Tales of the City 05 - Significant Others

at home?” she asked.
    “My landlady’s house.”
    This made no sense to her. That high-rise condo had a landlady?
    “Is your wife there?”
    “Yeah. Not in the room, but …”
    “Is she O.K.?”
    “Yeah,” he said. “Pretty much.”
    “Good.”
    “Does she know about us?”
    “No.”
    The laughter swelled again. “Is Michael loaded?” she asked.
    Brian chuckled. “Just in love, I think.”
    “Anybody we know?”
    “I believe so. They’re getting mushy by mail.”
    “Oh, God.”
    “I’m gonna be his partner at the nursery. Isn’t that great?”
    “That is,” she said.
    He paused before asking: “How’s Rolando doing?”
    He had remembered; how sweet. “He’s fine, actually. As usual.”
    “He’s a lucky man.”
    “Thanks.”
    “Well, I just wanted to—Puppy, wait a minute…. All right…. Daddy’s talking.”
    “Your offspring?” asked Wren.
    “Yeah. They want me back at the party…. It’s kind of hectic. I’m sorry.”
    “Well, thanks for calling. This Rock Hudson thing had me so worried….”
    “Rock Hudson? What about him? Puppy, let Daddy talk.”
    “Turn on your TV set,” she said. The little girl began to yell. “Look, I’ll let you go.”
    “Guess I’d better,” he said.
    “Have a wonderful life, sweetie.”
    “Same to you,” he said. “And thanks.”
    “Anytime,” she replied.
    She hung up and returned to the bed, where Rolando lay sprawled on his stomach, snoring. In the light of the Empress, his magnificent rump looked like two scoops of tangerine sherbet. The effect was too perfect to spoil, so she slipped under the sheets without a word and sat there remembering, waiting for the tango to end.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
    A rmistead Maupin’s most recent novel is Mary Ann in Autumn . He is also the author of Tales of the City , More Tales of the City , Further Tales of the City , Babycakes , Sure of You , Michael Tolliver Lives , Maybe the Moon , and The Night Listener . Three television miniseries starring Olympia Dukakis and Laura Linney were made from the first three novels in the Tales series. The Night Listener became a feature film starring Robin Williams and Toni Collette. Maupin lives in San Francisco with his husband, Christopher Turner.
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    Praise
    “Its good-natured knack for making you laugh out loud would be reason enough to recommend Significant Others; but aside from that, it is wise, compassionate, irreverent and painfully of the moment.”
    The Independent (London)
    “A portrait of the devastating effects of the AIDS epidemic that achieves an intimacy that could scarcely be duplicated in any other format. While this hardly sounds like material for romantic comedy—miraculously, it is.”
    Publishers Weekly
    “Maupin’s ear for dialogue is as acute as his feeling for characterization, and the net result is as engaging a read as you are likely to encounter in many moons.”
    The Times (London)
    “Like those of Dickens and Wilkie Collins, Armistead Maupin’s novels have all appeared originally as serials. It is the strength of this approach, with its fantastic adventures and astonishingly contrived coincidences, that makes these novels charming and compelling. Everything is explained and everything tied up and nothing is lost by reading them individually. There is no need even to read them chronologically.”

Literary Review
    NOTE TO THE READER
The Bohemian Grove is a real place whose rituals I have compressed, though not substantially altered, to suit the time frame of this tale.
Wimminwood is a fictitious entity based on the actual practices of women’s music festivals in Michigan, California, Georgia and elsewhere.
I am indebted to my friends in both camps.
A.M.
    NOVELS BY ARMISTEAD MAUPIN
    Tales of the City
More Tales of the City
Further Tales of the City
Babycakes
Significant Others
Sure of You
    Copyright
    This work was published in somewhat different form in the San Francisco Examiner.
    SIGNIFICANT OTHERS. Copyright © 1987 by Armistead Maupin.
Illustrations copyright © 1987 by Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc.
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