Her buzzer rang.
When she opened the door, the face of her visitor was obscured by a huge pot of yellow mums.
“Hello, Mary Ann.”
“Norman?”
“I didn’t wake you up, did I?”
“No. Come in.”
He set the flowers on one of her teak nesting tables from Cost Plus. “Are those for me?” she asked.
He nodded. “I heard about last night.”
“How sweet … Who told you?”
“That guy across the hall. I ran into him in the courtyard this morning.”
“Brian.”
“Yeah. Look, are you sure I’m not …”
“I’m delighted to see you, Norman. Really.” She pecked him on the cheek. “Really.”
Norman flushed. “I thought you might like the yellows better than the whites.”
“Yes.” She touched the flowers appreciatively. “Yellow’s my favorite. Hey, can I fix you some coffee?”
“If it’s not too much trouble.”
“Of course not. I’ll be right back.” She dashed into the kitchen and began fussing with her French stainless-steel-and-glass Melior pot from Thomas Cara Ltd. She had paid thirty-five dollars for it a month ago … and used it exactly twice.
She was almost positive that Norman was a Maxim-type person, but there was no point in risking it.
Norman seemed to like the coffee. “Boy!” he grinned, looking up from his cup. “Brian showed me what the landlady grows in the garden.”
“Oh … the grass, you mean?” She marveled at the matter-of-fact tone of her voice. Her growing sophistication sometimes astounded her.
“Yeah. I guess that’s pretty common around here, huh?”
She shrugged. “She only grows it for us … and herself. Well, you know … you got one when you moved in, didn’t you?”
“One what?”
“A joint … taped on your door?”
Norman looked puzzled. “No.”
“Oh … well …”
“She taped a joint on your door when you moved in?”
Mary Ann nodded. “It’s a house custom, sort of. I guess she must’ve … forgotten or something.”
Norman smiled. “My feelings aren’t hurt.”
“You don’t smoke, huh?”
“No.”
“Well, maybe she could tell. She’s awfully intuitive.”
“Yeah … maybe. Brian says she used to work in a bookshop in North Beach.”
Mary Ann failed to see the connection. “Yeah. He told me that too. I’ve never asked her.”
“She’s not from around here, is she?”
“Are you kidding?” said Mary Ann, grateful for the chance to use the line herself. “Nobody’s from around here.”
“She sounds Midwestern to me.”
“Yeah … she and Mona talk a lot alike, I think.”
“Mona?”
“The red-headed woman on the second floor.”
“Oh.”
He looked a little lost, Mary Ann felt. Poor thing. Someday, she hoped, he would learn to feel part of the family.
The Clue in the Bookshop
NORMAN LEFT MARY ANN’S APARTMENT JUST BEFORE noon.
He spent the next three hours exploring bookshops, with no success. Finally, on Upper Grant, he discovered a dusty hole-in-the-wall
sandwiched between a leather shop and an organic ice cream parlor.
He sniffed around for several minutes before approaching the old man in the back.
“Anything on sky-diving?”
“Huh?”
“Sky-diving. Parachuting.”
“Sports?”
“Yeah. A sport.”
The old man lifted his cardigan to scratch his side, then pointed to a shelf just above eye level. “That’s all we got on sports.” He conveyed an air of mild disgust, as if Norman had asked him for the pornography section.
“Well, it doesn’t matter, anyway. I just wanted to get a look at the old place. I used to come here a long time ago. You’ve fixed it up real nice.”
“Think so?”
“Yeah. Real tasteful. You don’t see many places like this anymore. It’s nice to know some people still have respect for the past.”
The old man chuckled. “I got plenty of past … I guess I oughta have plenty of respect.”
“Yeah … but you’re young at heart, aren’t you? That’s what counts. You’re a lot easier to deal with than that woman who used to run the place.”
The old man eyed him. “You knew her?”
“Not well. She struck me as a real disagreeable lady.”
“Never heard that about her. A little peculiar, maybe.”
“Peculiar as hell. You bought the place from her?”
The old man nodded. “About ten years ago. Been here ever since.”
“That’s nice to hear. A place like this needs some … stability. I guess Mrs. Whatshername went back East … or wherever she came from?”
“Nope. Still here. I see her off and on.”
“I wouldn’t have figured that. She didn’t seem too happy here. She was always gabbing about … hell, someplace back East. Where was she from, anyway?”
“I guess you could call it back East. She was from Norway.”
“Norway?”
“Maybe Denmark. Yeah … Denmark.”
“I guess I’ve got her mixed up with somebody else.”
“Name Madrigal?”
“Yep. That was it.”
“She was from Denmark, I’m sure. Born here … I mean the States … but she lived in Denmark before she bought the shop. I guess that’s where she picked up her funny customs.”
“She had some funny ones, all right.”
The old man smiled. “See that cash register?”
“Yeah?”
“Well, when I took the place over … the day I moved in … I found a note pasted there that said, ‘Good luck and God bless you’ … and you know what else?”
Norman shook his head.
