At the crest of Mount Davidson, they caught their breath beneath the giant concrete cross.
Edgar swept his arm over the city beneath them.
“All my life … all my goddamn life and I never came up here.”
“Pretend you were saving it.”
He took her hand and pulled her next to him. “I swear it was worth it.”
Silence.
“Anna?”
“We didn’t come here to neck, did we, Edgar?”
He sat down on the ledge under the cross. “I … no.”
She joined him. “What is it?”
“I don’t know exactly. I got a call today.”
“About what?”
“A man who wants to talk to me about madrigals.”
“What?”
“That’s what he said. That’s all he said, actually. ‘I’m a friend and I want to talk to you about madrigals.’ He was maddeningly coy about it.”
“Do you think he …?”
“What else? He wants money, I guess.”
“Blackmail?”
Edgar chuckled. “Quaint, isn’t it? Six months ago that might have shaken me up real bad.”
“But how would he know?”
“Who knows? Who cares?”
“You do, apparently. You just marched me up Calvary to tell me about it.”
“That wasn’t the reason.”
“Will you see him?”
“Long enough to memorize his face and kick his ass down the steps.”
“Are you sure that’s wise?”
“Hell, what can he do? I’m a goner. Christ, I never thought that would come in handy someday!”
Anna picked up a twig and traced a circle in the damp earth.
“We’re not the only ones to consider, Edgar.”
“Frannie?”
Anna nodded.
“He won’t go to her. Not when he sees how little it matters to me.”
“You don’t know that for certain.”
“No … but I’m not losing sleep over it, either.”
“Are you sure it’s … blackmail?”
“Positive.”
Anna stood up and walked away from the cross, closer to the lights of the city. “Did he tell you his name?”
“Just Williams. Mr. Williams.”
“When does he want to see you?”
“Christmas Eve afternoon.” He grinned. “Gothic, eh?”
Anna didn’t smile. “I don’t want to hurt your family, Edgar. Or you.”
“Me? Anna, you’ve never caused me a single moment of …”
“I could, though, Edgar. I could hurt you very badly.”
“Bullshit!”
“Your family needs you now, Edgar. It isn’t right or fair for me …”
“What the hell is the matter with you? Christ, I’m supposed to be the nervous one in this relationship! I brought you up here to ask you to go away with me!”
She spun around to face him. “What?”
“I want you to go away with me.”
“But we … Where?”
“Any place you want. We could take a cruise to Mexico. I could make it look like a business trip. Look at me, Anna! You can see how much time I’ve got left!”
There were tears in her eyes. “I can see … a beautiful man.”
“It’s yes, then?”
“You can’t do that to Frannie.”
“Would you let me worry about that!”
“I don’t …” Her voice choked up. “I don’t want you caught up in this, Edgar.”
“I’m already caught up in it, goddammit!”
“It’s not too late. You can tell Mr. Williams … you can tell him … Hell, I don’t know … deny it. He can’t have positive proof about us. If we never see each other again …”
He grasped her shoulders and looked into her eyes. “You’re way out of line, lady.”
“God help me … I know!” She was sobbing now.
“Anna, please don’t …”
“I’m a liar, Edgar. I love you with all my heart, but I’m a liar!”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
She composed herself somewhat and turned away from him. “It’s worse than you think,” she said.
The Baker’s Wife
FOR A MOMENT, MONA WAS SPEECHLESS, CONFRONTING this stranger at the Twinkie factory at midnight. This white stranger.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said pleasantly. “What can I do for you?”
“I … excuse me … I think I must want the other Mr. Wilson.”
“Don? The wrapper? I’ll get him, if you’d …”
“No. Wait, please … Do you have a daughter named Dorothy?”
Leroy Wilson’s face went whiter still. “Oh, my God!”
“Mr. Wilson, I …”
“You’re from the Red Cross or something? Something’s happened to her?”
“Oh. no! She’s fine. Really! I saw her tonight.”
“She’s in San Francisco?”
“Yes.”
The relief in his expression gave way to bitterness. “I wouldn’t expect we’d hear from her.”
“She lives here now, Mr. Wilson.”
“Who are you?”
“I’m sorry … Mona Ramsey. I room with your daughter.”
“What do you want from me?”
“I want to … Wouldn’t you like to see Dorothy, Mr. Wilson?”
He snorted. “What we want doesn’t have much to do with it, does it?”
“I think … I think Dorothy would really like …”
“Dorothy doesn’t even approve of me and her mother.”
So that was it, thought Mona. The sophisticated Miss D’orothea Wilson was the product of a lower-class interracial marriage. And it bugged the hell out of her.
Which explained, among other things, D’orothea’s semi-Caucasian features and her fierce reluctance to deal with her African heritage.
She was, in short, an Oreo.
Leroy Wilson bought Mona a cup of coffee in the bakery’s second-floor snack bar. Obviously wounded by his daughter’s behavior, he allowed his visitor to do most of the talking.
“Mr. Wilson, I don’t know why Dorothy decided to … cut off communications with you and Mrs. Wilson … but I think she’s changed now. She wants to live in San Francisco, and I’m sure that means …”
“I don’t even remember the last time Dorothy wrote us.”
