Tales of the City 05 - Significant Others

Girls Allowed.”
    “Couldn’t you leave a message?” asked Thack.
    “I did. They said they’d write it on the chalkboard at the Civic Center … whatever that means.”
    Michael chuckled. “I picture them walking around in togas or something.”
    “The thing is,” said Wren, “the whole damn place is designed to protect them from women. If you haven’t got a pecker, they don’t wanna hear from you.”
    “I still don’t get it,” said Michael. “Why don’t you just take off? If he didn’t show, he didn’t show. What’s the big deal?”
    “Because,” said Wren, “I feel an obligation.”
    “How long have you known him?” asked Michael.
    “Not very.”
    “How long is that?”
    “A week, ten days.”
    “Well, maybe this is the kind of stunt he pulls.”
    “No,” she said. “I don’t think so.”
    “O.K.,” said Michael. “Then maybe he got called home on an emergency or something. You could call his house in Hillsborough.”
    “No way,” she replied.
    “I’ll do it,” he said.
    After at least eight rings, an ancient-sounding maid answered the phone. He asked to speak to Mr. Manigault, deciding that he could either hang up or make a landscape gardening pitch if Manigault should be at home. The maid, however, reported that he was “up at the Grove” and that Mrs. Manigault had “gone to a fashion show in the city.”
    Michael thanked her and hung up. “He’s still here, apparently.”
    Wren looked troubled. “Something’s the matter, guys. There’s no way I can fly home without knowing …”
    “We could go down there,” said Thack.
    “Would you?” asked Wren.
    Michael frowned. There went their evening at home.
    “Maybe,” said Thack, obviously getting into it, “we could talk to the guard, tell him we’re friends of Booter.”
    “No,” said Wren. “The gate’s no good, if they don’t have your name on a list.”
    “Then what?” asked Thack.
    “Well … there’s another way in.” She turned to Michael and asked: “Are you as good a swimmer as Thack?”

Foreign Shores
    B OOTER AWOKE TO FIND HIMSELF STARING AT THE stars. They were bright tonight, brighter than ever, pulsing like the light bulbs in the cellars of his childhood. He felt oddly peaceful in his mattress-lined cocoon, even though it was night and he was sunburned and the canoe had beached itself on the shores of God-knows-where.
    How long had he slept? Three hours? Four? And how far had he drifted?
    He gazed up the moonlit river for some reassuring point of reference—the Monte Rio bridge, a neon-trimmed road-house, an A-frame bathed in the blue light of television.
    But there was nothing.
    Only bone-pale sand and gray shrubbery and black trees pricking the blue-black sky.
    And drums. And the song of sirens.
    It was a dream. That was his first thought.
    He remembered the whiskey (tasted it, in fact) and remembered his sleeplessness after Jimmy’s death. He had needed sleep and it had come to him, so he was still asleep, that’s all. And whiskey invariably made him dream.
    The breeze, though, seemed real enough as he climbed out of the canoe. So, too, did the ache in his limbs and the rodent squeak of aluminum against sand as he pulled his craft ashore and tried to get his bearings again.
    So why were the drums still beating, the sirens still singing?
    The voices were female, certainly. And lots of them.
    He moved in their direction, shaking the stiffness out of his joints. There were Christian retreats in the area, he remembered. Baptist Bible camps. These girls could easily be part of such a place.
    He headed into the underbrush somewhat warily, fearful of frightening them. Beet red and rumpled, he knew he must look like a wild man, but he had no choice but to ask for their assistance.
    They could lead him to a phone, and he could call the Grove. Someone would send a car for him. He’d be back in time for the Campfire Circle, no worse for wear and no one the wiser. Hell, he might even tell them about it, make it into a story. The way Jimmy would have done.
    Following the music, he threaded his way through a dense thicket of madrone trees. There was a campfire up ahead—quite a large one—and he caught glimpses of swaying figures and faces made golden by the fire.
    The drums stopped abruptly as he approached. Spurred by this primeval sign of danger (or the memory, perhaps, of Tarzan movies), he ducked behind a redwood, then chuckled at the absurdity of his reaction.
    He emerged again, to