Sure of You (6 page)

“About what?”

“Doing it.”

She set the fork down and waited for a count of three. “Me?”

“Yes.”

“As host?”

“Yes.”

It took all the discipline at her command to conceal her excitement. “Burke…I’m tremendously flattered…”

“But?”

“Well, for starters, I have my own show.”

“Right. Local.”

Stung, she composed herself, then said coolly: “This is one of the most sought-after markets in the country.”

He gave her a patient smile. “I know you know the difference.”

“Well, maybe so, but…”

“And I think you’ll find the money is a whole lot better.”

“That isn’t the point,” she said calmly.

“Well, what is? Tell me what I have to do?”

He was practically begging. God, how she loved this. “I have a home here, Burke, a family.”

“And they wouldn’t want to move?”

“That’s part of it, yes.”

“O.K.” He made a little gesture of concession with his hands. “What’s the other part?”

“When have you even seen me, anyway? I mean, the show.”

“Lots of times. On my way through the city. I’ve never seen you when you weren’t brilliant.” He gave her an engaging little smile. “We can even keep the name, if you want. I like the sound of ‘Mary Ann in the Morning.’”

She was thinking more along the lines of just plain “Mary Ann.”

“Look,” he added, “if it’s gonna be no, fine. But I want to make damn sure you know exactly what’s being offered here.”

“I think I do,” she said.

“Then what can I tell you?”

“Well…what you think I can offer, for one thing.” He gave her a disbelieving look. “C’mon.”

“I mean it.”

“O.K.” He thought for a moment. “You’re not an automaton. You listen to people. You react. You laugh when you feel like laughing, and you say what’s on your mind. And you’ve got this great…Cleveland thing going.”

She drew back as if he’d hit her with a mackerel. “
Cleveland thing
?”

He grinned maddeningly. “Maybe that was the wrong way to put it…”

“I’ve spent years making sure Cleveland was gone forever.”

He shook his head. “Didn’t work.”

“Well, thanks a helluva lot.”

“And you’re lucky it didn’t. That naïveté is the best thing you’ve got going for you. Look, c’mon…where would Carson be without Nebraska?”

With a private shiver, she realized that she could be
on
Carson in a matter of months, chatting chummily about her meteoric rise to fame.

“So how was it?” asked a throaty female voice, taking Mary Ann by surprise.

“D’or…hi. Yummy, as usual. Burke, this is our hostess, D’orothea Wilson.” She looked especially elegant today, Mary Ann thought, in a mauve silk blouse and gabardine slacks.

“This is great,” said Burke, indicating the remains of his tuna. “Especially the peanut butter sauce.”

D’or nodded. “I’ve been making that one at home for years.” She looked at Mary Ann and smiled wryly. “DeDe and the kids are sorta pissed that I went public with it.”

“Is she here today?”

D’or shook her head. “Not till two.”

“Well, tell her I said hi, O.K.? It’s been a while since we’ve talked.”

“You bet,” said D’or, and she sailed off to the front room on her proprietorial rounds.

“She’s a beauty,” said Burke.

“Yeah. She used to be a model. She and her lover escaped from Jonestown just before everybody…you know, drank the Kool-Aid. They hid out in Cuba for three years.”

“My God.”

She enjoyed his amazement. “Yeah. I broke the story, actually.”

“On your show?”

“No. Earlier. When I was still hosting the afternoon movie. Back in ’81. It’s how I got my start.”

“They made you a reporter so you could break it?”

“No.”

“Then…?”

She shrugged and gave him an enigmatic smile. “I just broke it during the afternoon movie.”

“Uh-huh” was all he could manage.

“It was just a local thing. I doubt if you would’ve heard about it in New York.”

He caught the irony and narrowed his eyes at her. “When did you get to be so dangerous?”

“Who, me?” she replied. “Little of me from Cleveland?”

Some Rather Exciting News

T
HE VELVETY FOG WHICH ARRIVED THAT EVENING HAD
sketched a halo around the streetlight at the foot of the Barbary steps. Thack stopped beneath it and muttered, “Shit.”

“What?” said Michael.

“We forgot to get sherry.”

Michael’s guilt flared up again. After several months’ absence, he hated showing up at Mrs. Madrigal’s house without some reassuring talisman of his affection. Gazing up the impossible slope of Leavenworth, he mused aloud. “There’s a mom and pop up at the top there.”

