Tales of the City 01 - Tales of the City

in the kitchen for a vegetable. There was nothing but a Baggie full of limp lettuce and a half-eaten package of Stouffer’s Spinach Soufflé. She decided on cottage cheese with chives.
    She supped by candlelight, bent over a Ms. article entitled “The Quest for Multiple Orgasm.” Music was provided by KCBS-FM, the mellow station:
Out of work, I’m out of my head.
Out of self-respect,
I’m out of bread,
Underloved and underfed,
I wanna go home …
It never rains in California,
But, girl, don’t they warn ya.
It pours, man, it pours.
    After dinner, she decided to try the “monster mask” formula from her herbal cosmetics book. She cooked a saucepan of the glop—using oatmeal, dried prunes and an overripe fig—and smeared it relentlessly over her face.
    For twenty minutes, she lay perfectly still in a sudsy tub.
    She could feel the mask drying, chipping off in gross, leprous flakes and sinking into the water above her chest. This would kill another ten minutes. Then what?
    She could write her parents.
    She could fill out her application to the Sierra Club.
    She could walk down to Cost Plus and buy another coffee mug.
    She could call Beauchamp.
    Lurching out of the bathtub like a reject from a Japanese horror film, she examined her face in the mirror.
    She looked like a giant Shake ‘n Bake pork chop.
    And for what?
    For Dance Your Ass Off? For Mr. Halcyon? For Michael Whatshisname downstairs? For a married man who mutters strange names in his sleep?
    She would not call him. The love he offered was deceitful, destructive and dead-end.
    He would have to call her.
    She fell asleep just before midnight, with Nicholas and Alexandra in her lap.
    Over on Telegraph Hill, DeDe was eyeing Beauchamp malevolently as he adjusted the ship’s clock in the library.
    “I talked to Splinter today.”
    He didn’t look up. “Mmm.”
    “Apparently he had forgotten about your little Guardsmen function on Mount Tam.”
    “Oh, well … Did he call here?”
    “No.”
    “I don’t get it.”
    “I … I called Oona. He answered the phone.”
    “You detest Oona.”
    “We’re doing a League project together. The Model Ghetto Program in Hunters Point. Beauchamp, why do you suppose Splinter forgot such an important meeting? He says you two are on the same committee.”
    “Beats me.”
    She grunted audibly. Beauchamp turned and whistled to the corgi, half asleep on the couch. The dog yelped excitedly when his master opened a desk drawer and produced his leash.
    “I’m taking Caesar for his constitutional.”
    DeDe frowned. “I’ve walked him twice already.”
    “O.K. So I need the air myself.”
    “What’s the matter? Not enough air on Mount Tam?”
    He left without answering, stopping by the bedroom on his way downstairs. He closed the door quietly and dug in his underwear drawer for an object he had brought with him from Mendocino.
    Then, slipping it into the breast pocket of his sports coat, he descended into the dark of the garage, where he planted it in the glove compartment of the Porsche.
    A nice touch, he told himself as Caesar led him up the Filbert Steps to Coit Tower.
    A very nice touch.

Mona vs. the Pig
    O N THE WORST OF ALL POSSIBLE MONDAY MORN ings, Mona stopped by Mary Ann’s desk en route to a conference with Mr. Siegel, the president of Adorable Pantyhose.
    “What’s the matter with you, Babycakes?”
    “Nothing … everything!”
    “Yeah. The moon’s in ca-ca. Speaking of which, I have a dog-and-pony show for Fartface Siegel this morning. Have you seen Beauchamp?”
    “Nope.”
    “If you see him, he’s got ten minutes to get down there. Hey … are you O.K., Mary Ann?”
    “I’m fine.”
    “I have a Valium, if you want one.”
    “No. Thanks. I’m fine.”
    “I probably should have taken it myself.”
    Mona stood next to Beauchamp, her hand clamped rigidly to the storyboard.
    “Our approach should be carefree,” she explained. “We’re not backtracking … we’re simply improving. The old nylon crotch wasn’t unsafe. The new one is simply … better.”
    The client’s expression didn’t change.
    “The youth image is important, of course. The cotton crotch is young, vibrant, hip. The cotton crotch is for with-it women on the go.”
    Buddha would have to forgive her.
    She revealed the first card on the storyboard. It showed a young woman with a Dorothy Hamill haircut hanging off the side of a cable car. The copy read: “Under my clothes, I like to feel Adorable.”
    Mona