Babycakes (5 page)

He smiled at her, then picked up his mug and blew off its halo of steam. “He’s giving the Queen a computer.”

She made a quizzical face. “What does the Queen want with a computer?”

He shrugged. “It’s got something to do with breeding horses.”

“My word.”

“I know. I can’t picture it either.”

She smiled, then sipped her coffee for a while before asking: “You haven’t heard from Mona, have you?”

It was an old wound, but it throbbed like a new one. “I’ve stopped being concerned with that.”

“Now, now.”

“There’s no point in it. She’s cut us off. There hasn’t been so much as a postcard, Mrs. Madrigal. I haven’t talked to her for at least … a year and a half.”

“Maybe she thinks we’re cross with her.”

“C’mon. She knows where we are. It’s just happened, that’s all. People drift apart. If she wanted to hear from us, she’d list her phone number or something.”

“I know what you’re thinking,” she said.

“What?”

“Only a silly old fool would fret over a daughter who’s pushing forty.”

“No I’m not. I’m thinking what a silly old fool your forty-year-old daughter is.”

“But, dear … what if something’s really the matter?”

“Well,” said Michael. “You’ve heard from her more recently than I have.”

“Eight months ago.” The landlady frowned. “No return address. She said she was doing O.K. in ‘a little private printing concern,’ whatever that means. It’s not like her to be so vague.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Well … not in
that
way, dear.”

When Mona had moved to Seattle at the turn of the decade, Michael had all but begged her not to go. Mona had been adamant, however; Seattle was the city of the eighties. “Go ahead,” he had jeered. “You like Quaaludes … you’ll
love
Seattle.” Apparently, he had been right; Mona had never returned.

Mrs. Madrigal saw how much it still bothered him. “Go easy on her, Michael. She might be in some sort of trouble.”

That would hardly be news. He couldn’t remember a time when his former roommate hadn’t been on the verge of some dark calamity or another. “I told you,” he said calmly. “I don’t think about that much these days.”

“If we had a way of telling her about Jon …”

“But we don’t. And I doubt if we ever will. She’s made it pretty clear that she …”

“She loved Jon, Michael. I mean … they squabbled a bit, perhaps, but she loved him just as much as any of us. You mustn’t doubt that … ever.” She rose and began cracking eggs into a bowl. They both knew that nothing was to be gained by pursuing the subject. All the wishing in the world wouldn’t make a difference. When Mona had fled to the north, she had put more than the city behind her. Starting from scratch was the only emotional skill she had ever mastered.

Mrs. Madrigal seemed to share his thoughts. “I hope she has someone,” she murmured. “Anyone.”

There was nothing he could add. With Mona, it could well be anyone.

He tried not to think about her on the way to work, concentrating instead on the dripping wound in the roof of his VW convertible. A knife-wielding stereo thief had put it there three weeks earlier, and the bandage he had fashioned from a shower curtain required constant readjustment against the rain. It was no wonder the car had begun to smell like a rank terranum; he had actually discovered a small stand of grass sprouting in the mildewed carpet behind the back seat.

By the time he reached God’s Green Earth, the downpour was much worse, so he gave the plastic patch a final fluffing before making a mad dash to the nursery office. Ned was already there, leaning back in his chair, cradling his bald pate in his big, hairy hands. “That hole is a bitch, huh?”

“The worst.” He shook off the water like a drenched dog. “The car is forming its own ecosystem.” He peered uneasily out the window, beyond which the primroses had dissolved into an impressionistic blur. “Jesus. We’d better get a tarp or something.”

“What for?” Ned remained in repose.

“Those bedding plants. They’re getting beat all to hell.”

His partner smiled stoically. “Have you checked the books lately? There isn’t exactly a major demand for primroses.”

He was right, of course. The rain had played hell with business. “Just the same, don’t you think …?”

“Fuck it,” said Ned. “Let’s hang it up.”

“What?”

“Let’s close for a month. It won’t hurt us. It can’t be any worse than this.”

Michael sat down, staring at him. “And do what?”

“Well … how about a trip to Death Valley?”

“Right.”

“I’m serious.”

“Ned …
Death Valley?”

“Have you ever been there? It’s a fucking paradise. We could get six or eight guys, camp out, do some mushrooms. The wildflowers will be incredible after this rain.”

He was less than thrilled. “How about during?”

“We’ll have tents, pussy. C’mon … just for a weekend.”

Michael could never have explained his panic at the prospect of unlimited leisure. He needed a routine right now, a predictable rut. The last thing he wanted was time to think.

Ned tried another approach. “I won’t try to fix you up. It’ll just be a group of guys.”

He couldn’t help smiling. Ned was always trying to fix him up. “Thanks anyway. You go ahead. I’ll hold down the fort. I’ll be glad to. Really.”

Ned regarded him for a moment, then sprang to his feet and began rearranging the seed packets in the revolving rack. It struck Michael as a defensive gesture. “Are you pissed?” he asked.

“Nope.”

“It just isn’t there right now, Ned.”

His partner slopped fiddling. “If you ask me … a good jack-off buddy would do you a world of good.”

“Ned …”

“O.K. All right. Forget it. I’ve done my Dolly Levi for the day.”

“Good.”

“I’m going, though. If you want to stay here and watch the roots rot, that’s O.K. by me.”

“Fine.”

They had little to say to each other for the next hour as they busied themselves with minor maintenance chores, things that didn’t get done when customers were there. After Ned had finished stacking pallets in the shed, he stepped into the office again and confronted Michael at the desk. “I wanted your company, you know. I didn’t do it to be nice.”

“I know.” He looked up and smiled.

