Sure of You (12 page)

She gazed up at him, blinking once or twice, apparently surprised at his cleverness.

“That’s one of my favorite houses,” he said.

She hesitated a moment, then said: “I like it ’cause it’s a on-the-ground house.”

He chuckled.

“What’s funny?”

“Nothing. I agree with you.” He touched her shoulder lightly. She was wearing a white ruffled blouse and a midi-length blue velvet skirt, obviously meant for company. Yet here she sat, stately and alone at her easel, like some miniature version of Georgia O’Keeffe.

He went to the window and peered down on the silvery plain of the bay. A freighter slid toward the ocean, lit up like a power station yet tiny as a toy from this height. Directly beneath him—how many hundred feet?—the house in Shawna’s drawing slept unseen in the neighboring greenery.

He turned back to the child. “Anna’s gone to Greece on vacation. Did she tell you that?”

Shawna shook her head. “I don’t go see her anymore.”

“Why not?”

Silence.

“Why not, Shawna?”

“Mary Ann doesn’t want me to.”

This threw him, but he didn’t respond. The kid could make up some pretty off-the-wall stuff. Especially when it came to Mary Ann. It was bound to be more complicated than that.

Shawna asked: “Are you gonna make that noise tonight?”

“What noise?”

“You know. Beep, beep.”

He smiled at her. “Not for a few hours.”

“Can I see it? I mean, may I?”

“Well, you could, but it’s in my overcoat, and that’s on the bed in…”

“Is she giving you a hard time?”

Michael turned to see Brian standing in the doorway. “No way,” he said.

“How’s it going, Puppy?”

“O.K.”

“She’s done some beautiful work,” said Michael.

Brian looked at the picture and ruffled his daughter’s hair.

“Hey…not bad. What do you call it?”

“Art,” said Shawna.

Brian laughed. “Well, O.K. Makes sense to me. Did you tell Michael what you’re gonna be?”

Shawna gave him a blank look.

“For Halloween,” Brian added.

“Oh…Michaelangelo.”

Michael was impressed. “The painter, eh?”

“No,” said Shawna. “The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle.” Michael looked to Brian for translation.

“You don’t wanna know,” said Brian. “It’s an actual thing. She’s not making it up.”

“Teenage Mutant…?”

“Ninja Turtle,” said Shawna.

“We’re going for Turtle mostly, with just a
hint
of Ninja. Wanna come along? It’s Halloween morning. Mary Ann’ll be at the station.”

“What is it?” he asked.

“Just a thing at the school. A parade or something.”

“Well…”

“We’d be back by eleven, tops.” Brian winked at him.

“O.K., then. Great.”

“Yay,” crowed Shawna.

“See,” said Brian. “I told you he’d do it.”

The child looked at her father. “Can Michael be a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle?”

“Well, he
could
…”

“It’s either that,” said Michael, “or Ann Miller.”

Brian laughed. “I think your Ann Miller days are over.”

“Why?” Michael grinned back at him. “Ann Miller’s aren’t.”

Shawna looked at them both. “Who’s Ann Miller?”

“Oh, God,” said Michael, laughing. “Don’t ask.”

“Yeah,” said Brian, letting his eyes dart toward Shawna as a signal to Michael. “Certain undersized personages know too much about lipstick as it is.”

Michael chuckled, remembering the incident—or at least Brian’s version of Mary Ann’s version of the incident. “Is she still upset about that?”

“Who’s Ann Miller?” Shawna persisted.

“She wasn’t really upset,” said Brian.

The child, Michael was thinking, must have looked uncannily like her natural mother once a stiff’ coat of makeup had been applied. No wonder Mary Ann had freaked. Tacky of Connie Bradshaw, the bane of Mary Ann’s existence, back from the grave to do her embarrassing number all over again.

“
Who’s Ann Miller
?”

“She’s a lady who dances,” said Brian. “A woman.”

“A lady,” said Michael.

Brian laughed and touched his daughter’s shoulder. “You wanna hit the sack, Puppy?”

“Yeah.”

“Kiss Michael good night, then.”

Shawna gave Michael a peck on the cheek.

“That’s a cool dress,” said Michael.

“Thanks,” she replied solemnly.

“She got that special for tonight,” said Brian.

“Well, it’s just right,” he told her. “It brings out the blue in your eyes.”

Shawna basked in the attention for a moment, then looked at her father. “Are you gonna tuck me in?”

