Maybe the Moon (25 page)

M
Y COMING-OUT PARTY, CONT
.

Jeff returned when he said he would and drove me and Renee back to the hotel. He hadn’t expected Renee, of course, so he eye-balled me in a prim, chastising way, but didn’t say anything. I knew damn well he thought she was too drifty for the job ahead, but I really didn’t care. I’d decided at the last minute that Renee’s loyalty and cheery outlook would be good for my morale—the right instinct, clearly, considering what happened later.

When we arrived at the hotel, I stood up in the front seat of the Civic to check out the scene. The entrance was already cordoned off against fans, and there were klieg lights slashing their way anemically through the pale winter twilight. I saw several early arrivals being disgorged from limos, but they were all gray, anonymous producer types. Renee gasped histrionically at the sight of a sequin-sheathed blonde on the sidewalk she took to be Meryl Streep. When I broke the sad news to her—that it was actually Sally Kirkland—her face fell like a soufflé in a thunderstorm; she’d never heard of Sally Kirkland.

I could have stood there forever, I think, spying on my audi
ence-to-be, if a cop hadn’t flagged us on. Jeff pulled off the street and parked in a side lot the stage manager had told us about. We tumbled out of the car, identified ourselves to a security guard, and made our way through a space that felt more like a tradesmen’s entrance than a stage door. Inside, there was such a mob scene around the dressing rooms that Renee and Jeff had to run interference for me—a human shield, front and rear. I looked for stars in that crush of humanity, with no success, though Renee assured me when we finally got inside that I’d spent “at least a whole minute” in communion with the legs of Lucie Arnaz.

There was champagne from Philip awaiting us—an expensive brand, according to Jeff—and several dozen yellow roses from Callum and Leonard. That’s what the card said: “Callum and Leonard.” In the handwriting of some florist.

I showed it to Jeff. “Are they a couple now?”

He laughed. “I don’t think so.”

“Why not?”

“Because Leonard and his lover would never break up their Stickley collection.”

“He could still be doing it with Callum.”

Jeff smiled ruefully. “I hope he likes preppie porn.”

Renee was flashing like a caution signal at all this gay talk, so I gave her a reassuring wink. “What do you think of our headquarters?”

“It’s nice,” she said, then glanced at the elf’s metal carrying case. “Is that…uh…?”

I nodded.

“Gah.”

“Is somebody coming to…put it on you?”

“Eventually,” I said.

Renee tried to smile bravely and look prepared, but she reminded me of someone standing on the edge of a bridge, waiting ever so demurely for her turn at bungee jumping.

We had lots of time to kill, so Renee and Jeff took turns venturing into the backstage hallways, even into the ballroom itself, returning with accounts of all the famous faces they’d spotted. Renee saw Meredith Baxter Birney, Tori Spelling, and “that guy who plays the retarded man on
L.A. Law
.” Jeff identified Jonathan Demme, Michael Douglas, and Jamie Lee Curtis. I stayed put, sipping champagne and collecting myself, while the chatter of the swelling audience droned in the distance like low-level industrial noise.

Eventually I was joined by two technicians from Icon, who removed the creature from his case and checked his circuitry. They made polite conversation as they worked, and one of them even asked me to autograph a program for his kids. Once they were satisfied with the functioning of my armor, they left, to return fifteen minutes later with one of Philip’s underlings, an earnest young woman named Ruth, who said she was just checking to make sure I was comfortable. She loitered there so long that I had to introduce her to Renee and Jeff. I identified them as “friends who came along for moral support,” secure in the basic truth of that description. She welcomed them like insiders, I was relieved to see, without a trace of suspicion. I felt that much closer to victory.

Traffic in the dressing room thinned dramatically as soon as the show started. In no time at all it was just the three of us, pricking our ears as Fleet Parker boomed out the names of the great, one by one, and a star-hungry spotlight roamed the risers.

The show was more of a high-class roast—and less of a concert—than I’d imagined (or Leonard had described). Most of it consisted of short, funny, and/or touching testimonials from Philip’s famous friends and colleagues. Madonna
did
sing (Jeff saw her bolting out of one of the dressing rooms), but the music was prerecorded. There was no orchestra at all, in fact. All of this came as a relief, since it meant the evening would be more about star power than pure entertainment. My half-assed little entrance wouldn’t be that much out of place, after all.