“It’s easy to lose touch in New York, especially if you’re a model and …”
“C’mon. Get to the point.”
Mona set her cup down and looked him in the eye. “I want you and your wife to come to dinner this week.”
He blinked at her, slack-jawed.
“It would just be the four of us.”
“Dorothy knows about this?”
“Well, uh … no.”
“I think you’d better run along home.”
“Mr. Wilson, please …”
“What do you get out of this, anyway?”
“Dorothy’s my friend.”
“That’s not all of it.”
“It’s such a waste, dammit!”
He stared at her soberly, and Mona sensed a sort of primitive intuition at work. “Do you talk to your daddy?”
“Mr. Wilson …”
“Do you?”
“I … never knew him.”
“He passed away?”
“I don’t know. He left my mother when I was a baby “
“Oh.”
“Go ahead. Psyche out my motives, if you want. All I …”
“O.K. When?”
“What?”
“When do you want us to come?”
“Oh, I’m so …” She flung her arms around his neck and hugged him, then backed off, embarrassed. “Is Christmas Eve O.K.?”
“Yeah,” said Leroy Wilson. “I guess so.”
Old Flames
CHRISTMAS. SOME YEARS IT HAPPENS. OTHERS IT doesn’t.
This year, thought Brian, f
inishing off a bottle of Gatorade, it isn’t going to happen.
Not if it snows on Barbary Lane. Not if you OD on eggnog. Not if Donny and Marie and Sonny and Cher and the whole fucking Mormon Tabernacle Choir show up on your doorstep with a partridge in a pear tree … it isn’t going to happen.
As far as he was concerned, Mrs. Madrigal’s party would be just like any other.
“Cheryl?”
“Yeah.”
“Brian.”
“Uh … Brian who?”
“Hawkins. From Perry’s.” The one who nailed your mother, dingbat!
“Oh … Hi!”
“What’s up?”
“Oh … not much.”
“Still living in the trailer park?”
“Yeah … I am.”
“Swell.”
“Candi’s left. She’s working in Redwood City now. At Waterbed Wonderland.”
“Terrific.”
“She’s got an old man now. A hot-shit celebrity. Larry Larson.”
“Don’t know him.”
“You know … Channel 36?”
“No.”
“The Wizard of Waterbeds.”
“Oh.”
“ ‘We’ll help you make a splash in bed’?”
“Got it.”
“Larry might let her do a commercial soon.”
“Well … star time. Look, Cheryl … you wanna go to a Christmas party?”
“When?”
“Christmas Eve.”
“Oh … I’d love to, but Larry’s taking us to Rickey’s Hyatt House for turkey with all the trimmings.”
“Oh.”
“I could check with Larry. He might not mind if you came along.”
“That’s all right.”
“I hate for you to be alone on …”
“I won’t be alone, Cheryl.”
“I’d try to get out of it, but Larry’s called ahead for Mateus and everything.”
“?l’ Larry thinks of everything.”
“Yeah. He’s real nice.”
“Well, I hope you find one for yourself … some rich asshole in a leisure suit who can buy you all the Mateus and … Mediterranean furniture and … steel-belted radiais …”
“You’re just as fucked up as ever, aren’t you?”
“And you’re about as liberated as a goddamn hamster.”
“I never said I was liberated!”
“Right you are!”
“I am really, really sorry for you!”
“I can tell.”
“You really hate women, don’t you?”
“What makes you think you’re a woman?” She slammed the phone down.
“Connie?”
“Just a sec. Lemme turn down the stereo.” The Ray Conniff Singers were murdering “The Little Drummer Boy” in the background.
“Hi,” she said, returning. “Who’s this?”
“Your birthday boy.”
“Byron?”
“Brian.”
“Oh … sorry. Long time no see, huh?”
“Yeah, look … It might turn out to be a big bore, but I’m invited to this Christmas party my landlady’s giving and … well, that’s it.”
Silence.
“Whatdya say?”
“Was that an invitation, Brian?”
“Yeah.”
“I see. When?”
“Uh … the twenty-fourth.”
“Just a sec, O.K.?” She left the phone for a matter of seconds. “Sure,” she said finally. “The twenty-fourth is fine.”
A Lovers’ Farewell
THE NOONTIME PERRY’S CROWD WAS THICKER THAN usual. Beauchamp pushed his way to the far end of the bar and nodded to the blue-blazered maître d’. “I’m meeting a friend,” he said. Jon was waiting for him at a table in the tiny back
courtyard.
“Sorry,” said Beauchamp. “I got tied up in pantyhose again.”
The gynecologist smiled. “Still trying to wreck my business, huh?”
“That’s funny. I hadn’t thought of that.”
“I ordered you a Bullshot.”
“Perfect.”
“I can’t stay long, Beauchamp.”
“Fine. Neither can I.”
“I don’t think this is such a good idea, anyway.” Beauchamp frowned. “Look, there’s no goddamn reason in the world why two men can’t have a perfectly …”
“You don’t consider a wife a reason?” “Don’t start on that again!”
“I hadn’t planned to.”
