Tales of the City 06 - Sure of You

everything would be. It’s so stupid, isn’t it?”
    “You seem so collected,” Mary Ann remarked. “I can’t imagine that.”
    “Sure,” said Chloe. “Now . Three years ago…forget it.”
    “Actually,” said Mary Ann, warming to her, “I’m pretty good about kicking over the traces. I did it when I moved here. I came here on vacation, and just…you know, had a few Irish coffees…”
    Chloe giggled. “And didn’t go back?”
    “Nope.”
    “Damn. I’m impressed. Where was home?”
    “Ohio,” said Mary Ann. “Cleveland.”
    “Well, no wonder!”
    Mary Ann laughed uneasily. “Really.”
    Chloe stuck out her hand. “Akron.”
    “You’re kidding!”
    “Nope.”
    “But you seem so…so…”
    “Like I said, it takes a while. It didn’t hurt to know Russell, of course. I was Geek City before I met him. Stringy hair, awful skin…and this honker on top of it.”
    Mary Ann felt a mild protest was in order. “C’mon. You have a beautiful nose. Like a Spanish aristocrat.”
    “Try Lebanese.”
    Thrown and a little embarrassed, Mary Ann changed the subject. “And you really met him at Betty Ford?”
    “Yep.”
    “That’s such a romantic story.” And what a movie it could be, she thought. She makes him clean and sober. He makes her beautiful and rich.
    “It was just an administrative position. I wasn’t a therapist or anything.”
    “Still,” she said. “You befriended him in his hour of need.”
    “Yeah, I guess so. So what’s the deal with your husband? He hates New York, huh?”
    She nodded grimly. “More or less.”
    “Well, it’s not like you wouldn’t have contacts and everything. Burke and Brenda know practically everybody, and if you need help—you know, finding a co-op or something—Russell and I would be glad to help.”
    Perhaps for the very first time the package she was being offered became vividly clear to her, and it was almost too much to take. Real fame, bright new friends, a home that would be her salon. She could see the place already: big pine cupboards, an antique harp, paper-thin Persian carpets against bleached floors. Something in SoHo, maybe, or just down the hall from Yoko at the Dakota…
    “That’s so sweet of you,” she told Chloe.
    “Not at all.” Gazing into the mirror, Chloe swiped at the corner of her eye with her little finger. “We could use some new faces.”
    “That’s great to know. That dress is genius, by the way.”
    “Oh, thanks.” Chloe turned and smiled at her. “I can’t wear it at home. Ivana Trump has one just like it.”
    “Bad luck,” said Mary Ann. She was dying to ask what Ivana Trump was really like, but thought it might sound too hungry, too much like a desperado.

    When they returned to the table, Mary Ann found Brian regaling the men—Michael now among them—with his current pet opinion. “I mean, give me a break, man. I’m no Republican, but the woman is being ragged about not dyeing her hair. In the old days, dyeing it was the scandal! What the fuck is going on here?”
    Russell Rand, she noticed, made a valiant effort at laughing. Brian had a way of demanding too much from his audience when his turn came for center stage. It put people on the defensive, embarrassed them. He had no way of knowing this, of course, and she had never thought of a nice way to tell him.
    That was her problem now, wasn’t it? A nice way to tell him .
    “Where’s Thack?” she asked Michael as she slid into her chair.
    It was Brian who answered. “He pooped out on us.”
    “His stomach’s bothering him,” Michael added.
    “I’m sorry,” she said. “Hope it wasn’t the spring rolls.”
    “No.”
    “He dropped you off?”
    “Yeah.”
    They’ve had a fight, she thought. It was just as well. Thack would only have made trouble.
    “You haven’t met Chloe,” she said. And she touched Chloe’s shoulder lightly, just to prove to Michael she could do it. “Chloe Rand, Michael Tolliver.”
    They greeted each other across the table. Michael was clearly captivated.
    “Anyway,” said Brian, blundering on, “Barbara Bush is a whole shitload better than that bitch we’ve got in the White House now. All she ever does is have her hair done and con free dresses out of designers.”
    Dead silence all around.
    Brian looked from face to face for reinforcement.
    How typical of him, she thought. If he’d thought for half a second before shooting off his mouth…
    “Oh,” said Brian, looking at Russell Rand. “I guess this