Tales of the City 06 - Sure of You

off,” he said, “Channel Two wants you for the Jerry Lewis telethon next year.”
    “Meaning what? That I have to go to Oakland for it?” He shrugged. “I guess.”
    “O.K., tell ’em I’ll do it, but I don’t wanna be paired off with that imbecile cohost they gave me this year. Or anybody else, for that matter. And make sure it’s at a decent hour, like not after midnight or something.”
    “Gotcha.” He was scribbling furiously.
    “Did you know they actually like him in France?” “Who?”
    “Jerry Lewis.”
    “Oh. Yeah. I’d heard.”
    “That is the sickest thing,” she said. “Isn’t it?”
    Raymond merely widened his eyes and shrugged. “Don’t tell me you like him,” she said.
    “Well…I know he’s been sort of a joke for a long time, but there’s an increasing number of American cineastes who find his early work…well, at least comparable to, say, Tati.”
    She didn’t know what that was and didn’t care. “He uses too much Brylcreem, Raymond. Give me a big break.”
    His tiny eyes locked on the clipboard again. Apparently he found her uncool for not knowing that Jerry Lewis was cool again—among film nerds, at any rate. If she’d, told him she was from Cleveland, he’d be using that against her now. You just couldn’t be too careful.
    “What else?” she asked.
    He didn’t look up. “Some professor at City College wants you to address his television class.”
    “Sorry. Can’t do it.”
    “O.K.”
    “When is it? Never mind, can’t do it. What else?”
    “Uh…one of your studio regulars wants you to autograph a picture.”
    “Talk to Julie. We have a whole stack of them, presigned.”
    “I know, but he wants something personal.” He handed her the clipboard with a glossy. “I brought you an unsigned one. He said anything personal would do.”
    “Some people,” she said, grabbing a felt-tip. “What’s his name?”
    “Cliff. He says he’s watched you for years.”
    After a moment’s consideration, she wrote: Cliff—Thanks for the Memories—Mary Ann. “If he wants more than that,” she told Raymond, returning the clipboard, “he’s shit outa luck. Is that it?”
    “That’s it.” He turned up his hands.
    “Great. Fabulous. Get lost.” She gave him a lame smile to show that she was kidding. “I’m about to do our PMS show a week ahead of schedule.”
    “Oh…” It took him a while to get it. “Can I get you a Nuprin or something?”
    “No, thanks, Raymond. That’s O.K.”
    He edged toward the door, then stopped. “Oh, sorry—there was a phone call during the show. A guy named Andrews from New York.”
    “Andrews?”
    He retrieved a pink phone memo slip from the pocket of his Yamamoto. “Burke Andrews,” he read.
    “Oh, Andrew. Burke Andrew.”
    “Yeah. I guess so. Sorry.” He set the slip on the makeup table. “I’ll leave it here.”
    A thousand possibilities whirred past her like a Rolodex. “Is it a New York number?”
    Raymond shook his head. “Local,” he said, sliding out the door. “Looks like a hotel.”

    Had it really been eleven years?
    He’d moved to New York in 1977 after the Cathedral Cannibals fuss, and she hadn’t heard from him since, unless you counted the Kodak Christmas card, circa 1983, of him, his grinny, overdressed wife, and their two little jennifer-jasons—strawberry blonds like their father—hanging cedar garlands somewhere in Connecticut. It had stung a little, that card, even though, or maybe even because, she was already married to Brian.
    She had met Burke on the Love Boat, as irony would have it, drawn instantly to his affable collie face, his courtliness, his incredible thighs. Michael Tolliver, who’d been there at the time, maintained later that it was Burke’s amnesia she’d fallen for: the tempting clean slate of his mind. His memory had returned, however, in a matter of months, and he’d moved to New York almost immediately. He’d asked her to come with him, of course, but she’d been too enraptured with her new life in San Francisco to seriously consider leaving.
    From then on her interest in him had been strictly professional. She had followed his increasingly prestigious byline through a succession of glamorous magazines— New York, where he’d started out, Esquire, a media column in Manhattan, inc. —and through television, where he’d recently been making waves on the production end of the business.
    She had often wondered why he’d never made an effort to get in touch