Babycakes (30 page)

“Look at you,” she teased, recognizing his embarrassment. “What’s the matter? Did I catch you counting chickens?”

There was nothing he could do but laugh. “Do you have to ask?”

“No,” she answered, fussing with her hair. “You’re quite right.
Well
…” She put on a chipper face as she changed the subject. “You’ll be up bright and early in the morning.”

He wasn’t sure what she meant.

“For the sunrise service,” she added.

“Oh … no, that’s Mary Ann. I’m going to Hillsborough for the weekend.”

“Ah.” Despite her tone of voice, she still looked vaguely confused.

He began to wonder if he’d gotten his wires crossed. “You mean … she told you I was going?”

“No … no.”

“Then how did you …?”

“Well, Simon mentioned the service, actually … and I just assumed that the three of you …” She tapped her forehead and looked annoyed with herself. “Don’t mind the old lady. She’s getting senile. What’s happening in Hillsborough?”

“Uh … what?” He lost his train of thought for a moment, then recovered it. “Oh … a house party. Theresa Cross. Remember her? From the Cadillac?”

“Very well.” Her expression said it all.

“You don’t approve?”

“Well … I don’t really know her.”

“I’m going for the pool, really.”

The landlady ducked her eyes.

“I’m a big boy, you know.”

“Oh, my dear … I
know.
” She gave him a playful look, then signaled the end of their conversation by searching for her scrub brush.

When he reached the apartment, he could hear Mary Ann inside, so he stuffed the “Tot Finder” into the pocket of his Canterbury shorts. He didn’t want her to regard it as a pressure tactic. Her moods were too variable these days.

“Don’t get near me,” she said, seeing his coating of sweat.

He pretended to be hurt. “I thought you
liked
me pitted out.”

“At certain moments, my love. This isn’t one of them. Shouldn’t you be packing?”

“Packing what? I’ll be back tomorrow afternoon.”

“Well … a bathing suit, at least.”

He shrugged. “I’ll wear one under my jeans.”

She thought for a moment. “The Speedos, huh?”

He nodded. “The others are too baggy. Why?”

“Just curious.”

She was worried about Theresa again; he liked that.

“Go shower,” she said.

He went to the bedroom and shed his shoes and shorts and jockstrap. As he sat on the edge of the bed, collecting his thoughts, Mary Ann came to the door. It was almost as if she had heard him thinking.

He looked up at her. “You didn’t tell me Simon was going.”

“Where … oh, the Mount Davidson thing?”

He nodded.

She went to her vanity and began rearranging cosmetics. “Well, it was kind of a last-minute thing, more or less. The poor guy obviously didn’t have any place to go for Easter, so … I thought it would be nice for him.”

He didn’t respond to that.

She turned around. “Don’t do this, Brian.”

“Do what?”

“Work yourself up again. I thought we’d put that behind us.”

“Did I say anything? I just wondered why you hadn’t mentioned it to me … that’s all.”

She shrugged. “It didn’t occur to me. It’s no big deal. It’s just an assignment.”

“At five o’clock in the morning.”

She uttered a derisive little snort. “And we all know what a
lustful
creature I am at that time of day.”

She got the smile she wanted. “O.K.,” he said, “O.K.”

Sitting next to him, she leaned down and licked a drop of sweat off his breastbone. “You big, smelly jerk. Just relax, O.K.?” She pulled back and looked at him. “How did you hear Simon was going?”

“Mrs. Madrigal mentioned it.” He felt stupid about it already. “Let’s drop it, O.K.?”

“Gladly.” She nuzzled his armpit. “Whew! That is
potent.
Don’t let Dragon Lady catch a whiff of that.” She kissed his neck and rose. “I vacuumed the car this morning.”

“Great. Thanks.”

“It’s up on Union next to the Bel-Air. I think there’s enough gas.”

He got up. “Look, I’m sorry if …”

“Hey,” she interrupted. “No apologies. Everything is fine.”

A long, hot shower did wonders for his spirits. Afterwards, he put on his bathrobe and returned to the bedroom. Mary Ann was still sitting on the bed. When he approached the mirror on the closet door, he found the “Tot Finder” taped there. He turned around and looked at her.

She was waiting with a cautious smile. “I thought we should put it up, at least. Until we decide on where to put the nursery.” Her face was full of gentleness and resolution. He knelt next to her, resting his head on her lap. She smoothed the hair above his ear. “I want one too,” she murmured.

It was almost three o’clock when he arrived at Theresa Cross’s rambling ranch house in Hillsborough. There was plenty of room to park in the rock widow’s oversized driveway, so he slipped the Le Car between a Rolls and a Mercedes, shamed by his embarrassment. Here, of all places, such things shouldn’t matter. Bix Cross was the very man who had taught him to be suspicious of materialism.

After asking directions from a uniformed Latin American maid, he made his way through the pearl-gray living room until he came to a knot of people drinking furiously by the pool. They had all the single-mindedness of an ant colony trying to move something large and dead across a room.

Someone fell out of the circle of chatter, as if thrown by centrifugal force. He was somewhere in his early forties, and his face was bland but tanned. “Hello there,” he said, extending his hand. “I’m Arch Gidde, Theresa’s realtor-slant-escort.”

“Hi. I’m Brian Hawkins.”

“You’re looking for her, I suppose.”

“Well … eventually. This is the party, I guess.” A dumb thing to say, but he felt so unannounced.

Arch Gidde smirked. “This is it.” He cast a sideways glance al a lavish buffet, largely uneaten. “I hate to think how many salmon have died in vain.”

“Uh … she was expecting more?”

