Tales of the City 03 - Further Tales of the City

audience? Just that some performers made some viewers sweat more than others. Big fucking deal.
    She tried another tack. “But I wouldn’t have to be on camera all the time. I could research things, investigate. There are lots of subjects that the regular reporters don’t have the time or the inclination to cover.”
    Larry’s lip curled. “Like what?”
    “Well, like …” Think, she commanded herself, think! “Well, the gay community, for instance.”
    “Oh really?” he said, arching an eyebrow. “You know all about that, huh?”
    Mary Ann puzzled at his inflection. Did he think she was a lesbian? Or was he just toying with her again? “I have lots of … contacts there,” she said. A lie. but what-the-hell. Michael had lots of contacts there; it was practically the same thing.
    He smiled at her as a policeman would smile at a runaway child.
    “I’ll tell you the honest-to-God truth,” he said. “The public is sick of hearing about faggots.”

The Man in Her Life
    I F LARRY KENAN WAS AN ASSHOLE—FOR THERE WAS NO LONGER any doubt about that—Mary Ann’s paycheck at least provided certain amenities that made life in the city considerably more graceful: She ate at Ciao now.
    She drove a Le Car.
    She wore velvet blazers and button-down shirts over her Calvins—a look which Michael persisted in labeling as “Ivy Lesbian.”
    She had stripped her apartment of all furnishings that were either yellow or wicker and installed gun-metal gray industrial carpeting and high-tech steel factory shelving.
    She had canceled her subscription to San Francisco magazine and started reading Interview.
    She had abandoned Cost Plus forever.
Still, she couldn’t help but feel a certain frustration over the progress of her career.
    That frustration was only heightened later that night when she watched a particularly compelling episode of Lou Grant, one featuring a scrappy woman journalist in her struggle to uncover the truth.
    It was almost too painful to endure, so Mary Ann turned off the set and marched into the bathroom to Sassoon her hair. Sometimes a shower was the best of all possible sedatives.
    Her hair was shorter now than it had been in years. Waifish and sort of Leslie Caron-like with just the vaguest hint of New Wave. Anything more pronounced would have been pressing her luck with the management of the station.
    As she towel-dried her new do into place, she found it extraordinary that she had ever endured the rigors of long hair in the first place. (“You kept trying for a French twist,” Michael was fond of recalling, “but it kept going Connie Stevens on you.”) After searching in vain for her rabbit slippers, Mary Ann knotted herself into an oversized white terrycloth robe and climbed the stairs to the little house on the roof of 28 Barbary Lane.
    She paused for a moment outside the familiar orange door, peering out through an ivy-choked window at a night full of stars. An ocean liner slid past aglitter with lights, like a huge chandelier being dragged out to sea.
    Mary Ann heard herself sigh. Partly for the view. Partly for the man who waited inside.
    She entered without knocking, knowing he was already asleep. He had worked a double shift that day, and the crowd at Perry’s had been more boisterous and demanding than usual. As she expected, he was sprawled face down on the bed in his boxer shorts.
    She sat on the edge of the bed and laid her hand gently on the small of his back.
    The most beautiful part of a man, she thought. That warm little valley just before the butt begins. Well, maybe the second most beautiful.
    Brian stirred, then rolled over and rubbed his eyes with his fists the way that little boys do. “Hey,” he said throatily.
    “Hey,” she replied.
    She leaned over and lay against his chest, enjoying the heat of his body. When her mouth sought his, Brian turned his head away and mumbled a warning: “Moose breath, sweetheart.”
    She took his chin in her hand and kissed him anyway. “So?” she said. “What if the moose is cute?”
    Chuckling, he wrapped his arms around her. “So how was your day?”
    “Shitty,” she said, speaking directly into his ear.
    “You spoke to Larry Kenan?”
    “Uh-huh.”
    “And?”
    “He still wants nookie before he’ll negotiate.”
    Brian jerked away from her. “He said that?”
    “No.” Mary Ann smiled at his alarm. “Not in so many words. I just know how he operates. Bambi Kanetaka is living proof of that.”
    Brian pretended not to