“A cigarette. A hand-rolled cigarette. Stuck up there with a piece of tape.”
“Peculiar.”
“Mighty peculiar,” said the old man.
As Mona and D’orothea entered Malvina’s, Norman was striding down Union Street toward Washington Square.
Mona nodded to him, but the gesture went unnoticed.
“He’s in our building,” she explained. “He’s afraid of his own shadow.”
“I can tell.”
“He watches me, though. He doesn’t talk much, but he watches me.”
Upstairs at Malvina’s, they sipped cappucinos and reconstructed the missing years.
“I’ve lost track,” said Mona. “What happened to Curt?”
“Lots … Sleuth for a year or so. A couple of new soaps, then one of the big roles in Absurd Person Singular. He’s done all right.”
“And so have you?”
“So have I.”
“I lost my job.”
“I know.”
“How the …?”
“I’m doing some modeling for Halcyon. Beauchamp Day told me.”
“Small fucking world.”
“I’m finished with New York, Mona. I want this to be my home again.”
“Comin’ home to go roamin’ no more, huh?”
“You sound so cynical.”
“Sorry.”
“I need you, Mona.”
“D’or …”
“I want you back.”
Mona Moves On
THE MORNING WAS BRIGHT AND BLUSTERY. MICHAEL tossed a pebble into the bay and flung an arm across Mona’s shoulders. “I love the Marina Green,” he said.
Mona grimaced and stopped in her tracks, scraping an ancient Earth Shoe against the curb. “Not to mention the Marina Brown.”
“You’re such a romantic!”
“Fuck romanticism. Look where it gets you.”
“Thanks, I needed that.”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean i
t to sound that way.”
“Well, you’re right.”
“No, I’m not. I’m a coward. I’m scared shitless. One of these days, Mouse, something really nice is going to happen to you. And you’ll deserve it when it comes, because you never stop trying. I gave up a long time ago.”
Michael sat down on a bench and dusted off the space next to him. “What’s bugging you, Mona?”
“Nothing in particular.”
“Bullshit.”
“You don’t need another downer, Mouse.”
“Says who? I thrive on downers.”
She sat down next to him, fixing her eyes glassily on the bay. “I think I may move out, Mouse.”
His face was blank. “Oh?”
“A friend of mine wants me to move in with her.”
“I see.”
“It’s got nothing to do with you, Mouse. It really doesn’t. I just feel like something’s gotta change soon or I’ll freak…. I hope you …”
“Who is it?”
“You don’t know her. She’s a model I used to know in New York.”
“Just like that, huh?”
“She’s really nice, Mouse. She’s just bought this beautiful remodeled Victorian in Pacific Heights.”
“Rich, huh?”
“Yeah. I suppose.”
He stared at her without a word.
“I need … some sort of security, Mouse. I’m thirty-one years old, for Christ’s sake!”
“So?”
“So I’m sick of buying clothes at Goodwill and pretending they’re funky. I want a bathroom you can clean and a microwave oven and a place to plant roses and a goddamn dog who’ll recognize me when I come home!”
Michael bit the tip of his forefinger and blinked at her. “Arf,” he said feebly.
They walked for a while along the quay.
“Was she your lover, Mona?”
“Uh huh.”
“How come you never told me?”
“It never really seemed important, I guess. I wasn’t exactly … into that scene. I was a lousy dyke.”
“But you aren’t now, huh?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“The hell it doesn’t.”
“She’s a sweet person, and …”
“She’ll take good care of you, and you can stay at home and eat bonbons and read movie magazines to your heart’s …”
“That’s enough, Mouse.”
“Christ! Maybe you did give up a long time ago, but I’m not going to stand by and watch you throw your life away. You’re not even being fair to her, Mona! What the hell does she need with some half-assed lover who’s got the hots for tile bathrooms?”
“Look, you’re not …”
“Nothing’s free, Mona! Nothing!”
“Oh, yeah? What about your rent?”
The words stung harder than she expected, silencing Michael completely.
“I didn’t mean that, Mouse.”
“Why not? It’s the truth.”
“Mouse … I don’t care about that.” He was crying now. She stopped walking and reached for his hand. “Look, Mouse, you’ll have the whole place to yourself, and Mrs. Madrigal is bound to give you some slack on the rent until you can find a job.”
He rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand. “Why does this sound like the end of a B-movie affair?”
She kissed him on the cheek. “It does, doesn’t it?”
“Some affair. You didn’t even stick around long enough to meet my parents.”
At the Gynecologist’s
THE WAITING ROOM WAS THE SAME SHADE OF GREEN that once oppressed DeDe at the Convent of the Sacred Heart. There were clowns on the walls—weeping clowns—and nothing to read but a July 1974 issue oí Ladies’ Home Journal.
She might as well have been waiting to get a tooth pulled.
The receptionist ignored her. She was ravaging a bag of barbecue potato chips while she read the Chronicle.
“Will it be much longer?” DeDe asked, hating herself for sounding apologetic.
