Sure of You (19 page)

The conversation across from her grew quieter, more intense. Then Susan said something that made the girl laugh. They’re talking about me, thought Mona.

“Well,” said Susan, addressing Mona again. “Ready to mosey?”

“Sure.”

Susan spoke to the girl again, then led the way out of the bender.

Mona’s leg had gone to sleep, so she felt a little shaky as she left.

Smiling at her, the girl said: “Bye-bye.”

“Bye-bye,” said Mona.

They didn’t talk until they were out of the thicket and walking back to town on the moon-bleached sand.

“How long have you known her?” asked Mona.

Susan chuckled. “Since…oh, four o’clock.”

They had seemed like old friends.

“I met her coming back from the beach today. She paints houses in Darmstadt.”

“Why was she laughing just before we left?”

Susan seemed to hesitate briefly. “She thought you were my lover. I told her you weren’t.”

“Oh.”

“She wasn’t laughing at you.”

Mona accepted this, but she had the uncomfortable feeling she was cramping Susan’s style. “Well, look,” she said, “if you wanna go back…”

“No, no.” The broad smile seemed brighter by moonlight. “She didn’t want
me
.”

Mona stopped in her tracks.

“Or just me, anyway. She was looking for a couple.”

“You’re shitting?”

“No.”

“Both of us?”

“Exactly.”

“Christ,” said Mona.

“Welcome to Lesbos,” said Susan.

Just before midnight they drank thick. Greek coffee at a restaurant near the square. The breeze off the sea was chillier now, and Mona was sorry she hadn’t brought a jacket.

“It’s almost winter,” said Susan. “You can practically smell the rain coming.”

“Yeah.”

“I always come this time of year. I like it when I’m right on the cusp. When the tourists are leaving, and they start to batten everything down. There’s something so poignant about it. And so purifying.” She stirred her coffee idly. “All those leaves being washed clean.” She looked at Mona. “What’s it like where you are?”

“Right now?”

“Well…anytime.”

Mona thought for a moment. “It’s in the country. Gloucestershire.”

“Oh, that’s magnificent.”

She nodded. “It gets cold and damp any day now, but I really don’t mind it.”

“Sure. You can sit by the fireplace with a cup of tea.”

More often than not, Mona stood
in
her fireplace with a cup of tea, but it seemed pretentious to say so. She flashed for a moment on winter at Easley House: the lethal drafts, the frost on the diamond-shaped panes, the smoke curling out of the limestone cottages in the village. Then she saw the silly grin on Wilfred’s face as he dragged some lopsided evergreen into the great hall.

Susan asked: “Do you live alone?”

She shook her head. “I have a son.”

“How old?”

“Twenty. I adopted him when he was seventeen.”

“That’s nice. Good company.

Mona nodded. “The best.”

“I have a daughter myself. She starts at Berkeley next year.”

Mona smiled and sipped her coffee. If they weren’t careful, they’d start dragging out snapshots.

Later she got another joint from her room and shared it with Susan as they strolled through the maze of deserted streets behind the promenade.

“This is nice,” said Susan, holding a toke.

“It’s Northern Californian.”

“No.” Susan laughed, expelling smoke. “I mean this. Getting to know you.”

“Well, thanks.” Mona gave her a wry smile. “Futterwoman.”

After another leisurely silence, Susan said: “You think she’s found her couple yet?”

Mona had been wondering the same thing herself. “Maybe not.”

“Poor baby.”

“I know. Must be tough, being so specialized.”

Susan seemed lost in thought. “Did you know that whales do it in threes?”

Mona mugged. “Pardon me?”

“It’s true. Certain types of whales perform the sex act in threes. The gray ones, I think. The third whale sort of lies against the female and holds her steady while the other two are fucking.”

Mona mulled this over. “Is the third whale male or female?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, what good are you? We need
facts
here, Futterwoman.”

Susan chortled, obviously feeling just as giddy as Mona. “It was only a footnote.”

“Are you sure you heard her right?”

“Absolutely,” said Susan.

“What would she want with a couple of old dames?”

“Fuck you.”

Mona laughed.

“She’s not that young, anyway. It’s just the ponytail.”

“Yeah…but…”

“But what?” said Susan.

“If we go back…”

“Yeah?”

