Tales of the City 05 - Significant Others

trip,” said Brian. “I didn’t give her much notice.”
    “Oh.”
    “I’m gonna miss Entertainment Tonight.”
    Michael didn’t get it. “Can’t you tape it?”
    “No, I mean … I’m gonna miss being on it.”
    Thack leaned forward. “You were gonna be on Entertainment Tonight?”
    “You didn’t tell me that,” said Michael, even more impressed than Thack.
    Brian shrugged. “She was gonna be on it. I was just gonna be there. Part of her goddamn persona.”
    “Hey,” said Michael. “Ease up.”
    “That’s what she said. Persona is exactly the word she used.”
    “Well …”
    “Your wife is in show business?” asked Thack.
    “She’s got her own talk show,” Michael explained.
    “That’s great,” said Thack, turning to Brian. “What sort?”
    “The regular sort,” said Brian. His tone was colorless, bordering on hostile.
    “She’s good,” said Michael, trying to keep it light. “She got some major dish out of Bette Midler….”
    “What about here?” Thack pointed to the side of the road.
    “What?” asked Michael.
    “We’re off the freeway. Let’s put the top down.”
    “Oh … right. Good idea.” Michael swung off the road into the dusty parking lot of a fruit stand.
    “I could use something cold,” said Thack. “How ‘bout you guys?”
    “Sure,” said Michael. “Apple juice or something.”
    “Yeah.” Brian nodded. “Fine.”
    “I’ll get ’em,” said Thack. “You get the top.” He slid out from behind Michael’s seat and strode toward the fruit stand.
    Michael turned and looked at Brian. “You O.K.?”
    “Yeah.”
    “This was a rotten idea, huh?”
    “No.”
    “Well, you don’t seem to be having a good time.”
    “Would you be?” Brian wouldn’t look at him. “This was gonna be our time, man. I mean, this guy is perfectly nice, don’t get me wrong….”
    “I’m really sorry,” said Michael.
    “Don’t be. I can handle it.”
    It didn’t look that way to Michael. “I thought this would work out great. He likes you, Brian … I mean, he seems to. And you seem to like him.”
    “C’mon. He likes you a helluva lot more than he likes me.” He threw up his hand in a gesture of resignation. “That’s cool. I’m a fag hag. I can handle it.”
    Michael laughed. “Stop it.”
    Brian offered him a game smile. “I just don’t wanna be in the way.”
    “C’mon.”
    “Well, you guys are an item.”
    “Says who?” asked Michael, nursing the faint hope that Thack had told Brian as much when he, Michael, had run back to the house for his sunglasses.
    “Well … I just assumed.”
    “We don’t all go to bed with each other, Brian.”
    Brian shrugged. “This one looks like he might.”
    “How can you tell?”
    Another shrug. “I can tell with you guys.”
    “Oh, yeah?” It amused him that Brian considered himself an expert on fags—prided himself on it, in fact. “Wrong again, Kemo Sabe.”
    “We’ll see.”
    “This is strictly brotherly.”
    “O.K.”
    “Maybe even sisterly, for all I know.” There hadn’t, after all, been so much as a peck on the cheek the night before.
    Thack returned with the juice. “Nice job,” he said, handing them the bottles.
    “Of what?” asked Michael.
    “Taking the top down.”
    Michael grimaced. “Oh, fuck.” He set down his juice and reached for the chrome clamps at the top of the windshield. “We started talking and …” Standing up, he pushed back the accordion roof until it fell into place of its own weight.
    “Sunshine,” said Thack, vaulting into the back seat.
    “Hey,” Brian said to him, “why don’t you let me get back there?”
    “I’m fine,” came the reply.
    “You sure? It’s kinda cramped, isn’t it?”
    “No. Really. It’s great. I can stretch out and look up at the redwoods.”
    “It’s not much further,” said Michael, disassociating himself from Brian’s effort to remedy things.
    When they reached Guerneville, Michael announced: “Here it is, boys—our humble tribute to Fire Island.”
    Thack, who’d been recumbent in the back seat, sat up with telling suddenness and scanned the men along the main drag. Seeing this in the mirror, Michael felt some distant cousin of jealousy, nasty but manageable, like a paper cut on the finger.
    “I came up here once,” said Brian, “to the jazz festival.”
    Michael turned and smiled at him. Sterile or not, this man was breeder through and through. “Best of Breeder,” he had called him once. Surely there