Tales of the City 05 - Significant Others

face.”
    She smiled as cryptically as possible.
    “How about a drink?” said Booter.
    “You’re on,” said Wren.
    She left him there in the dwindling light and went to the kitchen, returning minutes later with a couple of Scotch and waters.
    “Thank you,” said Booter.
    She clinked her glass against his. “I’m a helluva gal.”
    He smiled faintly, then turned his gaze back to the river. “So it’s … back to Chicago after this?”
    “Yep.”
    “You like it there?”
    “I adore it,” she said.
    “What about San Francisco?”
    “What about it?”
    “Did you like it?”
    She shrugged. “It was O.K.”
    “Just O.K.?”
    She laughed. “Good God!”
    “What?”
    “You’re all alike here.”
    “How so?” he asked.
    “You demand adoration for the place. You’re not happy until everybody swears undying love for every nook and cranny of every precious damn—”
    “Whoa, missy.”
    “Well, it’s true. Can’t you just worship it on your own? Do I have to sign an affidavit?”
    He chuckled. “We’re that bad, are we?”
    “You bet your ass you are.”
    He swirled the ice in his glass, then took a gulp and set the glass down on the porch railing. “You have a … uh … beau back in Chicago?”
    “Sure,” she replied.
    “Nice fellow?”
    She smiled at him. “Don’t know any other kind.”
    He nodded. “Good.” The light in his eyes seemed almost paternal.
    “He’s Cuban,” she added, just to catch his response. It showed in the set of his mouth, a brief involuntary twitch of the mustache. “Thought so,” she said, smiling slightly.
    “What?”
    “You’re a bigot.”
    His jaw became rigid.
    “It’s O.K.,” she said, wiggling his fleshy old earlobe. “It’s your generation, that’s all. Tell me what your wife is like.”
    He was thrown off balance for a moment.
    “Do you like her?” she asked.
    “She’s a fine lady,” he said finally. “She drinks a little too much, but she’s … very nice.”
    “I’m glad.”
    “That she drinks?”
    She made a goofy face at him. “That you like her. That she likes you.”
    “Oh, we’re friends,” he said. “Most of the time.”
    “Amazing. After … how many years of marriage?”
    He smiled. “Almost two.”
    She laughed. “C’mon.”
    “We were next-door neighbors for thirty years,” he explained. “We were married to other people, but … they died. So it made sense.”
    “Were you in love when you were still married to the other people?”
    “We aren’t in love now,” he said.
    She nodded. “But she’s still your significant other.”
    He gave her a blank look.
    “Your spouse and/or lover and/or best buddy.”
    “Somewhere in there,” he said.
    They laughed in unison, creating a momentary intimacy which seemed to unsettle him as much as it did her. “Actually,” he said, shaking his drink, “I was closer to her husband.”
    “Oh?” She arched an eyebrow at him.
    “Nothing like that,” he said.
    She aped his expression, looking stern and jowly. “No, of course not.”
    “He was in my camp,” said Booter, “down at the Grove.”
    Wren gazed down at the distant swimming platform, conjuring up the happy couple, genial and spider-browed, stretched out platonically on the gray wood.
    “He was a good man,” Booter added.
    Wren nodded.
    “He died about ten years ago. He brought a mistress here himself. He told me so.”
    “I’m not your mistress,” said Wren.
    “No,” said Booter. “I meant …”
    “That her first husband fucked around too.”
    “Yes,” he said meekly.
    “Does she know?”
    He shook his head.
    “Did your first wife know?”
    “No.” He looked decidedly uncomfortable. “This hasn’t been a regular thing.”
    “Uh-huh.”
    “It’s just that … when I saw you—”
    “I know,” she said, cutting him off, “and I’m the kinda gal who takes that as a compliment.” He gave her a hapless look.
    “Lighten up,” she said. “We understand each other.”

Up a Creek
    H ONEY-BLOND MEADOWS FLEW PAST THEM IN A BLUR as the VW left the freeway and headed west toward the river. Michael and Brian were in the front seat; Thack was in the back. This unromantic arrangement had been Thack’s doing, since he had climbed in first, but Michael had chosen not to take it personally.
    “Well,” said Brian, out of the blue. “Mary Ann wasn’t exactly thrilled.”
    “About what?” asked Michael, playing it safe. As agreed, he’d said nothing to Thack about Geordie.
    “This