The caller muttered under her breath. “Bloody idiot.”
“Would you like the number?”
“Yes. Please.”
Jon gave it to her.
The call came while Mrs. Madrigal and Mother Mucca were shopping in North Beach. Mona was alone in the apartment.
“Yeah?”
“Mona?”
“Hello, Betty.”
“I thought you were dead.”
“Oh, yeah? Well … surprise!”
“That’s no bloody way to talk to your mother!”
“I sent you a postcard from Nevada.”
“I was worried sick. What were you doing in Nevada?”
“Just … stuff.” Mona thought it best to change the subject. “How’s the weather in Minneapolis?”
“The winter was horrid.”
“Too bad. Hope it didn’t hurt your property values. Hey … how did you get this number?”
“I called your apartment. A young man there told me.”
“That must’ve been Jon.”
“Mona, listen to me … I have to talk to you.”
“Fine. Go ahead.”
“No. In person. You’re making a serious mistake, Mona.”
“About what?”
“I can’t talk about it over the phone. I’m coming to see you.”
Silence.
“Did you hear me, Mona?”
“It won’t work, Betty. There’s not enough room.”
“I can stay at a friend’s apartment. I’ve already … worked that out. You can give me two hours of your time, Mona. I’m not asking your permission … I’m coming. You owe me that, at least.”
“Yeah,” said Mona resignedly. “I guess I do.”
Minor Miracles
JON RETURNED TO ST. SEBASTIAN’S WITH MICHAEL’S MAIL in hand: a postcard from a friend on Maui, a newsletter from his congressman and a notice from the Reader’s Digest Sweepstakes informing him happily that he might already be a winner.
Michael was asleep, so the doctor sat quietly in a chair by the window.
Five minutes later, the night nurse entered.
“Just get here?”
“Yeah.”
The nurse nodded toward her patient. “He’s a nice boy.”
Jon nodded.
“Him and you are … good friends, aren’t you?”
“Uh huh.”
“He talks about you a lot.”
“I know.”
“Him and me spent a long time talking today. We’re both from Florida, ya know. I’m from Clearwater. I mean, my folks used to live there when I was a teen-ager, and I met my husband there and all, but then we moved to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, when he joined the Army.”
“I see.”
“I don’t mind admittin’ one bit: we’re both real conservative, Dr. Fielding. We voted for Goldwater in ‘64 and Earl always says that socialism is gonna ruin this country, and I guess I agree with him. I don’t think that’s reactionary, no matter what people say. I was raised to believe in the Constitution and the Bible and Free Enterprise, and I guess I always will.”
The nurse moved closer to Michael’s bed. Jon felt vaguely uneasy. What was she getting at?
“Sometimes,” she continued, “I think things are just moving too fast. The world is goin’ crazy, and people don’t have … they just don’t have standards of decency. You can’t depend on things the way you used to. Families and marriages are falling apart, and the liberals are just destroying everything that ever mattered to folks.”
Now she was standing by the head of the bed. She looked down at Michael for a moment. When she looked up again, there were tears in her eyes.
“I know all that’s true. I know it, Dr. Fielding. There’s lots of things I’d change about this world, but … I don’t …” She wiped her eyes, then looked down at Michael again. “I’d be proud … I’d be proud for this boy to teach my children. I swear to God I would!”
Jon blocked his emotions with a smile. “Thank you,” he said quietly.
The nurse turned away, blowing her nose. She busied herself with straightening Michael’s covers, avoiding Jon’s eyes. She didn’t confront him again until she was ready to leave.
“Doctor, I hope you didn’t … take offense?”
“No. Of course not. That was a very nice thing to say.”
“Aren’t you mighty tired?”
“A little.”
“Why don’t you go home. I’ll look after him.”
“I know. I’ll go soon.”
“Doctor?”
“Yes?”
“When this is over … when he’s better … I’d be glad to have you … I mean, the two of you … over for dinner sometime. I make good red beans and rice.” She smiled, nodding toward Michael. “He says he likes that.”
