Tales of the City 05 - Significant Others

asked Michael, alienated by such an exotic excuse.
    “To make a speech,” said Thack, “to some Yankee preservationists.”
    “What about?” asked Michael.
    Thack kissed him on the ear. “Funding, mostly. Boring stuff.” He rocked Michael back and forth. “Sooner or later, real life comes crashing back in, doesn’t it?”
    This was much too glib, Michael felt, a ready-made coda to a shipboard romance. He lived here, didn’t he? This was his ship. What hadn’t been real-life about it?
    “C’mon,” said Thack, leading him to the bed. “Let’s cuddle.”
    As they lay there, Thack’s back against Michael’s chest, Michael said: “I hate this. It seems like a Sunday afternoon.”
    “It is Sunday afternoon,” said Thack.
    “I know, but … I mean, like when you were a kid, when you knew that Monday was coming, and the clock was ticking away. Saturdays were perfect, because there was Sunday, which was sort of a buffer. But Sundays just got worse and worse.”
    Thack took Michael’s hand and kissed it. “Hang on to the moment,” he said.
    To hell with that, thought Michael. “You know,” he said quietly, “you’re much more of a Californian than I’ll ever be.”
    The late sun, slashing through the Levolors, turned them into prisoners again, striped by shadows. Michael slept for a while, waking when the stripes were gone. Thack was still asleep.
    The clock said four forty-seven. For a six-fifteen flight, they should leave the house no later than five-thirty. If they overslept—and who was to say they couldn’t?—the next flight might not be until God-knows-when….
    His deviousness under pressure was truly amazing. To repent for it, he slipped his hand around Thack’s bicep and squeezed gently. Thack woke up smiling. How could he look so happy? For that matter, how could he sleep so soundly when the time—no, their time—was slipping away?
    “You should pack,” said Michael.
    “Already am,” said Thack.
    Michael rubbed his eyes. “I’ll drive you, of course.”
    “ ’Fraid not.”
    “What?”
    “Not unless Brian’s back.”
    “Damn. You’re right. Well … he must be.” He grabbed the bedside phone and dialed The Summit. After three rings, Mary Ann answered with a glacial hello.
    “It’s Michael,” he said. “Is Brian back yet?”
    “I thought he was with you.”
    “No … I mean, he was, but we came home in separate cars.”
    “Why did you do that?”
    “No special reason,” he said, wary of mentioning Wren. “We met a friend there, and Brian said he’d enjoy being on his own.”
    “How long have you been home?” she asked.
    “A few hours. Maybe he took the ocean road home.”
    “Yeah,” she said distantly. “Maybe. I have no way of knowing. You saw him last.”
    This was clearly an attempt to assign guilt, and Michael would have none of it. “He said he was coming home,” he countered tartly. “I’m calling because I need the car for an airport run. Just ask him to call me, O.K.? When he gets in.”
    She was silent for a while, then said: “Are you mad at me, Mouse?”
    The nickname was as old as their friendship. She was using it, he realized, to signal her earnestness.
    “No … I’m not.”
    “You sound furious. What have I done?”
    “Nothing.”
    “I looked for you after the show the other day. You just took off.”
    “Sorry,” he said, “if it looked that way. I had work to do, that’s all.”
    “You said you wanted to meet Wren Douglas.” A certain wounded tremolo, perfected in Cleveland, had come back into her voice. Michael hadn’t heard it for a while, but it never failed to work on him.
    “I didn’t much care for her,” he lied. “I changed my mind about meeting her after I saw the show.”
    “Oh.”
    “She wasn’t that great,” he added, somehow feeling traitorous to two women at the same time. “It had nothing to do with you, I promise.”
    “O.K. I just wondered.”
    “We’ll talk later, all right? My friend’ll miss his flight if I don’t call a cab.”
    “I love you, Mouse.”
    “Same here, Babycakes. Bye-bye.”
    He hung up, racked with guilt, then called Veterans and ordered a cab for the foot of the Barbary steps. “We should go,” he told Thack afterwards. “It won’t take them long.”
    Thack’s luggage in hand, they navigated the wobbly ballast stones along the lane. “I could go with you,” Michael said suddenly.
    Thack looked confused.
    “To the airport,” Michael added.
    “Oh … well,