Tales of the City 01 - Tales of the City

her mind. She had already read Town and Country, watered the ficas, walked the corgi, and chatted with Michael Vincent about the twig furniture for the living room.
    There was nothing left but bills.
    She sat down at her escritoire and began to disembowel windowed envelopes. The latest tally from Wilkes Bashford was $1,748. Daddy would be livid. She had already got three advances on her allowance that month.
    Screw it. Beauchamp could sweat out the bills for once. She was sick to death of it.
    Angrily, she rose and went to the window, confronting a panorama of almost ludicrous exoticism: the sylvan slope of Telegraph Hill, the crude grandeur of a Norwegian freighter, the bold blue sweep of the bay …
    And then … a sudden slash of electric green as a flock—no, the flock—of wild parrots headed north to the eucalyptus trees above Julius Castle.
    The birds were a legend on the hill. Once upon a time they had belonged to human beings. Then, somehow, they had fled their separate cages to band together in this raucous platoon of freedom fighters. According to most accounts, they divided their time daily between Telegraph Hill and Potrero Hill. Their screeching en route was regarded by many locals as a hymn to the liberated soul.
    But not by DeDe.
    In her opinion, the parrots were annoyingly arrogant. You could buy the most beautiful one in town, she observed, but that wouldn’t make it love you. You could feed it, care for it and exclaim over its loveliness, but there was nothing to guarantee that it would stay home with you.
    There had to be a lesson there somewhere.
    She locked herself in the bathroom and poured half a cup of Vitabath into the tub. She soaked for an hour, trying to calm her nerves. It helped to think of old times, carefree days in Hillsborough when she and Binky and Muffy would snitch the keys to Daddy’s Mercedes and tool down to the Fillmore to tease the black studs lurking on the street corners.
    Good times. Pre-Cotillion. Pre-Spinsters. Pre-Beauchamp.
    But what was there now?
    Muffy had married a Castilian prince.
    Binky was still living it up as the Jewish American Princess.
    DeDe was stuck with a Shabby Genteel Bostonian who thought he was a parrot.
    Lying there in the warm, fragrant water, she realized suddenly that most of her ideas about love and marriage and sex had solidified when she was fourteen years old.
    Mother Immaculata, her social studies teacher, had explained the whole thing:
    “Boys will try to kiss you, DeDe. You must expect that, and you must be prepared for it.”
    “But how?”
    “It’s as close as your heart, DeDe. The scapular you wear around your neck.”
    “I don’t see how …”
    “When a boy tries to kiss you, you must pull out your scapular and say, ‘Here, kiss this, if you must kiss something.’”
    DeDe’s scapular bore a picture of Jesus or St. Anthony or somebody. Nobody ever tried to kiss it.
    Mother Immaculata knew her stuff, all right.
    DeDe climbed out of the tub and stood in front of the mirror for a long time, smearing her face with Oil of Olay. The flesh under her chin was soft and spongy. Nothing drastic. It could still pass for baby fat.
    The rest of her body had a certain … voluptuous quality, she felt, though it would certainly be nice to have an outside opinion again. If Beauchamp didn’t want her, there were still people who did. There was no goddamn reason in the world why she had to act like Miss Peninsula Virgin of 1969.
    She found her address book and looked up Splinter Riley’s number.
    Splinter of the massive shoulders and molten eyes. Splinter, who had begged her one balmy night on Belvedere (1970? 1971?) to follow him to the Mallards’ boathouse, where he brutalized her Oscar de la Renta and took his manly pleasure with gratifying thoroughness.
    God! She had forgotten none of it. The mingled odors of sweat and Chanel for Men. The scrape of the damp planks against her fanny. The distant strains of Walt Tolleson’s combo playing “Close to You” up on the hillside.
    Her hand trembled as she dialed.
    Please, she prayed, don’t let Oona be at home.

The Chinese Connection
    M ERCIFULLY, IT WAS SPLINTER WHO ANSWERED THE phone.
    “Hello.”
    “Hi, Splint.”
    “Who’s this, please?”
    “Here’s a hint: ‘Sittin’ on the dock of the bay, wastin’ tiiiiime …’”
    “DeDe?”
    “I thought that might remind you.” Her tone was tantalizing, but ladylike, she felt.
    “Good to hear from you. What have you and