Another smirk. “Do you see Grace Slick? Do you see Boz Scaggs? Do you see Ann Getty, for that matter?”

How the hell did you answer that one? “Is there … uh … a specific reason or something?”

“Oh, God. You haven’t heard, have you? And I’ll bet you’re one of Theresa’s rock-and-roll buddies.
Quelle
bummer. You missed the big one.” He sighed histrionically. “We
all
missed the big one.” He leaned forward and lowered his voice to a furtive mutter. “Yoko Ono is throwing a little do in her suite at the Clift.”

“Uh … now, you mean?”

The realtor nodded grimly. “As we speak.”

“No shit.” It was all he conili muster.

“And madame is pissed. Madame is extremely pissed. Her guests have been bailing out all afternoon.”

“I see.”
Jesus God. Yoko Ono in San Francisco.

“So,” continued Arch Gidde. “she has retired to her chambers to compose herself.” He tapped the side of his nose with his forefinger, then narrowed his eyes at Brian. “You look awfully familiar, for some reason.”

Brian shrugged. He had waited on plenty of jerks like this during his career. “I don’t think we know each other.”

“Maybe. But I can’t help thinking …”

“What’s the party for?”

“This one? Or that one?”

“That one. I mean … why is Yoko Ono in town?”

“Oh, God.” The realtor splayed his fingers across his face. “That’s the part Mother Theresa hasn’t heard yet. Mrs. Lennon is looking for a house.”

“You mean … to live here?”

His informant nodded. “She thinks it’s a good place to raise … little whatshisname.”

“Sean,” said Brian.

“Imagine what this is going to mean to Theresa. Two rock widows in the same town. Two Mrs. Norman Maines.”

He didn’t know who that was, and he didn’t want to ask. Seeking escape, he let his eyes wander until he spotted his hostess as she emerged from her seclusion. She was wearing a black-and-pink bikini in a leopard-skin pattern. Her hair seemed larger than ever.

She stopped at the edge of the terrace, resting her weight on one hip, then clapped her hands together smartly. “All right, people! Into the pool! You know where to change. I want to see
bare flesh.
” She strode toward Brian, pointing her finger at him. “Especially
yours.”

He tried to stay cool. “Hi,” he said.

“Hi.” She came to a halt, once again settling her weight on one hip. “Where’s Mary Ann?”

“Oh … I thought she told you. She had to work. She was really sorry she couldn’t make it.” For some reason, that sounded phony as hell, so he added: “I’m here to tell her what she missed.”

“Good,” replied Theresa, arching an eyebrow, “but don’t tell her everything.” There was something about her leer that rendered it harmless. What she seemed to offer was not so much lust as a genial caricature of it, an eighties update of a Betty Boop cartoon. She was accustomed to scaring off men, he decided; she counted on it.

Her body surprised him somewhat. Her breasts weighed in at just above average, but her big peasant nipples dented her bikini top like a pair of macadamia nuts. Her ass was large and heart-shaped, really a lot firmer than he had expected. All in all, a package that suggested a number of interesting possibilities.

“So get naked,” she said. “We won’t have the sun much longer.”

Some of the other guests were already changing, so he doffed his shirt, shoes and jeans and stashed them behind the cabana. Theresa, meanwhile, eased her way into the deep end of the pool, taking care not to damage her mammoth gypsy mane.

Brian gave his Speedo a quick plumping and ambled toward the pool. The rock widow’s hair bobbed above the water like a densely vegetated atoll. “You wet me,” she said, “and it’s your ass.”

He grinned at her, then dove in effortlessly, without splashing at all. It was one of his specialties. When he surfaced, Theresa was dog-paddling in his direction. “Have you eaten?” she asked, sotto voce, as if it were an intimate question.

He shook his head, tossing water off his brow. “It looks great.”

“Better do it now. You won’t feel like it later.”

He didn’t know what she meant until she aped Arch Gidde’s gesture and tapped the side of her nose. “Right,” he said. “Sounds good to me.”

She made good half an hour later when she led him into her flannel-paneled screening room and began chopping cocaine on a mirrored tray. “Take that one,” she said, pointing to the fattest line of all. “It looks about your size.” She handed him a rolled bill.

He took it in one snort, then made the obligatory face to show that it was good stuff. “Thanks, Theresa.”

“Terry,” she murmured.

“No shit? I never heard that.”

A heavy-lidded smile. “Now you have.”

He nodded.

“Only the real people get to use it.” She powdered her forefinger with the remains of the coke and rubbed it across her gums. “I don’t waste it on the phonies. You know what I mean?”

He nodded again. “Thanks, then.”

“Terry’s what Bix always called me.” This offhand brush with immortality seemed to put more bite in the cocaine. He was pretty sure she knew that.

“I wish they’d leave,” she said.

“Who?”

“Them. Those others.”

“They aren’t your friends?”

“I never do this,” she said, without answering his question. “I loathe people who sneak the stuff. But they’ll never leave if I offer them some. I know how they are.”

“Yeah.”

She grabbed his hand suddenly. “Did I show you Bix’s panties?”

It wounded him slightly to see that she had forgotten. “Yeah. Last time. During the auction.”

“Oh. Right.” She smiled penitently. “Brain damage.”

“That’s O.K.”

“I don’t show them to just anybody. Only the real people.” He nodded.

“You’re a good guy, Brian.”

“Thanks, Theresa.”

“Terry,” she said.

“Terry,” he echoed.

Phantom of the Manor

T
HERE WERE ELEVEN PASSENGERS IN ALL, SIX OK WHOM
were Americans, The driver doubled as guide, providing commentary as the bus left the village behind and plunged into the engulfing green of the countryside.