Tales of the City 01 - Tales of the City

Vincent?”
    “Yes.”
    “This guy wants somebody named Rebecca.”
    “Tell him you’re Rebecca’s replacement.” Mary Ann spoke into the phone. “Sir … I’m Rebecca’s replacement.”
    “Liar.”
    “Sir?”
    “Stop calling me sir! How old are you, anyway?”
    “Twenty-five.”
    “What have you done to Rebecca?”
    “Look, I don’t even know Rebecca!”
    “You don’t, huh?”
    “No.”
    “You wanna suck my weenie?”
    Vincent stood in the middle of the room like a frightened rodent, his sad eyes blinking rhythmically above the brush pile of his beard.
    “Mary Ann?”
    She didn’t look up. She was still on her knees over the wastebasket.
    “Can I get you something, Mary Ann? A Wash’n Dri, maybe? I think there’s a Wash’n Dri in the desk drawer.”
    She nodded.
    Vincent handed her the moist towelette, placing his hand lamely on her shoulder.
    “I’m sorry … I really am. I didn’t mean to freak you out. God, I’m really …”
    She shook her head, pointing to the dangling telephone receiver. It was beeping angrily. Vincent returned it to its hook.
    “Who was that?”
    She straightened up warily, assessing Vincent. Everything seemed to be there. “He … a crank, I think.”
    “Oh … Randy.”
    “Randy?”
    Vincent nodded. “Rebecca called him that. I should have mentioned him.”
    “He calls a lot?”
    “Yeah. Rebecca figured if he called anybody it might as well be us.”
    “Oh …”
    “It’s like … you know … we’re here for everybody, and …”
    “What happened to Rebecca?”
    “Oh … she OD’d.”
    Once again they sat by the phones.
    Vincent offered her a kindly smile. “You a junkie or something?”
    “What?”
    He picked up her box of Dynamints. “You’ve eaten half a box in five minutes.”
    “I guess I’m edgy.”
    “Have some of mine.” He handed her a bag of trail mix. “I got it at Tassajara.”
    “In Ghirardelli Square?”
    He smiled indulgently. “Near Big Sur. A Zen retreat.”
    “Oh.”
    “Lay off the sugar, O.K.? It’ll kill ya.”

The Landlady Bares Her Soul
    O .K.,” SAID MONA, DOWNING HER VERDICCHIO. “What was that cryptic comment all about?”
    Mrs. Madrigal smiled. “What did I say?”
    “You said Barbary Lane chose me. You meant that literally, didn’t you?”
    The landlady nodded. “Don’t you remember how we met?”
    “At the Savoy-Tivoli.”
    “Three years ago this week.”
    Mona shrugged. “I still don’t get it.”
    “It wasn’t an accident, Mona.”
    “What?”
    “I engineered it. Rather magnificently, I think.” She smiled, swirling the wine in her glass.
    Mona thought back to that distant summer evening. Mrs. Madrigal had come to her table with a basket of Alice B. Toklas brownies. “I made too many,” she had said. “Take two, but save one for later. They’ll knock you on your ass.”
    A spirited conversation had followed, a long winy chat about Proust and Tennyson and the Astral Plane. By the end of the evening, the two women were solid friends.
    The next day Mrs. Madrigal had called about the apartment.
    “This is the madwoman you met at the Tivoli. There’s a house on Russian Hill that claims it’s your home.”
    Mona had moved in two days later.
    “But why?” asked Mona.
    “You intrigued me … and you were also a celebrity.”
    Mona rolled her eyes. “Right.”
    “Well, you were. Everybody knew about your swimwear campaign for J. Walter Thompson.”
    “In New York?”
    Mrs. Madrigal nodded. “I read the trade journals from time to time.”
    “You blow me away sometimes.”
    “Good.”
    “What if I had said no?”
    “About the apartment, you mean?”
    “Yeah.”
    “I don’t know. I would have tried something else, I guess.”
    “I guess I should be flattered.”
    “Yes. I guess you should.”
    Mona felt herself reddening. “Anyway, I’m glad.”
    “Well … here’s to it!”
    “Uh uh,” said Mona, watching the landlady’s upraised glass. “Not until I find out what ‘it’ is.”
    Mrs. Madrigal shrugged. “What else, dear? Home.”
    Mary Ann was already there, recuperating from her night at the switchboard.
    She had installed her new walnut-grained shelf paper, scrubbed the ick off the back of the stove, and replaced the blue-water thingahoochie in the toilet tank.
    When Mona stopped by, she was hunched over the kitchen table.
    “What the fuck are you doing?”
    “Alphabetizing my spice rack.”
    “Jesus.”
    “It’s therapeutic.”
    “The switchboard was