Tales of the City 04 - Babycakes

month.”
An expression of sympathy seemed somehow inappropriate, so Michael merely nodded.
“It really scares me,” said the waiter. “I’ve given up Folsom Street completely. I only go to sweater bars now.”
Michael would have told him that disease was no respecter of cashmere, but his nerves were too shot for another counseling session. He had already spent five hours talking to people who had been rejected by their lovers, evicted by their landlords, and refused admission to local hospitals. Just for tonight, he wanted to forget.
    A Hard Time Believing
I T WAS ALMOST MIDNIGHT WHEN MARY ANN GOT HOME. A winter full of rain had left a moss-green scum on the wooden stairway to Barbary Lane, so she climbed it cautiously, holding fast to the rail until she felt the reassuring squish of eucalyptus leaves under her feet. She noticed that Michael’s lights were still on when she reached the lych-gate at Number 28. For some reason, that worried her, activating an instinct that might roughly be described as maternal.
She hesitated on the second-floor landing, then rapped on his door. He appeared moments later, looking rumpled and a little discombobulated. “Oh, hi,” he said, raking his hair with his fingers.
“I hope you weren’t asleep.”
“No. Just lying down. C’mon in.”
She stepped into the room. “Did you catch my little coup, by any chance?”
He shook his head. “I heard about it afterwards, though. The Castro was all abuzz with it.”
“Really?” The upward inflection of her voice was a little too girlish and eager, but she was hungry for reinforcement. Her secret fear was that her performance had been clumsy and sophomoric. “What exactly were they saying?”
He smiled at her sleepily. “What exactly would you like them to say?”
“Mouse!” After seven years of friendship, she still couldn’t tell when he was kidding.
“Relax, Babycakes. My waiter was raving about you.” He withdrew from her slightly and gave her a once-over. “I’m surprised he didn’t mention the hat, though.”
That stopped her cold. “What’s wrong with the hat?”
“Nothing.” He stayed poker-faced, teasing her.
“Mouse …”
“It’s a perfectly nice hat.”
“Mouse, if every queen in the city was laughing at this hat, I will die. Are you reading me? I will crawl under the nearest rock and die.”
He gave up the game. “It looks fabulous. You look fabulous. C’mon … sit down and tell me about it.”
“I can’t. I just thought I’d stop by … and say hi.”
He regarded her for a moment, then leaned forward and pecked her on the lips. “Hi.”
“Are you O.K.?” she asked.
He made a little circle in the air with his forefinger, giving her a rueful smile.
“Me too,” she said.
“It’s the rain, I guess.”
“I guess.” It had never been the rain, and they both knew it. The rain was just easier to talk about. “Well …” She nodded toward the door. “Brian must think I’ve dropped off the face of the earth.”
“Hang on,” said Michael. “I’ve got something for him.” He ducked into the kitchen, returning seconds later with a pair of roller skates. “They’re ten-and-a-halfs,” he said. “Isn’t that what Brian wears?”
She stared at the skates, feeling the pain begin to surface again.
“I found them under the sink,” Michael explained, avoiding her eyes. “I gave them to Jon two Christmases ago, and I completely forgot where he kept them. Hey … not now, O.K.?”
She fought back the tears, to no avail. “I’m sorry, Mouse. It’s not fair to you, but … sometimes, you know, it just creeps up without any … Christ!” She wiped her eyes with two angry sweeps of her hand. “When the hell is it gonna stop?”
Michael stood there, hugging the skates to his chest, his features contorted horribly by grief.
“Oh, Mouse, I’m so sorry. I’m such a turkey.”
Unable to speak, he nodded his forgiveness as the tears coursed down his cheeks. She took the skates from him and set them down, scooping him into her arms and stroking his hair. “I know, Mouse … I know, baby. It’ll get better. You’ll see.”
She had a hard lime believing that herself. Jon had been dead for over three months, but she suffered the loss more acutely now than ever before. To gain distance on the tragedy was to grasp, for the first time, the terrible enormity of it.
Michael pulled away from her. “So … how about some cocoa, media star?”
“Great,” she said.
She sat at his kitchen table