Maybe the Moon (8 page)

“Sort of. Not exactly. Well, it’s a combination.”

I chuckled at this familiar indecision, a mature variation on the little gavotte he used to do around the candy bar rack at the roach coach.

“I may be working,” he said brightly. “In a movie.”

I felt the little stab in the gut I always feel when I hear of anyone else’s movie. It’s awful, I know, really petty of me, but I just can’t help it. “Hey,” I said as gamely as possible. “Good for you.”

To receive congratulations, Callum ducked his head like a bashful prince: a quirk—or perhaps a device—I remembered from a decade earlier.

“Who with?” I asked.

“It’s not definite yet.”

“Ah.”
It’s with Philip
, I was thinking.
Some big-bucks project they’ve sworn him to secrecy about
. Then I realized how silly it was to get paranoid about a kid who’d been cooling his heels in a fishing village for half his life; he was probably just too nervous to talk about it. “I thought you’d retired,” I said blithely.

He picked at the grass while he decided what to say. “How well did
you
know yourself when you were eleven?”

Pretty damn well, actually, but I thought it unfair to say so. Our circumstances were different, after all. Mine, looking back on it, had compelled me to get my shit together fast. “So it got in your blood, huh?”

He nodded.

“Well,” I said, “welcome back, then.”

“Thanks.”

“Who’s your agent?”

He shrugged. “Still Leonard.”

“Oh,” I said colorlessly, “that’s good.” So that little weasel
had
known that Callum was back in town and had willfully lied to me about it. But why? To keep me out of his hair? To insure that I didn’t pressure Callum about a role in this new movie, whatever it was? Probably. What was brutally clear, if nothing else, was that Leonard wanted me out of his hair for good.

“He’s as tough a cookie as ever,” said Callum amiably. “You know Leonard.”

“Oh, yeah.”

“It’s what’s required, I guess.”

“Absolutely.”

“Are you still in the business?”

I tried to be as pleasant and offhanded as I knew how. “Oh, yeah.”

Right away Callum looked so mortified that I felt a little sorry for him. “That came out wrong,” he said.

“Hey. You’ve got no reason to know.”

“What are you up to?”

I told him I was making a video and left it at that. I didn’t tell him about PortaParty, since he would only make an effort to be positive and encouraging about it, and that would depress me more than anything.

“Singing, huh?”

“Some.”

“I remember how well you sang.”

“Thanks.”

“I saw you in that horror movie,” he said.

“Which one?”

He widened his eyes and mugged, unable to remember the name.

“Did I have gray shit hanging off me?”

“That’s it,” he said.

“
Bugaboo
.”

“Right.
Bugaboo
.” He laughed.

“That came to Maine?”

He shook his head. “Cable.”

“Oh, yeah.”

He picked at the grass some more. “I got your Christmas cards. Thanks.”

“Sure.”

“I’m sorry I never sent you one back.”

“Hey,” I told him, shrugging it off. “You had pubic hair to grow.”

He laughed. “Just the same.”

“My Christmas card list is enormous,” I said, letting him know it was much less a give-and-take ritual with me than a sort of therapeutic hobby. “Lots of people don’t write back. I send cards to Phil Donahue and Tracey Ullman. Sometimes I send cards to people who aren’t even alive.”

This got a laugh, because it sounded like a joke, which I guess it was, but it was also the truth. I lose track of friends sometimes, and they get sick and die, and I don’t find out until months later, often in the most casual way, at a party, say, or standing in line for
Truth or Dare
. And I say “How awful” and pass the word on to
whoever else might’ve known the guy and cross him out of my address book. I’ve done it so often now, it’s become shockingly routine, just another domestic ritual. I didn’t spell this out for Callum, but I wondered if he knew what I meant. I wanted him to know that I knew what the world was like now, that he could talk to me about anything.

“How are your folks?” I asked.

“Fine. Pretty much the same.”

“Any other…people in your life?”

He grinned like an errant schoolboy. “Am I married, you mean?”

“Whatever.”

He held up a ringless hand. “See.”

I smiled at him. “It doesn’t have to be official.”

He shrugged. “A few girlfriends.”

“A
few
?”

He laughed.

“Here?”

“What?”

“The girlfriends.”

“No. Back there.”

