Tales of the City 05 - Significant Others

part of her dowry, along with the crystal and the Persian rugs and the John Singer Sargent of Frannie’s grandmother.
    The Sargent looked like holy hell in Booter’s modern low-beamed ranch house, but Emma and the other furnishings had worked out fine. She was old and cantankerous, but her loyalty was indisputable. In his eyes, that made her the last of a breed.
    “She didn’t mean it,” he told the maid quietly. “It’s the whiskey talking.”
    Emma grunted, then rearranged her licorice-stick fingers on the tabletop. “Crazy ol’ white woman, that’s who was talkin’.”
    He left her and confronted his wife on the terrace. “Would you go make up with Emma, for God’s sake!”
    Frannie looked at him with red-rimmed basset eyes, then squared her jaw in a pathetic imitation of resolve. “I’d sooner fry in hell,” she said.
    “Did you call her a nigger, Frannie?”
    She thrust out her lower lip.
    “Did you?” he persisted.
    “You use that word all the time.”
    “Not about people I know,” he said. “Not to their faces.”
    “I’ve known her for forty years.” She raised her bejeweled fingers to her head and repositioned her wig. “I can call her anything I want.”
    “She’s a servant, Frannie. It isn’t done.”
    “It’s none of your business, Booter. Emma and I understand each other.”
    In a way, she was right about that. The two women bickered constantly, then drew blood, then made up. Emma and Frannie were more of a couple than he and Frannie would ever be.
    “When are you leaving?” she asked.
    “This afternoon,” he replied.
    “For how long?”
    He hated this kind of third degree from a woman he still regarded as an old friend’s widow. “Four or five days,” he muttered.
    She heaved a melodramatic sigh.
    “Don’t give me that. Edgar used to go for the full two weeks.”
    “It’s not just the Grove,” she said glumly. “You never take me anywhere.”
    She had said the same thing the year before when he’d gone to Europe without her for the fortieth anniversary of D-day. As a member of the American Battle Monuments Commission, he’d been entitled to bring her along for the festivities, but he’d known better than to risk the embarrassment.
    Emma, as usual, had held down the fort at home, while he trudged about the beaches of Normandy in a drip-dry blazer, only paces away from the President. Traveling alone had been his only option, given Frannie’s drunken mood swings and her long-standing feud—dating back to gubernatorial days—with Nancy Reagan.
    “We’ll do something soon,” he said.
    She took a sip of her drink and stared forlornly at the distant hills.
    “I’m making a speech,” he said brightly, trying to pull her out of it.
    “Where?”
    “The Grove.”
    She grunted.
    “It’s a Lakeside Talk.”
    “Is that an honor or something?”
    Damn right, he thought, annoyed by her deliberate indifference. Edgar, after all, had never been asked to make one.
    “What’s it about?” she asked.
    “The SDI,” he replied.
    “The what?”
    “Frannie … the Strategic Defense Initiative.”
    “Oh. Star Wars.”
    He winced. “We don’t call it that.”
    “Well, I do. I don’t care what that horrid old actor calls it.”
    He glowered at her, then turned away, catching sight of a diminutive figure as it dashed across the tennis court and up the lawn. It was little Edgar, Frannie’s half-breed grandson, intruding once more on his peace and quiet.
    “Damn it to hell,” he muttered.
    “Don’t be mean to him,” said Frannie.
    “I’m not mean to him. When have I been mean to him?”
    “Well, you aren’t very nice. He’s your grandson, for heaven’s sake.”
    “Oh, no,” said Booter. “He’s your grandson, not mine.”
    “Well, you could at least show a little concern.”
    “Look. Just because DeDe had no more sense than to get knocked up by a chink grocery boy—”
    “Booter!”
    “At least that was normal,” he added. “It’s beats the hell out of this unnatural—”
    “Edgar darling,” Frannie called. “Come say hello to Gangie and Booter.” She gave Booter a venomous look and polished off her drink just as the boy arrived breathless on the terrace. Booter couldn’t help wondering what Edgar Halcyon would have made of this slant-eyed namesake.
    “Mom sent me,” said the boy.
    “That’s nice,” said Frannie. “You want Gangie’s cherry?” She held out her glass to the boy.
    Little Edgar shook his head. “D’or