form within their silver-domed abode, located close by the Sea of Tranquility.
“Pat,” Lee said one day, playing with one of the hairs on her jumper (it was one thousand years old), “you know what I sometimes think?”
Pat left down his handheld news console and smiled. “What’s that, honey?” he said.
His wife came and sat on his knee, raking her long, slender fingers through his hair. There was no mistaking the transparent, guileless generosity in those eyes. “I think we’re in Paradise,” she said. Argo gurgle-barked and the children chuckled shyly. Outside, Saturn basked, neck-laced with gaseous rings. Pat squeezed his wife’s hand.
Thus the days went by, with Pat in his shirtsleeves at the white and shiny grand piano (there were crotchets and quavers all over it), frowning and scratching his head as he chewed on his pencil and made corrections on his music sheets.
“Come on, honey!” Lee would cry as she appeared in the doorway with an appetizing tray of nibbles. “Give yourself a break! You deserve it!”
And indeed, that was something Pat could not deny as each night he flopped down exhausted beside the woman he adored, constellations of ill-matched notes swirling before his tired eyes, the faces of his adoring fans melding into an adulatory blur. But who could deny that it was worth it, all of it, as each day upon the hour, the video screen shimmered with dry-mouthed newscasters who excitedly spoke of the “singing sensation Pat McNab” whose success “continued apace” and was astounding even the most experienced hands in the music industry as his sellout concerts persisted in “wowing” the universe. As one “talking head” eagerly put it, “Pat’s rendition of ‘Fly Me to the Moon’ is hotly tipped to scoop the much-coveted top award at this season’s Sea of joy Bash in September!”
Clearly Bud O’Kane was delighted most of all! Indeed, his career—after a series of scandals involving his previous protégé, Ned “Mr. Moog” McGeery—had been on the verge of virtual collapse until the fortuitous appearance. “Pat,” Bud said brightly, placing his hand on the shoulder of the universally acclaimed songsmith, “you are one mother-freaking star—and I mean it!”
Their mutual good fortune showed no signs of abating. Hordes of weeping teenage girls continued to congregate at airports, talk-show hosts tossed back their heads and marveled at Pat’s off-the-cuff witticisms, middle-aged women flung themselves prostrate in front of the stage as he Pat stroked his microphone and crooned, “Let me know what spring is like on Jupiter and Mars!” The Day-Glo nomenclature upon a thousand video screens proclaimed ecstatically, “McNab no. I again!”
The home front, too, was as some magnetic field of good fortune. His children had been described by the teacher as “the brightest planets in the firmament” and it was hard for Pat to hold back a tear of pride when his ten-year-old daughter presented him with a report card which read, “1st in Class.” Was it any wonder that late at night he might find himself reflecting that he had been blessed with almost too much happiness, more being bestowed upon him than a man could feasibly be expected to bear? Consequently experiencing the slightest frisson of fear and trepidation that it might all be taken away from him?
But Pat need not have worried. For, just as he was considering the incipient disappearance of his myriad good fortunes and almost unbearable happinesses, the forces ranged about him were preparing to confer further honors upon him.
Or so it seemed.
Pat was drying himself off with his monogrammed towel after another fabulous encore when a knock came to his dressing-room door. Humming, Pat turned the doorknob to reveal Bud, standing beaming in the doorway in his rectangular-patterned sportscoat and yellow tie. “Hi buddy, my old pal!” chirped his manager. “Someone here to see you, I do believe! Permission to send ‘em up, sir?”
Pat smiled and nodded his head. “Of course, Bud!” he replied as he continued drying himself and went back inside, whistling. It was quite a few moments later that he heard the door opening and looked up to see the reflection of his mother in the mirror. At first, the truth is, that it didn’t seem like her at all, and out of his mouth the ejaculation, “Ha! That’s not Mammy! No way! Sure what would she be doing here?” would not have seemed inappropriate in the slightest. Admittedly, it was perhaps a more sophisticated, urbane version of the woman who had borne him, but there could be no denying—it was the