“And anyway,” Mary Ann was saying when Michael returned, “it’s not exactly a state secret. Raquel Welch is absolutely notorious for being difficult…”

Burke chuckled. “To put it mildly.”

Thack laughed, apparently enjoying himself. Seeing Michael, he asked: “Have you heard this story?”

“Oh, God,” said Mary Ann. “Too many times, I’m sure.”

“A few,” he said. “It’s a good one.”

“Well, it’s over,” she said, laughing, “so you’re safe. Where’s Brian?”

“Putting Shawna to bed.”

“Oh.”

The phone rang in the guest bedroom. Since Michael was nearest to it, he said: “Shall I?”

“Leave it,” said Mary Ann. “The machine’s on.”

“Actually,” said Burke, “I’m halfway expecting a call from some friends. I left your number. I hope that’s all right.”

“Of course.” Mary Ann hurried toward the ring.

Burke offered the rest of his explanation to Thack and Michael. “They’re just here for a little while, and they wanted to meet for drinks later. I thought, if no one minded…”

“Whatever,” said Michael.

“Yeah,” said Thack.

Mary Ann reappeared in the doorway. “It’s for you,” she told Burke quietly, almost reverently. “It’s Chloe Rand.”

Desperadoes

S
HE COULDN’T
HELP NOTICING HOW PLACIDLY BURKE
received this information. He smiled faintly and nodded, but his face betrayed nothing, not the slightest degree of amazement. She might just as well have told him his wife was on the phone.

When he was out of the room, she turned to find Michael gaping at her. “Not
the
Chloe Rand?”

Thack gave Michael a cranky look. “How many Chloe Rands can there be?”

“They’re in town, you mean?” His expression was truly gratifying.

“Yeah.” She resolved to remain as nonchalant about this as Burke. “Just for a day or so. They’re doing an AIDS benefit in L.A.”

This provoked a grunt from Thack, but nothing else. She wasn’t about to ask him what he meant. He was forever grinding his axes in public, and she’d been singed by the sparks once too often.

Michael gave Thack a peevish glance and seemed on the verge of saying something, when Burke reappeared. “Look,” he told her sheepishly, “my friends have asked us to join them for drinks at Stars. If that’s not O.K….”

“No,” she said. “It’s fine.”

“It’s Russell and Chloe Rand. I think you’d like them.”

“Fine. Whatever.”

“Guys?” Burke turned to Michael and Thack.

“Great,” answered Michael, apparently speaking for both of them. She couldn’t tell
what
Thack was thinking. When he brooded, his face became an infuriating blank. She was halfway hoping he would make a fuss, or at least talk Michael into bowing out graciously. Four tagalongs was a bit much. The Rands were already getting more than they had bargained for.

Burke gave her another doggy look. “I would’ve mentioned it earlier, but…”

“Look,” she said, getting a brainstorm. “Why don’t you invite them here?”

“Well…”

“They can just…kick back and relax.”

“That’s nice of you,” said Burke, “but I think they’re kind of…entrenched.”

“Right,” she said evenly. But she was thinking: He hates the house. He thinks it’s not chic enough for them.

“Shall I check with Brian?” Burke asked.

“No,” she said. “He’ll go.”

“Great,” said Burke, and he went back to the phone.

Where had she screwed up, anyway? The Indian blankets, the saguaro skeleton, the painted steer skulls…?

The tiny, clear voice of her fashion sense told her that was impossible.

She had copied that stuff from a Russell Rand ad.

It was agreed that they’d arrive at the restaurant in two cars: Mary Ann, Brian, and Burke in Mary Ann’s Mercedes; Michael and Thack in their VW. There was also the minor matter of a baby-sitter, and Nguyet, as usual, required nothing less than a bald-faced bribe before consenting to stay at the house past midnight. Brian, typically, knew next to nothing about the Rands, so while Burke was in the bathroom, Mary Ann dug into her stash of
Interviews
and gave her husband a hasty briefing.

On the way there, while Brian and Burke gabbed away in the front seat about Joe Montana’s vertebrae, she filled her nostrils with the sweet scent of her gray leather interiors and took stock of herself. Had she known the evening would end with the Russell Rands, she might not have worn this uneventful little Calvin Klein cocktail dress.

