Tales of the City 01 - Tales of the City

much? I mean … for secretarial work?”
    “Are you kidding? I’ve got Ph.D. candidates doing clerical work.” She used the first person as if these struggling scholars were her personal serfs. She wrote something on an index card and handed it to Mary Ann. “This is a small office-supply company on Market Street. The sales manager needs a Girl Friday. Ask for Mr. Creech.”
    He turned out to be a red-faced man of about fifty. He was wearing a burgundy polyester jacket with an oversized hound’s-tooth pattern. His trousers and tie were the same color.
    “You ever done sales work before?” He smiled and leaned back in a squeaky swivel chair.
    “Not … well, not exactly. For the past four years I’ve worked as a secretary for Lassiter Fertilizers in Cleveland. I wasn’t exactly in sales, but I had a lot of … you know … contact and all.”
    “Sounds good. Steady work. Always a good sign.”
    “I was also an admin assistant for the past year and a half, and I was attached to several of …”
    “Fine, fine … Now, I suppose you know what a Girl Friday is?”
    “Sort of gofer … right?” She laughed nervously.
    “Pay’s good. Six fifty a month. And we’re pretty relaxed around here … this being San Francisco.” His eyes were fixed on Mary Ann’s face. He began to chew the knuckle of his forefinger.
    “I like … an informal office,” said Mary Ann.
    “You like Vegas?”
    “Sir?”
    “Earl.”
    “What?”
    “Name’s Earl. Informal, remember?” He smiled and wiped his forehead. He was sweating profusely. “I asked if you like Vegas. We go to Vegas a lot. Vegas, Sacramento, L.A., Hawaii. Lotsa fringe benefits.”
    “Sounds … really nice.”
    He winked at her. “If you’re not … you know … uptight.”
    “Oh.”
    “Oh, what?”
    “I’m uptight, Mr. Creech.”
    He plucked a paper clip off the desk and tore it apart slowly without looking up. “Next,” he said quietly.
    “Sir?”
    “Get out.”
    She went home to her new apartment and cried, falling asleep as the afternoon sun spilled in the window. She woke up at five and scoured the kitchen sink for therapy. She ate some blueberry yogurt and made a list of things she would need for her apartment.
    She wrote a letter to her parents. Optimistic, but vague.
    There was a noise outside her door. She listened for a moment, then opened it. Plum-colored silk fluttered at the top of the stairway and descended out of sight.
    There was a note on Mary Ann’s door:
Something from my garden to welcome you to your new home.
A NNA M ADRIGAL
P.S. I’ll shoot you if you write
your mother about this.
    Taped to the note was a neatly rolled joint.

Enter Mona
    T HE WOMAN DOWN BY THE GARBAGE CANS HAD FRIZZY red hair and was wearing a country-chic cotton sharecropper’s dress.
    She dropped her Hefty bag with a disdainful wrinkle of her nose and smiled at Mary Ann. “Garbage, you know, is very revealing. It beats the shit out of tarot cards!”
    “What would you say about … let’s see … four yogurt cartons, a Cost Plus bag, some avocado peels and assorted cellophane wrappings?”
    The woman pressed her fingers to her forehead like a psychic. “Ah, yes … the subject takes care of herself … nutritionally, that is. She is probably on a diet and is … furnishing a new apartment!”
    “Uncanny!” Mary Ann smiled. “She also … likes growing things. She didn’t throw out the avocado pit, so she’s probably rooting it in her kitchen.”
    “Bravo!” Mary Ann extended her hand. “I’m Mary Ann Singleton.”
    “I know.”
    “From my garbage?”
    “From our landlady. The Mother of Us All.” She shook Mary Ann’s hand firmly. “I’m Mona Ramsey … right below you.”
    “Hi. You should have seen what Mother taped on my door last night.”
    “A joint?”
    “She told you?”
    “Nope. It’s standard operating procedure. We all get one.”
    “She grows it in the garden?”
    “Right over there behind the azaleas. She’s even got names for the plants … like Dante and Beatrice and … Hey, want some ginseng?”
    “What?”
    “Ginseng. I’m brewing some upstairs. C’mon.”
    Mona’s second-floor apartment was adorned with Indian wall hangings, assorted street signs, and Art Deco light globes. Her dining table was an industrial cable spool. Her armchair, a converted Victorian toilet.
    “I used to have curtains,” she smiled, handing Mary Ann a mug of tea, “but after a while paisley bedspreads seemed so … Sixties