Tales of the City 08 - Mary Ann in Autumn

Michael, meanwhile, was tugging methodically on his silver mustache, already deep in speculation.
    “Anyway,” she continued, “he was in Venice at the Gritti Palace—supposedly meeting with this group of investors—and I had something really important to tell him, so we Skyped for about fifteen minutes, and he blew me a kiss good-night, and the stupid son of a bitch forgot to turn off the Webcam.”
    Michael parenthesized his head with his hands, waiting.
    “It was kind of sweet at first … strangely intimate. He drifted off and I could watch him snoozing on this beautiful hand-painted bed with a gorgeous view of the Grand Canal. Then Calliope came into the room with an armful of Dolce and Gabbana shopping bags and crawled onto the bed with him.”
    “Fuck me,” said Michael.
    Mary Ann nodded. “That’s more or less what she said.” She picked up the glass again and polished off the remains with a grimace. “The sick part is, I couldn’t stop looking. I watched until the bitter goddamn end. Like some crummy porno with a flat-assed old man pounding away on a Botoxed crack-whore.”
    Michael blinked at her. “His ass is flat? You never told me that. ”
    “Mouse … can we stay on the subject.” The ancient nickname just tumbled out of its own accord, now that she was finally coming clean.
    He picked up her glass. “Want another one?”
    She shook her head. “That was enough, thanks.”
    He set down the glass and slipped his arm across her shoulder. “You know … I can’t say I’m terribly surprised.”
    “I can’t, either. He hasn’t been … you know … present emotionally for several years. The sex wasn’t much to speak of, but we weren’t that young anymore and I just thought we were entering … the cozy stage. I was kind of relieved, to tell you the truth.” She realized too late that she had said this to someone her own age who—to hear him tell it, at least—was having the best sex of his life. She hoped he wouldn’t bring that up.
    “So what was it you called to tell him?”
    It was uncanny, after all these years, how Michael could still find his way so deftly to the epicenter of her pain.
    “That I was worried about being pregnant,” she replied.
    His mouth opened slightly, and he made a little huffing sound that didn’t quite qualify as laughter. “You’re kidding, right?”
    His disbelief was understandable, but it still felt like an act of petty cruelty. She couldn’t help but sound wounded. “It does happen, you know, to women my age. It’s rare, but it happens. Even when we’ve been through menopause.”
    “So were you pregnant? Are you?”
    “No,” she said quietly. “It was … a false alarm.” What an odd way to put it, she thought, since what she was feeling now was the truest alarm imaginable. An unwanted pregnancy, however inconveniently late in life, paled in comparison.
    “But why would you even think you were—”
    “I was bleeding, Mouse. I thought I was getting my period again.”
    The room was so incredibly still that she could hear, from somewhere in Michael and Ben’s kitchen, the sound of a dripping faucet. Or more likely one of those aerated water bowls for dogs, given the way these guys seemed to dote on their Labradoodle.
    When she finally spoke, it might have been someone else.
    “I have uterine cancer.”
    After a moment, Michael just said: “Shit.”
    “I know this isn’t fair to you, Mouse. There was just no one else I could tell. Darien’s too much of a hornet’s nest and—”
    “Sweetie.” Michael slipped his arm across her shoulder, trying to pull her closer, but she felt herself resisting. She still wasn’t ready to collapse yet. He sensed this and released her after a squeeze or two. “Bob doesn’t know, then?”
    She shook her head. “He’s probably still freaked that I might be pregnant.”
    “Shouldn’t you tell him—?”
    “God, no.”
    “He hasn’t come home yet, I take it?”
    “No.”
    Now she was wondering if Bob and Calliope were still at the Gritti or if they’d taken their act to some other romantic venue, someplace to the south, maybe, sunny and by the sea. If only she had muted the Skype—or just turned the damned thing off—as soon as she had seen what was happening. Now, for the rest of her days, she would have to live with those voices, gruff with lust, then oh-so-achingly tender, voices that were already cutting into her like knives when that clueless young doctor told her the