The madam’s eyes were full of tears. “I’m an old lady, dolly. A lie can hurt mighty bad.”
“I would never hurt you, Mother Mucca.”
“Why … why did you come here?”
Mona smiled at her. “You picked me up, remember?”
“It don’t make no sense.”
“I told you. It’s a miracle! I’m your granddaughter, Mother Mucca. I’ve found my goddamn roots!”
The old woman’s eyes narrowed. “Who taught you to talk like that, Mona?”
Falling in Love Again
THE MAN DANCING WITH MICHAEL COULD TELL THAT something was wrong. “Excuse, please … you know that man?”
Michael’s condition was almost trancelike. “I … yes. I hope you don’t mind. He’s somebody I used to … I’m sorry, O.K.?”
The man nodded, apparently more puzzled than offended, and boogied off the dance floor toward the bar. Michael stood frozen in his tracks, composing opening lines. Jon hadn’t seen him yet.
A scratchy phonograph blared out “Cherchez la Femme.” The same tune they had played at The Endup when Michael won the jocky shorts dance contest … and Dr. Jon Fielding walked out of his life forever.
Michael’s forever never lasted for long.
“Hey, greengo! You wan buy my seester? She virgin!”
“Michael! Christ!”
“Please, just Michael.”
Jon hugged him heartily. The kind of hug, Michael noted, that Danny Thomas might have given George Burns on Johnny Carson. “What the hell are you doing here?”
Michael shrugged. “It’s the only queer joint in Acapulco.”
Jon laughed. “I mean, in Acapulco?”
“I’m on a cruise. Ship-type, that is.”
“The Pacific Princess?”
“Yep. What brings you here?”
“Oh … vaginal infections.”
“You don’t look sick.”
The gynecologist grinned. “A convention, turkey.”
“A million laughs, huh?”
“It is, actually. We get a lot of free time.”
That bothered Michael. People he’d been hot for were not supposed to enjoy themselves in his absence. But the doctor was having a ball, so why torture himself? “It’s good seeing you, Jon.”
“You’re leaving?”
“Yeah. This place looks like The Kokpit on a bad night. I’ve had enough.”
Jon gave the terrace another once-over. “I see what you mean.”
“Yeah. Well, I’m sure you’ll find something.”
“I thought I had.”
Michael ignored that. “I guess it gets better as the evening wears on.”
“I’ve got a car, Michael. We could go for a ride or something.”
Michael looked at him for a moment, then shook his head. “I don’t think so, Jon. Thanks, though.”
The doctor smiled faintly. “You’re punishing me, aren’t you?”
“For what?”
“For … that night at The Endup.”
Michael managed a blithe shrug. “It was a tacky scene. I don’t blame you for—”
“No. I was the tacky one. I was … embarrassed, Michael. I was out with some pissy queens from Seacliff, and I couldn’t handle it. That was my failing, not yours.”
Michael smiled. “I won, you know.”
“You should have.”
“Gracias.”
They drove to the Capilla de la Paz in Jon’s rented Volkswagen Thing. Like strangers in a foreign city, they chatted breezily about night spots in Acapulco, the boredom of sea cruises and the perils of smoking grass in Mexico.
The mountaintop chapel was deserted. Above it loomed the leviathan cross, white as bleached bones against the starry sky. They walked to its base in silence.
“Somebody told me,” said Jon, “that this is a shrine to two brothers who were killed in a plane crash.”
“That’s nice. I mean … a nice story.”
“I may have it wrong.”
“I like the story, anyway.”
“You can see the ship, see?” Jon pointed to the toy boat twinkling below in the harbor. Michael could feel the doctor’s breath against his cheek.
“And over there,” continued Jon, “behind that row of hotels … Michael?”
“Sorry. I was thinking.”
“About what?”
“Shrines. Funerals, actually.”
“Charming.”
Michael looked at him. “Don’t tell me you’ve never planned your own funeral?”
Jon shook his head, smiling.
