Tales of the City 04 - Babycakes

instantly with the pee smell, eliminating nothing. He flung the bottle into the wastebasket and stormed into the bedroom, where he searched his suitcase for the last of the joints Mrs. Madrigal had rolled for him.
He was on the verge of lighting it when a rude noise startled him. It took him several seconds to realize that he had just heard his door buzzer for the first time. Returning the joint to its hiding place, he left the apartment, walked down the dark corridor and opened the front door.
The woman who stood before him was about sixty. Her hair was gray and framed her face nicely with Imogene Coca bangs. She wore a brown tweed suit and sensible brown shoes. And that, as Simon had put it, was everything but the obvious. She was also no taller than the doorknob.
“Oh,” she said in a startled chipmunk voice. “I saw the lights. I thought it best to ring first.”
He sought to reassure her. “You must be Miss Treves. I’m a friend of Simon’s, Michael Tolliver.”
“Oh … an American.”
He laughed nervously. “Right. We swapped apartments, in fact. Simon’s in San Francisco.”
She grunted. “I know all about the naughty lad.”
“He’s fine,” he said. “He asked me to give you his love and tell you he’s coming back right after Easter.”
This news provoked another grunt.
“He just sort of … fell in love with San Francisco.”
“That’s what he told you, did he?”
“Well … more or less. Look, I’m not very settled in, but … can I offer you a cup of coffee? Or tea?”
She thought for a moment, then nodded. “Don’t mind if I do.”
“Good.”
She led the way back to the living room and took a seat—her feet dangling just above the floor—in a low-slung chintz armchair. The slightly underscaled proportions of the chair seemed to suggest it had been provided specifically for her use.
Miss Treves brushed a fleck of dust off the armrest, then arranged her hands demurely in her lap. “Simon didn’t tell me you were coming,” she said. “Otherwise I might have tidied up a bit.”
“I don’t mind,” he replied. “It’s fine.”
She looked around the room disgustedly. “ ‘Tisn’t a bit. It’s perfectly vile.” She shook her head slowly. “And he’s supposed to be the gentleman.”
Her indignation made him feel much better. He had begun to wonder if he was being too prissy about the apartment, too American in his demands. This second opinion, considering its source, reinforced his earliest suspicions about Simon’s basic slovenliness.
He remembered the tea he had offered her. “Oh … excuse me. I’ll put the kettle on for us.” He spun around to make his exit, crashing ingloriously into a shadeless floor lamp. He steadied the wobbling pole with one hand, while Miss Treves tittered behind his back.
“Now there, love. You’ll get used to it.”
She meant her size, apparently. He turned and smiled at her to show that he was a Californian and knew his way around human differences. “What do you take in your tea?” he asked.
“Milk, please … and a tiny bit of sugar.”
“I’m afraid I don’t have sugar.”
“Yes you do. On the shelf to the right of the cooker. I keep it there for myself when I stop by.”
In the kitchen he ran hot water into the teakettle, removed a milk bottle from the refrigerator, and located Miss Treves’s private cache of sugar. Sugar crystals, actually, like the stuff he had shared with his first sex partner, the non-scene, non-camp bricklayer from Hampstead Heath.
When he returned to the living room, he handed Miss Treves her tea and sat down on the end of the sofa closest to her. “So … Simon tells me he ran away from you once in the British Museum.” It was a weak opener, but it was all he had.
She took a cautious sip of her tea. “He has a nasty habit of doing that, doesn’t he?”
He assumed that was a rhetorical question. “He says you were a wonderful nanny.”
She looked into her teacup, trying to hide her pleasure. “We made a sight, the two of us.”
He started to say “I can imagine,” but decided against it. “And now you’re a manicurist, huh?”
“That I am.” She nodded.
“Do you have a shop?”
“No. Just regular customers. I visit them in their homes. A select clientele.” She cast a reproving glance at his hands. “You could use a bit of help yourself, love.”
Embarrassed, he looked down at his jagged nails. “It’s a new bad habit, I’m afraid. I had flawless nails for thirty years.” He decided