“Thank you. We’d be happy to.”
“Earl’s real nice. You’ll like him.”
“I’m sure. Thank you.”
“Good night, Doctor.”
“Good night. God bless you.”
He sat there for another hour, finally dozing off in the chair. An insistent voice awakened him.
“Pssst, turkey.”
“Wha …? Michael?”
“No. Marie Antoinette.”
“What’s the matter?”
“Come here.”
Jon went to his bedside. “Yeah?”
“Look.”
“At what?”
“Down there, dummy. My hand.”
Jon saw Michael’s index finger moving ever so slightly. “Don’t just stand there,” grinned Michael. “Clap your hands if you believe in fairies!”
The Shop at St. Sebastian’s
A SUDDEN HINT OF SPRING IN THE AIR CAUGHT MRS. Madrigal off guard as she swept the courtyard at 28 Barbary Lane.
Spring again on the lane! Vagrant daffodils loitering among the garbage cans, the smell of cat fur and lilacs and sun-warmed eucalyptus bark … and dear sweet Brian sunning himself on the bricks.
For the first time in weeks, her family seemed intact again. Michael was greatly improved, according to Jon, and would be coming home in a matter of days. Mary Ann and Burke were nesting comfortably in their respective apartments, though they appeared to need only one.
Brian, of course, was still in the little house on the roof.
And Mona—her own precious daughter—had moved in permanently downstairs as soon as Mother Mucca had returned to Winnemucca.
It was springtime, and all was well.
Except for … something about Mona’s behavior that disturbed her.
“Brian, dear?”
He arched his neck, smiling up at her, greased and graceful in his green Speedo trunks. This boy, thought Anna, is a curious mixture of menace and vulnerability. A coyote begging for scraps. “Yeah?” he said. “I’m in your way?”
“No, no. I can sweep around you. I wanted to ask you something.”
“Sure. Shoot.”
“Do you and Mona … communicate very often?”
Brian laughed cynically. “I think ‘relate’ is the word she’d use.”
“Oh, dear. There’s been friction?”
He nodded. “Nothing drastic. I invited her to dinner and she told me that the energy was wrong. She couldn’t relate to someone who—in her words—spent his Wonder Bread years learning to unhook bra straps.”
“Oh, my! I hope you didn’t let her get away with that.”
Brian smiled wickedly. “I told her she wasn’t putting off enough energy to power a dime-store vibrator. Just your basic small talk. She told you about it, huh?”
“No. I just thought you might have some clue as to why … She isn’t herself, Brian. Something’s bothering her a great deal, but I can’t get her to talk to me about it, and I thought that maybe you … I guess it’ll pass.”
Brian sensed her distress. “She’s happy with you—her new home, I mean. I know that much.”
“Oh … she told you that?”
“S
he’s told everybody that.”
The landlady smiled. “She’s a good person most of the time. Please don’t give up on her for dinner.”
So Brian tried again. He called Mona as soon as he got back to the little house on the roof.
“Why do you hate me?”
“Who is this?”
“Is it because I work at Perry’s? Or that I’m straight?”
“Brian, I’m in no mood—”
“I’m not a pig, Mona. I’m promiscuous as hell, but I’m not a Male Chauvinist Pig. For Christ’s sake! I was at Wounded Knee, Mona!”
“Don’t expect me to validate your … You were?”
“Uh huh.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“I cooked a meat loaf.”
“At Wounded Knee?”
“Yesterday, you heartless woman! I cooked a goddamn meat loaf for the first time in my life, and you won’t even eat it with me!”
She laughed in spite of herself. “You didn’t tell me that.”
“I’m telling you now. Come to dinner, Mona. Tonight.”
She accepted more readily than he expected.
He spent the rest of the afternoon cooking his first meat loaf.
Mona and Mary Ann passed on the stairway at four-thirty. Mona was making a last-minute dash to the laundry. Mary Ann was heading out to meet Jon for a trip to St. Sebastian’s.