“Well, take this down, please. I’d like a big party at the Paramount Theater in Oakland, with lots of dope and munchies and all my friends ripped to the tits in the midst of all that Deco decadence. And when it’s over I’d like them to prop me up in a front-row seat, leave the theater … and bury the whole goddamn thing.”
Jon laughed and squeezed the back of his head. “Couldn’t you do that without dying?”
“Mmm. I often do.”
Jon laughed, then cupped Michael’s face in his hands and kissed him. “Don’t die, O.K.? Not until I’m through with you.”
The Trouble with Burke
SEATED IN A PINK-AND-ORANGE BOOTH AT THE ACAPULCO Denny’s, Mary Ann inspected her french fries and found them suspiciously grayish. “Ick,” she said, holding one up for Burke’s examination.
He smiled uncomplainingly. “Ditto on the milk shake.”
“I’m sorry, Burke.”
“Why?”
“I shouldn’t have dragged you here. I just felt like a hamburger, I guess.”
“That’s O.K. So did I.”
“We should have eaten at Colonel Sanders’.”
He shrugged. “We can eat on the ship tonight.”
“I’m not … being a drag, am I?”
“I can’t tell,” he grinned. “I’m too much in love with you.”
They rented a horse-drawn carriage and clopped through the city, trailing balloons behind them. It’s a Harlequin Romance, thought Mary Ann. Too corny, too perfect to be true. If I think about it too long or plan on anything, it’ll go away forever. So she nestled against Burke’s shoulder and slipped her mind into neutral.
“How’s Michael?” asked Burke, as they passed the Ritz.
“Much better. He had company last night. This morning too. I found out the hard way.”
“What d’ya mean?”
“I walked in on them.”
Burke smiled. “That blond guy he had breakfast with?”
“Uh huh. God, I can’t imagine what Melba and Arnold thought about that.”
“Who’s Melba and Arnold?”
“Mr. and Mrs. Matching. The couple at our table. They think Michael and I are married.”
“How did that happen?”
“Well … I told them. I mean, I didn’t want it to look like we were … shacked up or something. Plus, if I’d told them he was gay, they’d have freaked out and thought I was a fag hag.”
“A what?”
Mary Ann kissed him on the ear. “I love you. You don’t know anything.”
Back on the beach, they basted themselves in turtle lotion and stretched out on the sand. The simple, unspoiled beauty of the scene made Mary Ann painfully conscious of her dwindling days with Burke.
But you mustn’t push, she ordered herself. You mustn’t frighten him.
“Burke?”
“Mmmm?”
“This is really nice.”
“You bet.”
“I mean … I never thought I’d meet anybody like you on this trip.”
“C’mon! With your looks?”
“That’s sweet, but I mean it. Most of the guys I meet in San Francisco wanna talk about their dumb Porsches or their tape decks or getting their head together or something. I don’t hang around with Michael because I’m … desperate or anything. It’s just that … well, Michael makes me feel like I’m worth something. I was beginning to think that a straight man could
n’t do that for me.”
Silence.
She reddened instantly. “I embarrassed you, didn’t I?”
“No, really …” He reached over and squeezed her hand. “I haven’t felt very communicative, Mary Ann.”
“It isn’t what you say, Burke. It’s—I don’t know—how you look at me, how you react to things. I know that you see me as a person. I’ll always be grateful for that. I want you to know that.”
He rolled over on his side and pulled her against his chest, prompting giggles from two passing urchins. Mary Ann couldn’t have cared less. For one single, delirious moment she was certain they looked like Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr in From Here to Eternity.
“Burke?”
“Yeah?”
“Have you ever thought about moving back to San Francisco?”
Silence.
You blew it, you dink. He’s on to you now. “I’m sorry, Burke. I shouldn’t have said that.”
“That’s O.K.”
“No it’s not. We’ll change the subject. I won’t get heavy, I promise.”
“No. We should talk. There’s something I should have told you a long time ago.”
