Tales of the City

by Armistead Maupin

  The agency was on the fifth floor of a yellow-brick building that smelled of cigars and industrial ammonia. Someone with an eye for contemporary Californiana had decorated the walls of the waiting room with Art Nouveau posters and a driftwood-and-copper sculpture of a seagull in flight.

  Mary Ann sat down. There was no one in sight, so she picked up a copy of Office Management magazine. She was reading an article about desktop avocado gardening when a woman appeared from a cubicle in the back.

  “Have you filled out a form yet?”

  “No. I didn’t know …”

  “On the desk. I can’t talk to you until you’ve filled out a form.”

  Mary Ann filled out a form. She agonized over the questions. Do you own a car? Will you accept employment outside San Francisco? Do you speak any foreign languages?

  She took the form to the woman’s cubicle. “All done,” she said, as cheerfully and efficiently as possible.

  The woman grunted. She took the form from Mary Ann and readjusted her chain-guarded glasses on a small, piglike nose. Her hair was done in a salt-and-pepper DA.

  As she examined the form, her fingers manipulated an executive desk toy. Four steel balls suspended on strings from a walnut scaffolding.

  “No degree,” said the woman at last.

  “Like … college?”

  The woman snapped. “Yes. Like college.”

  “I had two years at a junior college in Ohio, if that …”

  “Major?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well?”

  “What?”

  “What did you major in?”

  “Oh. Art history.”

  The woman smirked. “We’ve certainly got enough of those for a while.”

  “Does a degree really matter that much? I mean … for secretarial work?”

  “Are you kidding? I’ve got Ph.D. candidates doing clerical work.” She used the first person as if these struggling scholars were her personal serfs. She wrote something on an index card and handed it to Mary Ann. “This is a small office-supply company on Market Street. The sales manager needs a Girl Friday. Ask for Mr. Creech.”

  He turned out to be a red-faced man of about fifty. He was wearing a burgundy polyester jacket with an oversized hound’s-tooth pattern. His trousers and tie were the same color.

  “You ever done sales work before?” He smiled and leaned back in a squeaky swivel chair.

  “Not … well, not exactly. For the past four years I’ve worked as a secretary for Lassiter Fertilizers in Cleveland. I wasn’t exactly in sales, but I had a lot of … you know … contact and all.”

  “Sounds good. Steady work. Always a good sign.”

  “I was also an admin assistant for the past year and a half, and I was attached to several of …”

  “Fine, fine … Now, I suppose you know what a Girl Friday is?”

  “Sort of gofer … right?” She laughed nervously.

  “Pay’s good. Six fifty a month. And we’re pretty relaxed around here … this being San Francisco.” His eyes were fixed on Mary Ann’s face. He began to chew the knuckle of his forefinger.

  “I like … an informal office,” said Mary Ann.

  “You like Vegas?”

  “Sir?”

  “Earl.”

  “What?”

  “Name’s Earl. Informal, remember?” He smiled and wiped his forehead. He was sweating profusely. “I asked if you like Vegas. We go to Vegas a lot. Vegas, Sacramento, L.A., Hawaii. Lotsa fringe benefits.”

  “Sounds … really nice.”

  He winked at her. “If you’re not … you know … uptight.”

  “Oh.”

  “Oh, what?”

  “I’m uptight, Mr. Creech.”

  He plucked a paper clip off the desk and tore it apart slowly without looking up. “Next,” he said quietly.

  “Sir?”

  “Get out.”

  She went home to her new apartment and cried, falling asleep as the afternoon sun spilled in the window. She woke up at five and scoured the kitchen sink for therapy. She ate some blueberry yogurt and made a list of things she would need for her apartment.

  She wrote a letter to her parents. Optimistic, but vague.

  There was a noise outside her door. She listened for a moment, then opened it. Plum-colored silk fluttered at the top of the stairway and descended out of sight.

  There was a note on Mary Ann’s door:

  Something from my garden to welcome you to your new home.

  ANNA MADRIGAL

  P.S. I’ll shoot you if you write

  your mother about this.

  Taped to the note was a neatly rolled joint.

