Sure of You (3 page)

“Only if you can deduct it.”

“Of course,” he said.

She thought for a moment. “There’s a new place downtown. Sort of a tenderloin dive that’s been upscaled.”

“O.K.” He sounded skeptical.

“It’s kind of hot right now. Lots of media people.”

“Let’s do it. I think I can trust you.”

She wasn’t quite sure how to take that, so she let it go. “It’s called D’orothea’s,” she said. “It’s on Jones at Sutter.”

“Got it. Jones and Sutter. D’orothea’s. What time?”

“One o’clock?”

“Great. Can’t Wait.”

“Me too,” she said. “Bye-bye.”

She hung up, then stretched out on her chaise again, discovering to her amazement that her headache was gone.

The rest of the afternoon was consumed by staff conferences and a typically silly birthday party for one of the station’s veteran cameramen. Just before three, somewhat later than usual, she left the building hurriedly and drove to her daughter’s school in Pacific Heights.

Presidio Hill was a pricey “alternative” institution, which placed special emphasis on creative development and one-on-one guidance. At five, Shawna was the youngest kid in Ann’s Class (that was what they called it, never kindergarten), and her classmates included, among others, the daughter of a famous rock star and the son of a celebrity interviewer for
Playboy
magazine.

The adults were “strongly urged” to participate in school functions, so the rock star’s girlfriend could be found at Presidio Hill on alternate Wednesdays making pigs-in-a-blanket for the children. Mary Ann herself had been drafted once or twice for these duties, though she deeply resented the intimidation involved. For five grand a year they could damn well hire their own wienie roasters.

When she arrived at the rustic redwood building, the usual after-school mayhem was in progress. Voyagers, Audis, and latter-day hippie vans were double, even triple, parked on Washington Street, while clumps of grownups gossiped among themselves and clucked over the artwork of their off-spring.

She scanned the crowd for Shawna. This was never a simple task, since Brian dressed and delivered the kid, and you never knew what she might be wearing. Lately, egged on by the school’s policy of creative dressing, Shawna had delivered one lurid fashion statement after another. Like yesterday, when she came home wearing high-top Reeboks with a tutu and tights.

“Mom,” called a reedy voice among many. It was Shawna, bounding toward the car in her flouncy red dress with the big Minnie Mouse polka dots. Mary Ann approved of that one, so she relaxed a little until she caught sight of the rest: the pearls, the lipstick, the turquoise eye shadow.

“Hi, Puppy,” she yelled back, wondering whether Brian, a teacher, or Shawna herself was responsible for this latest atrocity. She flung open the car door and watched nervously as her daughter left the curb. Next to her, against the sidewalk, a Yellow Cab was parked, driver at the wheel. A little girl was climbing into the passenger side. Somehow this smacked of parental neglect, and Mary Ann watched the scene with something approaching indignation.

“That’s her dad,” said Shawna, hopping onto the seat.

“Who?”

“Duh! That guy right there! The cabdriver.” The child was getting more smartass by the day. Mary Ann gave her a menacing look. When she glanced at the cabbie again, he beamed back at her knowingly, parent to parent, and she couldn’t help being impressed. How many airport runs would it take, anyway, to pay for this glorified baby-sitting service?

“His name is George,” said Shawna.

“How’d you know that?”

“Solange told me.”

“Solange calls him George? Instead of Daddy, you mean?”

Shawna rolled her eyes. “Lots of kids do that.”

“Well, not this one. Fasten your seat belt, Puppy.” Her daughter complied, making a breathless production of it. Then she said: “I call you Mary Ann.”

This was clearly a gauntlet flung at her feet; she opted to kick it aside. “Right,” she said, pulling out into the street.

“I do.”

“Mmm.”

“I called you that today at circle time.”

Mary Ann shot her a glance. “You talked about me at circle time?” Why should this make her feel so uncomfortable? Did she really think Shawna was going to bad-mouth her in front of the other kids?

“We talked about TV,” the child explained.

“Oh, you did?” Now she felt foolish. Shawna must have told the other kids about her famous mom.

“Nicholas says TV is bad for you.”

“Well, too much TV, maybe. Puppy, did you talk about Mommy during…?”