Still, it showed she cared about such things. It seemed a bit much, anyway, to wear a Russell Rand outfit in the actual presence of Russell Rand. She conducted a hasty mental inventory of the women she’d seen with him in photographs. Had Liza worn his clothes when she went out with him? Had Elizabeth? Maybe only desperadoes like Prue Giroux did that.

For that matter, what about the Passion she had on? Was it gauche to wear Elizabeth Taylor’s perfume around people who knew Elizabeth Taylor? People who knew what she actually smelled like? Maybe her real friends found the stuff laughable and pretentious. Certainly Cher’s must. How could they not?

She would not dwell on it. The stuff wasn’t cheap, after all, and Taylor had done so much for AIDS. Mary Ann had worn it mostly to please Michael, to show her support. She would say that, if the subject came up. It was the truth, anyway.

“And over there,” Brian was telling Burke with great authority, “is the Hard Rock. It’s O.K., but it’s kind of a kid’s joint.”

“Brian,” she said, “I think they’ve got one in New York.”

“I know that. I was just telling him about this one.”

“They’re all the same,” she told him.

“The one in London is decent,” Burke put in. “It was the first, I think.”

“Yes,” she said. “It was.”

“Look at that fog,” said Brian. “Look what it does to the neon. Isn’t that great?”

Burke made an appreciative noise, obviously just being polite.

She shot Brian a quick look. “Not everyone likes fog, you know?”

“Go on,” he replied with mock disbelief.

“Well, it’s true.”

Brian looked at Burke. “You like it, don’t you?”

An easy grin and a shrug. “Sure.”

“You gotta admit it beats the shit outa that stuff in New York. That stuff you have to scrape off your face.” Brian laughed, apparently to keep this from sounding hostile, but it didn’t work. “I mean…
c’mon
.”

Burke was gallant about it. “Yeah…well, you’re right about that.”

“He’s such a San Francisco chauvinist,” she told Burke.

“And you’re not?” Brian mugged at her.

“I like it,” she said calmly. “I don’t think it’s the be-all and the end-all. And I don’t think it’s particularly nice to bad-mouth our guest’s city.”

“C’mon,” said Brian, smiling to cover his tracks. “He didn’t take it that way.” He gave Burke a buddy-buddy wink. “Anyway, I like New York. I wouldn’t wanna
live
there…et cetera, et cetera.”

She clutched for a moment. Was that remark just coincidental, or was he onto her? Either way, she vowed to ignore it.

“How do you know the Rands?” she asked Burke pleasantly.

“Oh, you know,” he replied. “Through friends.”

She started to tell him about meeting them at Prue’s, but changed her mind in fear that they wouldn’t remember her. If they
did
remember her and remarked on it, her silence at this point would simply come off as self-effacing. It was better to keep her mouth shut.

As Brian swung the Mercedes into Redwood Alley, she gazed out the window at a gaggle of operagoers heading up the sidewalk toward the restaurant. Who among her associates, she wondered, might see her there tonight with the Rands?

It was almost too delicious to imagine.

The cavernous elegance of Stars never failed to seduce her. To enter this room full of feverish chatter and French poster art was to feel at one with a living tableau, something from the twenties, maybe, and certainly not from here. If you squinted your eyes just so, the illusion was more than enough to transport you.

As she had already envisioned, the Rands were imperially positioned on the platform at the end of the room. Chloe was in red leather tonight, her shoulders pale as milk under the stained-glass chandeliers. Russell looked wonderfully Duke of Windsorish in a herringbone Norfolk jacket. Where had they been, anyway? The opera? Another party?

Chloe saw them first. She wiggled her fingers at Burke, then tilted her cheek to be kissed when he reached the table. “You’re so sweet to do this,” she said.

Burke kissed her, then clapped Russell amiably on the shoulder. Russell smiled at him for a moment, then turned his gaze toward Mary Ann. “Did we sabotage your dinner?” he asked, as if they had known each other forever.

“Oh, no,” she replied, “not at all.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. Really.”

“Aren’t there some more?” asked Chloe.

“They’re coming later,” she said, “in another car.”

“This is Mary Ann Singleton,” said Burke.

“Yes, I know,” said Russell. “I think we’ve met.”

“You have?” asked Burke.

“Russell, Chloe…” Secure in her identity again, Mary Ann felt a warming rush of self-assurance. “This is my husband, Brian.”

Brian and Russell shook hands. Then Brian and Chloe. “Please,” said Russell cordially, “sit down, everybody.”

“When did you guys meet?” Burke asked her, taking the chair next to Chloe.