Tales of the City 04 - Babycakes

curb as a huge truck rumbled past, only inches away.
The whites of Wilfred’s eyes flashed under the umbrella like a pair of headlights. “One more like that, mate, and we’re married for all eternity.” He pointed to white lettering on the street. “See? ‘Look Right,’ it says. We even paint it there for you bleedin’ Americans.”
They strode briskly past a newsstand, then a garish ethnic restaurant—Arabic, maybe—with the menu painted on plywood and a huge chunk of symmetrical mystery meat, floodlit by pink bulbs, spinning like a lop on a vertical spit.
“Druggies eat there,” said Wilfred. “It’s open late. Do you have a lover back in the States?”
Michael laughed. “Nice segue.”
“Nice what?”
“Nothing. Bad joke. No, I don’t have a lover.”
“Why not?”
He hesitated. “I used to have a lover. It didn’t work out.”
“A delicate subject, eh?”
“Yeah.”
“I’d like to have a lover, I think, but I don’t think I’m going to meet one at the Coleherne.”
“I know what you mean,” said Michael.
They rode the tube in virtual silence, as tradition seemed to demand, Wilfred’s blue-denimed knee pressed against Michael’s black one.
“What’s your stop?” asked Michael.
“Same as yours, mate. Notting Hill Gate.”
Michael was floored.
The kid grinned. “You’ve never even noticed me, have you?”
“I’m sorry. I don’t know what …”
“I live upstairs from you, mate. Good of Forty-four Colville Crescent.”
The final proof came when they reached the house and Wilfred produced a key that opened the front door. He flipped the timer switch before turning to peck Michael lightly on the lips. “G’night, mate. Thanks for walking me home.”
Then he sprinted up the stairs to the second floor.
    Cross Purposes
L IKE OTHER THINGS ABOUT HER, MARY ANN’S MENSTRUAL cycle was so regular that Mussolini might have included it on his train schedules. When the world was going to hell in a handbasket and chaos ruled the day, she could always count on the prompt arrival of her period—or, as her mother had once explained it, “the bloody tears of a disappointed uterus.”
Her uterus had been unusually disappointed today, which meant that her midmonth pains were due in another fourteen days, give or take a day or so. According to her doctor at St. Sebastian’s (and several authors she had seen on Donahue), those pains— mittelschmerz was the silly technical term—were the surest indication of ovulation.
While some women apparently showed no outward signs of ovulation other than uncomfortable periods, Mary Ann had all the evidence she needed, thank you. Flipping through her New Yorker appointment book, she counted fourteen days ahead and found herself landing squarely on Sunday, April 3—Easter Day.
Eggs at Easter. Cute.
Brian never asked her about her mittelschmerz, apparently preferring to trust romantically in what he called “the good ol’ hunt and peck method of making babies.” The term had always annoyed her (why were men so proud of their obliviousness?), but she was suddenly grateful for his blind traditionalism.
She closed the appointment book and leaned back in her chair, suddenly thinking of Mouse. She had explained her mittelschmerz to him once, partially as a way of explaining her bitchy flare-ups, and he had never let her hear the end of it. (“Uh-oh,” he would say, catching her with a frown on her face, “you’re not having your ethelmertz, are you?”) She giggled at the thought of that, and blew him a kiss across the world.
The rest of her day was horrendous. She argued for at least an hour with a director who wanted to score her baby bear footage with cutesy-pie Disney music. Then Bambi Kanetaka insisted on ditching Mary Ann’s Wildflowers of Alcatraz story to make room for a sleazy feature on sex surrogates in Marin.
When she got home at eight o’clock. Brian was bustling around in his denim apron while an aromatic beef stew waited on the stove. He pecked her on the cheek, then saw the fatigue in her face. “A ball-buster, huh?”
“Yep.”
“Well … this should cheer you up. We got an intriguing invitation today.”
“Yeah? Who from?”
“Theresa Cross. She wants us to come hang out for a weekend. Use the pool, kick back … Who knows? Maybe even make a baby or two.” Seeing her expression change, he added: “Hey, I know she’s not one of your favorite people, but … well, it’s kind of a nice gesture, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” she