Tales of the City 04 - Babycakes

Her guests have been bailing out all afternoon.”
“I see.” Jesus God. Yoko Ono in San Francisco.
“So,” continued Arch Gidde. “she has retired to her chambers to compose herself.” He tapped the side of his nose with his forefinger, then narrowed his eyes at Brian. “You look awfully familiar, for some reason.”
Brian shrugged. He had waited on plenty of jerks like this during his career. “I don’t think we know each other.”
“Maybe. But I can’t help thinking …”
“What’s the party for?”
“This one? Or that one?”
“That one. I mean … why is Yoko Ono in town?”
“Oh, God.” The realtor splayed his fingers across his face. “That’s the part Mother Theresa hasn’t heard yet. Mrs. Lennon is looking for a house.”
“You mean … to live here?”
His informant nodded. “She thinks it’s a good place to raise … little whatshisname.”
“Sean,” said Brian.
“Imagine what this is going to mean to Theresa. Two rock widows in the same town. Two Mrs. Norman Maines.”
He didn’t know who that was, and he didn’t want to ask. Seeking escape, he let his eyes wander until he spotted his hostess as she emerged from her seclusion. She was wearing a black-and-pink bikini in a leopard-skin pattern. Her hair seemed larger than ever.
She stopped at the edge of the terrace, resting her weight on one hip, then clapped her hands together smartly. “All right, people! Into the pool! You know where to change. I want to see bare flesh. ” She strode toward Brian, pointing her finger at him. “Especially yours.”
He tried to stay cool. “Hi,” he said.
“Hi.” She came to a halt, once again settling her weight on one hip. “Where’s Mary Ann?”
“Oh … I thought she told you. She had to work. She was really sorry she couldn’t make it.” For some reason, that sounded phony as hell, so he added: “I’m here to tell her what she missed.”
“Good,” replied Theresa, arching an eyebrow, “but don’t tell her everything.” There was something about her leer that rendered it harmless. What she seemed to offer was not so much lust as a genial caricature of it, an eighties update of a Betty Boop cartoon. She was accustomed to scaring off men, he decided; she counted on it.
Her body surprised him somewhat. Her breasts weighed in at just above average, but her big peasant nipples dented her bikini top like a pair of macadamia nuts. Her ass was large and heart-shaped, really a lot firmer than he had expected. All in all, a package that suggested a number of interesting possibilities.
“So get naked,” she said. “We won’t have the sun much longer.”
Some of the other guests were already changing, so he doffed his shirt, shoes and jeans and stashed them behind the cabana. Theresa, meanwhile, eased her way into the deep end of the pool, taking care not to damage her mammoth gypsy mane.
Brian gave his Speedo a quick plumping and ambled toward the pool. The rock widow’s hair bobbed above the water like a densely vegetated atoll. “You wet me,” she said, “and it’s your ass.”
He grinned at her, then dove in effortlessly, without splashing at all. It was one of his specialties. When he surfaced, Theresa was dog-paddling in his direction. “Have you eaten?” she asked, sotto voce, as if it were an intimate question.
He shook his head, tossing water off his brow. “It looks great.”
“Better do it now. You won’t feel like it later.”
He didn’t know what she meant until she aped Arch Gidde’s gesture and tapped the side of her nose. “Right,” he said. “Sounds good to me.”
She made good half an hour later when she led him into her flannel-paneled screening room and began chopping cocaine on a mirrored tray. “Take that one,” she said, pointing to the fattest line of all. “It looks about your size.” She handed him a rolled bill.
He took it in one snort, then made the obligatory face to show that it was good stuff. “Thanks, Theresa.”
“Terry,” she murmured.
“No shit? I never heard that.”
A heavy-lidded smile. “Now you have.”
He nodded.
“Only the real people get to use it.” She powdered her forefinger with the remains of the coke and rubbed it across her gums. “I don’t waste it on the phonies. You know what I mean?”
He nodded again. “Thanks, then.”
“Terry’s what Bix always called me.” This offhand brush with immortality seemed to put more bite in the cocaine. He was pretty sure she knew that.
“I wish they’d