Tales of the City

  “Would you like something to drink? A Pepsi or something?”

  “Hey. You’re off duty, remember?”

  “I just thought … well, you know. Sometimes people get thirsty afterwards.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Was I …? Do you think I’m as pretty as Cheryl? I mean … I know I’m older and all, but, you know, like for my age … do you think I look O.K.?”

  He wiggled her earlobe and kissed the tip of her nose. “Better than O.K. Even without that damn wig.”

  She beamed. “You know what? I’ve got the whole day off, and the Camaro’s full of gas….”

  “I’ve gotta get home, Candi. I’m expecting a phone call.”

  “It wouldn’t take long. I could show you a pumpkin patch. They’re beautiful right now.”

  He shook his head, smiling.

  “Do you want me to drive you home?”

  “There’s a bus, isn’t there?”

  “Yeah. If you want. It’s no trouble for me, Brian.”

  He climbed out of bed. “I don’t mind the bus.”

  “I’d like it if you’d call me.”

  “Sure. You in the book?”

  She nodded.

  “I’ll call you, then.”

  “It’s Moretti.”

  “O.K.”

  “Two t’s.”

  “Good. I’ll give you a buzz in a week or so.”

  He got out without giving her his last name, but not without noticing a photograph framed on the bathroom wall.

  Cheryl in a high school cap and gown.

  Candi in street clothes, giving her a hug.

  And this inscription: “To the best Mom in the whole wide world.”

  And Baby Makes Three?

  A WAGNERIAN FOG WAS SETTLING OVER THE AVEnues when DeDe drove away from Carson Callas’ house in her husband’s silver Porsche.

  Done.

  She shivered a little, thinking of it. That icky little body. The yellowed fingernails digging into her flesh. The … thing … he kept in the bedside table.

  Her secret, however, was still intact, and she doubted very seriously that the columnist would demand a repeat performance. By the time she reached Upper Montgomery Street the horrid indignity of it all seemed as dim and distant as Cotillion days.

  Riding the elevator to the penthouse, she felt almost noble about it. She had sacrificed something, bitten the bullet … for the sake of her marriage, for the sake of the Halcyon family name.

  “How were the whales?” asked Beauchamp.

  “Same as before,” she lied. “We’re still trying to set a date for the benefit.”

  “I think you’d be better off in Leukemia.”

  “Muffy does Leukemia. It’s not very original.”

  “Crippled children, then.”

  “God, no. We went to at least three crippled children tea dances last month. Anyway, you don’t have to have your picture taken with whales.” She sat in his lap and planted a kiss on his mouth. “You don’t look like you missed me that much.”

  “I’ve been reading.”

  “What?”

  “You’re sitting on it.”

  “Oh.” She shifted onto the arm of the wing chair as Beauchamp held up a copy of Some Kind of Hero.

  “James Kirkwood,” he said.

  DeDe studied the book jacket. “It’s about Vietnam?”

  “Yeah. Sort of.”

  “Beauchamp?”

  “Huh?”

  “Take me to bed, will you?”

  “It’s been a long day, DeDe.”

  “Just to cuddle, O.K.?”

  He dropped the book on the floor and smiled at her. “O.K.”

  “Beauchamp?”

  “Mmm?”

  “We’re doing better, don’t you think?”

  “At what?”

  “You know … living together.”

  “What do you want? A Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval?”

  “Really, though, I think …”

  “Marriage is a bitch, DeDe … for everybody. Other people don’t do much better than we do. I’ve told you that all along.”

  “Still … I think we’re learning more … growing.”

  “O.K. If that makes you feel any better.”

  “Doesn’t it make you feel better?”

  “I suppose.”

  “Before … I really didn’t think we were mature enough to raise children.”

  “Jesus Christ!”

  “Well, you have to admit we’ve weathered …”

  “How many times do I have to tell you, DeDe? I have no intention of …”

  “You! You! It’s my body! What if I want a baby? What about that, huh?”

  He sat up in bed and smirked at her. “Fine. Go get somebody else to knock you up.”

  “You’re disgusting!”