“Maine?”

“Yeah.”

“That can’t be any fun.”

He shrugged again. “I haven’t been here that long. How is your mother?”

I took note of this abrupt change of subject, then told him my mother died three years ago.

“I’m sorry.”

“Thanks.”

For the life of me, I couldn’t think of a graceful way to bring a Griffith Park pickup into this conversation, so I asked him what he’d done since he’d been here.

“Not much,” he said ruefully. “A lot of lunches.”

I nodded knowingly, as if I, too, had borne—and borne recently—the terrible burden of being overlunched. I could see
Callum making the rounds again: at the Hollywood Canteen, say, springing that fresh, yet oddly familiar, young face on some aging baby mogul who hasn’t seen it for a decade. What a potent impression it would make! And what a hook for the media: this kid who conquered Hollywood at ten and gave it up for the simple joys of teendom in New England returns to the big screen as a grown-up heartthrob. If the movie’s any good at all, he could be a huge star again before the year is out.

“Are you reachable?” I asked.

“Sure. I’m at the Chateau Marmont.”

“Oh. OK.”

“The switchboard will put you through.”

“Great.”

He smiled like a cat in the sun. “Remember when Ray used to live there?” He meant Ray Crawford, the cranky old geezer who played Callum’s grandfather in
Mr. Woods
.

“Sure do,” I said. I had never been invited by, but I knew that Ray had a suite at the Marmont. If you remember him in the movie, he looked pretty much the same as that, except that he wore ascots under short-sleeved shirts, instead of cardigans. He died about five years ago without much fanfare. There was a brief mention of it on
Entertainment Tonight
.

“I have the balcony next to his,” Callum said.

“Is this progress?” I joked, since nobody much liked old Ray.

He laughed. “I like it there, though.”

I could see Renee heading toward us, so I made a quick excavation in my purse and handed him one of my cards. “This is me,” I said.

He studied it for a moment. It says
Cadence Roth Acts for a Living
and gives both my number and Leonard’s office number. “That’s clever,” he said, and stuck it in his shirt pocket. “I forgot Leonard is your agent too.”

“So does he.”

He chuckled, but sort of uncomfortably.

“When you see him, say hi for me,” I said.

“I will.”

Then Renee came up and Callum made a move to introduce himself. I stopped him with a yank at his sleeve. “Promise me you won’t scream,” I said to Renee.

“Huh?”

Callum looked at me and grinned.

“Promise me, Renee.”

She shrugged. “I promise.”

“This is Callum Duff.”

As Renee homed in on him, her mouth slackened noticeably and her eyes began to narrow. It’s the look she gets when she’s trying to think of a phone number, or painting snowy peaks with that guy on TV.

“Thank you,” I said, when a scream failed to materialize. “Callum, this is Renee Blalock, my housemate.”

Callum sprang to his feet and stuck out his hand. “Hi.”

Renee echoed him meekly.

“Renee is a big fan of yours.”

“Do you totally swear?” Renee asked Callum.

Since he looked completely baffled, I said: “She doesn’t think it’s you.”

“Oh…well…”

“Don’t make him swear, Renee. It’s him.” I got up and brushed off the seat of my T-shirt, making signs of leaving. Callum had begun to look restless, and I’d seen quite enough of humanity’s march for one day. I was ready to go home and veg out completely, sit under the sprinkler, maybe, with nothing but a Walkman on. Renee was just getting warmed up, of course.

“You were so great as Jeremy,” she told him. “I wanted to be you so bad.”

“Thanks.”

“I really, truly, mean it.”

“I can tell,” said Callum. “Thanks.”

Renee bounced a little in her excitement, never taking her eyes off the poor kid.

“OK,” I said. “Time to move on.”

“Oh. OK.” Renee got all sheepish in front of Callum. “I hope I wasn’t…”

“You were very nice,” said Callum. “I like the movie too.”

Renee shot me an excited glance. “You know what would be neat?”

I gave her a wary look on Callum’s behalf. “What?”

“If I could get a picture of you two.”

I reminded her nicely that no one here had a camera.

“Back there they do.” She pointed down the chaste postmodern midway to an exhibit sponsored by Fuji Film, a sort of high-tech playroom for grownups. “They take your picture in front of any backdrop you want.”

