Tales of the City 03 - Further Tales of the City

I had planned on …”
    “Please. ” The word reverberated like a scream in a tomb. It was all Mary Ann needed to hear.
    “Where?” she asked.
    “Here. Halcyon Hill. I don’t want to leave the house.”
    “DeDe, what on earth has …?”
    “Just come, O.K.? Bring your tape recorder. We can eat breakfast here. I’m really sorry about this. I’ll explain everything in the morning.”
    When Mary Ann set the receiver down, Brian smiled at her sweetly. “Scratch the roller-skating, huh?”
    “I’m afraid so,” she said.
    “What’s up?”
    “I wish I knew,” said Mary Ann.

Nothing to Lose
    I T TOOK PRUE GIROUX EXACTLY TWELVE HOURS TO SUCCUMB completely to the wild romanticism of Father Paddy’s scheme. The following morning she hurried out to the park and made her own pitch, snuggled cozily in Luke’s arms.
    He gazed at the ceiling in stony silence.
    “Well?” asked Prue.
    “You would do that?” he said finally.
    “I would if I thought it would bring us closer together.”
    “Is that what you think?”
    “It might.”
    Another long silence.
    “Besides, if it doesn’t work out, what harm has been done? We’ve got nothing to lose, Luke.”
    “I hate the bourgeoisie,” he replied sternly. “I’ve spent most of my life subverting it … or running from it.”
    The columnist bristled. “Am I the bourgeoisie? Is that what you’re telling me?”
    He leaned down and kissed her forehead. “Unlike a lot of good things, you’re best when taken out of context.”
    “But … this would be out of context. Just us, if that’s the way we want it. Two weeks that belong to us, Luke.”
    “And then what?”
    “I don’t know. Does it matter? Aren’t you the one who said to forget about forever?”
    She had him there. He smiled at her in concession, then shook his head slowly. “Prue, I have no clothes for that sort of thing, none of the …”
    “I can take care of that.”
    “I don’t want your charity.”
    “It’s a loan, then. It all reverts to me after two weeks. For God’s sake, you’re not selling your soul, Luke.”
    “That remains to be seen.”
    “Look,” she snapped, “you keep telling me that I’d be ashamed to be seen with you. Well then … prove it, if you can!”
    “Prue …”
    “The truth is … you’re ashamed to be seen with me. You’re such a snob, Luke. You’re the biggest snob I ever met!”
    “If it helps you to think that, then go ahead.”
    “What have you got to lose, Luke?”
    He rolled away from her.
    “Do you remember what you said that first night? You said you would love me unconditionally, at my pleasure … as little or as much as I wanted. Well … this is what I want. Do this for me, Luke.”
    “I meant here,” he said quietly, speaking to the wall.
    But she knew she had won.

DeDe’s Tale
    M ARY ANN TURNED ON THE SONY. “I’M AFRAID I’M a little muddled. I’m not exactly sure where to begin.”
    “It isn’t your fault,” said DeDe. “I haven’t let you play with a full deck.” The flesh around her eyes was so dark, Mary Ann observed, that she could have been recovering from a nose job. What on earth had happened?
    “Where are the children?” asked Mary Ann.
    “Upstairs with Mother and Emma. I don’t want them here while this is happening. Any of them.”
    “I see.”
    “Frankly, I don’t know what you think of me at this point. I suppose you have every reason to regard me as a certified nut case.”
    “No way.”
    DeDe smiled feebly. “Well, it doesn’t get better, I can promise you. I suppose you already know that Jim Jones wasn’t a healthy man?”
    “To put it mildly.”
    “I mean physically, as well. He had diabetes and hypertension. One of the women who slept with him told me he was supposed to have seventeen hundred calories a day, but he was hooked on soda pop and sweet rolls. He also had a chronic coughing condition.”
    “I’ve read about that,” said Mary Ann.
    “He coughed all the time. A lot of Temple members thought he was just taking on their diseases.”
    “I don’t understand.”
    “Well, he cured people, you know. Or he went through the motions, anyway. A lot of people looked on him as a healer. He would hold healing sessions where he’d pray for somebody who had, say, cancer … and he’d leave the room and come back a few minutes later with a handful of chicken gizzards which he said was the cancer.”
    “You mean …”
    “He had yanked the cancer right out of their body.”
    “They