Tales of the City 04 - Babycakes

other’s eyes, as if she weren’t there at all.
“Am I right?” asked D’orothea.
DeDe hesitated. “Partially, maybe.”
“Partially, hell. The woman is regressing.”
“All right … O.K., but it’s just her way of coping.”
“Oh. Right. Is that how you explain her behavior out there in the street?”
“What behavior?”
“Oh, please. The woman is obsessed with meeting the Queen.”
“Stop calling her ‘the woman.’ And she isn’t obsessed; she’s just … interested.”
“Sure. Uh-huh. Interested enough to hurdle that barricade.”
DeDe rolled her eyes. “She didn’t hurdle any barricade.” D’orothea snorted. “It wasn’t for lack of trying. I thought she was going to deck that secret service man!”
The air had cleared somewhat by the time Mrs. Halcyon returned with the children. Mary Ann submitted to polite chitchat for a minute or two, then pushed her chair back and smiled apologetically at the matriarch. “This has been a real treat, but I think I’d better wait out front for the crew. They’ll never get past the maître d’ and I’m not sure if …”
“Oh, do stay, dear. Just for one drink.”
DeDe gave Mary Ann a significant look. “I think Mother wants to tell you about the time she met the Queen.”
“Oh,” said Mary Ann, turning to the matriarch. “You’ve met her before?” Her fingers fussed nervously with the back of her hat. Being polite to her elders had been her downfall more times than she cared to count.
“She’s perfectly charming,” gushed Mrs. Halcyon. “We had a nice long chat in the garden at Buckingham Palace. I felt as if we were old friends.”
“When was this?” asked Mary Ann.
“Back in the sixties,” said DeDe. “Daddy used to handle the BOAC account.”
“Ah.” Mary Ann rose, still gazing solicitously at Mrs. Halcyon. “I guess you’ll be seeing her later, then. At the state dinner or something.”
Wrong. The matriarch’s face became an Apache death mask. Aflame with embarrassment, Mary Ann sought DeDe’s eyes for guidance. “The problem,” explained DeDe, “is Nancy Reagan.”
Mary Ann nodded, understanding nothing.
D’orothea’s lip twisted wryly. “At least, we all have the same problem.”
DeDe ignored the remark. “Mother and Mrs. Reagan have never been the best of buddies. Mother thinks she may have been … blackballed from the state dinner.”
“Thinks?” snapped Mrs. Halcyon.
“Whatever,” said DeDe, handling Mary Ann’s mortification with a sympathetic wink. “You’d better scoot, hadn’t you? C’mon, I’ll walk you to the door.” She rose, making it easier for Mary Ann to do so.
“Good luck,” said the matriarch. “Look pretty, now.”
“Thanks,” she replied. “Bye, D’orothea.”
“Bye, hon. See you soon, O.K.?” Away from the old biddy, she meant.
“Where is she going?” Edgar asked his grandmother.
“To be on TV, darling. Anna, precious, don’t scratch yourself there.”
“Why?”
“Never mind. It isn’t ladylike.”
“The kids are looking great,” Mary Ann said. “I can’t believe how big they’re getting.”
“Yeah … Look, I’m sorry about all that squabbling.”
“Hey.”
“D’or hates these scenes. She’s O.K. when it’s just Mother, but when Mother’s with her friends …” She shook her head with weary resignation. “D’or calls them the Upper Crustaceans. There’s a lot of the old radical left in her still.”
Maybe so, thought Mary Ann, but it was becoming increasingly difficult to remember that the woman in the Zandra Rhodes gown with the understated smudge of purple in her hair had once toiled alongside DeDe in the jungles of Guyana. DeDe’s own transition from postdebutante to urban guerrilla to Junior League matron was equally rife with contradiction, and sometimes Mary Ann felt that the embarrassment both women suffered over the monstrous inconsistencies in their lives was the glue that held their marriage together.
DeDe smiled gently at her own dilemma. “I didn’t plan on having a family like this, you know?”
Mary Ann smiled bark at her. “I certainly do.”
“Anna called Edgar a faggot the other day. Can you believe that?”
“God. Where did she pick that up?”
DeDe shrugged. “The Montessori School, I guess. Hell, I don’t know…. Sometimes I think I haven’t got a handle on things anymore. I don’t know what to tell myself about the world, much less my children.” She paused and looked at Mary Ann. “I thought we might be swapping