The technicians returned at the appointed hour and helped me
into the suit. Renee and Jeff watched this procedure wordlessly, with such huge, haunted eyes that I might have been entering a space capsule. I think their growing awareness of the people in the other room had begun to lend an unexpected weight to the task ahead of us. I snapped them out of it—or rather Mr. Woods did—with an electronic wink and the cutest smile in his arsenal. Renee squealed with such conviction that even Mrs. Fortensky must have heard her.

“I can’t believe this!” she said.

“Believe it,” I said.

“You sound like you’re under about a zillion mattresses.”

I told her that’s what it felt like too.

“Oh, gah, I’d get so…”

Jeff found the word for her. “Claustrophobic.”

“Excuse me there,” said one of the technicians, needing access to the elf’s beard.

Renee jumped back. “Oh, excuse me.”

“Maybe we’d better give them some space,” Jeff suggested.

“No,” I said. “You’re OK.”

“You sure?” asked Renee.

“I think so,” I said. “Aren’t they, guys?”

“No sweat,” said the younger and cuter of the technicians as he wove twigs into the beard.

“My friends have never seen the suit before,” I explained.

“Oh, yeah?”

“Well, Jeff has—I think you guys have met—but this is Renee’s first time.”

I couldn’t see Renee, of course, but I could feel her, blushing extravagantly. “I am the biggest fan of…this,” she said, indicating the shell that encased me. “I can’t believe I could just reach out and touch it.”

“Go ahead,” I said.

“Really?”

“Touch away,” said the technician.

Renee knelt and probed delicately at the pebbly flesh on the elf’s elbow. “It’s so amazing.”

“Every one of those hairs was hand placed,” the technician told her.

“You swear?”

“Every one of ’em.”

“How amazing!”

“Isn’t it?”

The technician knelt and joined Renee in her examination of the elf’s features. They were so close together, Renee and this guy, that I could see both their faces at once through the gauze peephole in the beard. Their heads were tilted at wacky angles, like those shots you get when two people cram into a photo booth. The guy had that
look
too; there was no mistaking it. I wondered how long he’d been hot for Renee, and if Renee had noticed, and what this might mean to us now.

At first I was worried because I thought he’d never leave. Long after his partner had declared Mr. Woods in tip-top shape and retired somewhere for coffee, Cutie-pie remained, hopelessly smitten, chatting up Renee about every fucking wart and nodule on the elf’s nobbly little body. It became chillingly apparent that Renee was loving all this and had no idea whatsoever she might be fatally complicating our plans.

Jeff knelt in front of me and gave me a long, loaded look through the gauze.

“I know,” I said.

“What now?” he asked through motionless lips.

“Hang on.” I toddled over to the side of the room where Renee and the technician were lost in each other. “I hate to be a spoilsport, guys, but I need a little time to myself.”

“Oh, sorry.” Renee looked mortified. “What time is it?”

“Time for me to meditate.”

“Huh?”

“You know,” I said pointedly. “My preshow meditation?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Maybe you guys could finish your conversation outside.”

“Oh, no,” said Renee. “I’ll stay here.”

By this, of course, she meant that she wanted to help with my transformation, blithely ignoring the fact that, somehow, we had to get the technician out of the room. I gave her the dirtiest look I could muster through the gauze.

Then, mercifully, the stage manager poked his head through the door and called: “Ten minutes, Mr. Woods.”

“All set,” I said.

“Uh oh,” said the technician. “Better let you meditate.”

“Thanks.”

“No problem.”

“It’s just a way I…get myself together.”

“That’s cool. Nice meeting you all.”

“Nice meeting you,” Renee said a little wistfully.

As soon as the technician was gone, Jeff knelt before my beard again. “What now?”

“Does that door lock?”

“I think so.”

“Lock it.”

Within seconds, I heard the reassuring sound of a bolt being slid into place.

Renee rushed to my peephole. “Cady, look, I’m really sorry if I…”

“Forget it,” I said. “Get your kit. We’ve got nine minutes.”

“I’ve already got it.”

“Where’s Jeff?”

“Right here,” he said, from somewhere behind me.

“Remember where the snaps are?”

“Sure.”