“What?” This chinless Bryman School graduate was plainly irked that her reading had been interrupted. “Uh … the doctor will be with you in a moment.” She brightened a little, holding up the paper and pointing to a serial on the back page. “Have you read this today?”
DeDe stiffened. “I don’t read that.”
“Ah … c’mon!”
“I don’t. It’s nothing but trash. A friend of mine almost sued him once.”
“Far out. Have you ever …” She cut off the sentence and covered the newspaper with an IUD catalogue, just as a door swung open next to her booth.
DeDe looked up to see a lean, blond man in a blue oxford-cloth shirt, chino pants and a white cotton jacket. He reminded her instantly of Ashley Wilkes.
“Ms. Day?”
That was one point in his favor. She hadn’t explained her marital status on the telephone. She had said simply that she was “a friend of Binky’s,” sounding as quaintly furtive as a flapper approaching a speakeasy.
“Yes,” she said colorlessly, extending her hand.
Obviously sensing her discomfort, he led her out of the waiting room and into the room with the stirrups.
“Any nausea recently?” he asked softly, going about his work.
“A little. Not much. Sometimes when I smell cigarette smoke.”
“Any foods bother you?”
“Some.”
“Like?”
“Sweet and sour pork.”
He chuckled. “But half an hour later you feel fine again.”
That was not funny. She froze him out … or as much as she could in that position.
“Have you felt tired lately?”
She shook her head.
“How’s Binky?”
“What?”
“Binky. I haven’t seen her since the film festival.”
“She … I guess she’s fine.” It enraged her that anyone could talk about Binky Gruen at a time like this.
When he was done, he came away from the sink with a smile on his smooth, Arrow collar face. “It’s yours, if you want it.”
“What?”
“ The baby. There’s no point in waiting for the urinalysis. You’re going to be a mother, Mrs. Day.”
She wondered later if some automatic defense mechanism had dulled her response to the announcement. Most women, surely, would not have chosen that particular moment to dwell on the luminous blue pools of their doctor’s eyes.
She warmed to him after that, freed from embarrassment by his loose-limbed easiness, his toothy, prep-school smile. She could trust him, she felt. Baby or no baby. She was certain that he sensed the delicacy of the situation.
“When you make up your mind,” he said, “give me a call. In the meantime, take these.” He winked at her. “They’re pink and blue. It’s a subtle propaganda campaign.”
He said good-bye to her in the waiting room, turning to the receptionist as DeDe headed for the door.
“Through with the paper?”
She nodded, handing him the Chronicle.
He opened the newspaper to the same page that had occupied the receptionist. A slow smile crept over his face, and he began to shake his head.
“Sick,” said the doctor. “Really sick.”
The Diagnosis
STUPEFIED, FRANNIE STARED AT HER DAUGHTER.
“God, DeDe! Are you sure?”
DeDe nodded, fighting back the tears. “I talked to him this morning.”
“And … he’s sure?”
“Yes.”
“Dear God.” She clutched at the trellis in the morning room, as if to support herself. “Why didn’t … we know before? Why didn’t he tell us?”
“He wasn’t sure, Mother.”
Frannie’s voice grew strident. “Wasn’t sure? Who gave him the right to play God? Don’t we have a right to know?”
“Mother …”
Frannie turned away from her daughter, hiding her face. She fidgeted
with a pot of yellow spider mums. “Did the doctor … did he say how long he has?”
“Six months,” said DeDe softly.
“Will he … be uncomfortable?”
“No. Not until the end, anyway.” Her voice cracked. Her mother had begun to cry. “Please don’t, Mother. He’s awfully old. The vet says it was time.”
“Where is he now?”
“On the terrace.”
Frannie left the morning room, brushing the tears from her eyes.
Out on the terrace, she knelt by the chaise lounge where Faust lay sleeping.
“Poor baby,” she said, stroking the dog’s graying muzzle. “Poor, sweet baby.”
Later that day, Frannie poked morosely at her cheese soufflé and raised her voice over the noontime din at the Cow Hollow Inn.
“I said … I hope I can prepare myself for it.”
“Of course you do.” Helen Stonecypher was busying herself with a wet napkin, removing a chunk of Geminesse lipstick from her front tooth.
“Am I being maudlin?”
“Not at all.”
“I thought I might have his dish bronzed … as a kind of … memorial.”
“Sweet.”
“You know how I abhor women who get hysterical about their dogs … but Faust was … is …” Her voice trailed off.
Helen patted her hand, jangling their bangle bracelets in unison. “Darling, do whatever makes you feel best. You remember Choy, don’t you? My grandmother’s cook in the big house on Pacific?”
Frannie nodded, blinking back the tears.
“Well, ol’ Choy was Nana’s dearest friend in the world … and when he died …”
“I remember that. Wasn’t he wheeling her around the fair at Treasure Island?”
Helen nodded. “When he died, Nana had his queue cut off and made into a choker.”
“A …?”
“A necklace, darling … with three or four very understated little ivory beads worked into the strands. It was quite lovely, actually, and Nana adored it. As a matter of fact, she was wearing it when she died in our box in 1947.”