  Enter Mona

  THE WOMAN DOWN BY THE GARBAGE CANS HAD FRIZZY red hair and was wearing a country-chic cotton sharecropper’s dress.

  She dropped her Hefty bag with a disdainful wrinkle of her nose and smiled at Mary Ann. “Garbage, you know, is very revealing. It beats the shit out of tarot cards!”

  “What would you say about … let’s see … four yogurt cartons, a Cost Plus bag, some avocado peels and assorted cellophane wrappings?”

  The woman pressed her fingers to her forehead like a psychic. “Ah, yes … the subject takes care of herself … nutritionally, that is. She is probably on a diet and is … furnishing a new apartment!”

  “Uncanny!” Mary Ann smiled. “She also … likes growing things. She didn’t throw out the avocado pit, so she’s probably rooting it in her kitchen.”

  “Bravo!” Mary Ann extended her hand. “I’m Mary Ann Singleton.”

  “I know.”

  “From my garbage?”

  “From our landlady. The Mother of Us All.” She shook Mary Ann’s hand firmly. “I’m Mona Ramsey … right below you.”

  “Hi. You should have seen what Mother taped on my door last night.”

  “A joint?”

  “She told you?”

  “Nope. It’s standard operating procedure. We all get one.”

  “She grows it in the garden?”

  “Right over there behind the azaleas. She’s even got names for the plants … like Dante and Beatrice and … Hey, want some ginseng?”

  “What?”

  “Ginseng. I’m brewing some upstairs. C’mon.”

  Mona’s second-floor apartment was adorned with Indian wall hangings, assorted street signs, and Art Deco light globes. Her dining table was an industrial cable spool. Her armchair, a converted Victorian toilet.

  “I used to have curtains,” she smiled, handing Mary Ann a mug of tea, “but after a while paisley bedspreads seemed so … Sixties Vassar.” She shrugged. “Besides … like … who am I hiding my body from?”

  Mary Ann peered out the window. “What about that building over …”

  “No … I mean … you know … nobody’s really hiding anything from the Cosmos. Beneath the rays of the White Healing Light, we are all … like … capital ? Naked. Who gives a shit about the little n?”

  “This tea is really …”

  “Why do you want to be a secretary?”

  “How did you know …?”

  “Big Mother. Mrs. Madrigal.”

  Mary Ann couldn’t hide her irritation. “She gets the news out quick enough, doesn’t she?”

  “She likes you.”

  “She told you that?”

  Mona nodded. “Don’t you like her?”

  “Well … yes … I mean, I haven’t really known her long enough to …”

  “She thinks you think she’s weird.”

  “Oh, great. Instant rapport.”

  “Do you think she’s weird?”

  “Mona, I … yeah, I guess I do,” she smiled. “Maybe it’s my fault. We don’t have people like that in Cleveland.”

  “Too bad for Cleveland.”

  “Maybe so.”

  “She wants you in the family, Mary Ann. Give it a chance, O.K.?”

  Mona’s condescension irked Mary Ann. “There’s no problem here.”

 
“No. Not now.”

  Mary Ann sipped the weird-tasting tea in silence.

  The best news of the day came minutes later. Mona was a copywriter for Halcyon Communications, a well-respected Jackson Square ad agency.

  Edgar Halcyon, chairman of the board, needed a woman to replace the personal secretary who had “gotten pregnant on him.”

  Mona arranged an interview for Mary Ann.

  “You’re not planning to run back to Cleveland, are you?”

  “Sir?”

  “You’re staying put?”

  “Yes, sir. I love San Francisco.”

  “They all say that.”

  “In my case, it happens to be the truth.”

  Halcyon’s huge white eyebrows leaped. “Are you that sassy with your parents, young lady?”

  Mary Ann deadpanned. “Why do you think I can’t go back to Cleveland?”

  It was risky, but it worked. Halcyon threw back his head and roared. “O.K.,” he said, regaining his composure. “That was it.”

  “Sir?”

  “That’s the last time you’ll see me laugh like that. Go get some rest. Tomorrow you’ll be working for the biggest son-of-a-bitch in town.”

  Mrs. Madrigal was weeding the garden when Mary Ann returned to Barbary Lane.