“Forget it,” said his lover. “We can send her some flowers tomorrow.”

“Will you help me remember?”

“Of course,” said Thack.

When they reached the eucalyptus grove at the top of the steps, a cat shot past them on the path, flashing its tail like a broadsword. Michael called to it seductively, but the creature merely spat at them and bounded off into the mist.

“Carpetbagger,” he yelled after it.

Thack gave him a funny look.

“He’s from there,” Michael explained, gesturing toward the new condo complex at the head of the lane. It was pale green and postmodern, with security gates and sunken garbage cans and buzzers you could hear for miles. Most of the eucalyptus grove had been sacrificed to make room for it.

Beyond the complex, where the path narrowed and the shrubbery grew wild, lay the real Barbary Lane, a dwindling Bohemia of shingled lodges and garbage cans that weren’t ashamed to stand up and be counted. As they opened the lych-gate at Number 28, the smell of pot roast wafted across the courtyard from the landlady’s kitchen window.

When she buzzed them into her inner sanctum, the place reassured Michael with its constancy—that familiar, immutable hodgepodge of dusty books and dustier velvet. She greeted them effusively in a plum-colored kimono, a pair of ivory chopsticks thrust into the silvery tangle of her hair.

“Are you smoking?” she asked Michael.

He pretended to examine his extremities. “I dunno, am I?”

“Now you mustn’t make fun of my only sacrament.” She thrust a plate of joints into Thack’s hands. “Here, dear.
You
corrupt him. My biscuits are burning.” She spun on her heels and sailed back to the kitchen, all fluttering silk.

Thack smiled at the histrionic exit, then offered the plate to Michael.

Michael relented after only a moment’s hesitation. This was a special occasion, after all.

When the landlady returned, he and Thack were both thoroughly buzzed, deep in the embrace of her worn-shiny dam-ask sofa.

“Well,” she said, taking the armchair, “I have some rather exciting news.”

“Really?” said Thack.

She beamed at them both, one at a time, heightening the suspense. “I’m going away,” she said.

Michael felt an unexpected stab of anxiety.
Going away
?
Moving away
?

His distress must have been evident, for she made a hasty amendment. “Just for a month or so.”

“A vacation, you mean?” Thack looked just as amazed.

She answered with a wide-eyed nod, her hands clasping her knees. Apparently she was amazed too. Up to now she’d been the world’s most committed homebody.

“Well,” said Michael, “congratulations.”

“Mona wants me to meet her in Greece. And since I never get time with my darling daughter, I thought…”

“Greece?”

“Yes, dear.”

“Lesbos?”

The landlady’s eyes widened. “She’s told you about it?”

“Well, not lately, but she’s been talking about it for years.”

“Well, she’s going this time. She’s rented a villa, and she’s invited her doddering old parent.”

“That’s great,” said Thack.

Michael was already imagining the scenario. Ol’ frizzy-haired Mona, sullen and horny in some smoky taverna. Mrs. Madrigal holding court in her oatmeal linen caftan, doing that Zorba dance as the spirit moved her.

“I can hardly take it in.” The landlady sighed contentedly. “The land of Sappho.”

Michael snorted. “And about a zillion women who go there looking for Sappho. I don’t suppose she mentioned that?”

“She did,” said Mrs. Madrigal.

“It’s practically a pilgrimage.”

“Yes.”

“She said there are so many dykes there at the height of the season that it looks like the Dinah Shore Open.”

Mrs. Madrigal gave him a look. “I think you’ve made your point, dear.”

“Of course, I’m sure they’ve got men too.”

“Yes,” came the dry reply. “I’m sure they do.”

“When do you leave?” asked Thack.

“Oh…early next week.”

Michael wasn’t expecting this. Nor was he expecting the mild anxiety that swept over him. Why on earth should this bother him? It was only a vacation. “Not much time to pack,” he said lamely.

She seemed to be searching his face for clues.

“Of course, you won’t need much,” he added.

“I’m not sure I know
how
to pack. I haven’t been off Russian Hill for years.”

All the more reason you should go,” said Thack. Michael asked: “Isn’t it hot there?”

“Warm,” she replied.

“But you hate the heat.”

“Well, it’s dry heat, at least.”

“They won’t have dope,” he reminded her.

“Hey,” said Thack, looking at Michael. “Stop being such a wet blanket.”

