Tales of the City 05 - Significant Others

between Noe and Sanchez. Behind a row of ragged palms lay two distinct entrances: one for people taking the test, the other for people getting their results. Inside, while Michael waited in the car, Brian was shown a videotape about T-cells and helper cells and the true meaning of HTLV-III.
    Then they drew his blood, and sent him on his way.
    “Damn,” he said to Michael, climbing into the VW. “You didn’t tell me it took ten days.”
    “I thought you knew.”
    “Why would I know that?”
    “Well, I took it, remember?”
    “Oh …” Brian gazed absently out the window, weighing his options. He’d counted on coming home with a clean bill of health, a note from his doctor to soften the blow when he told Mary Ann about Geordie. But now …
    “It’s the lab procedure,” said Michael. “Apparently it takes that long.”
    “Ten fucking days.”
    Michael smiled at him wanly, turning on the engine. “Ten non-fucking days.”
    “It won’t work,” said Brian.
    “What do you mean?”
    “Well, she’ll know something’s up.” He gave Michael an admonitory look. “Don’t make a pun out of that.”
    “You’ve never gone for ten days without doing it?”
    “No.”
    “Well, I’m impressed.”
    Brian didn’t laugh. Michael’s flip tone was beginning to get on his nerves.
    “What about rubbers?” asked Michael.
    “We never use them,” said Brian.
    “Well, start. Tell her you think they’re a safer form of birth control.”
    “Michael,” he said, faintly annoyed. “I’m sterile, remember?”
    “Oh, yeah. Sorry.” Michael seemed to ponder this for a while before slipping into a reasonable facsimile of Dr. Ruth’s Teutonic twitter. “Well … what about something in a nice decorative model … with whirligigs on the end?”
    Brian laughed in spite of himself. “You bastard.”
    “Tell her,” said Michael.
    “No. Not yet.”
    “Sooner or later you’re gonna have to. Sooner is always better than later.”
    “No it isn’t. Why should she suffer for the next ten days?”
    “Because you’re suffering. And she’s your wife.”
    Michael’s logic annoyed him. “And I’ve been a great husband, haven’t I?”
    “Look, Brian … if you don’t tell her now …”
    “Forget it, all right? I have to do this my way.”
    “Fine,” said Michael.
    Twenty minutes later, Michael dropped him off in front of The Summit. The doorman fired off a friendly “Yo,” but Brian scarcely heard him as he made his wooden way to the elevator.
    Could he fake it for ten days? Carry on his life as if nothing were wrong?
    Making his ascent, he stood stock still and tried to read his body’s signals. There was a heaviness in his limbs which may or may not have been there earlier. Some of the soreness seemed localized, a dim ember of pain lodged in a corner of his gut.
    This could be anything, of course. Indigestion or a flare-up of his old gastritis. Hell, maybe it was the flu, after all. His headache seemed to have gone away.
    The elevator opened at the twenty-third floor. He stepped out into the foyer to confront the insufferable Cap Sorenson, his face plastered with a shit-eating grin. “How’s it hanging, Hawkins?”
    “Pretty good,” he said, adopting a similar hail-fellow tone. “Pretty good.”
    They changed places, Cap holding the door to get in the final word. “I closed that deal I told you about.”
    “Great.”
    “Forget great,” said Cap. “We’re talking megabucks this time.”
    Brian nodded. The elevator had its own way at last, obliterating Cap’s idiot smirk.
    He let himself into the apartment, moving to the window like someone walking underwater. The sun had swooped in low from the west, turning white buildings to gold: shimmering ingots against the blue. Far beneath him, the tangled foliage of Barbary Lane cast dusty purple shadows across the bricks of Mrs. Madrigal’s courtyard.
    Mary Ann emerged from the bathroom. “I wondered where you were.”
    What was she doing here? Hadn’t she planned on working late tonight? “Oh,” he said. “Michael and I drove out to the beach. Where’s Nguyet? She was here when I …”
    “I let her go home. I thought she could use an afternoon off.”
    “Oh.”
    She added: “I took off early myself. Just said to hell with it. Feels good.” She rocked on her heels several times, a curious light in her eyes. “Guess what.”
    “What?”
    “You’re never gonna believe this.”
    He looked around, unsettled, distracted. “Where’s