Tales of the City 01 - Tales of the City

…?”
    “What?”
    “It doesn’t matter. My mind was wandering.”
    “What, goddammit!”
    “Are you … upset about tonight?”
    “What the hell do you think?”
    “It doesn’t matter, Beauchamp. I mean, it may matter to you, but it doesn’t matter to me at all. You were probably just tense. It was a fluke.”
    “Terrific. Thank you very much, Dr. Joyce Brothers.”
    “I’m only trying to …”
    “Skip it, will you?”
    “You could’ve had too much to drink, you know.”
    “I had three fucking scotches!”
    “Well, that’s enough to …”
    “Skip it, goddammit!”
    “Look, Beauchamp, I personally resent the implication that … this … was the purpose of this trip. I came up here because I like you. You asked me to help you.”
    “Fat lot of good it did!”
    “You’re just concentrating too hard. I think your troubles with DeDe probably …”
    “Christ! You have to bring her up?”
    “I just thought that …”
    “I don’t wanna talk about DeDe!”
    “Well, what if I wanna talk about her, huh? I’m the one who stands to get burnt in this deal, Beauchamp. I’m the one who’s sticking my neck out. You can run home to your penthouse and your wife and your goddamn society parties. I’m stuck with … computer dating … and singles dances at the goddamn Jack Tar Hotel!”
    She leaped out of bed and headed for the bathroom.
    “What are you doing?” asked Beauchamp.
    “Brushing my teeth! Do you mind?”
    “Mary Ann, look … I …”
    “I can’t hear you. The water’s running.”
    He shouted. “I’m sorry, Mary Ann!”
    “Mrrpletlrp.”
    He joined her in the bathroom, standing behind her, stroking her stomach appeasingly. “I said I’m sorry.”
    “Would you mind getting out of the bathroom?”
    “I love you.”
    Silence.
    “Did you hear me?”
    “Beauchamp, you’re making me spill the Scope!”
    “I love you, goddammit!”
    “Not here, for God’s sake!”
    “Yes, here!”
    “Beauchamp, for God’s sake! Beauchamp!”
    She propped her chin on her elbow and studied his sleeping Keane-kid face. He was snoring so softly that it sounded like a purr. His right arm, tanned and dark-furred, was flung across her waist.
    He was talking in his sleep.
    At first it was gibberish. Then she thought she heard a name. She couldn’t make it out, though. It wasn’t DeDe … and it wasn’t Mary Ann.
    She leaned closer. The sounds grew more obscure. He rolled over on his stomach, withdrawing his arm from her waist. He began to snore again.
    She slipped out of bed and tiptoed to the window. The moon was slashing a silvery wake across the ocean. “That’s a Moon River,” her brother Sonny had told her when she was ten. She had believed him. She had also believed that someday she would be Audrey Hepburn and someone would come along to be George Peppard.
    For the next two hours, she sat by the fire and read Nicholas and Alexandra.

Coming Clean in the Marina
    B RIAN’S PREY WAS SITTING IN A PLASTIC CHAIR IN THE Come Clean Center’s shag-carpeted waiting area. She was wearing orange slacks that could have protected a road crew at night.
    Her Mao Tse-tung T-shirt was stretched so tightly across her chest that the Chairman was grinning broadly.
    And she was reading a People magazine.
    Brian hesitated for a moment in front of the dispenser, feigning indecision. Then he turned around.
    “Uh … excuse me? Could you tell me the difference between Downy and Cheer?”
    She looked up from an article on Cher and peered at him through cobalt-blue contacts. Chewing the cud of her Carefree Sugarless, she sniffed out the new bull who had pawed his way into her pasture.
    “Downy’s a fabric softener,” she smiled. “It makes your clothes all soft and sweet-smelling. Here … wanna try some of mine?”
    Brian smiled back. “Sure you got enough?”
    “Sure.”
    She dug a bottle of Downy out of her red plastic laundry basket. “See? It says here …”
    Brian moved next to her. “Where?”
    “Here … on the label under …”
    “Oh, yeah.” Her cheek was inches away. He could smell her Charlie. “I see … April fresh.”
    She giggled, reading from the label. “And it helps eliminate static cling.”
    “I hate to cling statically, don’t you?”
    She turned and looked at him quizzically, then continued to read. “Whites white and colors bright.”
    “Of course.”
    “Softens deep and luxurious.”
    “Mmm. Deep … and luxurious.”
    She jerked away from him suddenly, then