Tales of the City 06 - Sure of You

Ann’s my friend too.”
    “Some friend. She just blamed the whole damned thing on you.”
    Michael threw him a medium-sized dagger. “We’ll just make it worse if he stays here.”
    “For God’s sake,” said Thack, “he’s your partner.”
    “Don’t preach to me, all right? I know who he is.”
    “O.K., fine. Call the Motel 6.”

    “It’s no problem,” said Michael. “Really.”
    He and Thack were back in the living room. Brian was still on the floor with Harry. “Are you sure?” he said, looking up. “I can get a motel.”
    “Nah. That’s ridiculous.”
    Brian shrugged. “I’ve done it before.”
    “Well, it’s…You have?”
    “Sure. Couple of times.”
    “When?”
    “I dunno. Last year.” He raised his brows sheepishly.
    “You should stay here,” said Thack.
    Michael nodded. “Yeah.”
    “O.K., then. Thanks.”
    Thack looked at Michael. “Are there sheets on the guest bed.”
    “No, but…”
    “The couch is fine, guys.”
    “Don’t be noble,” said Michael. “We’ve got a guest room for just this purpose. Well, not exactly this purpose…” The doorbell rang.
    “Shit.” Michael peered out through the spy hole. This time there were five of them. More plastic capes and plastic faces.
    “It’s gonna be a long evening,” said Thack.

    Brian helped Michael make the bed in the guest room.
    “What about Shawna?” Michael asked. “Who’s gonna take her to school in the morning?”
    “Nguyet can do it.”
    “Are you sure? I’d be more than happy…”
    “No. That’s O.K. Thanks.” He looked at Michael earnestly. “Can we not talk about this for a while?”
    “Sure.” Michael finished tucking in the top sheet and plumped a feather pillow into place. “There are some little hotel toothbrushes in the top of the medicine cabinet.”
    “Thanks.” Brian smiled feebly. “Trick toothbrushes.”
    “What?”
    “Isn’t that what you used to call ’em?”
    Michael chuckled. “What a memory.”
    “I’m sorry about this, Michael.”
    “Don’t be.”
    “I can’t go back there. I can’t just…wait for her to leave.”
    “I understand.”
    “I knew I could count on you,” said Brian.

The Kastro
    M ONA FELT A TWINGE OF HOMECOMING WHEN HER cab rounded the seafront bend and Molivos sprang into view. The bright shutters and stone terraces, the smokestack of the old olive oil factory, the Genoese castle crowning the hill—all had lost their exoticism and become suddenly, ancestrally familiar. She had been here before and now she was back, an Amazon returning from the Sapphic Wars.
    It pleased her somehow to be able to identify the noise coming from the esplanade. It was the laundry truck, which announced itself by what appeared to be a top-mounted gramophone, and which, once or twice a week, transported the dirty clothes of tourists into Mitilíni, sixty kilometers across the mountains. The people of Molivos were a pround lot, who did their own washing but no one else’s.
    The first time she’d heard the blare of that loudspeaker, she’d held her breath and waited for word that a coup had been declared. Even now, almost three weeks later, she suspected it of fascist leanings. Who knew what it was saying, anyway? Maybe it wasn’t just a laundry truck. Maybe it was issuing some sort of public edict.
    Attention all dykes, attention all dykes. The season is officially over. Please vacate the streets immediately and return to your home countries. This is your last warning. I repeat: This is your last warning…
    She smiled and peered out the window. A lot of the shops and restaurants had been boarded up in her absence, now citadels against the coming rains. In the tiny high street, the sea-green grotto of Melinda’s Restaurant harbored the last of the tourists. The men at the Old Guys’ Café—her name for the place where Stratos usually ate—seemed tickled to death that Moliveos was about to be returned to them.
    Who can blame them? she thought. I wouldn’t want to share it either.
    She disembarked at the wisteria-covered end of the high street and paid her driver. She had chosen this approach to the house, rather than the easier one from the esplanade, for the sheer navigational thrill of threading her way down the maze of cobbled walkways. She enjoyed knowing where she was going in such a completely foreign place.
    When she reached the Turkish fountain that identified the base of their terrace, she stopped and, looking up, saw the flutter of silk against