Mona, Mary Ann noted, seemed far less laid back than usual. And she was smiling.
“Give Mouse a sloppy kiss for me, O.K.?”
“I will,” said Mary Ann.
When she and Jon reached St. Sebastian’s, Mary Ann realized with some guilt that kisses were all she had given Michael during his time of crisis. Burke’s phobia had ruled out even the quickest visit to the hospital florist.
But Burke was in Jackson Square now, getting a haircut at Alexandre’s, so why shouldn’t she pick up a nice azalea or something?
She told Jon she would meet him upstairs and headed for the glass-fronted shop in the hospital lobby. When she entered, there was no one in sight, so she rang the bell on the counter.
Presently, a man emerged from the refrigerated chamber in the rear of the shop. “Brrr,” he said merrily, “I like it better out here.” If he recognized his customer, he gave no indication of it.
But she knew who he was. Instantly.
The man with the transplant.
Meat Loaf at Wounded Knee
BRIAN’S DINNER WAS A QUALIFIED SUCCESS, MONA remarked on the tastiness of his meat loaf, but chastened him for being scornful of vegetarian principles.
“Wait a minute,” he countered. “If you’re such a vegetarian, why didn’t you just tell me so in the …?”
“You said you’d already cooked it, Brian. Besides, I’m not as … strict with myself as I used to be.”
“I see.”
“Ground beef isn’t nearly as personal as a solid hunk of steak. I mean, it seems much less of a violation of the sanctity of the animal. You don’t know which part of the cow it came from.” She grinned suddenly, recognizing the inanity of the remark.
Brian grinned back at her, dropping another chunk of meat loaf onto her plate. “This isn’t cow, I’ll have you know!”
“Well, steer or whatever.”
He shook his head. “Dog. Cocker spaniel, to be specific. Do you think a waiter from Perry’s can afford beef?”
After dinner, they sat on the edge of his bed and perused a scrapbook opened across their knees. A MAKE LOVE NOT WAR bumper sticker was plastered on the cover.
“Look,” said Brian uneasily, “if this gets to be a big drag …”
“It was my idea, wasn’t it?”
“O.K. Well …” He flipped past the first few pages. “This is just boring stuff.”
“No. Stop. What’s that?”
“Law school. The Law Review at George Washington.”
“Which one is you?”
“The dip with the David Harris glasses.”
“You wear glasses?”
“Not any more. Contacts.”
“Green-tinted, huh?” She smiled teasingly. He pretended to be mildly affronted, but inwardly he was pleased. She had noticed his eyes. That was a start, anyway.
He pointed to a newspaper clipping. “This one made the AP wires. That’s me in Chicago, 1968, on the left.”
“How can you tell? Your head is down.”
“I was going limp for the police.”
“Really? Where else did you go limp?”
“Oh … Selma, Washington … Are you making fun of me?”
She smiled. “I went limp in Minneapolis.”
“No shit?”
She nodded, beaming.
“The War?”
“Yeah. Did you know Jerry Rubin?”
“I met him once in Chicago. We talked for about half an hour, I guess.”
“I just read his book. Growing Up at 37. I was really blown away.”
“Good, huh?”
She made a face, shaking her head. “He said he got on this big power trip—militancy and all that—because he was uptight about the size of his penis. I mean, that’s a really heavy thing to say.”
He nodded solemnly. She wasn’t joking.
“Christ,” she said angrily. “Is that what we did it for? Is that what the sixties were all about? The size of Jerry Rubin’s goddamn dick?”
There was simply no profound reply for that. Brian ended up laughing. “It’s enough to make you go limp,” he said.
Later, they stood together by the window facing the bay. Brian lit a joint of Maui Zowie and handed it to Mona. She took a short toke and handed it back. “That’s all I want,” she said. “I might get bummed out.”
“What’s the matter?”
She sighed and stared out at the beacon on Alcatraz. “My mother’s coming to town,” she said finally.