“Well…I don’t wanna be the third whale.”

Susan laughed. “Who does?” She stopped at an intersection, got her bearings, and reversed her course.

“The tents are back this way,” Mona told her.

“I know. I have to get something in my room.”

“What if she doesn’t want us? I mean…what if she requires actual lovers?”

“We’ll fake it,” said Susan, picking up steam.

Her room was in a boardinghouse off the square. Mona waited for her downstairs while Madonna serenaded the patrons of a nearby taverna. Susan returned about three minutes later with an oblong box in one hand.

“Saran Wrap?”

Susan winked. “Don’t leave home without it.”

“What do you mean?”

“C’mon. Where have you been?”

Mona started to answer, but “Gloucestershire” didn’t seem to cover it.

“Better safe than sorry,” said Susan.

“Oh.” The light dawned. “Right.”

They hurried arm in arm down the pitch-black beach, giggling like a couple of teenagers.

Disguises

I
N THE SUN-SPLASHED COURTYARD AT PRESIDIO HILL
School, Brian knelt amid the other parents and children and applied the finishing touches to his five-year-old. “Stop squirming, Puppy. I’m almost through.”

“Hurry up,” she told him. “He’s gonna be here.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

He dabbed his forefinger in the gunky green makeup and obliterated the last patch of white on her cheek. “This is looking pretty good, actually.”

“Lemme see.”

“Hang on.”

She had brought along a little hand mirror, something from a doll’s wardrobe, and was consulting it to the point of obsession. She had already used it to check the angle of her “shell”—two shallow cardboard boxes he had covered with green garbage bags—and to adjust the roll of her turtleneck sweater.

“Where is he?” she asked. “He’s gonna miss it.”

“He has to open the nursery first.” He checked his watch and saw that Michael was half an hour late. He’d probably hung around the place too long and gotten entangled in a sale.

Shawna pawed through her bag of costume supplies. “Where’s my ninja mask?”

“In my pocket. You don’t wanna put it on yet. The parade won’t start until…”

“I wanna have it on when Michael gets here.”

“Oh…O.K. Good thinking.” He produced the mask—really an orange blindfold with eyeholes—and knotted it behind her head. “Can you see?”

“Yeah.”

He drew back a little and appraised her. “I think we’ve got it.”

She grabbed the little hand mirror.

“See?” he said. Out of the corner of his eye he spotted Michael climbing the stairs from Washington Street.

“Puppy…he’s coming.”

Shawna tossed the mirror aside and assumed what was apparently the stance of a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle.

“Where’s Shawna?” Michael asked, playing along.

Shawna giggled and gave his leg a halfhearted little karate chop.

“Oh, no,” said Michael. “The dreaded Michaelangelo.” He knelt and Shawna attached herself to his shoulder, laughing wickedly. “You look fabulous,” he told her.

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” Michael turned back to Brian. “Sorry I’m late.”

“No sweat. It hasn’t started yet.”

“Yeah,” said Shawna. “No sweat.” She let go of Michael’s shoulder and darted across the courtyard to the spot where her classmates were assembling for the parade.

“How was it?” asked Brian.

“O.K.” Michael stood up. “Polly’s there with Nate and the new guy.”

“I thought it might have gotten busy on you.” He hoped this sounded conscientious enough. He had already begun to feel guilty about leaving Michael in the lurch.

“No,” said his partner. “It was slow. I got the shits, that’s all.”

“Oh.”

Michael smiled ruefully. “Nothing dramatic. Just…garden variety.”

“Well, look…nobody’s gonna hold you to this.”

“I know.”

“If it gets too much…”

“I’ll tell you. Don’t worry. I’m over it, anyway. Shawna looks great.”

“Doesn’t she?”

“Did you make the costume?”

“Yeah.”

“Not bad, Papa.”

Brian said: “She’s been waiting for you. You’re the one she did it for.”

“That’s nice.”

“She’s gonna miss you, guy.”

Though Michael didn’t respond to this, something registered in his eyes. Brian couldn’t decide what it was. Embarassment, maybe? Sadness? Resentment?

“Where does the parade go?” asked Michael.

“To Saint Anne’s,” Brian told him, glad to change the subject. “The old folks’ home.”

