“I like her,” said Jon, after Mona swept out. “Does she do that every morning?”
“No. I think she’s curious.”
“About what?”
“You.”
“Oh … Are you two …?”
“No. Just friends.”
“You’ve never …?”
Michael shook his head. “Never.”
“Why not?”
“Why not? Well … let’s see now. How about … I’m queer as a three-dollar bill.”
“So?”
“So I’m a virgin with women. A perfect Kinsey six.”
“Oh.”
“That freaks you?”
“No, I just … How old are you?”
“I hope you’re not a chicken queen. I’m twenty-six.”
“I’m twenty-eight … and I’m not a chicken queen.”
“That’s a relief.”
“What about high school?”
“B-minus average.”
Jon smiled. “I mean girls in high school. Didn’t you ever get it on with them?”
“All I ever did in high school was tool around with the guys and a six-pack of Bud, looking for heterosexuals to beat up.”
“Is that right?”
Michael nodded. “You can’t miss ‘em. They walk funny and carry their books against their hips. That’s what you did, wasn’t it … when you were a heterosexual?”
Jon studied his face for a moment. “Don’t be so defensive. I wasn’t criticizing you.”
“If it helps any, I didn’t come out until three years ago. I was a eunuch in high school.”
“I wish I’d known you then.”
“As opposed to now?”
“In addition to now.” Jon tousled his hair. “I like you, turkey!”
Michael was abuzz after Jon left. “He’s incredible, Mona. He’s well-adjusted and self-assured … and he’s a goddamn doctor! Can you imagine me with my very own live-in doctor?”
“He’s proposed?”
“Don’t get technical.”
“What kind of doctor?”
“A gynecologist.”
“That oughta come in handy.”
Michael slapped her on the fanny. “Just let me fantasize, will you?”
“You’re gonna wanna move out, aren’t you?”
“Mona!”
“Well?”
“You’re my friend, Mona. We’ll always be together in one way or another.”
“Oh, yeah? What are you gonna do? Adopt me?” She walked to the door and opened it, addressing an invisible guest. “Oh, hi, Mrs. Plushbottom! May I present my father, Michael Tolliver, the famous raconteur and bon vivant, and my mother, the gynecologist!”
Michael shook his head, laughing. “I’d marry you in a second, Mona Ramsey.”
“If you were the only boy in the world, and I were the only girl. What else is new?”
He kissed her on the forehead. “Don’t worry. I’ll screw this up.”
“It sounds like you want to.”
“Spare me the jungian analysis.”
“Take out the garbage, then. If it happens, it happens.”
The Maestro Vanishes
THE PR WOMAN WAS ALMOST AS SHAKEN AS FRANNIE was.
“Mrs. Halcyon … believe me … we’ve tried our best to …”
“The party starts in two hours. I’ve notified Women’s Wear Daily, the Chronicle and the Examiner, Carson Callas…. How on God’s green earth can you lose a conductor?”
The opera publicist’s voice turned starchy. “The Maestro is not … lost, Mrs. Halcyon. We’ve simply been unable to locate him. We’ve left word for him at the Mark, and there’s a good chance he’ll …”
“What about Cunningham? She’ll come without him, won’t she?”
“We’re trying to find an alternate escort, in the event that … We’re doing our best, Mrs. Halcyon. Miss Cunningham is not generally compatible with tenors.”
“Are you telling me she won’t …? Oh, God … Really, this is the shoddiest excuse for … What am I supposed to tell my guests?”
Beauchamp and DeDe arrived at Halcyon Hill later than planned. DeDe had popped the zipper on her Galanos. Beauchamp, to survive the ordeal, had downed four jiggers ofJ&B.
“Mother must be dying, “ said DeDe.
“Stop trying to cheer me up.”
“God … Carson Callas is here already. He loves to write no-show stories. He absolutely humiliated the Stonecyphers with that article about … Beauchamp, would you please try not to look so bored?”
