Significant Others (11 page)
“No problem,” she replied.
T
HE CLINIC WAS AN L-SHAPED CONCRETE-BLOCK BUILDING
on Seventeenth Street between Noe and Sanchez. Behind a row of ragged palms lay two distinct entrances: one for people taking the test, the other for people getting their results. Inside, while Michael waited in the car, Brian was shown a videotape about T-cells and helper cells and the true meaning of HTLV-III.
Then they drew his blood, and sent him on his way.
“Damn,” he said to Michael, climbing into the VW. “You didn’t tell me it took ten days.”
“I thought you knew.”
“Why would I know that?”
“Well,
I
took it, remember?”
“Oh …” Brian gazed absently out the window, weighing his options. He’d counted on coming home with a clean bill of health, a note from his doctor to soften the blow when he told Mary Ann about Geordie. But now …
“It’s the lab procedure,” said Michael. “Apparently it takes that long.”
“Ten fucking days.”
Michael smiled at him wanly, turning on the engine. “Ten non-fucking days.”
“It won’t work,” said Brian.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, she’ll know something’s up.” He gave Michael an admonitory look. “Don’t make a pun out of that.”
“You’ve never gone for ten days without doing it?”
“No.”
“Well, I’m impressed.”
Brian didn’t laugh. Michael’s flip tone was beginning to get on his nerves.
“What about rubbers?” asked Michael.
“We never use them,” said Brian.
“Well, start. Tell her you think they’re a safer form of birth control.”
“Michael,” he said, faintly annoyed. “I’m sterile, remember?”
“Oh, yeah. Sorry.” Michael seemed to ponder this for a while before slipping into a reasonable facsimile of Dr. Ruth’s Teutonic twitter. “Well … what about something in a nice decorative model … with whirligigs on the end?”
Brian laughed in spite of himself. “You bastard.”
“Tell her,” said Michael.
“No. Not yet.”
“Sooner or later you’re gonna have to. Sooner is always better than later.”
“No it isn’t. Why should she suffer for the next ten days?”
“Because you’re suffering. And she’s your wife.”
Michael’s logic annoyed him. “And I’ve been a great husband, haven’t I?”
“Look, Brian … if you don’t tell her now …”
“Forget it, all right? I have to do this my way.”
“Fine,” said Michael.
Twenty minutes later, Michael dropped him off in front of The Summit. The doorman fired off a friendly “Yo,” but Brian scarcely heard him as he made his wooden way to the elevator.
Could he fake it for ten days? Carry on his life as if nothing were wrong?
Making his ascent, he stood stock still and tried to read his body’s signals. There was a heaviness in his limbs which may or may not have been there earlier. Some of the soreness seemed localized, a dim ember of pain lodged in a corner of his gut.
This could be anything, of course. Indigestion or a flare-up of his old gastritis. Hell, maybe it
was
the flu, after all. His headache seemed to have gone away.
The elevator opened at the twenty-third floor. He stepped out into the foyer to confront the insufferable Cap Sorenson, his face plastered with a shit-eating grin. “How’s it hanging, Hawkins?”
“Pretty good,” he said, adopting a similar hail-fellow tone. “Pretty good.”
They changed places, Cap holding the door to get in the final word. “I closed that deal I told you about.”
“Great.”
“Forget great,” said Cap. “We’re talking megabucks this time.”
Brian nodded. The elevator had its own way at last, obliterating Cap’s idiot smirk.
He let himself into the apartment, moving to the window like someone walking underwater. The sun had swooped in low from the west, turning white buildings to gold: shimmering ingots against the blue. Far beneath him, the tangled foliage of Barbary Lane cast dusty purple shadows across the bricks of Mrs. Madrigal’s courtyard.
Mary Ann emerged from the bathroom. “I wondered where you were.”
What was she doing here? Hadn’t she planned on working late tonight? “Oh,” he said. “Michael and I drove out to the beach. Where’s Nguyet? She was here when I …”
“I let her go home. I thought she could use an afternoon off.”
“Oh.”
She added: “I took off early myself. Just said to hell with it. Feels good.” She rocked on her heels several times, a curious light in her eyes. “Guess what.”
“What?”
“You’re never gonna believe this.”
He looked around, unsettled, distracted. “Where’s Puppy?”
She frowned at him. “Will you let me tell this? She’s riding her Tuff Trike at the Sorensons'.”
He tried to look apologetic. “What’s up?”