  “Don’t expect me to pay for it, though. Or to live with it.”

  “It? It’s not a thing, Beauchamp. It’s a human being!”

  His eyes burned into her. “Christ! Are you pregnant?”

  “No.”

  “Well, shut up, then … and go to sleep. I’ve got a long day tomorrow.”

  Ties That Bind

  MARY ANN SPENT HER LUNCH HOUR AT HASTINGS, picking out just the right tie for Norman. The hint might not be terribly subtle, she decided, but somebody had to do something about that gross, gravy-stained clip-on number.

  Walking back to Jackson Square, she watched as a big yellow Hertz truck parked on Montgomery Street in a commercial zone.

  The burly driver sauntered to the back of the truck and opened the double doors.

  Inside were at least two dozen young women, packed as tightly as cattle in a disinfectant chamber. They were giggling nervously, and most of them appeared to be dressed for office work.

  “O.K.,” said the driver. “Stand on the lift. Six at a time.” He returned to the front of the truck, as the young women waited obediently to be lowered to the street. When the last of them had stepped off the hydraulic lift, the driver came back to issue them each a cardboard box with a neck strap attached.

  The boxes contained complimentary mini-packs of Newport Lights.

  Mary Ann shuddered. So that’s where they came from! Those pathetic creatures who stood on street corners, pushing free cigarettes and lucky wooden nickels and garish fliers for yet another soup-and-sandwich spot.

  There were worse jobs than hers. Plenty of them.

  She quickened her pace. She was already fifteen minutes late.

  Back at the agency, she breathed a sigh of relief. Mr. Halcyon was still in conference with Adorable.

  She opened the tie box and looked at her purchase again. It was silk, with maroon and navy stripes. Conservative but … sharp. Just the thing Norman needed.

  She doodled on a note pad with a Flair, ending up with this:

  don’t listen when they scoff

  that you are old and i am young,

  for i am old enough to know better

  and you are young enough not to care.

  Not bad, she concluded. And poetry was fabulous therapy, taking her back to simpler days at Central High when she cranked out anguished, e.e. cummings-style verses for the Plume and Palette.

  But this poem made her uncomfortable somehow, touching a little too close to the defensiveness she felt about her relationship with Norman.

  What relationship? So far, they had only kissed. A perfectly tame good-night kiss, at that. Norman was like … a big brother? No … and not exactly an uncle, either.

  She felt toward Norman what she felt toward Gregory Peck when she was twelve and saw To Kill a Mockingbird five times … just to experience that goose-bumpy, dry-throated, shivery feeling that came over her whenever Atticus Finch appeared on the screen.

  But Norman Neal Williams was no Gregory Peck. She tore up the poem.

  Mr. Halcyon was still in conference when Beauchamp sidled up to her cubicle.

  “Rough day?”

  “Not particularl
y,” she answered with deliberate blandness.

  “You look a little … bummed out.”

  “I guess it’s my biorhythms.” She wasn’t exactly sure what that meant, but it kept things impersonal.

  “Can I buy you a drink tonight?”

  She stared at him icily. “I don’t believe you. I really don’t.”

  “Just trying to be nice.”

  “Thank you very much. I have a date tonight.”

  “Aha! Where’s the lucky man taking you?”

  She slipped a sheet of paper into her typewriter. “I don’t see why you should care about …”

  “Oh, c’mon! I’d like to know.”

  She began to type. “Some place called the Beach Chalet.”

  “Ah.”

  “You know it?”

  “Sure. You’ll love it. The VFW meets there.”

  She looked up to see a smirk curl across his face. He headed into the hallway again, where he saluted her crisply. “Don’t OD on Beer Nuts, toots!”

  New York, New York

  RIVETED TO THE RECEIVER OF HER ANTIQUE FRENCH telephone, D’orothea wielded a gold-tipped Sherman like a conductor’s baton.

  She was talking to New York again.

  The fourth time in two days.

  Mona watched in cynical silence, curled up comfortably on their new buff suede Billy Gaylord banquette. She was sick of competing with New York.

