Tales of the City 02 - More Tales of the City

however, begrudged her mother the simple indulgence of even discussing her new heirs. She was downright sullen on the subject, Frannie observed. And that struck the matriarch as very strange indeed.
    “And why can’t I dote a little, DeDe?”
    “Because you’re using it, Mother.”
    “Oh, piffle!”
    “You’re using it as an excuse to—I don’t know—an excuse to keep from living your own life again.”
    “I’m half a person, DeDe.”
    “Daddy’s gone, Mother. You’ve got to get it together.”
    “Then let me start shopping for the babies. There’s a precious place called Bebe Pierrot in Ghirardelli Square, and I’m sure I could—”
    “We don’t even know their sexes yet.”
    “Yellow would be darling, then.”
    DeDe frowned. “I loathe yellow.”
    “You love yellow. You’ve always loved yellow. DeDe, darling, what is the matter?”
    “Nothing.”
    “You can’t lie to me, DeDe.”
    “Mother, please … can’t we just …?”
    “I have to feel needed, darling. Can’t you see that? No one needs me anymore.” The matriarch began to sniffle.
    DeDe reached out and took her hand. “The deYoung needs you. The Legion of Honor needs you.”
    Frannie smiled bitterly. “So that’s how it goes, then. When you’re young, it’s your family that needs you. When you’re old, it’s museums.”
    DeDe rolled her eyes in exasperation. “Look, if you’re determined to wallow in self-pity, there’s not a damn thing I can do about it. It’s just such waste, that’s all.”
    Frannie’s eyes were full of tears now. “What in God’s name do you expect me to do?”
    “I expect you …” DeDe softened her tone to one of daughterly concern. “I expect you to start being good to yourself again. Live it up a little. Join a backgammon club. Enroll in Janet Sassoon’s exercise class. Get Kevin Matthews to take you to the symphony, for heaven’s sake! His boyfriend is on Hydra until June.”
    “I know you’re right, but I—”
    “Look at yourself, Mother! You’ve got the money … you ought to be taking tucks in everywhere!”
    “DeDe!” Her daughter’s impertinence overwhelmed her.
    “Well, I mean it! Why not, for God’s sake? Face, boobies, fanny—the full catastrophe! What in the world have you got to lose?”
    “I simply don’t think it’s very dignified for a woman of my—”
    “Dignified? Mother, have you seen Mabel Sussman lately? Her face is as smooth as a baby’s fanny! Shugie says she found this marvelous man in Geneva who did it all with hypnosis!”
    Frannie blinked in disbelief. “There had to be some sort of surgery.”
    “Nope. All hypnosis—or so Shugie swears on a stack of Town and Countrys. ” DeDe giggled wickedly. “Wouldn’t you just die if one of these days somebody clapped their hands or said the secret word or something and the whole damn thing fell like a soufflé!”
    Frannie couldn’t help but laugh.
    And later that afternoon, feeling curiously clandestine, she drove into town to wander through F. A. O. Schwarz in search of a Steiff creature for the twins.
    She felt better now, so she toyed with the idea that maybe DeDe was right. Maybe she had moped too long, longer than was healthy, longer than Edgar himself would have wanted.
    As she left the store, she caught her reflection in the window of Mark Cross. She stopped in her tracks long enough to grasp the flesh under her ears and pull it tight across her cheekbones.
    “All right,” she said out loud. “All right!”

Sisters with a Secret
    M ONA RAMSEY’S LIFE WAS—IN HER OWN WORDS —down to the seeds and stems.
    Once a $25,000-a-year copywriter for Halcyon Communications, she had been relieved of that position following a brief, but satisfying, feminist tirade against the president of Adorable Pantyhose, the ad agency’s biggest client.
    Her subsequent days of leisure as Michael Tolliver’s roommate had been pleasant on a superficial level, but in the long run, emotionally unfulfilled. It was permanence she craved. Or so she had told herself when she moved out of 28 Barbary Lane to take up residence in D’orothea Wilson’s elegant Victorian house in Pacific Heights.
    D’orothea was a Halcyon model, perhaps the highest-paid black model on the West Coast. She and Mona had once been lovers in New York. Their San Francisco arrangement, however, had been devoid of passion, a bloodless pact designed to alleviate the loneliness that had begun to engulf both women.
    It hadn’t worked