Tales of the City 03 - Further Tales of the City

want this to go on forever.”
    He turned and looked at the lights again. “Two weeks isn’t forever.”
    Prue’s brow furrowed. “Luke …”
    “Don’t plan things, Prue. Or you’ll lose the moment.”
    “What if I want more than the moment?”
    “You can’t. We can’t.”
    “Why? There’s no reason in the world why this can’t keep going when we get back to San …”
    “There are lots of reasons.”
    “What? Why can’t we just …?”
    “Hush, darling … hush.” He drew her closer, stroking her hair as if she were a child. “You want so much, my love … so much.”
    She pulled away from him, suddenly disoriented, flailing for absolutes. “Is it too much to want to build on what we have? My God, Luke … have I been reading this wrong? Haven’t I seen love in your eyes?”
    “Yes,” he nodded, “yes, you have.”
    “Then what is it?”
    He regarded her for a moment, then shook his head slowly. “Who are we kidding, Prue? Your friends will never buy this act.”
    “Luke … you would charm my friends.”
    “Like that old bat with the Vietnamese orphans? No, thank you. I’m not interested in charming the bourgeoisie … and they’d see that in about ten minutes.”
    Prue didn’t hide her pique. “If it really matters to you, that old bat—as you call her—lost a daughter and two grandchildren in Guyana. Those orphans are obviously her means of compensating for the loss of …”
    “What’s her name?”
    The ferocity of his query startled her. “Frannie Halcyon. I introduced you, didn’t I?”
    “No. The daughter’s name.”
    “Oh. DeDe Day. DeDe Halcyon Day. The papers made a big fuss about it at the time. You must’ve read … Luke, is something the matter?”
    He was standing there, ramrod-straight, his hands clamped on the railing. A vein was throbbing in his neck, and his breathing seemed curiously erratic.
    Prue struggled to undo the damage. “Luke, I know you’re not insensitive. I didn’t mean to accuse you of …”
    He wheeled around to face her. “It’s all right … it’s all right. I’m sorry I yelled at you. Forgive me, will you? Will you do that?”
    “Oh, Luke!” She scooped him into her arms and wept against his shoulder. “I love you, darling. I’d forgive you for anything.”
    “I pray you don’t have to,” he said.

Telepathy
    T HESE DAYS, MARY ANN DID HER BANKING AT THE CO lumbus Avenue branch of the Bank of America. She frequented this graceful old North Beach landmark because (a) it had starred in a Woody Allen movie (Take the Money and Run) and (b) its tellers were cheerful, Italian and gossipy.
    Today’s was no exception.
    “My husband and I have never fit in,” announced a particularly aggressive teller in her late thirties. She delivered this information so earnestly that it almost seemed as if Mary Ann had requested it.
    “Really?” said Mary Ann.
    “Never. Never. Years ago when nice girls didn’t live with nice boys without benefit of matrimony, Joe and I were shacked up big as life. Then suddenly everybody was shacking up. What do we do? We get married. O.K., so along comes ZPG, and nobody’s having babies, right? Wrong. Joe and I had babies like crazy. Now suddenly it’s terribly fashionable to have babies again, so a lot of people my age are experiencing motherhood and mid-life crisis at the same time. Joe and me, our children are teenagers now, fairly independent. We’ve got the leisure to plan our mid-life crisis. He’s decided to buy a Porsche and have an affair with a nineteen-year-old. My plans are roughly the same. I tell you … you can’t help but gloat a little.”
    This charming chronology (and the check from Frannie Halcyon she had just deposited) kept Mary Ann smiling all the way home from the bank.
    Then she stopped to consider her own options:
    Of course, she would have children. She had always planned on that. But when? She was thirty now. When? After her career had taken hold? When would that be? Did babies mean marriage? She wasn’t that modern, was she? What about Brian? Would marriage merely heighten his insecurities about her upward career mobility? Did he even want to get married at this point? Was it fair to ask him to wait? Would he wait?
    Who should be the first to ask?
They slept at her place that night, teaspoon nestled in tablespoon. Just before dawn, she felt him slip away from her. She rolled over, slept some more, and awoke half-an-hour later to find him sitting naked in the wingback