  “Oh, Bobby,” shrieked D’orothea, “that’s the third time this month you’ve taken Lina to The Toilet…. Well, I know, honey, but … Well, look, Bobby. Once is slumming, three times is just plain sick. … It isn’t at all like The Anvil. The Anvil was fun in the old days. I mean. Rudi went there, for God’s sake! … I never saw that…. They weren’t, Bobby. I never saw any of that business with the fists…. Anyway, The Toilet is just plain flat-out scuzzy. I totaled a perfectly good pair of Bergdorf Goodman shoes….”

  It went on like that for ten minutes. When D’orothea hung up, she smiled apologetically at Mona. “Shit, I got out just in time. The Big Apple’s getting too wormy for words.”

  “Is that why you need a progress report every night?”

  “It isn’t every night.”

  “We have depravity here too, you know … and what the hell’s The Toilet?”

  “It’s a bar.”

  “Of course.”

  “It’s in Vogue this month.”

  “How gauche of me not to …”

  “Hey … what is it with you, Mona?”

  “I’m just sick of dealing with New York, that’s all. I mean, you’ve moved back here now, and it seems to me that you could …”

  “That isn’t it, Mona. You’ve been brooding about something.”

  “I’m not brooding. I’m always like this.”

  “I think you miss Michael.”

  “Don’t overanalyze things.”

  “Hon, if we don’t talk about it …”

  “It’s nothing. I’m in a bitchy mood. Forget it.”

  “I’m a little claustrophobic myself. C’mon … let’s take a walk.”

  Back at Barbary Lane, Brian Hawkins was boiling a bag of frozen chow mein. When it was ready, he gulped it down at the kitchen table while he leafed through his mail.

  Not much. An Occupant notice about a new pizzeria. A circular from the Chicago Urban League. A garish pink envelope listing the Treasure Island Frailer Court as the return address.

  The envelope contained a note card bearing the face of a Keane child, a sugary nymphet staring mawkishly from a tenement window.

  Dear Brian,

  They gave me your address at Perry’s. I hope you don’t mind. I just wanted to tell you what a fabulous time I had with you. You are a real sweet guy, and I hope you will call me some time. I can’t call you cuz I’m not aggressive. Ha ha. Seriously, you are really a neat person. Don’t feel like you have to write back.

  Luff ya,

  CANDI

  She had dotted the i in “Candi” with a Happy Face.

  He dumped the mail into his garbage bag, left the dishes in the sink, and went into the bedroom to roll a joint. There was a little Maui Wowie left. Enough for a good buzz, anyway.

  He lay on his back on the Busvan sofa, sorting out the half-assed little escapades of the last six months. Mary Ann Singleton, who still tormented him … Connie Bradshaw, a veritable museum of kitsch … that chick at the Sutro Baths … and now a goddamn mother-and-daughter team!

  He laughed out loud at himself.

  Either he was a masochist or God was a sadist.

  Minutes later, he was up again, changing into Levi’s and a khaki army shirt. He headed for the door, stopped, and returned to roll another joint.

  Then he bounded downstairs to the second floor and rang Michael’s buzzer.

  Full Moon in Sea Cliff

  JON FIELDING COULDN’T HELP BUT FEEL A TWINGE OF ENVY when the Hampton-Giddes’ houseboy offered him a stuffed mushroom.

  Harold was an absolute find.

  Efficient, courteous and intelligent. With just enough café au lait skin and gray at the temples to make him seem like an old family retainer … a spare servant that Mother had shipped from Bar Harbor.

  “He’s a gem,” Jon said to Collier Lane as soon as Harold had moved on.

  Collier nodded. “Perfect. Sort of a gay Uncle Ben.”

  “He’s gay?”

  “Better be. He’s the one who shows the movies.”

  “Here?”

  “Over there. In front of that Claes Oldenburg that looks like a couple of Hefty bags. A screen comes down. They’re showing Boys in the Sand after cigars and brandy.”

  The Hampton-Giddes, John observed, hadn’t skimped on anything. Brown suede walls. A chrome bin for the fireplace logs. Travertine marble for days and a lighting system that would have functioned nicely for a smallish production of Aida.

