Tales of the City 01 - Tales of the City

“What plan?”
    “The jockey shorts dance contest.”
    “I’ve been practicing all week, woman. You’re coming, aren’t you? It’s tomorrow at five-thirty.”
    “What the hell for?”
    “I don’t know … moral support, I guess.”
    “Jon’ll go with you.”
    “No. I’d rather Jon didn’t know about this, Mona.”
    “O.K.,” she said quietly. “I’ll go.”

Renewing Vows
    B EAUCHAMP WAS WAITING FOR HER AT THE PSA TERMI nal, surrounded by stewardesses in pink-and-orange mini-skirts. When DeDe caught his eye, he smiled phosphorescently and pushed his way through the crowd to her side.
    He was deeply tanned, and his eyes danced with genuine surprise.
    “You look great!” he beamed. “God, you’re a new person!”
    It’s possible, she thought, that I am two new people. But even that prospect couldn’t dim the triumph she felt at Beauchamp’s reaction.
    She had planned on being cool with him, but one look at his face melted her Catherine Deneuve icicle.
    “It wasn’t easy,” she said finally.
    Then he crushed her in his arms and kissed her passionately on the mouth. “I swear to God I’ve missed you!” he said, burying his face in her hair.
    It was almost more than she could take. Was this what he had needed all along? Two weeks alone in the city. Enough time to put things in perspective, to discover what she had meant to him.
    Or was he simply intrigued by her new body?
    On the way back to Telegraph Hill he briefed her on the fortnight she had missed.
    The family was fine. Mother had spent several days at the house in St. Helena, catching up on correspondence while Faust received treatment from the family vet. Daddy seemed in good spirits. He and Beauchamp had chatted amiably over drinks. Several times.
    DeDe smiled at that. “He really likes you, Beauchamp.”
    “I know.”
    “I’m glad you got a chance to talk … man to man, I mean.”
    “So am I. DeDe?”
    “Uh huh?”
    “Is there anything I can do to let you know I still love you?”
    She turned to study his profile, as if uncertain that the words had come from him at all. His hair was swept back in the wind; his eyes were fixed firmly on the freeway. Only his mouth, boyishly vulnerable, betrayed the turmoil within.
    DeDe reached over and placed her hand gently on his thigh.
    Beauchamp continued. “Do you know when I missed you the most?”
    “Beauchamp, you don’t need … When?”
    “In the morning. Those few terrible moments between sleeping and waking when you’re not sure where you are or even why you are. I missed you then. I needed you then, DeDe.”
    She squeezed his thigh. “I’m glad.”
    “I want to make things better between us.”
    “We’ll see.”
    “I do, DeDe. I’m going to try. I promise you.”
    “I know.”
    “You don’t believe me, do you?”
    “I want to, Beauchamp.”
    “I don’t blame you. I’m an asshole.”
    “Beauchamp …”
    “I am. I’m an asshole. But I’ll make it up to you, I promise.”
    “A day at a time, O.K.?”
    “Right. A day at a time.”
    At Halcyon Hill a dying sun slipped behind the trees as Frannie strolled in the garden with her only confidante.
    “I don’t know what’s happened to Edgar,” she said, sipping disconsolately at her Mai Tai. “He used to care about things … about us…. You know, it’s funny, but when Eddie was in France during the war, I used to miss him terribly. He wasn’t with me, but he was, you know…. Now he’s with me, but he’s not … and goddammit, I like missing him the other way more!”
    Her eyes were brimming with tears now, but she didn’t brush them away. She was lost in another time, when loneliness wasn’t barren but beautiful, when snapshots and love letters and the honeyed voice of Bing Crosby had eased her gently through the most difficult winter of her life.
    But now it was summer, and Bing lived just over the next hill. Why hadn’t things worked out?
    “ ‘I’m … dreammminnngg … of a … whiiite … Chrisss-smusss … juss like the ones I usssse to know …’”
    Her tears kept her from finishing. “I’m sorry,” she whimpered to her companion. “I shouldn’t burden you with this, baby. You’re so patient … so good…. If it weren’t for you, baby, I’d be like Helen … yes, I would … lunching with her decorator, for God’s sake! C’mon. There’s a teensy-weensy little bit of Mai Tai left in the pitcher.”
    She poured some Mai Tai into a large plastic bowl on the terrace.
    Faust,