Tales of the City 04 - Babycakes

while he made it. Still pinned to the refrigerator door by a magnetized seashell was the snapshot she had taken of Jon and Michael at a pumpkin patch in Half Moon Bay. Averting her gaze, she commanded herself not to cry again. She had done quite enough damage for one night.
When the cocoa was ready, Michael removed a blue Fiesta cup from the shelf and placed it on a gray saucer. Frowning slightly, he studied the pairing for a moment, then substituted a rose-colored saucer for the gray one. Mary Ann observed the ritual and smiled at his eccentricity.
Michael caught her reaction. “These things are important,” he said.
“I know.” She smiled.
He chose a yellow cup for himself and set it on the gray saucer before joining her at the table. “I’m glad you came by,” he said.
“Thanks,” she replied. “So am I.”
While they sipped their cocoa, she told him about DeDe and Mrs. Halcyon, about her rebellious crew and the rude police, about the few brief moments she had actually laid eyes on the Queen. The monarch had seemed so unreal, she explained, unreal and yet totally familiar. Like the cartoon image of Snow White, walking amidst ordinary human beings.
She stayed long enough to make him laugh out loud several times, then said good night to him. When she reached her own apartment, Brian wasn’t there, so she left the skates in the living room and climbed the stairs to the house on the roof. There, as usual, she found her husband asleep in the flickering light of MTV. She knelt by the sofa and laid her hand gently on his chest. “Hey,” she whispered. “Who’s it gonna be? Me or Pat Benatar?”
He stirred, rubbing his eyes with the knuckles of his forefinger.
“Well?” she prodded.
“I’m thinking.”
She smoothed his chest hair, following the lines of its natural swirls. “I’m sorry I broke our date.”
He smiled drowsily at her. “Hey.”
“Did you see me?” she asked.
He nodded. “Mrs. Madrigal and I watched.”
She waited for his reaction.
“You were terrific,” he said at last.
“You’re not just saying that?”
He raised himself slightly on his elbows and rubbed his eyes again. “I’m never just saying that.”
“Well … the fortune cookie stuff was pretty fabulous, if I do say so myself. Of course …” She was silenced when he reached out and pulled her onto the sofa next to him.
“Shut up,” he said.
“Gladly,” she replied.
She kissed him long and hard, almost ferociously, in direct proportion to the intensity of her workday. The more public her life became, the more acutely she relished such moments of unequivocal privacy. Within seconds, Brian’s hands had found the hem of her tweed skirt and pulled it up over her hips. Lifting her gently under the arms, he propped her up against a nubby cotton bolster and began kissing her knees. She felt faintly ridiculous.
“Let’s go downstairs,” she whispered.
He looked up from his single-minded mission. “Why?”
“Well … so I can get out of this hat, for one thing.”
A boyish leer transformed his face. “Keep it on, O.K.?” His head went down again, and his sandpapery cheek scraped against her pantyhose as he moved his tongue up the inside of her thighs. “What is this?” she asked. “Your Evita fantasy?”
He laughed, enveloping her in a wave of warm breath, then yanked off her pantyhose in a single, efficient movement. She laced her fingers through his chestnut curls and pulled his face into her groin, warmth into warmth, wetness into wetness. Moaning softly, she arched her neck and fell back into the embrace of the sofa. At a time like this, she decided, ridiculous was the last thing that mattered.
They were back at the apartment when she finally took off the hat. “The skates are from Mouse,” she said. She tried to sound matter-of-fact about it.
“What skates?” He was sitting on the edge of the bed in his boxer shorts.
“In the living room.” She avoided his eyes by pretending to arrange the hat in its box.
He rose and left the room. He was gone so long that she stopped brushing her hair and went to look for him. He was seated in the wingback armchair, staring into space. The skates were at his feet. He glanced briefly in her direction. “They’re Jon’s, right?”
She nodded, but moved no closer.
He shook his head slowly, a thin smile on his face. “Jesus God,” he said quietly. He brushed a piece of imaginary lint off the arm of the chair. “Is Michael doing O.K.?” he asked.
“O.K.,” she