“Well … here’s a hint.” She paused, then sang: “Dah-dah-dah-dah-dah-
dah
… dah-dah-dah-dah-dah-
dah
.”
It made no sense to him whatsoever.
“C’mon,” she prodded. “I know you know it. It’s theme music.”
He shrugged.
“Oh, Brian.” She sang again:
“En-ter-tain-ment To-niiight … En-ter-tain-ment To-niiight.”
“Right,” he said. “What about it?”
She beamed at him. “I’m gonna be on it, Brian.”
“On the show?”
“Yes! They’re doing a series about … you know, the best local talk shows. And they want me! Isn’t that fabulous?”
He nodded, doing his best to echo her excitement. “That’s really great.”
“They wanna tape us here for part of it.”
“Me, you mean?”
“Sure, you.” She did a sort of Loretta Young twirl around the room. “You and me and Puppy and our drop-dead apartment high atop the city.” She burst into triumphant giggles, flinging her arms around him.
He patted her shoulder and said again: “That’s really great.”
“I’ve been mentally decorating all day.” She broke away from him and began to pace. “I think we need
lots
more flowers. Orchids, maybe … in those planters made out of twigs and moss.”
He scarcely heard her.
She stopped pacing and scolded him with a little smile.
“Somebody looks out of it. What’s the matter?”
“Nothing,” he said.
“Are you still having those headaches?”
“No. I’m fine now.”
“Good.” She surveyed the room, obviously checking camera angles. “I want everyone back in Cleveland to be eating their crummy little hearts out. Oh … Jed stopped by this afternoon.”
He grunted. He’d completely forgotten about the kid.
“Hey,” she said gently. “I thought you were gonna give him a second chance.”
“He’s not worth it,” he said.
“Well, he’s leaving tomorrow afternoon. If you’re gonna talk to him at all …”
“Look,” he snapped. “I’ll go see him—all right?”
She recoiled a little, shaking her hand as if she’d scorched it on a stove. “Somebody needs supper and a back rub,” she said. “I’ll fix us a drink.”
The back rub meant what he thought it would mean. When he felt the pressure of her knees, the cool rivulet of cedar-wood lotion against his back, he knew she intended this as a prelude to sex.
“Guess what my show is about tomorrow?” She smoothed the lotion across his shoulder blades, then swept downward toward his ass.
“What?”
“Foreskin reconstruction. Is that gross or what?”
He laughed into the pillow.
“I have a book I’m supposed to read, but to hell with it.”
He grunted.
“I’d rather play, wouldn’t you?” She leaned down and kissed the left cheek of his ass.
He smiled at her and petted her head and looked at her as lovingly as he knew how. “I’m not up to it, babe. I’m sorry.”
“That’s O.K.,” she said brightly, nuzzling his neck. “I like it up here too.”
“Mmm. So do I.”
“You’re the best company, Brian.”
“Thanks.”
“We have the best time.” She tightened her grip on him and sighed. “I can’t believe it, really. All this and
Entertainment Tonight.”
They lay there for a while, drifting off together. Then Mary Ann retreated to the armchair with her circumcision book, peering around it from time to time to catch his eye sympathetically.
He slept fitfully, waking all the way when she turned off the light and climbed into bed next to him.
“What time is it?” he asked.
“Almost midnight,” she replied. “Go to sleep, baby.”
It felt later for some reason. It should have been morning. He turned over several times, trying to find a position in which his muscles wouldn’t ache.
“Are you all right?” she asked, snuggling against his back.
“Just … kinda warm.”
“You’re burning up.”
“If you could just … move over a little.”
She did so. “I’m gonna take your temperature.”
“No. Forget it. I’m O.K.”
“But if—”
“I want to sleep, Mary Ann!”
A wounded silence followed. Finally, she patted his butt and rolled over. “Feel better,” she said.
He slept straight through until her alarm went off. She silenced it by saying “O.K.,” then sat bolt upright in bed. “Brian, these sheets are soaking wet!”
He felt the covers. She was right.
She pressed his forehead, reading his temperature. “I think your fever’s gone.”
He felt much better, he realized. Maybe the worst was over.
She climbed over him and got out of bed. “You lucked out,” she said. “It was one of those twenty-four-hour things.”
“I guess so,” he said.
She reached the bathroom and stopped, adding: “Change the sheets and get back into bed. You don’t wanna push it.”
“You’re right, though. I feel fine.”