  The doctor grinned at his lawyer friend. “Somebody told me they’ve even got the television on a dimmer switch.”

  Collier smiled back. “They’ve got their whole life on a dimmer switch.”

  There were eight people at the dinner party. Rick Hampton and Arch Gidde (the Hampton-Giddes), Ed Stoker and Chuck Lord (the Stoker-Lords), Bill Hill and Tony Hughes (the Hill-Hugheses), and Jon Fielding and Collier Lane.

  Jon and Collier sought refuge in the Hampton-Giddes’ black onyx bathroom.

  “Christ, Jon, aren’t you sick of hearing about remodeled kitchens?”

  “Have a line,” said the doctor. “Things go better with coke.”

  The Hampton-Giddes had provided the cocaine for their guests. In the bathroom only. Out of sight from the servants. Collier snorted a line.

  “Let’s go to the tubs,” he said, straightening up.

  “We can’t just walk out, Collier.”

  “Who can’t? I’m bored shitless.”

  “Have another line, then.”

  “Where are the twinks, anyway? They usually have the decency to provide one or two decorative twinks…. Jesus, who needs to waste a night staring at these tired old Gucci queens.”

  “I can’t leave now. Maybe after the movie …”

  “Fuck the movie! Whatever happened to the real thing? My God, there’s a full moon tonight! Can’t you imagine the tubs …?”

  Jon tweaked Collier’s cheek. “There’s such a thing as social obligation, turkey.”

  “You’re a jellyfish, Fielding.”

  Jon smiled. “Take a cold shower. It’ll keep.”

  “So,” said William Devereux Hill III, passing the braised endive to Edward Paxton Stoker, Jr., “Tony and I checked the St. Louis Social Register, and they are not in it. Neither one of them.”

  “Jesus.”

  “And let’s face it, honey. In St. Louis, it’s not that difficult!”

  “How about the eighth?” asked Archibald Anson Gidde.

  Charles Hillary Lord checked his black leather Hermès appointment book. “Sorry. Edward’s taking Mrs. Langhurst to hear Edo that night.
Once again, I’m a symphony widow.”

  “What about the following Wednesday?”

  “That’s our ACT night.”

  “I give up.”

  “It’s mad, isn’t it?” sighed Charles Hillary Lord.

  “How’s the twink?” asked Richard Evan Hampton, smirking across the travertine table at Jon Philip Fielding.

  “Who?”

  “The twink in the jockey shorts. At The Endup.”

  “Oh … I haven’t seen him for a while.”

  “Well, he was hardly your type, was he?”

  “Oh?”

  “Well, I mean, how many people do you know who enter jockey shorts dance contests?”

  “I knew him. And I liked him, Rick.”

  “Well, pardon me, Mary.”

  “No, pardon me.”

  “What?”

  “It’s a full moon, Mr. Hampton, and I’ve had just about as much of this DAR meeting as I can take. Will you excuse me, gentlemen?” He pushed back his chair, stood up and nodded to his friend. “I’ll get a cab,” he said.

  “The hell you will,” said Collier Lane.

  They wore their Brioni blazers to the tubs.

  Norman Confesses

  AFTER THREE WHITE WINES AT THE BEACH CHALET, Mary Ann felt much better about the bar’s Archie Bunker ambience.

  “I like this place,” she told Norman honestly. “It’s very … down-to-earth.” Beauchamp could just go to hell with his snotty crack about the VFW.

  “I thought you might get a kick out of the muriels,” said Norman.

  “The …?”

  “The paintings on the walls.”

  “Oh … yes, they’re beautiful. Art Nouveau, right?”

  Norman nodded. “Good ol’ Mr. Roosevelt and the WPA. Hey, how about a little walk on the beach?”

  The idea didn’t particularly appeal to her. It was cold outside, and there was something really cozy about the glowing beer signs and the bowling-jacketed patrons bellied up to the bar.

  She smiled at him. “You’d like to, wouldn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is something the matter, Norman?”

  “No. I’d just like to take a walk, O.K.?”