Somehow, she had known this moment would come. Her whole body tensed as she waited for the truth to fall like an executioner’s ax. “Please,” she said feebly. “I’d rather not hear it.”
“Mary Ann, I lived in San Francisco for three years … three whole years out of my life!”
Oh, God! Had Michael been right all along?
“Do you know why I’m so out of it, Mary Ann? Do you know where my goddamn boyish naïveté comes from?”
Please no! Please don’t let him be …
“I can’t remember anything, Mary Ann. Not a single goddamn thing about those three years in San Francisco.”
She pulled away from him. “You’ve got … amnesia?”
He nodded.
Thank God, she thought, hugging him. Thank God!
Try to Remember
I’M SORRY,” SAID BURKE, SITTING UP IN THE SAND AND rubbing his forehead with his fingertips. “I should have told you a long time ago.”
Mary Ann flailed for the right words. “You … can’t remember anything at all?”
He shook his head. “Nothing about my time in San Francisco. I’m clear on the rest. I mean, everything up to 1973. When I was in Nantucket. There are some … images or whatever that come to me from time to time. They don’t mean anything, really.”
“Like what?”
“Mary Ann, there’s no point—”
“I want to help, Burke.”
He traced a line in the sand. “Everybody wants to help.” Then, seeing her expression, he added, “I didn’t mean it like that. You’re not everyone. It’s just that … well, everything’s been done that can be done. My parents even sent me on this cruise, so I could—you know—”
“It doesn’t matter to me, Burke.”
“It’s a form of insanity.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“I can’t be honest in a relationship, Mary Ann. I don’t know what there is to be honest about. I don’t even know why I—”
Mary Ann gasped, anticipating him. “God, Burke! The thing about the roses!”
He nodded. “That’s part of it. Cute, huh? I also freak out on walkways with railings.”
“Where?”
“Anywhere. Any walkways with railings. Haven’t you noticed me on the ship? That’s why I hang around the fantail all day long. I’m scared shitless, Mary Ann.”
Mary Ann moved closer to him, placing a reassuring hand on his knee. “Well, look: if you can’t remember what happened to you in San Francisco … I mean, how did you get back to Nantucket?”
“I didn’t exactly…. Are you sure you want to hear all this?”
“Positive.”
“Well, they found me.”
“They?”
“Some cops in Golden Gate Park. Mounted policemen. I had … passed out or whatever in the woods. It took them three days to figure out who I was.”
“And then you went home?”
He nodded. “I was lucky, I guess. The Nantucket part came back almost immediately—along with my name and all that. I just don’t know what I was doing in San Francisco.”
Mary Ann smiled ruefully. “Welcome to the club,” she said.
They walked for a long time on the beach, watching the sky turn the color of a ripe nectarine. Mary Ann continued to probe gently, certain he would shut her out completely if she ever stopped talking.
“You haven’t told me why you went to San Francisco in the first place.”
“Oh, I was a reporter. For the AP.”
“Grocery stores have reporters?”
He touched the tip of her nose. “The Associated Press.”
She flushed. “I just did that to make you feel good.”
“Of course.”
“So what did you do before that? Before the AP.”
“I didn’t. I left my father’s publishing house and interviewed with the head AP bureau in New York. They stuck me in a little glass booth with a lot of disjointed facts about Lucille Ball’s wedding in … whenever, and I wrote a typical AP story and … they assigned me to the San Francisco bureau.”
“And you don’t remember anything after that.”
He chuckled. “Oh, yeah. That part’s gruesomely clear. The boredom, the shitwork, perpetual deadlines. I quit five weeks later. That’s where the blackout comes.”
“What about your parents? You couldn’t just disappear for three years. You must’ve written them or something.”
“Not enough to really let them know what was going on. Just I-am-fine-don’t-worry-about-me stuff. I lived on Nob Hill for a while, I know that. I did temporary shitwork—clerical stuff. Sometimes I attended services at Grace Cathedral.”
