do these people tell you?” I asked him glacially.

“It’s not that I don’t sympathize,” he said, avoiding the question. “God knows, the weight thing is a constant struggle for me.”

“Fuck you. You’re practically anorexic.”

“Well, it’s all the same thing. You can’t afford to gain a pound,
doll. It’s too much pressure on your system. It’s just not healthy. And this is what they’ll say.”

“This is what who’ll say?”

“The studios.”

“Oh.” I waited a beat. “So let me get this straight: A—I’m too short, and B—I’m too fat.”

“Don’t do this, Cady. You know I think you’re special.”

“Is that why you call me so much?”

Silence.

“Don’t listen to me,” I said, suddenly fearful of losing him altogether. “It’s my hormones raging. I could drown kittens right now.”

“Can I give you Arnie Green’s number?”

“No,” I said. “Thanks. I know how to reach him.”

“He’s a decent guy, really.”

“I’m sure.”

“I’ll still keep my eyes open, doll.”

“Thanks.”

“Take care now.”

“You too.” I hung up, perilously close to tears and more confused than ever. I couldn’t decide if “still keep my eyes open” was just one more hollow promise or Leonard’s backhanded way of making the divorce final. Either way, I didn’t like the sound of it. Either way, I was sure I was toast.

That night Renee and I ordered a large pepperoni pizza from Domino’s and ate it on the living room floor. “This is it for me,” I told her, playing cat’s cradle with a loop of mozzarella. “Tomorrow it’s diet time.”

Renee giggled. “Sure.”

“No. I mean it, Renee.”

“OK.” She shrugged and gave me a sheepish look. I knew she didn’t believe me.

“What’s that one you were telling me about last week?”

“One what?”

“That diet,” I said. “The one with the protein shakes.”

“Oh. The Cher Diet.”

I winced. “Is it in a book or something?”

“Yeah. I’ve got it at work.”

“Could you bring it home?”

“Sure.” She picked a pepperoni off the pizza and popped it into her mouth. “What brought this on?”

“Nothing. It’s just time for me to get my shit together.”

Renee nodded absently.

“I’ve got a few ideas about work, and I wanna look my best.” By this I meant Arnie Green, of course, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell her yet. Renee relies on me for glamour. I dreaded worse than anything the thought of letting her down.