Tales of the City 06 - Sure of You

looked at him. “You sound so strident. It isn’t very becoming.”
    He kept quiet.
    “You liked Russell the other night. Did Thack bad-mouth him or something?”
    “No.”
    “Then what’s gotten into you?”
    His beeper went off, answering her question more eloquently than anything he might have said.
    She looked flustered for a moment. “Do you want me to stop for water?”
    “No.”
    “Are you sure?”
    “Yes. I’ll take it when I get home.”
    “I can always…”
    “I’m fine, all right?”

    They were silent for a while, staring out of different windows. As they dipped into Cow Hollow, he turned to her and said: “You’re the one who’s changed, you know.”
    “Have I?” Her voice was surprisingly gentle.
    “Yes.”
    “I’m sorry if my leaving…”
    “It Isn’t that. It happened some time ago.”
    “Oh.”
    “I wish there was some way to convince you I’m not dead yet.”
    She gazed at him, blinking.
    “That’s the way you’ve acted,” he added. “Ever since I told you I was positive.”
    She pretended not to understand. “What do you mean? Acted how?”
    “I don’t know. Careful and distant and overpolite. It’s not the same between us anymore. You talk to me now like I’m Shawna or something.”
    “Mouse…”
    “I don’t blame you,” he said. “You don’t wanna go through Jon again.”
    “What do you think tonight was about? And that day at the Wave Organ?”
    “He shrugged. “Insecurity.”
    “C’mon.”
    “You needed somebody to hold your hand. Somebody to listen. Nothing more.”
    “That’s not very kind.”
    “Maybe not,” he said. “But it’s true.”
    “If I can’t count on you, Mouse…”
    “Hey, it works the other way too.”
    She looked wounded. “I know that.”
    “You’re leaving more than one man, you know.”
    She seemed to be composing her words. “Mouse…you and I will always…”
    “Horseshit. You scrapped our plans tonight as soon as that closet case walked through the door. Don’t gimme that eternity crap. You’ve got your new friends now. The rest of us are just an interim measure.”
    “I know you don’t mean that.”
    “I do mean it. I wish to hell I didn’t, but I do. You don’t give a shit about anybody.” He looked away from her, out the window. “I’m amazed it took me this long to figure it out.”
    “I don’t believe this,” she said.
    “Believe it.”
    “Mouse, if I’ve said something…”
    “Jesus, why are you always so innocent?”
    “Look, if you’d tell me where this coffee place is…”
    “Fuck that. Stop at the next corner. I’m getting out.”
    “Oh, for heaven’s sake.”
    He turned and gave her a look to signal his seriousness. “I said stop, please.”
    “How will you get home?”
    “A bus, a cab. I don’t care.”
    She pulled next to the curb at Union and Octavia.
    “This is so unnecessary,” she said.
    He opened the door and left the car without looking back. As the Mercedes sped away into the fog-fuzzed corridor, he stood on the curb and wondered bleakly if she even cared, if she was feeling anything at all.

Love on the Machine
    H E WOKE AT DAWN THE NEXT MORNING . THE ONLY dream he could remember had been a real doozie, a full Dolby extravaganza involving dead turtles, vintage biplanes, and a brief, heart-stopping walk-on by the Princess of Wales. Out of old habit, he lay there for a while reconstructing this epic, honoring it with his stillness, like a moviegoer who remains in his seat until the credits are over.
    Leaving Thack in bed, he slipped into jeans and a corduroy shirt and took Harry on his morning walk—the abbreviated version—before sorting the laundry and fixing a breakfast of apples and yogurt. His pentamidine appointment was at nine, but the office opened at eight. He knew from experience that August wouldn’t mind squeezing in an unscheduled examination.
    As he left, Thack was lurching toward the shower in his morning muddle. “Want me to come with you?”
    Michael told him no.
    “Are you coming home afterwards?”
    This was a hard one to call. “I dunno.”
    His lover pecked him on the shoulder. “Call me, then. Or I’ll call you at work.”
    “O.K.”
    “And don’t worry,” said Thack.

    August’s office was in a black glass building on Parnassus opposite U.C. Med Center. Michael parked in the basement garage, then rode an elevator smelling of disinfectant and the hot dogs in the fourth-floor snack bar. On the fifth floor he was joined by