“Well, at least you remember that much.”
He shook his head. “I told them that in the letters. I don’t remember a bit of it.”
“You mean there’s no record whatsoever … no evidence of where you were or what you were doing for—”
“Wait!” He stopped suddenly and dug in his pockets. “Hold out your hand,” he instructed her. Somewhat reluctantly, she complied. He pressed something small and metal into her palm.
“A key,” she said flatly. “What’s that mean?”
“You tell me. It’s all that’s left of me.”
“What?”
“It was in my pocket, my shirt pocket, when they found me in the park.”
She examined it more closely. “It’s … smaller than a door key, or a car key. I guess it could …” Finally, she shrugged, giving up.
He shrugged back at her, smiling. It was his collie look again. Gentle and golden and vulnerable beyond her wildest dreams. She knew instantly why she had loved him from the beginning. He was a clean slate, a virgin….
And she could show him the way.
Back to Babylon
THERE THEY WERE AGAIN, BACK WHERE THEY HAD MET, back at the seedy old Greyhound bus station on Seventh Street in San Francisco.
Mona surveyed the snack bar, feeling an unexpected flash of nostalgia, while Mother Mucca slurped coffee noisily out of her spoon. The old lady was still being ornery, but at least she had consented to this visit.
Mona had told her everything about Andy/Anna only three days before.
And the mother-and-child reunion was only an hour away.
Mother Mucca belched. “I don’t feel so good,” she grumbled.
“Now, don’t start on that again.”
“I don’t Mona. My stomach feels a tetch—”
“Your stomach’s perfectly fine. You’re just nervous, Mother Mucca. That’s O.K. It’s O.K. to experience a—”
“It ain’t O.K. with me, girl. This just ain’t the right time to—”
“Please, Mother Mucca! I know you can handle this. We’ve been through this before, and we both agreed that … well, it’s the best thing, that’s
all.”
The old lady ducked her head moodily. “Maybe for you.”
“For all of us.”
“I ain’t seen my son for forty goddamn years!”
Mona winced. “Daughter.”
“Huh?”
“She’s your daughter now. I know that’s hard to deal with, but it would mean so much to Mrs. Madrigal … I mean, to Anna. Try to remember that, will you?”
Mother Mucca wouldn’t look up. “Whatever.”
“No. Not whatever. Your daughter. Anna.”
“I called him Andy for sixteen years!”
“I know, but a lot’s changed. You must’ve changed yourself.”
“Says who?”
“Please don’t be difficult.”
“What does he look like?”
“I told you that already.”
“Well, tell me another goddamn time!”
Mona sought for another description. “She’s very … majestic.”
Her grandmother snorted. “Sounds like a fuckin’ race horse.”
“See for yourself, then.”
“Does he … look like me?”
“You’ll just have to wait.”
Mother Mucca glared at her granddaughter, then at a pimply teenager in glitter wedgies eating a doughnut at the next table. “Nothin’ but weirdos in this town,” she growled.
Mona’s first glimpse of Barbary Lane brought her heart into her throat. Nothing had changed in the sylvan city canyon. The cats were still there, the miniature cottages and the eucalyptus trees and Mrs. Madrigal’s courtyard beckoning in the moonlight.
“You tell him we’re comin’?” asked Mother Mucca, surveying the cozy old house.
“No. She knows we’re coming, of course, but I didn’t tell her exactly when.”
“Stupid!”
Mona snapped back, “I didn’t want to put her in a negative space before we got here.”
The old lady blinked uncomprehendingly.
Mona smiled and translated. “I didn’t want her to feel uncomfortable about our arrival.”
“You didn’t mind makin’ me pretty damn uncomfortable.”
“C’mon now. Behave yourself.”
Mona stepped into the alcove next to the door buzzers. Mother Mucca lagged behind, pacing nervously in the courtyard. “C’mon,” coaxed Mona. “It’s gonna be just fine.”
More Tales of the City Page 12