Tales of the City 06 - Sure of You

else.”
    Michael watched a gull as it trooped solemnly along the edge of the seawall. “How long has it been like this?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “You must.”
    “No,” she said. “It sort of crept up on me. It was a lot of little things that just added up. It’s not like I’ve been thinking about it for a long time.”
    “But the talk-show thing forced the issue?”
    “Well, it made things clearer. I saw how long I’ve been settling for less than the whole package. I need a partner, Mouse. Someone who dreams about the same things.” Suddenly, she felt hot tears welling behind her eyes. “Sometimes I look at Connie Chung and Maury Povich and get so jealous .”
    “Do you want a divorce?”
    “I don’t know. Not for a while. It might just complicate things. This would be more like Dolly Parton.”
    He obviously didn’t understand.
    “You know. She has a husband back in Tennessee, doesn’t she? Who digs ditches or something?”
    “Paves driveways.”
    “Whatever,” she said.
    “So…a separation?”
    “I want whatever’s easiest on everybody, that’s all.”
    “Maybe you should wait, then. See how this job turns out.”
    “No. How fair would that be? It’s over, Mouse. He has to know that. There’s just no other way out.” She began to sob, mangling her words. “I’m not a monster. I just can’t…make him give up his life here for…something that isn’t working anymore.”
    “I understand.”
    She dug a Kleenex from her purse and blew her nose. “Do you? Really?”
    “Yes.”
    “I was so afraid that you wouldn’t. That you’d hate me for this. I can’t stand the thought of losing you.”
    “When have you ever lost me?”
    “I don’t want to now,” she said. “Especially not now.”
    He slipped his arm gently around her waist. “When are you gonna tell him?”
    “I don’t know. Soon.”
    “He won’t be ready, you know.”
    She blotted her eyes with the wadded Kleenex, feeling a twinge of anxiety. “You won’t tell him, will you?”
    “Of course not, but…he loves you a lot, Babycakes.”
    “No,” she said. “It’s a habit. It’s something that just happened to us because we didn’t have anywhere else to go. He knows that himself. Deep down.”
    “C’mon.”
    “I mean it. It’s the truth.”
    “You and I just happened,” he said.
    “No we didn’t. We’ve always chosen each other, Mouse. From the very beginning.” She looked at him but didn’t touch him, knowing it would be too much. “We’re gonna be friends when we’re both in rockers at the old folks’ home.”
    A tear slicked his cheek. He swiped at it with the back of his palm, then smiled at her. “Did you pick this spot on purpose?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Where we met. The Marina Safeway.”
    “Oh, yeah.” It was down at the end of the green. She hadn’t been there in years, she realized. How like him to think that she had brought him here for commemorative purposes.
    “Remember Robert?” he asked. “The guy I was with that day?”
    “Do I! He was the one I was trying to pick up!”
    “Well, thanks a lot.”
    She smiled. “What about him?”
    “I saw him the other day,” he explained. “I couldn’t believe how boring he was.”
    “Of course.”
    “All I could think was: What if he hadn’t dumped me? I’d be living in some tract home in Foster City. And I never would’ve met Thack.”
    She didn’t know exactly what to say to that, so she gazed out at the water. Angel Island squatted in the distance like a dusty shrub in the midst of a wide blue prairie. She and Michael used to picnic there, years ago. They would spread a blanket on one of the old gun emplacements and talk about men for hours on end.
    “I want you to come visit me,” she told him.
    “O.K.”
    “Promise?”
    “Of course.”
    “If you do,” she said, “I’ll introduce you to everybody in the world.”
    “It’s a deal. And you’ll call me every week?”
    “With dish like you won’t believe!”
    When he laughed, she knew that the worst was over. Ten minutes later they strolled to the Marina Safeway in quest of lunch. Out on the seawall, another bewildered couple knelt in homage to the Wave Organ, listening for the music that wasn’t there.

Interrogations
    O N MONDAY MORNING , IN THE GREENHOUSE AT Plant Parenthood, Brian turned to Michael and said: “Mary Ann says you guys had a good time catching up.”
    Michael was thrown, but he tried not to show it. She had been right, of