  “You got it, didn’t you?”

  Mary Ann nodded. “Mona call you?”

  “Nope. I just knew you would. You always get what you want.”

  Mary Ann smiled and shrugged. “Thanks, I think.”

  “You’re a lot like me, dear … whether you know it or not.”

  Mary Ann headed for the front door, then stopped and turned around. “Mrs. Madrigal?”

  “Yes?”

  “I … Thank you for the joint.”

  “You’re welcome, dear. I think you’ll like Beatrice.”

  “It was nice of you to …”

  The landlady dismissed her with a wave of her hand. “Go say your prayers or something. You’re a working girl now.”

  The Ad Game

  HALCYON COMMUNICATIONS HAD BEEN A FOOD-PROcessing warehouse in an earlier incarnation. Now its mellow brick walls blazed with supergraphics and rental art. Matrons shopping for Louis Quinze bargains in Jackson Square often mistook its secretaries for top fashion models.

  Mary Ann liked that.

  What she didn’t particularly like was her job.

  “Is the flag out, Mary Ann?”

  That was Halcyon’s first question of the morning. Every morning.

  “Yes, sir.” She felt less like Lauren Hutton every second. Who would make Lauren Hutton raise the American flag before nine o’clock in the morning?

  “Are we out of coffee?”

  “I set it up for you in the conference room.”

  “Why in God’s name would … Oh, Christ … Adorable’s here?”

  Mary Ann nodded. “Nine o’clock conference.”

  “Goddammit. Tell Beauchamp to hustle his butt up here on the double.”

  “I’ve already checked, sir. He’s not in yet.”

  “Christ!”

  “I could check with Mildred, if you want. Sometimes he has coffee down in Production.”

  “Do it.”

  Mary Ann did it, feeling vaguely like a fifth-grader who had snitched on a classmate. She liked Beauchamp Day, actually, despite his irresponsibility. She may have even liked him for his irresponsibility.

  Beauchamp was Edgar Halcyon’s son-in-law, the husband of post-post-debutante DeDe Halcyon. A graduate of Groton and Stanford, the handsome young Bostonian had been a natural for The Bachelors when he moved to San Francisco as a Bank of America trainee in 1971.

  According to the social columns, he had met his wife-to-be at the 1973 Spinsters Ball. Within months, he was savoring the delights of pool parties in Atherton, brunches on Belvedere and ski treks to Tahoe.

  The Halcyon-Day courtship had been whirlwind. DeDe and Beauchamp were married in June 1973 on the sunlit slopes of Halcyon Hill, the bride’s family estate in Hillsborough. At her own insistence, the bride was barefoot. She wore a peasant dress by Adolfo of Saks Fifth Avenue. Her maid of honor and Bennington roommate, Muffy van Wyck, recited selections from Kahlil Gibran, while a string quartet played the theme from Elvira Madigan.

  After the wedding, the bride’s mother, Frannie Halcyon, told reporters: “We’re so proud of our DeDe. She’s always been such an individualist.”

  Beauchamp and DeDe moved into a fashionable Art Deco penthouse on Telegraph Hill. They entertained lavishly and were frequently seen at philanthropic extravaganzas … by almost everyone, it seemed, but Mary Ann Singleton.

  Mary Ann had chatted with DeDe once at an interagency softball game (Halcyon vs. Hoefer Dieterich & Brown). Mrs. Day didn’t strike the secretary as snobby, but Mary Ann concluded that a Dina Merrill hairdo looks ridiculous on a twenty-six-year-old.

  Beauchamp, on the other hand, had looked magnificent that afternoon, transforming the pitcher’s mound into a miniOlympus.

  Blue eyes, black hair, brown arms glistening under a faded green Lacoste …

  She was right. He was drinking coffee in Production.

  “His Majesty requests your presence in the royal chambers.” She didn’t hesitate to use that kind of irreverence with Beauchamp. She was sure he was a kindred spirit.

  “Tell him the Bastard Prince is on his way.”

  Within seconds, Beauchamp was standing next to her desk, flashing his self-assured post-preppie grin. “Don’t tell me. I screwed up the Adorable account, right?”

  “Not yet. There’s a conference at nine. He was nervous, that’s all.”

