Tales of the City 01 - Tales of the City

winds….”
    “Where in God’s name did you learn all this?”
    “Margaret used to read to me from Bulfinch’s Mythology .”
    “Margaret?”
    “At the Blue Moon Lodge. The lady who got first crack at you. Stop interrupting now.”
    “Sorry.”
    “Anyway, Ceyx went off on a sea voyage to consult an oracle because his brother had died and he was convinced that the gods had it in for him. Halcyone, on the other hand, had a terrible premonition that Ceyx would die during the voyage and begged him not to go.”
    “But he went anyway, of course.”
    “Of course. He was a busy executive, and she was an hysterical female. Naturally, there was a godawful storm and Ceyx was killed. Halcyone found his body several days later, floating offshore at the very spot where he had set sail.”
    “Delightful.”
    Anna pressed her fingers to his mouth. “Here comes the sweet part. Suddenly, Halcyone was transformed into a beautiful bird. She flew to her lover’s body and lighted on his chest, and instantly he became a bird, and Aeolus decreed that for one week each winter the seas would be calm, so that the halcyon birds could build their nest on a raft of twigs and hatch their young and live happily ever after.”
    “That’s nice,” said Edgar, looking up at her. “My father had more imagination than I gave him credit for.”
    “You just lost me.”
    “He made up the name. The real one was Halstern.”
    “Why on earth?”
    Edgar smiled and kissed her. “He wanted to be a Bohemian, I guess.”

DeDe Triumphs
    S UBMERGED IN FOUR FEET OF WARM WATER, DEDE HAL cyon Day gripped a volleyball uneasily between her knees.
    “Stay there,” she muttered, gritting her teeth. Twice in ten minutes she had torpedoed the movie star exercising next to her.
    The movie star smiled gamely, indicating no hard feelings. “It’s a bitch, isn’t it? I feel like I’ve got the Hindenburg between my legs.”
    Somehow still clutching the volleyball, DeDe went through her gyrations again, swinging her arms frenetically above her head. Every muscle in her body was screaming in pain.
    “Stretch it!” shouted the instructress at the edge of the pool. “Strrrreeetch that gorgeous body.”
    “Gorgeous?” groaned the movie star. “My ass is so waterlogged it looks like a Sunsweet prune.”
    DeDe grinned at her companion, delighting in the earthiness of a woman who had always seemed larger than life on the screen. Up close, the tracheotomy scar at the base of her neck testified to her mortality.
    But her eyes were violet.
    This was her second week at The Golden Door. For six rigorous days she had driven her body to its limits, rising at six forty-five to flop about the countryside in a pale-pink sweatsuit, her face stripped of makeup, her hair drab and icky in a thick coat of Vaseline. It was murder, but she was getting there.
    Wasn’t she?
    Well, at least she felt better. Breakfast in bed was enhanced by the fact that she actually looked forward to her nine o’clock Leonardo da Vinci exercises. Then there was the Jump for Joy session and the morning facial and yoga and a Kneipp Herbal Wrap and … goddammit, something must have been happening!
    At twilight, she would soak in the fan-shaped whirlpool bath, giggling happily with the movie star and half a dozen other members of the elite sisterhood. She felt like a girl again, placid and simple and whole. Her pride had returned, and somehow, miraculously, so had her self-control. Not once, but twice, she had talked the movie star out of leading a raid on the orange grove.
    She was over the hump now.
    The old DeDe—the pre-Beauchamp DeDe—was running her life again, and it felt damn good!
    “God, I can’t believe it!”
    “If it’s good,” the movie star scowled, “I don’t wanna hear it.”
    DeDe stepped off the scales, then on again, fiddling with the weights. “Look at that, would you? Would you just look at that? Eighteen pounds! I’ve lost eighteen pounds in two weeks!”
    “That’s abnormal. You should see a doctor.”
    “It’s a miracle!”
    “What the hell do you expect for three grand?” The movie star gave up the tough façade and burst into a radiant smile,enveloping DeDe in her still flabby arms. “Oh, I hope it makes you happy, DeDe!”
    For a moment, DeDe thought she would cry. Here was this idol—this goddess—and she was envious of DeDe! Nobody at home would ever believe it!
    They would simply have to believe their eyes.
    She felt like a different woman