“There’s Splinter.”
“I want a drink, Beauchamp.”
“Help yourself. I’ll be talking to Splinter.”
“Beauchamp, if you expect me to go to the bar alone …”
“Prue Giroux makes her own drinks.”
“Goddammit, Beauchamp! I don’t want to … talk to Oona.”
It was too late. The Rileys were next to them now, radiating marital bliss. DeDe forced a smile. Her gown felt like a sausage casing.
“So where’s the diva?” Splinter asked cheerfully. “That’s the right word, isn’t it?”
Oona smiled and squeezed her husband’s arm. “He’s such an oaf! How did you manage to marry an intellectual, DeDe?”
The message came through loud and clear. An impotent intellectual.
Splinter had told Oona about the phone call. DeDe was sure of it.
Beauchamp broke the silence. “Well, this intellectual needs to kill a few brain cells. Join me at the bar, Splinter?”
The men walked off together.
Oona remained, smiling at DeDe, but only around the mouth.
“I’m sorry, DeDe.”
“About what?.”
“Your ordeal.”
“What ordeal?”
“Oh … I see. I’m sorry. I guess we should talk opera or something.”
“I haven’t the slightest idea what you’re talking about.”
“Forget it. You must think me terribly insensitive.”
“Oona, will you please …”
“The grocery boy, darling. The Chinese grocery boy.”
Silence.
“Shugie told me about The Forum, and we all feel for you dreadfully. It must have been awful.” Oona smiled diabolically. “It was awful, wasn’t it?”
“I have to go, Oona.”
“I won’t say a thing, darling. We Sacred Heart girls have to stick together, don’t we?”
“Besides,” she added, tucking DeDe’s bra strap back under her dress, “a girl has to make do somehow.”
Frannie Freaks
FRANNIE HAD BEGUN WOBBLING SLIGHTLY, “EDGAR, what am I gonna do?”
“I’d say it was in the lap of the gods.”
“Don’t be ridiculous! We can’t just stand here and let things … go to hell.”
“They look like they’re having a good time.”
“Of course they’re having a good time! They’re crucifying me, Edgar. Look at Viola! She hasn’t stopped giggling with Carson all evening!”
“Frannie … look … if you need entertainment or something, I could call the accordionist who plays at the club. It’s late notice, but maybe he’d …”
Frannie groaned. “You don’t just swap an accordionist for the greatest soprano in the world, Edgar!”
“I didn’t know she was going to sing.”
“She doesn’t have to sing, Edgar! God! Do you do that on purpose?”
“What?”
“Act like such a philistine.”
“I am a philistine.”
“You are not a …”
“My father ran a department store, Frannie.”
“He bought a box at the opera!”
“He ran a department store.”
Beauchamp chatted with Peter Cipriani on a quiet corner of the terrace.
“So what’s your theory on La Grande Nora?”
Peter shrugged. “Who cares? I didn’t come for that. My new passion is Troyanos.”
/>
“Your pupils are dilated.”
“They’d better be. Psilocybin.”
“Jesus.”
“I’m dating Shugie Sussman, for Christ’s sake.”
“Is that your excuse for an altered consciousness?”
“Got a better one?”
“I pass.”
“I hope the little darling can drive. I had two drinks at The Mill before I picked her up.”
“I’m so bored,” said Margaret van Wyck Montoya-Corona.
DeDe fish-eyed her. “Mother will be so glad to hear that.”
“Oh, no, DeDe … not here … I mean, in general. Jorge’s been in Madrid for three weeks. It’s no fun being married to a contraceptive czar, lemme tell you.”
“I can imagine.”
“It’s the company I miss mostly.”
“Get a dog, then.”
Muffy smirked. “I’ve thought about getting a Samoan.”
“You mean a Samoyed.”
“No. I mean a Samoan. Penny and Trinka have both got Samoans. Matching Samoans. They’re mechanics in the Mission … and, my dear, they are big.”
