Tales of the City 04 - Babycakes

“but you seem to do O.K. in other departments too.”
“How’s that?”
Brian cast a brotherly leer at the lieutenant. “I saw her when she left this morning.”
“Ah.”
“Ah is right. Where did you find her?”
“Oh … a little boite called the Balboa Café. Do you know it?”
“Used to,” he replied. “It’s been a while. Was she good?”
“Mmm. Up to a point.”
Brian laughed.
“No pun intended, sir.”
“Right.”
“She was a little too … uh … shall we say enthusiastic?”
“Gotcha,” said Brian. “She bit your nipples.”
The lieutenant was clearly dumbfounded. “Well, yes … as a matter of fact, she did.”
“That’s big with her,” said Brian.
“You know her, I take it?”
“Used to. Before I was married. Jennifer Rabinowitz, right?”
“Right.”
“Quite a lady.”
“She’s made the rounds, then?”
Brian chuckled. “She’s the head shark in the Bermuda Triangle.”
“Sorry?”
“That’s what they call it,” he explained. “The neighborhood where the Balboa Café is.”
“I see.”
The lieutenant seemed a little nonplussed, so Brian tried to buck him up. “I mean … it’s not like she’s the town whore or anything. She doesn’t sack out with just everybody.”
“Gratifying,” said Simon.
They stopped running when they reached the bridge, then walked inland from the Embarcadero and sat at the base of the Villaincourt Fountain. A small Vietnamese child approached them, bearing a net bag. Brian waved him away.
“What was that about?” asked Simon.
“He wanted to sell us garlic.”
“Why garlic?”
“Beats me. They gel it in Gilroy and sell it on the streets here. Dozens of little Artful Dodgers hustling the white men who invaded their parents’ country. Poetic, huh?”
“I should say.”
“You’re a great running partner,” said Brian.
“Thank you, sir. So are you.”
He shook the lieutenant’s knee heartily. He liked this guy a lot, and not just because Jennifer Rabinowitz had made them equals. “You’re looking at one happy sonofabitch,” he said.
“Why is that?”
“Well … Mary Ann and I have decided to have a baby. I mean, she’s not pregnant yet, but we’re working on it.”
“That’s wonderful,” said Simon. “Yeah … it sure as hell is.”
They sat there in silence, lulled by the splash of the fountain.
“Don’t tell her I told you,” said Brian.
“Of course not.”
“I don’t want her to feel like there’s … you know … pressure on her.”
“I understand.”
“What will be, will be … you know?”
“Mmm.”
“By the way, you’re more than welcome to use the TV room whenever you feel like it.”
“Thank you. Uh … where is it?”
“On the roof. All the way up the stairs. Everybody in the house uses it.”
“Marvelous.”
“I’ll show you how to work the VCR. You might have some fun with that. I’ve got Debbie Does Dallas.”
“Sorry?”
“It’s a porn movie.”
“Ah,”
“I haven’t played it very much … only when Mary Ann goes on assignment or something. Then I put that baby on and … wrestle with the ol’ cyclops.”
A slow smile spread across Simon’s face. “You mean bang the bishop?”
“You catch on fast.” Brian grinned.
    Mirage
M ICHAEL’S TEENAGE SOJOURN IN LONDON HAD been spent with a family in Hampstead who housed him through a student program sponsored by the English-Speaking Union. Mr. and Mrs. Mainwaring had been childless, and they’d fussed over him as if he’d been their own, taking him to plays in the West End, plying him with shortbread at tea-time, stocking the pantry with his favorite brand of thick-cut English marmalade.
He’d lost touch with them years before, so he couldn’t help wondering if they were still watching their beloved telly in that snug little house off New End Square. Even if they weren’t, the thought of seeing Hampstead again was wonderfully exhilarating. There was nothing quite like going back to an old neighborhood.
Leaving Simon’s house, he wound his way through the vegetables and bric-a-brac of Portobello Road until he reached the ragtag commercial center of Notting Hill Gate. The familiar circle-bar brand of the London Underground beckoned him to a hole in the sidewalk, where he pumped coins into a ticket machine that listed Hampstead as a destination.
An escalator carried him still deeper, to the platform of the Central Line, from which he caught an eastbound train to Tottenham Court Road. Disembarking, he strode as knowingly as possible to