“Put on a tape,” said Shawna.

“Shawna…”

“Well, I wanna listen to something.”

“You can in a minute. Don’t be so impatient.”

The child cocked her head goofily and did her impression of Pee-wee Herman. “I know you are, but what am I?”

“Nice. Very funny.”

Another tilt of the head. “I know you are, but what am I?”

Mary Ann glowered at her. “I got it the first time, O.K.?”

After a moody pause, Shawna said: “Guess what?”

“What?”

“We had quesadillas today.”

“Oh, yeah? I like those, don’t you?”

“Yeah. Nicholas’s father made them, and Nicholas had cheddar cheese, and I had modern jack.”

Modern jack. She would save that one for Brian. He loved it when Shawna said “aminal” for “animal” or otherwise flubbed a word charmingly.

“Sounds yummy,” she told the child, reaching across to pop open the glove compartment. “Find a tape you like. I think there’s some Phil Collins in there.”

“Yuck!”

“O.K., Miss Picky.”

Shawna gave her an indignant look. “I’m not Miss Piggy.”

“I said
picky,
silly.” She smiled. “Go on. Find what you want.”

After foraging for a while, Shawna settled on Billy Joel. This was one taste they shared, so they sang along together at the top of their lungs, thoroughly pleased with themselves.

ALL YOUR LIFE IS TIME MAGAZINE

I READ IT, TOO. WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

“I like that part,” said Shawna, shouting over the music.

“Me too.”

BUT HERE YOU ARE WITH YOUR FAITH AND YOUR

PETER PAN ADVICE.

YOU HAVE NO SCARS ON YOUR FACE

AND YOU CANNOT HANDLE PRESSURE.

PRESSURE…PRESSURE…ONE—TWO—THREE—FOUR

PRESSURE

Mary Ann gazed over at the child’s animated face, the tiny hands rapping rhythmically on the dashboard. Ordinarily she welcomed this little sing-along, since it strengthened her tenuous bond with Shawna, but today, because of that damned makeup, something entirely different was happening. All she could think of was Connie Bradshaw.

She’d noticed the resemblance before, of course, but this time it was overwhelming, almost creepy, like a drag queen doing Marilyn just a little too well. She turned the volume down and spoke to Shawna calmly. “Puppy, did you have dress-up at circle time today?”

Shawna seemed to falter before saying: “No.”

“Then, why did…?”

“Turn it back up. This is the best part.”

“In a minute.”

I’M SURE YOU’LL HAVE SOME COSMIC RASH-SHUH-

NAL…

“Puppy!”

“That’s my name, don’t wear it out.”

Mary Ann switched off the tape player. “Young lady!” It was time to play mother now—that is, to impersonate her own mother thirty years earlier. “I want you to listen when I’m talking to you.”

Shawna folded her arms and waited.

“Is that my makeup you’re wearing?”

“No.”

“Where did you get it, then?”

“It’s mine,” said Shawna. “Daddy bought it for me.”

“It’s for kids,” Brian told her calmly after dinner that evening. Shawna was in the bedroom, out of earshot, watching television.

“You’ve got to be kidding.”

He shook his head, smiling dopily.

“Brian, that is just the sickest!”

“I know, but she’s a big fan of Jem, and I figured it couldn’t hurt just this once.”

“Jim?”

“Jem. This rock star in a cartoon. Saturday morning.”

“Oh.”

“They make a whole line of cosmetics and stuff.” He wasn’t in the least disturbed, she realized. “It’s just dress-up.”

“Yeah, but if she makes a habit of it…”

“We won’t let her.”

“It just looks so tarty.”

He chuckled. “O.K. No more makeup.”

His cavalier tone annoyed her. “I just don’t want her running around looking like some kiddie-porn centerfold.” Projecting morbidly, she imagined Shawna’s daylight abduction, then envisioned her photograph—lipstick, eye shadow, and all—emblazoned on milk cartons across the country.

Brian rose from the table, taking their plates with him. “To tell you the truth,” he said, “I thought she kinda looked like Connie.”

She thought it best not to comment.

“Didn’t you? With all that makeup?”

“That isn’t very nice,” she said.

