Tales of the City 06 - Sure of You

hand she held the left foot of another doll.
    “Hi, Puppy. What’s this?”
    “I’m giving them away.”
    “You are?”
    “Yes.” She knelt and placed the doll next to the others, solemnly arranging its limbs. “To the homeless.”
    “Was that your idea?” He was impressed.
    “Mostly. Mostly mine and partly Mary Ann’s.”
    “Well, that’s wonderful. Only not all of ’em, O.K.?”
    “Don’t worry.” She patted the doll’s dress into place. “I’m only giving away the ugly ones.”
    He nodded. “Good thinking.” Then he touched the tip of her nose. “You’re a regular Mother Teresa.”
    In the kitchen his wife was shelling peas, looking raw-boned and Sally Fieldish in her Laura Ashley apron. When he kissed the nape of her neck, he caught a whiff of her ripe six o’clock smell and felt totally, stupidly, in love with her.
    “Would you please tell me,” he said, “what our daughter is doing?”
    “I know.” She gave him a rueful look over her shoulder. “It looks like Jonestown out there.”
    He popped one of the raw peas into his mouth and munched on it as he leaned against the counter. “You sure it’s a good idea?”
    She shrugged. “Why not?”
    “I dunno. What if she misses one? Remember how she was when we threw out her banky?”
    “She wants to do this, Brian. It’s a rite of passage. She’s getting off on it.”
    “I know, but if she…”
    “If we’d listened to you, she’d still be sucking on that damn banky”
    “O.K. You’re right.”
    “She’s keeping her nice dolls, anyway.”
    “Fine.”
    “Whatcha want for potatoes?” she asked. “Sweet or new?”
    “Uh…sweet.”
    “With baby marshmallows?”
    He gave her a skeptical glance. “Since when have you bought baby marshmallows?”
    She shrugged. “If you don’t want ’em…”
    “Oh, I want ’em. I just thought you said they were gross and middle American.”
    She gave him a feisty glance and continued shelling.
    “Want me to help with that?” he asked.
    “No, thanks. I like having something to do with my hands. It soothes me.”
    He moved behind her and nuzzled her neck again. “Do you need soothing?”
    “No,” she said. “I just meant…it gives me something manual to do.”
    “Mmm.” He nipped at her flesh. “I know something manual you can do.”
    She giggled. “Go set the table.”
    “Let’s eat in front of the set.”
    “O.K. Nothing’s on, though.”
    “Sure there is. Cheers . Two shows in a row.”
    “What else?”
    “Well…Michael loaned us The Singing Detective. ”
    “No, thank you.”
    “It’s Dennis Potter.”
    “Brian, I don’t wanna watch some old guy having psoriasis while I’m having dinner.”
    “You did a show on it last month.”
    “All the more reason.”
    “You’re hard, woman,” he said, and pinched her butt.
    She gave him a push toward the door. “Go play with Shawna. Maybe after she’s in bed…”
    “Well, not if you don’t…”
    “Scoot. I’ve got shrimp to stuff.”
    “You do?”
    “Hey,” she said, mugging at his amazement. “I’m a Total Woman.”
    She hadn’t stuffed shrimp for years.

    In the living room he sat on the floor and listened as Shawna recited—a little too cheerfully, perhaps—the deficiencies of her soon-to-be-homeless dolls.
    “This one doesn’t talk anymore.”
    “Oh, yeah?”
    “And this one has dumb hair. And this one I hate.”
    “You don’t hate it, Puppy.”
    “Yes I do. And this one has a really funny smell.”
    Brian frowned, then sniffed the doll. The odor nipped his nostrils like tiny fangs.
    “Pedro peed on her,” Shawna explained.
    “Who?”
    “The Sorensens’ iguana.”
    “Great.” He returned the doll to its resting place.
    “Can we get a iguana?”
    “No way.”
    “I’d take care of him.”
    “Yeah. Right.”
    “I would.”
    He thought for a moment, then picked up the reeking doll. “I think we’d better retire this one, O.K.?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Throw it out.”
    “Why?”
    “Because, Puppy, if it smells bad to us, it’ll smell just as bad to some other little girl.”
    “Uh-uh.” Shawna, miraculously, shook her head and scratched her butt at the same time. “Not if she’s homeless.”
    “Yes she would. Trust me on this, Puppy.”
    His daughter gave him a blank look. “Whatever.”
    “C’mon,” he said, taking her hand. “Let’s go help Mommy set the table.”

    The first time he’d seen The Singing Detective , Mary Ann had been off networking at