Michael shrugged. “I just thought she should know.”

At dinner their talk drifted to Mary Ann and Brian, who apparently hadn’t visited the landlady since Christmas.

“They’ve both been really busy,” Michael assured her, provoking a skeptical sneer from Thack, who was always pre-pared to believe the worst about Mary Ann.

Mrs. Madrigal fussed with a wisp of hair at her temple. “I’d be delighted to take Shawna for them. Brian hasn’t asked me to sit for ages.”

“Well,” said Michael, feeling uncomfortable, “she’s in kindergarten now, of course. That takes care of a lot of it.”

“Yeah,” said Thack.

The landlady bit her lip and nodded. “More potatoes, dear?”

Thack shook his head and patted his stomach. “I’m stuffed.”

“There’s lots more pot roast in the kitchen.”

“I’m fine. Really.”

“Michael?”

“Well…”

“Ah, he who hesitates…”

He smiled at her, abandoning the pretense of this week’s diet.

“Come with me,” she said, beckoning him toward the kitchen. And then to Thack: “Excuse us, will you, dear?”

In the kitchen she hovered a little too cheerily over the roast. “Still like the crispy part?”

“Sure. Whatever.”

As she carved, her eyes remained fixed on her labors. “Should I be doing this, dear?”

“What?”

“Leaving.”

“Of course,” he said. “Why not?”

“Well…if everything’s not all right with you…”

“Everything is fine,” he said. “Don’t you think I’d tell you?”

“Well, I’d certainly hope…”

He rolled his eyes. “I’ll come yelling. Trust me.”

She took her time arranging the slab on his plate. “I’ll be gone for a whole month.”

“Will you stop it!”

She set down the serving fork and wiped her hands on a dish towel. “Forgive me.”

“Don’t apologize.”

“I know it’s irrational, but it’s all I’ve thought about ever since…”

“Don’t I look all right?”

She cupped her hand against his cheek. “You look wonderful. As usual.”

The intensity of her gaze embarrassed him, so he looked away. “Mona says it’s a beautiful island. They’ve only had an airport for five years or something.”

“Mmm.” Her hand slid away, and she busied herself with dishes in the sink.

“Leave those,” he said. “I’ll get them later.”

“You could come with us,” she said, spinning around. “Huh?”

“To Lesbos. I know Mona would love that.”

He smiled at her indulgently. “I’ve got a business to run. And a house to pay for.”

Thack appeared in the doorway, holding his plate. “Is it too late to change my mind?”

“Of course not,” said the landlady.

Michael stood aside while she heaped meat on Tack’s plate. She seemed just as relieved as he that Thack had come along to put an end to their awkwardness.

They were washing dishes, the three of them, when someone rapped on the front door. Before the landlady could finish drying her hands, Polly Berendt had loped into the kitchen. “Oh, hi,” she said, seeing Michael and Thack. Then she turned to Mrs. Madrigal: “I was on my way out, and I thought you could use this.” She unzipped a pocket on her black leather jacket and produced a check, obviously for the rent. “Sorry it’s late.”

The landlady tucked this offering into the sleeve of her kimono. “No trouble at all, dear.”

Awkwardly, Polly rubbed a palm against a denimed thigh. “Well, I didn’t mean to interrupt or anything.”

“You aren’t interrupting. We’ve finished our dinner. Come sit with us.”

“Thanks. I can’t.” She looked at Michael. “I’m meeting some friends at Francine’s.”

“Oh,” chirped the landlady. “Do I know her?”

“It’s a bar,” Polly explained.

Michael couldn’t resist. “Guess where Mrs. Madrigal’s going.”

Polly looked faintly suspicious. “Where?”

“Lesbos.”

“Uh…you mean…?”

“The island,” Thack put in. “Where Sappho’s from.”

Polly nodded vaguely.

“Don’t tell me you haven’t heard of her,” said Michael.

“Well, of course I’ve
heard
of her. I’m just not up on my mythology.”

“Sappho wasn’t mythological.”

“Hey,” Thack told him, “lay off.”

“Yeah,” said Polly.

Mrs. Madrigal was frowning now. “If you children are going to quarrel…”

Michael shook his head reproachfully at Polly. “How can you call yourself a dyke?”

His employee heaved a sigh and shifted her weight to her other hip. “I don’t call myself one. I
am
one. I didn’t have to take a course in it, you know.”