Callum didn’t hesitate. “You could be in it too, then.”

“Oh, could I?”

“Why not?”

“Oh, gah, that’s so great.”

“Don’t you have to be somewhere?” I asked Callum.

“Not for a while.” He gave me an earnest, just-between-us-grownups look. “I really don’t mind. I’d like a souvenir myself.”

“There’s no line,” Renee said.

“Well…whatever.”

It had dawned on me finally that we’d each get a picture, and that mine would come in very handy indeed. I was already imagining the way I would tease Jeff with it.

We ended up choosing a rear projection of plain blue sky and clouds. Renee argued pitiably for the
Mr. Woods
backdrop, but Callum seemed a little uncomfortable about it, so I stood firm with her. Callum sat in a chair, while I posed in his lap, and Renee stood behind, one hand resting delicately on Callum’s shoulder. We attracted a small but fascinated crowd with this curiously Victorian tableau.

“You’re a good sport,” I told Callum as he set me down again.

“Hey.”

“Where’s your appointment?”

“Over there,” he answered, gesturing with his eyes. “The other side.” He meant the real side—the working side—of Icon Studios, the place where we’d once made a movie together, so many years ago.

I nodded knowingly and left it at that, not wanting to come off as nosy.

Callum insisted on paying for the photos, and told Renee, who was already in seventh heaven, to order a poster-sized one for herself. The shot turned out much better than I’d expected. Renee looked placidly lovely, her hair a sort of three-strip yellow against the phony blue sky. I had cheekbones for once, and my eyes, or so Renee assured me, were at their sultry best. Callum looked far more like the child I had once known than he did in real life. Something sweetly uncomplicated and true had surfaced in his eyes in time to meet the camera halfway. It was downright eerie.

“Do people recognize you?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “Not usually. Almost never.”

“Me either.”

He laughed. “We’re even, then.”

Sensing his restlessness, I told him how glad I was we’d bumped into each other, and to call me whenever he felt like it. He thanked me nicely but didn’t commit himself, which came as no surprise, since we had never been all that close. Renee thanked him profusely for posing with us and, pushing the limits even further, gave him an awkward peck on the cheek.

We left him roughly where he had found me, then headed up the giant escalator toward the parking lot.

When we got home, I called Jeff first thing. After six rings and the usual annoying musical interlude from k.d. lang, I was informed that the gay Saroyan was at a motel in Palm Springs and would not be back until Monday morning. I felt hideously let down, so I left him a cruelly cryptic message to call me anytime for information regarding “the latest Jeremy sighting.” I wasn’t about to waste this
one on a tape, and I knew from experience that Jeff would appreciate the story more if I wrapped it festively in a little intrigue.

I haven’t heard a peep out of him all evening. This is puzzling, frankly, since he’s usually good about checking his machine, no matter where he is. The phone hasn’t rung at all, in fact, since Renee and I sat down—or stood up, in her case—to our respective creative endeavors.

Renee’s painting is coming along nicely. She’s doing a waterfall now, the next step after snowy peaks. She says “Oh, poo!” out loud so often that I want to throttle her, but she shows a real knack for this technique. And I see what she means about the instructor; he does have a way about him. As I lie here on my pillow, his low, reassuring voice floods over me like warm honey, or some kindly old uncle murmuring nursery tales over a crib. I wonder if he has a cult or something, if other people tune in just for his voice.

I’m almost to the end of this notebook. Another twenty pages or so and I’ll have to find a new one, something a little classier this time, that doesn’t have Mr. Woods’ ugly face on the cover. That was it for me today, I’ve decided, my last sayonara to the little dick-head. Every time I relent and reimmerse myself in that bankrupt mythology, I come away feeling drained and discarded, a relic before my time.

Life is too short for looking back.

Especially mine.

It’s past midnight, and Jeff still hasn’t called. Renee turned in half an hour ago, after donning a new nightie and slicking her face drastically with Vaseline.

I picture Jeff in a room by a pool, with a sleazy desert moon hanging low in the palm trees. He has just had spectacular sex (sorry, I can’t quite see the face) and is on the verge of springing the next chapter on his unsuspecting victim. In which case, he could well be planning to check his machine before he calls it a day.