“Go for it.”

Within seconds, I felt the pressure of his fingers as they worked their way deftly down my back, peeling the rubber away like some horrid cocoon I was about to lose forever. I leaned forward to let the thing fall from me slowly, feeling the sweet coolness of the air against my already sticky T-shirt. In the process a piece of wiring snagged in my hair, but Jeff untangled it with brisk expertise. I was
no sooner out of the suit than Renee was all over me with a towel, mopping up the sweat and sighing elaborately at the enormity of the reparation job that lay ahead for her.

“You OK?” asked Jeff.

“Fine,” I said. “Turn around.”

“I’ve seen you naked before.”

“I know,” I said. “Humor me.”

Grumbling about my latent bourgeois streak, Jeff faced the wall while Renee shucked off my T-shirt, blotted me again, and enveloped me in a dust storm of baby powder. “Go easy on that stuff,” I told her, screwing up my face.

“You don’t want to shine,” she said.

I told her I didn’t want to suffocate, either.

She grabbed the green gown from her bag, stuffed my arms into it, fastened it up the back with Velcro.

I told Jeff he could look.

“Are you sure nobody’s coming back?” he asked.

“Hell no,” I said.

Renee had moved to my hair now, ratting furiously, activating her spray can in fits and starts like a renegade graffiti artist with the cops in hot pursuit. It was oddly impressive to see her like this, operating in her pageant mode, a study in grace under pressure. She knew this turf thoroughly, I realized, and it lent her an air of strength and dignity I had never seen before.

“Nice dress,” said Jeff.

“
Merci
.”

“Do you remember your song?”

“Yes, Mom, I remember my song.”

He smiled at me.

Someone rapped on the door.

“Shit,” I whispered. “Ask who it is.”

“Who is it?” called Jeff.

“Is everything OK in there?” It was the stage manager.

“Just fine,” said Jeff.

“Three minutes,” said the stage manager.

“She’s ready.”

“Break a leg.”

“Thanks,” yelled Renee, answering for me. She knelt and held a hand mirror so I could fix my lips and check my existing eye makeup. The general effect was raucous up close, but it would read well on the risers, I decided.

“What if he’s still outside?” Renee murmured, meaning the stage manager.

I shrugged.

“You’re just gonna walk right by him?”

“You got it.” I started for the door and stopped. “Shit!”

Jeff went pale on the spot, imagining the worst. “What?”

“The award.”

“Oh.” He retrieved the phallic monstrosity off a shelf and handed it to me. “Good idea.”

“Well,” I said, taking it, “here goes something.”

“Piece o’ cake,” he said.

I stood at the door and waited for him to open it.

“Wait,” said Renee, falling to her knees next to me. “There’s just one teeny little…” She fussed for a moment with a heavily varnished curl at my temple. “There. You’re perfect now.”

Our eyes met in a moment of sisterly bonding. “Thanks,” I said.

“You’re welcome.”

I took a good deep breath, and Jeff opened the door. For the moment, at least, the coast seemed clear, a straight shot to the wings without a watchdog in sight. I celebrated this small miracle with a cavalier wink to Renee and Jeff and set off in the direction of the music—Bette Midler at this point—clutching Philip’s trophy in my hot little hands. Soon Fleet Parker would begin the longish speech that would end in my cue: “So here, to present the award, is someone as old as all the rest of us put together.”

Within twenty feet of freedom, I saw the stage manager round a corner out of nowhere. “There you are. Holy shit! Where’s the suit?”

“We’re not doing that,” I told him.

“What?”

“This is something new.”

“I’ll say.”

“The producers know about it. They just called.”

“Called where?”

“The dressing room.”

“There’s no phone in there.”

“There is now.”

“Since when?”

“We had one put in.”

“What about Mr. Woods, then?”

“He’s toast,” I said, and continued walking.

When I reached the wings, I gazed out at the little stage, where Miss Midler was in her stately mode, wringing something heartbreaking and ethereal out of “I Remember You.” I set the trophy down and caught my breath, fretting that the stage manager was contacting the director at that very moment to check on the truth of my story. I let Bette’s ballad soothe me as much as it could, taking comfort in the darkness and the warming nearness of a mellow and responsive audience. This will work, I told myself, the worst is behind you.