Tales of the City 01 - Tales of the City

Vassar.” She shrugged. “Besides … like … who am I hiding my body from?”
    Mary Ann peered out the window. “What about that building over …”
    “No … I mean … you know … nobody’s really hiding anything from the Cosmos. Beneath the rays of the White Healing Light, we are all … like … capital ? Naked. Who gives a shit about the little n?”
    “This tea is really …”
    “Why do you want to be a secretary?”
    “How did you know …?”
    “Big Mother. Mrs. Madrigal.”
    Mary Ann couldn’t hide her irritation. “She gets the news out quick enough, doesn’t she?”
    “She likes you.”
    “She told you that?”
    Mona nodded. “Don’t you like her?”
    “Well … yes … I mean, I haven’t really known her long enough to …”
    “She thinks you think she’s weird.”
    “Oh, great. Instant rapport.”
    “ Do you think she’s weird?”
    “Mona, I … yeah, I guess I do,” she smiled. “Maybe it’s my fault. We don’t have people like that in Cleveland.”
    “Too bad for Cleveland.”
    “Maybe so.”
    “She wants you in the family, Mary Ann. Give it a chance, O.K.?”
    Mona’s condescension irked Mary Ann. “There’s no problem here.”
    “No. Not now.”
    Mary Ann sipped the weird-tasting tea in silence.
    The best news of the day came minutes later. Mona was a copywriter for Halcyon Communications, a well-respected Jackson Square ad agency.
    Edgar Halcyon, chairman of the board, needed a woman to replace the personal secretary who had “gotten pregnant on him.”
    Mona arranged an interview for Mary Ann.
    “You’re not planning to run back to Cleveland, are you?”
    “Sir?”
    “You’re staying put?”
    “Yes, sir. I love San Francisco.”
    “They all say that.”
    “In my case, it happens to be the truth.”
    Halcyon’s huge white eyebrows leaped. “Are you that sassy with your parents, young lady?”
    Mary Ann deadpanned. “Why do you think I can’t go back to Cleveland?”
    It was risky, but it worked. Halcyon threw back his head and roared. “O.K.,” he said, regaining his composure. “That was it.”
    “Sir?”
    “That’s the last time you’ll see me laugh like that. Go get some rest. Tomorrow you’ll be working for the biggest son-of-a-bitch in town.”
    Mrs. Madrigal was weeding the garden when Mary Ann returned to Barbary Lane.
    “You got it, didn’t you?”
    Mary Ann nodded. “Mona call you?”
    “Nope. I just knew you would. You always get what you want.”
    Mary Ann smiled and shrugged. “Thanks, I think.”
    “You’re a lot like me, dear … whether you know it or not.”
    Mary Ann headed for the front door, then stopped and turned around. “Mrs. Madrigal?”
    “Yes?”
    “I … Thank you for the joint.”
    “You’re welcome, dear. I think you’ll like Beatrice.”
    “It was nice of you to …”
    The landlady dismissed her with a wave of her hand. “Go say your prayers or something. You’re a working girl now.”

The Ad Game
    H ALCYON COMMUNICATIONS HAD BEEN A FOOD-PRO cessing warehouse in an earlier incarnation. Now its mellow brick walls blazed with supergraphics and rental art. Matrons shopping for Louis Quinze bargains in Jackson Square often mistook its secretaries for top fashion models.
    Mary Ann liked that.
    What she didn’t particularly like was her job.
    “Is the flag out, Mary Ann?”
    That was Halcyon’s first question of the morning. Every morning.
    “Yes, sir.” She felt less like Lauren Hutton every second. Who would make Lauren Hutton raise the American flag before nine o’clock in the morning?
    “Are we out of coffee?”
    “I set it up for you in the conference room.”
    “Why in God’s name would … Oh, Christ … Adorable’s here?”
    Mary Ann nodded. “Nine o’clock conference.”
    “Goddammit. Tell Beauchamp to hustle his butt up here on the double.”
    “I’ve already checked, sir. He’s not in yet.”
    “Christ!”
    “I could check with Mildred, if you want. Sometimes he has coffee down in Production.”
    “Do it.”
    Mary Ann did it, feeling vaguely like a fifth-grader who had snitched on a classmate. She liked Beauchamp Day, actually, despite his irresponsibility. She may have even liked him for his irresponsibility.
    Beauchamp was Edgar Halcyon’s son-in-law, the husband of post-post-debutante DeDe Halcyon. A graduate of Groton and Stanford, the handsome young Bostonian had been a natural for The Bachelors when he moved to San Francisco as a Bank of America trainee in