Tales of the City 06 - Sure of You

your friends think when you start spouting that crap?”
    “What crap?”
    “You know. About the love of a good woman. The joys of being straight. I saw you on the Today show last week. I’ve never heard such a line of shit in my life. You’re not fooling half as many people as you think.”
    Even in the fog, and under a pink light, Rand colored noticeably. “Look, you don’t know me…”
    “I know you’re a hypocrite.”
    Rand took a long time to react. “You run a nursery, for Christ’s sake. Nobody expects you to be straight.”
    “You think they expect dress designers to be?”
    Rand nodded dolefully. “The world doesn’t want to know. Trust me.”
    “Who cares?”
    “I do. I have to.”
    “No you don’t. You’re just greedy. Keeping up a front while your friends drop dead.”
    Rand gave him a flinty glare. “I’ve raised more money for AIDS than you’ll ever see.”
    “And that lets you off the hook? Entitles you to lie?”
    “I think it entitles me to…”
    “You had a chance to make a real difference, you know. You could’ve shown people that gay people are everywhere, that we’re no different from…”
    “Oh, get real!”
    “Why not? Are you that disgusted by yourself?”
    “Why should the public know about my private life?”
    “We sure as hell know about Chloe, don’t we?”
    Rand grunted and stood up, obviously beating a retreat.
    “You’re a dinosaur,” Michael said. “The world has moved on, and you don’t even know it.”
    Rand glowered back at him as he headed for the house. “What do you know about the world? You live in San Francisco.”
    “Thank God for that,” yelled Michael. “And good luck getting laid.”
    When Rand was gone, Michael remained there in the rose-tinted fog, filling his lungs with the stuff as he collected his thoughts. Then, remembering suddenly, he leaned over, lifted his pants leg, and examined the purple spot again.

    When he found Mary Ann, she was in the act of autographing a cocktail napkin for an ecstatic fan.
    “Are you about ready to go?” he asked.
    She handed the napkin to the fan, who looked at it disbelieving, then backed off, bobbing like a court servant. “I guess so,” she answered. “Are you bored?”
    “No. I’ve just sort of…done it.”
    “Right.” She perused the crowd. “We should say goodbye to Russell and Chloe.”
    “No,” he said. “We shouldn’t.”
    She frowned. “What’s the matter? What happened?”
    “We had sort of a scene. I’ll tell you about it later.”
    “Mouse…”
    “I’ll get the car.”
    She followed him up the path to the valet parker. “What sort of a scene?”
    “He made a move on me.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “He invited me back to his hotel.”
    “Well, that may not have been…”
    “I think I would know,” he said.

    In the car, after a weighty silence, she asked: “What did you tell him?”
    “Not much. That he was a closet case and should go fuck himself.”
    “You didn’t.”
    “In so many words, yes.”
    “Mouse…”
    “What was I supposed to say?”
    “It isn’t what you say, it’s how. Were you rude to him?”
    “Does it matter?”
    “It does to me, yes.”
    “Why?”
    “Because they’ve been very nice to me. Chloe’s helping me with my move, and…”
    He laughed as bitterly as he could.
    “I mean this,” she said.
    “What was I supposed to do? Suck him off to show your gratitude?”
    “Don’t put words in my mouth.”
    “The guy is a slimeball.”
    “You’ve been hit on before,” she said. “You know how to turn somebody down in a pleasant way.”
    “I can’t believe this.”
    “Where do you get off being so sanctimonious, anyway? You picked up plenty of guys before you met Thack.”
    As usual, she had missed the point entirely. “This has nothing to do with picking up guys,” he said.
    “Then…what?”
    “He’s a liar, Mary Ann.”
    “He’s a public figure.”
    “Oh, I see. Can’t have Amurrica knowing he’s queer. Anything but that, God knows.”
    “There are practical considerations,” she said. “You’re not being at all reasonable.”
    “I haven’t got time for people who don’t like themselves.”
    He peered sullenly out the window. Pale stucco facades slid past in the darkness. It made him sad to realize that she hadn’t grasped this fundamental concept in all their years of knowing each other. If she, of all people, didn’t get it, was there any hope for the serious bigots?
    She turned and