Tales of the City 06 - Sure of You

a final glance and hurried off into the gathering dark.

    The waiter appeared, distressed about Anna’s departure. Mona assured him she would return, then ordered a Sprite-and-ouzo.
    “What about you?” she asked Stratos.
    He shook his head.
    The waiter left.
    “You have brothers and sisters?” Straws asked.
    Mona smiled at him and shook her head. “She calls her tenants her children.”
    The old man absorbed this without changing his expression.
    “She runs an apartment house,” Mona explained. “I guess she told you that already?”
    He nodded. “Yes.”
    There was a long, uncomfortable silence before Stratos said: “I have an idea for you.”
    “What’s that?”
    “Perhaps…if the disco noise is too much for you at the villa…you should go to Skala Eressou.”
    Mona blinked at him, wondering if Anna’s sudden trip to the phone lady had been a setup. Were they trying to get rid of her, after all?
    “There is a beach there,” he added.
    “Like this one?” This sounded harsher than she’d intended, but the local strip was a horror—narrow, rocky, and strewn with garbage.
    “No,” he replied. “With beautiful sand. It is a simple place, but I think you might like it.”
    She decided that he was just being nice. Still, she wanted to stay put at the villa. It was paid for, after all, and this “simple place” might be even less exciting than here. “Thanks,” she told him, “but I’m O.K.”
    “It is the birthplace of Sappho, and there are many tents on the beach.”
    “Tents?” she asked.
    “Yes.”
    “What sort of tents?”
    “Many women…feminists…from everywhere. Many more than here.”
    She studied the face, but it betrayed nothing.
    “Perhaps you would like it,” he said.
    She gave him a slow-blooming smile. “Perhaps I would.”

The Wave Organ
    B ENEATH THE BLUE PORCELAIN DOME OF NOE VALLEY A lone kite chased its rainbow tail. Mary Ann watched it for a moment, admiring its reckless indecision, then swung the Mercedes into Michael’s driveway. October’s false springtime gave her an unexpected surge of optimism. The task ahead of her might not be as terrible as she’d once imagined.
    Thack called from the garden. “He’ll be right out.” He was on a ladder, nailing planks to the side of the house.
    “Thanks.”
    “You’ve got a nice day for it, looks like.”
    “Yeah,” she said. “It does.” It occurred to her that he could be very pleasant when he wanted to. “What’s that you’re building?”
    “Just a trellis.”
    “It looks interesting.”
    “Well…it will. I hope.”
    Michael hollered at her from the doorway. “Do I need a jacket?”
    “No way.”
    Seconds later, he bounded out of the house in cords and an ancient pale-green Madras shirt, that yappy little poodle toe-dancing around his heels. “No, Harry. You’re staying here, poopie. Stay. Here. Understand?”
    “Has he been walked?” Thack asked, gazing down from the ladder.
    “This morning. To the p-a-r-k.” Michael grinned at Mary Ann as he climbed into the car. “We have to spell around him, or he gets unnecessarily excited.”
    “I know exactly what you mean.”
    He laughed. “Only, Shawna can spell, remember?”
    “Yeah. We’re thinking of having that fixed.”
    She joined in his laughter as they pulled out of the driveway. He always made her feel so reckless.

    Down at the marina, they parked in the lot next to the yacht club. The bay was anemic with sails, the volleyballers so jammed onto the west end of the green that they seemed to be playing a single, riotous game. Michael suggested they walk out the seawall to the Wave Organ, which suited her fine, since there were less people out there and she needed all the privacy she could get.
    She had done a short feature on the Wave Organ once, but she had never actually seen it. It was basically a series of plastic pipes that ran underwater and surfaced at a stone terrace at the end of the seawall. By pressing an ear against one of several openings on the terrace, you could hear the “music” of the organ, the very harmonies of the sea itself, if you believed the press releases.
    Michael knelt by one of the openings.
    “How is it?” she asked.
    “Well…interesting.”
    “Does it sound like music?”
    “I wouldn’t go that far.”
    She found a neighboring outlet, sort of a stone periscope, and listened for herself. All she heard was a hollow hiss, overlaid with a lapping noise. Not exactly a symphony of