“Anyway … why should you care, if I don’t. DeDe doesn’t know you from Adam. You could be anybody. You could be a friend from the club, for all she knows!”
“That isn’t the point.”
“Well, what the hell is the goddamn …?”
“Can I take your order now?” The Bullshots had arrived, along with a waiter whose green eyes and chestnut hair temporarily diverted both men from the crisis at hand.
Beauchamp flushed and chose the first thing he saw on the menu. “Yeah. The shepherd’s pie.”
“Same here,” said Jon. The waiter left without a word. “Surly bastard,” said Beauchamp. Jon shrugged. “But pretty.”
“You would notice that, wouldn’t you?”
“Didn’t you?”
“Not when I’m with somebody I care about!” Jon looked down at his drink. “I think you’re expecting too much of me, Beauchamp.”
Silence.
“I think this should be … it.”
“Just like that, huh?”
“It isn’t ‘just like that’ and you know it. It’s been coming on for a long time.”
“It’s DeDe, isn’t it?”
“No. Not entirely.”
“Well, what, then?”
“I’m not sure exactly.”
“Yes you are.”
“Beauchamp … I don’t think I trust you.”
“Jesus!”
“I know DeDe can’t trust you. Why should I trust you?”
“That’s different.”
“It’s not different. She hurts the same way you and I do.”
“Look, what is this shit with DeDe? What the hell has DeDe got to do with …?”
“She’s pregnant, Beauchamp.” Silence.
“She’s a patient of mine.”
“Fuck.”
“Well, somebody did.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“He’s as good a possibility as any, I suppose.”
“How can you joke about this, Jon?”
“It isn’t my joke, Beauchamp. It’s yours. I’m not gonna be part of this.”
The food arrived. Neither of them spoke until the waiter had gone.
“I still wanna see you, Jon.”
“It figures.”
“There’s a party at the club on Christmas Eve.”
“I have plans on Christmas Eve.” He pushed his chair back and stood up, dropping a ten-dollar bill on the table. “I’m not hungry. It’s on me.”
Beauchamp grabbed his wrist. “Wait a minute, goddammit! Did you tell DeDe about us?”
“Let go.”
“I wanna know!”
Jon jerked his arm free and straightened his tie. “She’s a nice woman,” he said. “She could have done better than you.”
Edgar on the Brink
THE CRAMPS HAD BEGUN AGAIN.
Edgar stood up from his desk and stretched his arms out slowly, arcing them from his body like a tired semaphorist.
He repeated the exercise four or five times, long enough to realize that it wasn’t working, then confronted the mirror in his office washroom. His face was waxy white.
Chronic pyelonephritis. Renal disease. Toxic products that would back up just so long until one day … acute pericarditis would cause his heart to stop.
A lot of fancy words for bum kidneys.
Mary Ann buzzed him from the outer office. “Mildred called from Production. She wants to talk to you about the mailboy.”
“For Christ’s sake! Ca
n’t you keep that old bat off my neck long enough …”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Halcyon. She was really upset, and I didn’t know what …”
“Did he flip her the bird again?”
Mary Ann giggled. “You’re not gonna believe it.”
“The suspense is killing me.”
“She caught him Xeroxing his … privates.”
“What!”
“She came in early this morning and found him on top of the Xerox machine … with his pants down.”
Edgar began to laugh. So hard, in fact, that he broke into a coughing jag.
“Are you all right, Mr. Halcyon?”
“That’s the funniest … goddamn thing I’ve … What was he going to do with it?”
Now Mary Ann broke up. “He’s … he’s been doing it for weeks, Mr. Halcyon.” She paused for a moment to collect herself. “Everybody in Production called him the Xerox Flasher, but nobody knew who it was. Mildred …” She began to giggle again, losing control.
“Mildred what?” Christ, he thought. Am I gossiping with my secretary?
“Mildred thought it was somebody from Creative….”
“Mmm. Perverts all.”
“Anyway … he always made a lot of copies and left them in the secretaries’ desks every morning … until Mildred found out about it.”
“Hell, he’s the only person in the building who isn’t guilty of false advertising!”
“Well, not exactly.”
Edgar began to laugh again. “Oh, God! Don’t tell
me …”
“Yes, sir. He was using the enlarger.”
Frannie called after lunch, obviously distraught.
“Edgar, I want you to do something about those people at Macy’s.”
“What is it this time?”
“I have never, Edgar … in all my life … been so humiliated….”
“Frannie …”
“I went to Loehmann’s this morning, out at Westlake….”
“I thought you said Macy’s?”
“Let me finish. I went to Loehmann’s, because I wanted to get something nice for Helen for Christmas, and Loehmann’s has perfectly darling designer-line clothes like Anne Klein, Beene Bag, Blassport …”
“Frannie.”
“I have to explain this, Edgar! Loehmann’s has these marvelous clothes, see, only they cut the labels out because they’re overruns, so you can get them for practically nothing … and since I’m crazy about Helen, but not that crazy, I though I’d buy her this precious Calvin Klein cashmere cowl-neck sweater that I could tell was a Calvin Klein, even though they’d cut the label out, because it had GJG in it.”