“Never mind. Go to sleep. Nguyet can feed Puppy. I’ll leave a note for her.”
He drifted off in the damp sheets, sleeping for another three or four hours. When he woke, he heard Nguyet singing to Shawna in Vietnamese. Mary Ann’s foreskin forum was blaring away full tilt on the set in the kitchen.
He eased the Princess out of its cradle and punched Michael’s number. He answered with a breezy hello on the first ring.
“Let’s go somewhere,” he said, without identifying himself.
“Where?” asked Michael.
“Anywhere. I gotta get outa here, man.”
“Are you watching her show?”
“The maid is watching it,” said Brian.
“It’s too fabulous. A new low. I love it.”
“Michael …”
“You didn’t tell her, did you?”
“No.”
“You’re going to, aren’t you?”
“Yes. Soon. I gotta sort it all out first. Look, if we could just haul ass for a few days … go to Big Sur, the Mother Lode, whatever …”
“Just you and me?”
“Yeah.”
“Brian …”
“I won’t spend the whole time talking about it. I swear. I just need some company … some laughs.”
“Ten days, Brian.”
“Four, O.K.? Five. How’s that?”
“Are you feeling O.K.?”
“Sure. Fine. Never better.”
Michael paused, then asked: “How do you feel about the Russian River?”
“Great. What’s up? You know a place?”
“I think so,” said Michael. “A cabin in Cazadero. A friend said I could use it.”
“Yeah? And you wouldn’t mind … you know …?”
“Putting up with a dork like you?”
Brian laughed. “We’ve talked about doing this.”
“You’re right.”
“So let’s do it.”
“O.K.,” said Michael. “You got a deal.”
T
HEY WERE HEADING NORTH AT LAST, DOROTHEA AT
the helm of the station wagon, DeDe in the navigator’s seat. The children were in back, burrowed in a warren built of camping gear, arguing bitterly over ownership of the Nerds. “Mom bought them for me,” Edgar declared. “She bought them for both of us,” said Anna. “Didn’t you, Mom?”
DeDe had heard enough of this. “Lay off me, you guys. I’m about to crack some heads back there.”
“Ooooh,” mugged Anna. “I’m really scared.”
“I mean it, Anna.”
“Well, Edgar ate all the Nerds, and you bought them for me.”
“I bought them for both of you.”
“Well, he ate all of them.”
“You bought them Nerds?” asked D’or.
“I told her she could have some,” said Edgar.
“You did not!” said Anna.
“What’s a Nerd?” asked D’or.
DeDe knew what was coming next. “Never mind,” she said.
“Let’s see the box.”
“D’or … don’t read to me, please. I know they’re disgusting.”
“ ‘Sucrose, dextrose, malic acid and/or citric acid …’ ”
“All
right,
D’or.”
“ ‘Artificial and natural flavors, yellow dye number five, and carnauba wax.’ Yum-yum … carnauba wax … one of my personal faves.”
DeDe let it go. There was no point in arguing with D’or when she was soapboxing about nutrition. DeDe addressed the children instead: “Can’t you guys just cool it? We’re almost there.”
“How much further?” asked Anna, always the stickler for details.
“Not much.”
“How much?”
“I don’t know, Anna. Less than an hour.”
“If we hate it, can we come home?”
“You won’t hate it,” D’or put in. “They’ve got a special duck pond just for kids.”
“Big deal,” said Anna.
“What’s blue and creamy?” asked Edgar.
“Shut up,” said Anna.
“And,” D’or added, still on her sales pitch, “we get to sleep out under the stars, and eat our meals in the open air, and meet lots of—”
“What’s blue and creamy?” repeated Edgar.
“Edgurr,” whined Anna. “Shut your big trap.”
“It’s a riddle,” said Edgar, leaning over the seat to confront D’or. “Give up?”
“Sit down,” ordered DeDe. “You’re gonna make D’or drive off the road.”
“O.K.,” said D’or, “what’s blue and creamy?”
“Smurf sperm!” said Edgar, laughing triumphantly.
DeDe stared at him in horror. “Where did you hear that?”
The boy hesitated, then said: “Anna told me.”
“I did not,” said Anna.
“Yes you did.”
“Liar!”
“All right, both of you! Let’s keep it down back there!” This was D’or, raising her voice above the din. There was just enough menace in her tone to command the silence of the twins. DeDe both admired and resented D’or’s flair for authority. Why couldn’t mothers invoke such terror?
