Tales of the City 07 - Michael Tolliver Lives

right?”
    “Only if you’ve had one before,” I replied. “Only if you’re Proust.” I shared a private grin with him. “My madeleine would be a Moon Pie.”
    Ben laughed.
    “That’s a big fib…and you know it.” Mama was eating and talking at the same time, which was something of a stretch. Madeleine crumbs had assembled unlawfully in the corners of her mouth. “I never…ssss…fed you boys Moon Pies in my life.”
    I chuckled. “I didn’t say you fed us. I said I ate them.”
    “I’ll tell you another thing…ssss…I know who Proust is…ssss…so don’t you get snooty with me.”
    “I didn’t mean—”
    “Where’d you get ’em?”
    “What?”
    “The Moon Pies.”
    “The Esso station down on the highway. Mr. Grady with the drool rag. Same place I got the key ring with the wiggly naked lady inside.”
    Mama was fierce. “I don’t remember any…ssss…key ring.”
    “I don’t know why not,” I said. “You confiscated it. You said you never wanted to see me with a naked lady again as long as you lived.”
    Her mouth went slack. “I never said…ssss…any such thing!”
    “Well,” I said darkly, “it’s how I heard it.”
    “Michael.” Ben was using the careful intonation of a kindergarten teacher. “Stop with the Norman Bates, please.”
    “She knows I’m kidding,” I said, slipping my arm around Mama’s shoulders.
    Sulking, Mama smoothed the front of her blouse. “Don’t think you can…ssss…blame me for your”—she searched for the right word—“good times.”
    “My good times,” I echoed to Ben. “Blame her for my good times.”
    “Give it a break,” he said. “Who’s Mr. Grady with the drool rag?”
    “He worked at the gas station,” I said.
    “He had a condition, “Mama added.
    “So I gathered,” said Ben.
    “He was sort of a popular freak show for us kids,” I said. “He had this long string of drool—”
    “Ugh,” said Ben.
    “I know,” said Mama, looking slyly at my husband. “You could never buy a blessed thing out of a wrapper.”
    It took him a moment to recognize her humor, but he finally smiled. “You’re a pistol, aren’t you, Alice?”
    He could not have pleased her more. She smiled at him faintly, then turned back to me. “How did you ever meet…ssss…such a gentleman?”
    I was feeling so comfortable by then that I almost brought up the website, but I thought better of it. “Just lucky, I guess.”
    “I was lucky, too,” Ben told her.
    Mama caught the look that passed between us. “Is that so?” she asked him.
    He returned her gaze. “Yes, ma’am. It is.”
    Their eyes stayed locked for a while before she turned back to me. “Why don’t you…ssss…go out and play?”
    “What?”
    “You heard me,” she said, shooing me with a plump pastel hand.

    I spent the time in something called the Prayer Gazebo, which was just what it sounds like: a gazebo in the form of a miniature chapel. It wouldn’t function well as either, it seemed to me, but there were nice cushions that kept me comfortable while I was killing time. I was still killing it, by the way, when Lenore came back to pick us up.
    “What happened to Ben?” she called.
    “He’s inside with Mama.” I rose and walked toward her out of the gazebo.
    I caught the raw scent of new-mown grass and felt suddenly, curiously buoyant.
    “What are they talking about?” Lenore asked.
    “I have no idea.”
    “Oh… now .”
    “I’m serious,” I said. “I’m clueless.”
    Lenore pursed her lips. “Mikey, listen, I don’t know what y’all are up to, and I don’t wanna sound like some rhymes-with-witch, but Mama Tolliver can’t take any stress right now…and just because y’all’s political agenda means tellin’ the whole blessed—”
    “It was her idea, Lenore!”
    Lenore looked satisfyingly blank.
    “Mama asked to be alone with Ben.”
    “She did?”
    “Yes. And lay off that agenda crap, Lenore. I hear a lot more about your agenda than you ever hear about mine.”
    “Oh, hush,” she said. “We need to figure this out.”
    “Why?”
    “Because she’s up to somethin’…”
    I just shrugged. “I think it’s kinda sweet.”
    “Listen, if you think for one minute that she’s in there givin’ him her blessing on your…let’s just say it, Mikey…cradle robbin’—”
    “Oh, please,” I said. “We’re not asking for her approval. Or yours, for that matter.”
    Lenore’s faced clouded with thought. “What is it, then? She