The procession included a fairly predictable array of witches, ghosts, pirates, Hulks, and Nixons. To her delight, Shawna was the only Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle. Brian and Michael tagged alongside with the other grownups, like paparazzi at a royal wedding—there but not there.

The general idea was to cheer up the old folks, but most of the functioning inmates of Saint Anne’s were off at mass somewhere when the kids arrived. The deserted halls were modern, devoid of soul and pungent with piss. Nuns in white habits—the Little Sisters of the Poor, Michael said—smiled the tight smiles of sentinels as the parade of tiny pagans passed them by.

Michael touched Brian’s arm. “Look.”

A ghost in a white sheet had left the procession long enough to stop and stare in stupefaction at one of the white-habited sisters. From this angle, the child and the nun looked like a pair of Mutt-and-Jeff Klansmen.

“Saint Casper the Friendly,” said Michael.

Brian smiled.

“This is sort of surreal, isn’t it?”

“Sort of?”

At the core of the building lay a mini-mall meant to suggest a city street. There were flimsy aluminum lampposts and plastic plants and an assortment of pseudoshops providing amenities for the residents. At the ice cream parlor one of the ghostly sisters was constructing a cone for a nearly hairless old woman in a wheelchair.

Michael leaned closer to Brian’s ear. “Sister Mary Rocky Road.”

The old woman heard the chatter of the children and stared, slack-mouthed and uncomprehending. One of the teachers yelled, “Happy Halloween.” The old woman squinted at the alien invaders, then turned away, clamping a palsied claw on her ice cream cone.

“Christ,” Brian murmured, almost involuntarily.

“What?”

“Is this what it comes to?”

“If you’re lucky,” said Michael.

Brian left it alone.

“Oh, no.” Michael made a face suddenly.

“What?”

“I gotta find a nun.”

“Huh?”

“Or a toilet. Whichever comes first.”

Brian looked around. “There’s a nurses’ station up ahead.”

“See you later.”

“I’ll meet you out front. In case we get separated.”

“Right.”

Michael all but bolted to the nurses’ station.

They reunited on the lawn at Saint Anne’s, twenty minutes later.

“Are you O.K.?” Brian asked.

Michael nodded, looking decidedly pale. “I made many new friends. Where’s Shawna?”

“They just headed back. We can catch up with them, though.” He threw his arm over Michael’s shoulder. “Sorry you’re feeling bad.”

“Thanks.”

“You wanna get some breakfast after this…or would that just make it worse?”

“No. I’m hungry, actually. Ravenous.”

“Good,” said Brian. “I’ve found a great new place on Clement.”

It was time they talked.

Back at the school, climbing out of her shell, Shawna pronounced the parade an unqualified success.

“We’re doing a pageant at Christmas,” she told Michael. “Wanna come?”

“Sure.” Michael looked uncomfortable. It had obviously occurred to him that Shawna wouldn’t be here then.

Brian swiped at her face with a Kleenex. “You’re gonna be green till Christmas. I think you’d better try some soap and water on this.”

“No,” she said. “Cold cream.”

“Great. But we don’t have any cold cream.”

“Nicholas does.”

“See if you can borrow his, then.” He gave her behind a pat as she darted off to one of the classrooms. When she was gone, he said: “We haven’t told her about the move yet.”

Michael nodded but wouldn’t look at him.

“You think that’s unwise?”

“Brian…”

“Well, you look like it does.”

“It’s none of my business.” Michael’s tone was reasonable enough, but something was bugging him.

“Mary Ann hasn’t firmed it up with Burke yet, and she thinks Shawna might spill the beans.”

“Yeah, well…”

“Plus I don’t wanna hit her with this until we can be…you know, more specific about her new home. So she feels like she’s moving
to
something instead of just away.”

Michael shrugged.

“If you think it’s a rotten idea, tell me.”

“I don’t think anything.”

“You’re lying.” Brian said this jovially, then smiled, hoping it would get a rise out of him. “You’re right, though. It’s her life too. She has a right to know what’s going on.”

He had always believed that kids could sense it when you held out on them. At least on some subliminal level. Secrecy was unhealthy in the long run. He would talk to Mary Ann again and insist that they tell her.

Shawna returned breathlessly, clutching a jar of cold cream. “We have to give it back,” she said.

“Sure thing,” he said, and winked at Michael.