DeDe grimaced. “I don’t like fat men.”
“Not fat.” She held her hands up. “Big.”
“Oh. I see.”
“Well, it’s a helluva lot better than sending away for one of those plastic doohickies.”
Edgar pulled his daughter aside. “I need your help,” he whispered.
“What?”
“Your mother’s locked herself in the john.”
“Again?”
“Would you mind, DeDe. She’s upset over … that singer.”
Upstairs, DeDe bellowed at her mother through the bathroom door. “Mother!”
Silence.
“Mother, goddammit! You are not Zelda Fitzgerald. This act gets real old.”
“Go away.”
“If you’re freaked over Nora Cunningham … I talked to Carson Callas. He says she does this all the time.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“He’s giving you nine inches, Mother. Nine inches.”
“What?”
“In Western Gentry. He’s devoting most of his column to …”
The bathroom door swung open. Frannie stood there, red-eyed, holding a Mai Tai. “Did you ask him to stay for breakfast?” she said.
The Case of the Six Batons
THE CATERERS MADE SCRAMBLED EGGS FOR THE REMnants of the party at Halcyon Hill. While Frannie was cornering Carson Callas, Edgar slipped away to his den and placed a phone call to Barbary Lane.
“Madrigal.”
“It’s me, Anna.”
“Hello, Edgar.”
“I’m sorry about Mona, Anna.”
“You don’t need to apologize.”
“Yes I do. I shouldn’t have snapped at you this morning.”
“I … you have a job to do, Edgar.”
“If I had known how much Mona means to you …”
“I shouldn’t have called. I meddle too much.”
“I have a free day next week. We could beach it again.”
“Fine.”
“Thank God!”
“Go on, now. Get back to your guests.”
Back at Barbary Lane, Mona was prone on the sofa with New West when Michael dragged in.
“Well,” she said. “How’s the wonderful world of gynecology?”
“I wasn’t with Jon.”
“My! How soon the flame of love can die!”
“He had a meeting tonight.”
“So you went to the tubs?” She frowned at him, only half-jokingly.
“It isn’t good to put all your eggs in one basket.”
“So to speak.”
He grinned. “Yeah.”
“My lips are sealed.”
He wriggled onto the sofa next to her. “Guess who was there?”
“The Mormon Tabernacle Choir.”
“O.K., if you don’t wanna dish, we won’t dish.”
“No. Go ahead. I want to.”
“No. First I have to tell you about Hamburger Mary’s.”
“I hate it when you punish me.”
“I’m setting the stage, Mona. Relax. Pretend I’m your guru. Maharishi Mahesh Mouse. I bring you the Keys to the Kingdom of Folsom Street. The Holy Red Bandanna That Sitteth on the Left Hand of the Levi’s. The …”
“Michael, you fucker!”
“All right, all right. There I was at Hamburger Mary’s, eating a bean sprout salad and wondering if my new Sears work boots looked too new, when this couple waltzed in and took a seat in the middle of a heavy biker contingent.”
“A couple of guys?”
“Hell, no. A guy and his wife, slumming. Radical chic, vintage 1976. She was wearing a David Bowie T-shirt to show where her sympathies lay, and he was looking grossly uncomfortable in a Grodins sports ensemble. I mean, five years ago you could have caught these turkeys down in the Fillmore, chowing down on chitlins and black-eyed peas with the Brothers and Sisters. Now they’re into faggots. They want desperately to relate to perverts.”
“It’s nothing but heartbreak, I can tell ‘em!”
“O.K., so the scene gets more rough-trade by the minute. And then this dude sits down next to them and he’s wearing a ring in his nose and a Future Farmers of America jacket and Mr. Grodins Ensemble is freaking out so badly that he may have to split for El Cerrito any minute.”
“What about his wife?”
“Oh, God … extremely PO’ed that hubby’s not getting off on the decadent ambience. Finally, she looks at him intently and says, in a voice fraught with meaning: ‘Which do you think you’d prefer, Rich? S or M?’”