“Why not?” said Brian. “She was her mother.”

He seemed to be goading her for some reason, so she made a point of staying calm. “Maybe so,” she said, “but I don’t think we’re trying for the total look.”

“You noticed it, though?”

“A little, maybe.”

“A lot,” he said, “I thought.”

She followed him into the kitchen and told him about Shawna and her modern jack. When they had both finished laughing, she said: “Guess who I heard from today?” She’d already decided it was best to be breezy about it. Any other approach might freight it with too much importance.

“Who?”

“Burke Andrew.”

He opened the dishwasher. “No kidding?”

“Yeah. He called this morning after the show.”

“Well. Long time no hear.”

She tried to read his face, but he turned away and busied himself with the loading of the dishes. “He’s in town, apparently,” she said.

“Apparently?”

“Well, I mean, he is. We’re having lunch tomorrow at D’orothea’s.”

It shouldn’t have made her feel funny to say this, but it did. There was no reason on earth she should have included Brian in the lunch. He and Burke, after all, had never been friends, even though they’d lived for a while under the same roof. Brian had been too busy trolling for stewardesses to waste any excess energy on male bonding.

“Great,” he said. “Say hello for me.” She monitored this instruction for irony and couldn’t find a trace. Burke might not be an issue at all, though she never could tell for sure with Brian. He had a maddening way of being hip one moment and rampantly jealous the next.

“He’s here on business, I think. Sounds like he wants to dish a little television dirt.”

“Ah.” He closed the dishwasher door. “Should be good.”

“We’ll see.” She didn’t want to come off as too enthusiastic.

Fiddling with the dishwasher controls, Brian said: “Does he know you’re famous?”

She couldn’t tell if he was being snide, so she took the question straight. “He’s seen the show, apparently.”

He seemed to ponder something for a moment, then asked: “The one today?”

She had no intention of resurrecting those furry little bodies again. “I don’t know,” she lied. “He didn’t say.”

Brian nodded.

“Why?” she asked.

He shrugged. “Just wondered.”

She started to ask if he’d watched the show, but a well-oiled defense mechanism told her to leave it alone. He’d seen it, all right, and he hadn’t approved. Why give him another chance to tell her so?

Life with Harry

W
HEN CHARLIE RUBIN DIED IN EARLY 1987, MICHAEL
Tolliver and Thack Sweeney had inherited his dog. They had known Harry a good deal longer than that, of course, caring for him intermittently during Charlie’s third bout with pneumocystis and later boarding him at their house when it became apparent that Charlie wouldn’t leave the hospital again. While Charlie was still alive; Harry had been addressed as K-Y, but Michael had found it more and more humiliating to walk through the Castro calling out the name of a well-known lubricant.

The name change, however, was only partially effective, since he couldn’t go to the bank or mail a package at P.O. Plus without discovering someone who had known Harry in his former life. With no warning at all, the dog would pounce ecstatically on a perfect stranger—strange to Michael, at any rate—and this person would invariably exclaim “K-Y!” in a voice that could be heard halfway to Daly City.

Michael and Thack doted on the dog to a degree that was almost embarrassing. Neither one of them had ever planned on owning a poodle—they regarded themselves as golden retriever types—but Harry had banished their prejudices (poodlephobia, to use Thack’s term) on his first visit to the house. For one thing, Charlie had always avoided those stupid poodle haircuts, keeping the dog’s coat raggedly natural. With his round brown face and button nose, Harry seemed more like a living teddy bear than like a classic Fifi dog.

Or so they assured themselves.

They had lived on the hill above the Castro for over two years now. Michael’s decade-long residency at 28 Barbary Lane had come to an end when he and Thack recognized their coupledom and decided to buy a place of their own. Thack, who’d been a preservationist back in Charleston, was far more keen on their home-to-be than Michael, who on first sighting the For Sale sign had regarded the place as a hopeless eyesore.

Faced with green asbestos shingles and walled with concrete block, the house had seemed nothing more than a hideous jumble of boxes, like three tiny houses nailed together at odd angles. Thack, however, had seen something quite different, hurdling the wall in a frenzy of discovery to pry away a couple of loose shingles near the foundation.