  “He’s always nervous. I didn’t forget.”

  “I know you didn’t.”

  “You think I’m O.K., don’t you?”

  “As an account executive?”

  “As anything?”

  “Not fair. Want a Dynamint?”

  Beauchamp shook his head and slumped into a Barcelona chair. “He’s a real fart, isn’t he?”

  “Beauchamp …”

  “How about lunch tomorrow?”

  “I think he’s booked.”

  “Not him. You. Will he let you out of your cage for an hour?”

  “Oh … sure. Dutch?”

  “Italian.”

  Mary Ann giggled, then jumped as Halcyon buzzed her. “I’m ready for him,” said her boss.

  Beauchamp rose, winking at Mary Ann. “Well, it ain’t bloody mutual.”

  Edgar Blows Up

  EDGAR GLARED AT HIS SON-IN-LAW, WONDERING HOW anyone so well-groomed, articulate and generally presentable could be such a royal pain in the ass.

  “I think you know what this is about.”

  Beauchamp leaned forward and brushed a speck of dust off his Guccis. “Yeah, the pantyhose pitch. I think we might as well forget about the Bicentennial angle.”

  “I’m talking about DeDe and you know it!”

  “I do, huh?”

  Edgar’s eyes narrowed. His fist tightened around the neck of a mahogany decoy Frannie had bought him at Abercrombie’s. “Where were you last night, Beauchamp?”

  Silence.

  “I don’t get a big bang out of this, you know. It doesn’t thrill me to remember that my own daughter called me up last night, crying her eyes out …”

  “Frankly, I don’t see what business this …”

  “Goddammit! Frannie spent two hours on the phone with DeDe, trying to calm her down. What the hell time did you get in last night, anyway?”

  “Why don’t you ask DeDe? I’m sure she wrote it in the log!”

  Edgar spun his chair around and faced the wall. He studied a hunt print and tried to calm himself. He spoke quietly, deliberately, knowing that tone implied the greatest menace.

  “One more time, Beauchamp. Where were you?”

  The answer was addressed to the back of his head. “I had a committee meeting at the club.”

  “Which club?”

  “University. Not quite as grand as PU
, but Nob Hill nonethe …”

  “You were there till midnight?”

  “We had a few drinks afterwards.”

  “We? You and some chippie from Ruffles?”

  “That’s Ripples. And I didn’t pick up any … what’s that quaint word? I was at the club. Ask Peter Cipriani. He was there.”

  “I’m not running a detective agency.”

  “You could have fooled me. Is that all?”

  Edgar massaged his forehead with his fingertips. He didn’t turn around. “We have a conference.”

  “Right,” said Beauchamp, leaving.

  Promptly at noon, Mary Ann headed for the Royal Exchange with Mona.

  “Shit,” groaned the copywriter over a Pimm’s Cup. “I am so spaced today.”

  Not surprising, thought Mary Ann. Mona was paid to be spaced. She was the resident freak at Halcyon Communications. Clients who weren’t immediately impressed with her creativity changed their minds when they saw her office: an assortment of hookah pipes, an oak icebox which served as a bar, an antique wheelchair, a collage of Playgirl beefcake photos, and a neon martini glass from a Tenderloin bar.

  “What’s the matter?” asked Mary Ann.

  “I did mescaline last night.”

  “Oh?”

  “We went to Mission Street and tripped through all those godawful tacky furniture stores with the tassled lampshades and round beds and … you know … those phony waterfall things in the glass tubes. It was so plastic, but … you know … like cosmic plasticity … and in a weird way it was sort of, like, spiritual, you know.”

  Mary Ann did not know. She avoided the issue by ordering a turkey sandwich and a bean salad. Mona ordered another Pimm’s Cup.

  “Guess what?” said Mary Ann.

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m going to dinner at Mrs. Madrigal’s tonight.”

  “Congratulations. She likes you.”

  “You already told me that.”

  “Well … then she trusts you.”

  “Why do I have to be trusted?”

  “Nothing … I just meant …”

  “How should I handle it, Mona?”

  “Handle what?”

  “Her. I don’t know … I feel like she expects something of me.”