“And?”
“He thought it was something to put on the hamburger.”
“So who did you meet at the tubs, Mouse?”
“Well … I met him after I’d been there a couple of hours. I was walking down the hall, looking into rooms, and this gray-haired guy motioned me to come into his room. He seemed pretty old, but he had a nice body. So I went in and sat down on the edge of his bed, and he said, ‘Had a busy night?’ and I immediately knew who it was by his accent. I also recognized him from his album covers.”
“Who?”
“Nigel Huxtable.”
“The conductor?”
“Yep. Nora Cunningham’s husband, no less.”
“Did you two …?”
“Are you kidding?”
“Well, I didn’t …”
“I got out of there as soon as I saw what he had in his bag.”
“Go on, go on….”
“A cassette recorder … a tape of his lovely wife singing the ‘Casta Diva’ … a piece of gold brocade cord which he said came from the curtain at La Scala … and six rubber batons!”
“Jesus Christ!”
“I didn’t do anything, Mona. With anybody.”
“Tell that to your gynecologist!”
Back to Cleveland?
DAYS DRAGGED LIKE WEEKS AT HALCYON COMMUNICA tions.
Beauchamp would smile as he passed Mary Ann’s desk, and sometimes even wink at her in the elevator, but there were no more invitations, no more anguished pleas for friendship.
It was as if Mendocino had never happened.
Fine, thought Mary Ann, if that’s the way he wants it. There were lots of other outlets for her energies … and miles to go before she slept.
She cleaned out Edgar Halcyon’s coffee machine.
She bought a glass-cutter and made a wine-jug terrarium for her desk.
She created a “personal corner” of her bulletin board, filling it with Peanuts cartoons, fortune cookie messages and postcards from friends on vacation.
Once a morning, she sat perfectly still at her desk, closed her eyes, and uttered the brave new litany of the seventies:
“Today is the first day of the rest of my life.”
One night, Michael showed up at her door, bearing a clay pot shaped like a chicken.
“It’s
half of my poulet Tolliver, “ he grinned, pronouncing his name toe-lee-vay. “Mona’s out either raising her consciousness or lowering her expectations, and I thought … well, here.”
“Michael, that’s very sweet.”
“Don’t get gushy until you’ve seen it. It looks like a seagull that tangled with a 747.”
“It smells delicious.”
“Shall I put it on the parsons table?”
“Fine. Thanks.”
He set the crock down, then smiled, shaking his head.
“What?” asked Mary Ann.
“They do this in the South when somebody dies. Bring food, I mean.”
“Well, you’re close.”
“What do you mean?”
“Are you … have you eaten the other half of that chicken yet?”
He shook his head.
“Would you like company?”
Michael rolled his eyes. “Sometimes to the point of obsession.”
Mary Ann made a salad, while Michael was retrieving his half of the chicken.
They dined by candlelight.
“This is my first formal dinner … for a guest.”
“I’m honored.”
“I hope you like Green Goddess.”
“Mmm. Next time we’ll have asparagus and you can show me your hollandaise recipe.”
“How did you know I … oh …”
Michael nodded. “Robert. I lost the recipe in the divorce settlement.”
Mary Ann reddened. “It’s easy.”
“I shouldn’t have brought up ancient history. I’m sorry.”
“It’s O.K. I’ve always felt a little dumb about that.”
“Why? Robert’s a hot number. I would have done it. Hell, I did do it. Where do you think I met him?”
“The Safeway?”
“Not that one, actually. The one on Upper Market. From my standpoint, it’s a lot cruisier.” He slapped his own cheek. “Stop that. You’re embarrassing the girl.”
She laughed. “Do I look that out of it?”
“No, I … yeah, sometimes.”
“Well, I am.”
“It’s very becoming, actually.”
“I’ve heard that one before.”
“Oh … who?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
Michael smiled wryly, studying her expression. “Is that why you’re close to death?”