Tales of the City 05 - Significant Others

she asked.
    “The woman who interviewed you.”
    “Oh, God, yes. Miss Terminally Perky. Poor guy. He’s married to her?”
    He looked a little upset. “She’s O.K. once you get to know her.”
    “I’m sure.”
    “She just hasn’t … responded well to being famous.”
    Right, thought Wren. World famous in San Francisco. She glanced over at the man in the plaid shirt and admired his dimpled chin with a sudden twinge of déjà vu. “Oh, him,” she exclaimed. “We’ve met. I tried to pick him up at the general store.”
    He laughed. “Seriously?”
    “You bet. I seriously tried. He didn’t mention me?” She made a hurt face. “I’m crushed.”
    “Well, he’s been kind of under the weather lately.”
    I could cure him, she thought.
    “This is such an honor,” said Michael.
    She cocked her head at him. “Thanks.”
    “Would you … uh … possibly care to have dinner with us?”
    “Thanks, but …” She checked her watch. “I’m meeting my friend back at the house.”
    “Oh.”
    Her eyes perused the man in plaid again before returning to Michael. “He’s leaving about ten o’clock, though. You could come up for a nightcap.”
    “Really?” He seemed genuinely elated. “Are you sure?”
    “Sure I’m sure.”
    “All of us?”
    “By all means,” she replied.

Trouble in Chem-Free
    D ARKNESS HAD COME EARLY TO THE LOUD-AND-ROWDY zone, a loose configuration of tents and RVs near the gate at Wimminwood. After less than half an hour there, DeDe had come to feel curiously comfortable, like a child who’d been kidnapped by gypsies and had grown to like it. Or maybe like Patty Hearst; she wasn’t sure.
    “Pour that girlie another drink!” This was Mabel, apparent high priestess of the Party Animals. “She’s lookin’ all mopey again.”
    “No,” said DeDe, covering her tin cup with her hand. “I’m fine, really.”
    “Pour her a damn drink. Ginnie, get some more rum out o’ the tent. Get your ass in gear and fix this sweet thing a drink.”
    Ginnie, who’d been absorbed by her own bongo music, stopped playing and looked at DeDe.
    “Well,” said DeDe, “maybe a little one.” She’d been holding back out of some sense of obligation to the kids, but it seemed silly at this point. Edgar had his own life now, and Anna was at the chow hall with D’orothea.
    Oh, God. Was Sabra with them?
    “Smile,” barked Mabel.
    DeDe smiled.
    Mabel winked at her. “Attagirl.” She was reclining on an air mattress in front of her Winnebago. With her short gray hair and lumpy gray sweatsuit, she bore an uncanny resemblance to a plate of mashed potatoes.
    “I know that bitch,” said Mabel. “Her and me go waaay back.”
    For a moment, DeDe thought she meant Sabra. Then she remembered her other nemesis, the one she’d told them about. “You mean Rose?”
    Mabel grunted. “She confiscated my crossbow at the Michigan festival. Fuck her.”
    DeDe tried to look sympathetic, but had a hard time of it. Mabel with a crossbow? Mabel drunk with a crossbow in the midst of a thousand people? Please.
    “All that shit about Goddess this and Goddess that. I told her: ‘I’m gonna get you back, I swear to God.’ And she said: ‘Anybody who swears to God is only bowing to the patriarchy.’ And I said: ‘I’m gonna patriarchy your butt all the way to East Lansing, if you don’t get the hell out o’ my Winnebago.’ ”
    One of the other rowdies let out a whoop. “Go get her, Mabel.”
    “I’ve been beatin’ men at their own game for sixty years. You think I need some sorry-ass little drill sergeant tellin’ me how to talk like a dyke? Tellin’ me I’m a threat to the general welfare because of a harmless little crossbow?”
    DeDe watched as the bongo player swapped smirks with a lanky woman seated on an ice chest next to Mabel’s air mattress. Mabel and her trusty crossbow had obviously become a central motif in their shared familial lore.
    “And now,” Mabel added, “she’s treatin’ you like dirt too. Small damn world, huh?”
    “I guess so,” DeDe said.
    “Somebody should have a talk with that girlie.”
    “Oh, no,” said Ginnie wearily. “Here we go again.”
    Puffing a little, Mabel hefted her weight onto her feet. “Somebody should just go tell her it’s time to stop pushing my friends around.”
    DeDe glanced nervously at Ginnie. This wasn’t for real, was it?
    “You should be flattered,” said Ginnie, smiling sardonically. “Your honor is about to be