Tales of the City 01 - Tales of the City

real bitchy tone of voice so he’d get the point.”
    “But he didn’t?”
    “Fuck, no! He just sat there looking stuck-up and spaced out. He finally asked me to sit down, and he introduced me to this friend of his named Danny. Then the asshole just got up and walked out, leaving me with this Danny person, who had just finished his goddamn est training and was spouting all this shit about making a space, et cetera.”
    “What on earth did you do?”
    “What could I do? I went home with Danny. I sure as hell wasn’t gonna let him get up and leave me there munching pretzels all by myself. There’s such a thing as pride!”
    “Of course.”
    “Anyway, Danny had this really neat redwood apartment in Mill Valley, with lots of stained glass and all, but he was an absolute nut about ecology. As soon as we smoked a joint, he started babbling about saving the whales in Mendocino and screwing up the ozone layer with feminine hygiene spray.”
    “What?”
    “You know. Aerosol cans. The fucking ozone layer. Anyway, I was really bent out of shape at that point, and I said I thought it was a woman’s unalienable … inalienable … which is it?”
    “Inalienable.”
    “Inalienable right to use a feminine hygiene spray if she wanted to, ozone layer or no ozone layer!”
    “And …?”
    “And he said that just because I have some bizarre notion that my … you know … smells bad is no reason for me to expose the rest of the world to ultraviolet rays and skin cancer. Or something like that.”
    “Well … delightful evening.”
    “I mean, get him. Not only does he subject me to all this ecology crap, but … nothing happened.”
    “Nothing happened?”
    “Nada. Zilch. He drives me all the way across the bridge just to talk. He says he wants to relate to me as a person. Ha!”
    “So … what did you say?”
    “I told him to drive me home. And you know what he said?”
    Mary Ann shook her head.
    “He said, ‘I’m sorry you sprayed for nothing.’”
    Later that day, Mary Ann moved out of Connie’s apartment into 28 Barbary Lane. The move involved only a suitcase. Connie was visibly depressed.
    “You’ll still come see me, won’t you?”
    “Sure. And you’ll have to come visit me.”
    “Cross your heart?”
    “Hope to die.”
    Neither one of them believed it.

The Employment Line
    O N HER FIRST MORNING AT BARBARY LANE, MARY Ann scanned the Yellow Pages for the key to her future.
    According to a large, daisy-bedecked ad, the Metropolitan Employment Agency was “an individualized job placement service that really cares about your future.”
    She liked the sound of it. Solid yet compassionate.
    Gulping an Instant Breakfast, she put on her low-key navy-blue suit and caught the 41 Union to Montgomery Street. Her horoscope today promised “matchless opportunities for a Taurus who takes the bull by the horns.”
    The agency was on the fifth floor of a yellow-brick building that smelled of cigars and industrial ammonia. Someone with an eye for contemporary Californiana had decorated the walls of the waiting room with Art Nouveau posters and a driftwood-and-copper sculpture of a seagull in flight.
    Mary Ann sat down. There was no one in sight, so she picked up a copy of Office Management magazine. She was reading an article about desktop avocado gardening when a woman appeared from a cubicle in the back.
    “Have you filled out a form yet?”
    “No. I didn’t know …”
    “On the desk. I can’t talk to you until you’ve filled out a form.”
    Mary Ann filled out a form. She agonized over the questions. Do you own a car? Will you accept employment outside San Francisco? Do you speak any foreign languages?
    She took the form to the woman’s cubicle. “All done,” she said, as cheerfully and efficiently as possible.
    The woman grunted. She took the form from Mary Ann and readjusted her chain-guarded glasses on a small, piglike nose. Her hair was done in a salt-and-pepper DA.
    As she examined the form, her fingers manipulated an executive desk toy. Four steel balls suspended on strings from a walnut scaffolding.
    “No degree,” said the woman at last.
    “Like … college?”
    The woman snapped. “Yes. Like college.”
    “I had two years at a junior college in Ohio, if that …”
    “Major?”
    “Yes.”
    “Well?”
    “What?”
    “What did you major in?”
    “Oh. Art history.”
    The woman smirked. “We’ve certainly got enough of those for a while.”
    “Does a degree really matter that