The implication took a while to sink in. Then Brian whistled. “Does Mrs. Madrigal know?”
Mona shook her head glumly. “I want to try and handle it myself. My mother said something really weird on the phone. She said I was making a terrible mistake.”
“Do you think she knows about Mrs. Madrigal?”
“I’m not sure. But if she does know, she must assume that I know and that I know she knows. So what could she possibly tell me? What’s all this ‘terrible mistake’ shit?”
Her voice was trembling. Brian slipped his arm around her waist.
“I don’t need any more surprises, Brian. I’m frightened.” She was crying now. Pulling away from him, she crossed the room to the other window, where she stood wiping her eyes.
“Mona …”
“I’m all right now.” She looked around for a clock. “It’s late. I should go.”
He moved to her side, risking it all. “You can stay … if you’d like.”
“No. But ask me again.” She hugged him awkwardly, laying her head against his chest. “I like you, Brian. You’re a closet Tom Hayden.”
He kissed her forehead. “Where’s my Jane Fonda?” he asked.
They held each other tight, framed against the window like a cliché out of Rod McKuen.
Lady Eleven watched them for less than a minute, then took off her binoculars and closed the curtains.
A Poem to Ponder
IT MAY HAVE BEEN THE PALM TREES OR THE ODDLY TROPICAL night or the swarthy man sipping Campari at the next table, but something about the terrace at the Savoy-Tivoli gave Mary Ann a shivery flashback to Mexico.
Burke felt it too. “Remind you of Las Hadas?”
“I didn’t plan it that way, I promise.” She had called him excitedly from the hospital, choosing this as the spot for their rendezvous. She had refused to reveal her discovery over the phone.
“So what’s up?” asked Burke, as soon as their coffee and desserts had arrived.
Mary Ann smiled mysteriously and plunged a spoon into her butterscotch trifle. “I’ve found our friend,” she replied at last.
“W
ho?”
“The man at the flower mart. With the hair transplant.”
“Jesus. Where?”
“At the hospital. He runs the flower shop there. I went by there this afternoon to pick up an azalea or something for Michael, and there he was behind the—”
“Did you talk to him? Did you ask him about me? Did he recognize you?”
She was surprised at the urgency in his voice. “I didn’t ask him, Burke. I was afraid to.”
“Why?”
“Because I think he did recognize me. He acted like he didn’t, but I just couldn’t shake the feeling that he knew who I was.”
“What if he did? Look, Mary Ann, I don’t mind approaching him, if you’re squeamish about it. Anything is better than this constant speculation and anxiety. This man could be the key to it all.”
“I know that, Burke. I’m sure of it. I just don’t think we should risk the …” She reached across the table and took his hand. “Something horrible may have been the cause of your amnesia, Burke. This man may have been a part of it.”
“You’ve seen too many movies. Maybe I worked for him or something.”
She shook her head. “I asked Jon to check the hospital records for me. You were never on the payroll at St. Sebastian’s, and you were never a patient there. There’s no evidence that you ever set foot in the place before this month.”
He smiled at her affectionately. “You have been the little sleuth, haven’t you?”
“I want to help,” she said quietly.
“Good,” He reached in the breast pocket of his corduroy jacket and produced an index card which he placed in front of her. “Tell me what that means, then.”
She picked up the card. On it Burke had written a verse of four lines:
High upon the Sacred Rock
The Rose Incarnate shines,
Upon the Mountain of the Flood
At the Meeting of the Lines.
“What is it?” she asked.
“I dreamed it. Pretty nifty, huh?” His tone was much too flip, a defense mechanism that Mary Ann had learned to recognize. He was more frightened now than ever.
“Did you hear it in your dream, Burke?”
“Yep. Up on that damned walkway thing with the railing. The rest of the dream is the same. It’s dark and the transplant man is there and there are people just beyond me in the darkness and the transplant man says, ‘Go ahead … it’s organic.’ ”
More Tales of the City Page 19