Tales of the City 02 - More Tales of the City

can’t stand it!”
    “You can’t? Honey, Miss Gidde over there practically ruined her nails on the Princess phone this morning just spreading the news.”
    “I did not.” The host was indignant.
    “You told me. ”
    “Well, that was all.”
    “Stoker says you told him too.”
    “She lies!”
    Charles Hillary Lord needed more dish. “Christ, Billy, an Ornamental? DeDe’s been doing it with an Ornamental? ”
    “They have teeny peepees.” This from Archibald Anson Gidde.
    “I think you’re all disgustingly prejudiced,” said Anthony Latimer Hughes, joining the group.
    “Oh, Mary! You’re not having another Chinoiserie period, are you, darling?” Gidde again.
    “There are two things one should know about San Francisco,” interjected Charles Hillary Lord. “Never meet anyone at the Top of the Mark. And never walk through Chinatown in the rain.”
    “Why?” chorused everyone.
    “Because they’re so short. Their umbrellas will blind a white man!”
    Across the room huddling under the Claes Oldenburg, Edward Paxton Stoker, Jr., swapped pleasantries with his host, Richard Evan Hampton.
    “I wish,” said the guest, “that Jon Fielding were here.”
    “Oh, pullease!” Rick Hampton had never fully recovered from the fall soiree at which Jon Fielding had suddenly exploded, exiting in a terrible huff. “You won’t find that bitch on any guest list of mine, Edward.”
    “But he is DeDe’s gynecologist, and I’m sure he—”
    “ And an Occasional Piece for Beauchamp.”
    “Not any more he isn’t.”
    “Really?”
    “The doctor, as we all know he is wont to do, got very sanctimonious all of a sudden and gave our Beauchamp the old heave-ho. Beauchamp was livid. ”
    “I’d love to hear Fielding’s version of it!”
    “You’ll have to wait a while, I’m afraid. He’s on the way to Acapulco.”
    “What on earth for?”
    “What else? A gynecologists’ convention.”
    The richer—and older—half of the Hampton-Giddes rolled his eyes laboriously. “Acapulco has gotten so tacky these days.”

Fantasy on the Fantail
    S OMEWHERE OFF THE COAST OF MEXICO, A DAZZLING midday sun found dozens of willing worshipers on the fantail of the Pacific Princess. Mary Ann was on her stomach—her bikini top untied—when an unannounced hand glopped something gooey on her back.
    “Mouse?”
    Silence.
    “Mouse!”
    “I do not know thees Mouse, signorina. I am but a seemple Italian dining room steward who wants to make ze whoopee weez ze beyootiful, horny American girls!”
    “You smoked that joint, didn’t you?”
    Michael sat down next to her and sighed dramatically. “I wish you’d learn to fantasize.”
    “What is that stuff, anyway?”
    “What stuff? Oh … tortuga cream. The room steward gave it to me. He says they make it in Mazatlán.”
    “It smells yummy.”
    “Uh huh. Ground-up turtles.”
    “Mouse!”
    “Well, that’s what he said.”
    “Ick!”
    “What the hell do you think Polly Bergen uses? Rose petals?”
    Mary Ann sat up, blinking into the sun, holding her bikini top in place with her right arm.
    “Tie me up, will you?”
    “Bondage already? You haven’t tried bingo yet. And there’s a swell seniors mambo class this afternoon in the Carrousel Lounge, if you’d care to—”
    “Mouse … don’t look now, but he just dove into the pool.”
    “Who?”
    “Our Mystery Man. The guy you saw when we were boarding.”
    “The one who was cruising us?”
    Mary Ann corrected him. “One of us.”
    “Maybe he’s into three-ways.”
    “Mouse, do you think he’s gay?”
    “Well … his backstroke is a little nellie.”
    “Mouse, I’m serious.”
    “Then ask him, dummy! Invite him over for a Pina Colada!”
    Mary Ann turned and studied the strong white body thrashing through the green water of the pool. He was a strawberry blond, she noticed, and he shook his head like a wet collie when he surfaced at the ladder.
    She looked back at Michael. “You don’t think I’ll do it, do you?”
    Michael just grinned at her, maddeningly.
    “OK. Just watch me!”
    The wet collie was stretched out on a towel at the pool’s edge. Mary Ann approached as casually as possible, her eyes fixed on the surface of the water. Her intent was to look vigorous and liberated, like Candice Bergen out for a swim after a rough day of photographing the African wilds.
    The collie looked up and smiled. “The only way to do it is to close your eyes and jump.”
    “Is it cold?” Mary Ann