Tales of the City 04 - Babycakes

trying to fix him up. “Thanks anyway. You go ahead. I’ll hold down the fort. I’ll be glad to. Really.”
Ned regarded him for a moment, then sprang to his feet and began rearranging the seed packets in the revolving rack. It struck Michael as a defensive gesture. “Are you pissed?” he asked.
“Nope.”
“It just isn’t there right now, Ned.”
His partner slopped fiddling. “If you ask me … a good jack-off buddy would do you a world of good.”
“Ned …”
“O.K. All right. Forget it. I’ve done my Dolly Levi for the day.”
“Good.”
“I’m going, though. If you want to stay here and watch the roots rot, that’s O.K. by me.”
“Fine.”
They had little to say to each other for the next hour as they busied themselves with minor maintenance chores, things that didn’t get done when customers were there. After Ned had finished stacking pallets in the shed, he stepped into the office again and confronted Michael at the desk. “I wanted your company, you know. I didn’t do it to be nice.”
“I know.” He looked up and smiled.
Ned tousled his hair, then reached for his flight jacket. “I’ll be at home, if you change your mind. Go home, at least. There’s no point in hanging around here.”
He did go home eventually, and he spent the rest of the afternoon sorting laundry and cleaning his refrigerator. He was searching for another project when Mrs. Madrigal phoned just before five o’clock.
“Are you free for dinner, I hope?”
“So far,” he said.
“Marvelous. I’ve found a festive new place for Mexican food. I want us all to go. We haven’t had a family outing in ages.”
He accepted, wondering if this adventure was being organized specifically for his benefit. His friends were awfully solicitous these days and he often felt enormous pressure to be visibly happy in their presence. The reborn joy they sought in his eyes was something he would never be able to fake.
Mrs. Madrigal’s Mexican discovery turned out to be a cavernous room at the end of an alleyway near the Moscone Center. For reasons that no one could explain, it was called the Cadillac Bar. Its kitschy Lupe Velez ambience met with everyone’s approval, and they guzzled margaritas like conventioneers on a three-day binge in Acapulco.
Maybe it was the liquor, but something about Mary Ann’s demeanor seemed curiously artificial to Michael. She hung on Brian’s arm throughout much of the meal, laughing a little too loudly at his jokes, gazing rapturously into his eyes, looking more like the Little Woman than Michael had ever seen her look. When her gaze met Michael’s for a split second, she seemed to sense his puzzlement. “This place is great,” she said far too breezily. “We should all be sworn to secrecy.”
“Too late,” he replied, parrying her diversionary tactic with one of his own. “Look who just walked in.”
Both Mary Ann and Brian jerked their heads toward the door.
“Not now!” he whispered.
Mary Ann mugged at him. “You said to look.”
“It’s Theresa Cross,” he muttered, “with one of those fags from Atari.”
“Jesus,” said Brian. “Bix Cross’s widow?”
“You got it.”
“She’s on all his album covers,” said Brian.
“Parts of her,” amended Mary Ann. Brian leered. “Right.”
A cloud of confusion passed over Mrs. Madrigal’s face. “Her husband was a singer?”
“You know,” said Michael. “The rock star.”
“Ah.”
“She wrote My Life with Bix, ” Mary Ann added. “She lives in Hillsborough near the Halcyons.”
The landlady’s eyes widened. “Well, my dears, she appears to be coming this way.”
Michael assessed the leggy figure striding toward their table. There were probably no twigs lodged within the dark recesses of her hair, but the careful disarray of her hoyden-in-the-haystack hairdo was clearly meant to suggest that there might be. That and her red Plasticine fingernails were all he could absorb before the rock widow had descended on them in a sickly-sweet aura of Ivoire. “You!” she all but shouted. “You I want to talk to.”
The crimson talon was pointing at Mary Ann.
Clearing her throat, Mary Ann said: “Yes?”
“You are the best,” crowed Theresa Cross. “The best, the best, the best!”
Mary Ann reddened noticeably. “Thank you very much.”
“I watch you all the time. You’re Mary Jane Singleton.”
“Mary Ann.”
Mrs. Cross couldn’t be bothered. “That hat was the best. The best, the best, the best. Who are these cute