Ned tousled his hair, then reached for his flight jacket. “I’ll be at home, if you change your mind. Go home, at least. There’s no point in hanging around here.”

He did go home eventually, and he spent the rest of the afternoon sorting laundry and cleaning his refrigerator. He was searching for another project when Mrs. Madrigal phoned just before five o’clock.

“Are you free for dinner, I hope?”

“So far,” he said.

“Marvelous. I’ve found a festive new place for Mexican food. I want us all to go. We haven’t had a family outing in ages.”

He accepted, wondering if this adventure was being organized specifically for his benefit. His friends were awfully solicitous these days and he often felt enormous pressure to be visibly happy in their presence. The reborn joy they sought in his eyes was something he would never be able to fake.

Mrs. Madrigal’s Mexican discovery turned out to be a cavernous room at the end of an alleyway near the Moscone Center. For reasons that no one could explain, it was called the Cadillac Bar. Its kitschy Lupe Velez ambience met with everyone’s approval, and they guzzled margaritas like conventioneers on a three-day binge in Acapulco.

Maybe it was the liquor, but something about Mary Ann’s demeanor seemed curiously artificial to Michael. She hung on Brian’s arm throughout much of the meal, laughing a little too loudly at his jokes, gazing rapturously into his eyes, looking more like the Little Woman than Michael had ever seen her look. When her gaze met Michael’s for a split second, she seemed to sense his puzzlement. “This place is great,” she said far too breezily. “We should all be sworn to secrecy.”

“Too late,” he replied, parrying her diversionary tactic with one of his own. “Look who just walked in.”

Both Mary Ann and Brian jerked their heads toward the door.

“Not
now!”
he whispered.

Mary Ann mugged at him. “You said to look.”

“It’s Theresa Cross,” he muttered, “with one of those fags from Atari.”

“Jesus,” said Brian. “Bix Cross’s widow?”

“You got it.”

“She’s on all his album covers,” said Brian.

“Parts
of her,” amended Mary Ann. Brian leered. “Right.”

A cloud of confusion passed over Mrs. Madrigal’s face. “Her husband was a singer?”

“You know,” said Michael. “The rock star.”

“Ah.”

“She wrote
My Life with Bix,
” Mary Ann added. “She lives in Hillsborough near the Halcyons.”

The landlady’s eyes widened. “Well, my dears, she appears to be coming this way.”

Michael assessed the leggy figure striding toward their table. There were probably no twigs lodged within the dark recesses of her hair, but the careful disarray of her hoyden-in-the-haystack hairdo was clearly meant to suggest that there might be. That and her red Plasticine fingernails were all he could absorb before the rock widow had descended on them in a sickly-sweet aura of Ivoire. “You!” she all but shouted. “You I want to talk to.”

The crimson talon was pointing at Mary Ann.

Clearing her throat, Mary Ann said: “Yes?”

“You are the best,” crowed Theresa Cross. “The best, the best, the best!”

Mary Ann reddened noticeably. “Thank you very much.”

“I watch you all the time. You’re Mary Jane Singleton.”

“Mary Ann.”

Mrs. Cross couldn’t be bothered. “That hat was the best. The best, the best, the best. Who are these cute people? Why don’t you introduce us?”

“Uh … sure. This is my husband, Brian … and my friends Michael Tolliver and Anna Madrigal.”

The rock widow nodded three times without a word, apparently regarding her own name as a matter of public knowledge. Then she turned her gypsy gaze back to Mary Ann. “You’re coming to my auction, aren’t you?”

So
that
was it, thought Michael. Mrs. Cross could smell media across a crowded room.

Mary Ann was thrown off balance, as intended. “Your …? I’m afraid I don’t …”

“Oh, no!” The rock widow showed the whites of her eyes, simulating exasperation. “Don’t tell me my ditzy secretary didn’t send you an invitation!”

Mary Ann shrugged. “I guess not.”

“Well … consider yourself invited. I’m having an auction out at my house this weekend. Some of Bix’s memorabilia. Gold records. The shirts he wore on his last tour. Lots of stuff. Fun stuff.”

“Great,” said Mary Ann.

“Oh … and his favorite Harley … and his barbells.” The moving finger pointed in Brian’s direction. “This one looks like he works out a little. Why don’t you bring him along?”

Mary Ann shot a quick glance at “this one,” then turned back to her assailant. “I’m not sure if we have plans that day, but if …”

“W
is coming for sure, and the
Hollywood Reporter
has
promised
me they’ll be there. Even Dr. Noguchi is coming … which strikes me as the very least he could do, since he was the one who broke the story when Bix … you know … bit the big one.”

Michael listened with a mixture of fascination and revulsion. It was this kind of candid banter that had earned Theresa Cross a rung of her very own on San Francisco’s social ladder. She might be a little common at times, but she was anything but boring. Besides, her husband’s death (from a heroin overdose at the Tropicana Motel in Hollywood) had left her a very rich woman.

Whenever local hostesses needed an “extra woman”—as they often did in San Francisco—Theresa Cross could be counted on to do her part. Largely because of her public image, Michael had once referred to her in Jon’s presence as “the fag hag of the bourgeoisie.” Jon’s reaction had been typically (and maddeningly) cautious: “Maybe so … but she’s the closest thing we have to Bianca Jagger.”

Unnerved by Theresa’s “frankness,” Mary Ann was still fumbling for words. “This place is really charming, isn’t it?”

The rock widow made a face. “It was
much
more fun last week.” Radarlike, her eyes scanned the room until they came to rest on a diminutive figure standing at the entrance. Everyone seemed to recognize her at the same time.