Tales of the City 08 - Mary Ann in Autumn

noticed—fluorescent green ones, polka-dotted with peace signs—which an outsider might have taken as another sign of dementia. Ben saw them as an echo of Ray’s Radical Faerie days, and therefore found them reassuring.
    “Cool shoes,” he said.
    “Who? Me?”
    “Who else?” He kissed Ray’s parchment cheek, joining him on the landing. “Don’t let my husband see them. He’ll want some.”
    Ray seized Ben’s hand and held on to it. “Where is he?”
    “Down here with the Sherpas.” Michael was halfway down the stairs, exaggerating his breathlessness as he held tight to the iron banister. It was the game he always played, a pose to make Ray feel younger and stronger. Ben loved him for it.
    “C’mon,” said Ray, beckoning Michael with a skinny arm. “There’s hot buttered rum at the summit.”
    They followed Ray into what Ben always thought of as the great room, a long, warmly lit space on which this couple had left their vaguely hippiefied mark since the early eighties. There was nothing special about the flat, decoratively speaking—Bohemia by way of Pottery Barn—but Ben loved the sheer archaeology of the place, the history buried under magnets on the refrigerator door. These guys had lived a life here, and it showed.
    Ray hollered into the kitchen for Mark, who appeared seconds later carrying a tray of mismatched ceramic mugs. “What is it, you cuntface?”
    The old man hooted with laughter. Ben shot a glance at Michael and saw that he had been every bit as jolted by the greeting as Ben himself.
    “It’s from The Sound of Music ,” Mark explained, holding the tray out to his guests. “You know the scene where—”
    “I was going to do that,” Ray said, interrupting.
    “Do what?”
    “Bring out the rum.”
    “That’s sweet, my darling, but it’s hot. Not to mention buttered.” Mark shot a knowing look at Ben and Michael. Ben could remember a time, only a few years earlier, when Ray could be entrusted with a tray of cocktails without danger of losing a drop.
    No longer, apparently.
    Michael took one of the mugs. “I don’t get it. What’s from The Sound of Music ?”
    Ray grinned impishly. “The Mother Superior says it to … whatshername … the star.”
    “Julie Andrews,” Michael offered.
    “ ‘What is it, you cuntface?’ ” This time it was Ray who said it, giggling.
    Ben was still lost. “Is this in a drag version or something?”
    “It’s in the movie,” said Mark. “Julie doesn’t want to be a nun anymore and tells the Mother Superior she just can’t face it anymore, so the Mother Superior says, ‘What is it you cahnt face?’ You know … with a broad European a . Hence …”
    “ ‘What is it, you cuntface?’ ” Ray crowed the line one more time before pressing his fingers to his mouth. “Hope Arlene didn’t hear. She hates that kinda talk.”
    Ben’s eyes darted nervously toward Michael, who, in turn, glanced at Mark, who connected with them both in a cat’s cradle of wordless mortification.
    “Shall we get comfortable?” said Mark.
    “Arlene should be down soon,” said Ray. “She’s putting her face on.”
    Mark sighed and took Michael’s arm, leading the way to the sofa.
    Ben sidled up next to Ray, placing his hand on the small of Ray’s back as he did his level best to shift the focus. “I hear you guys went out to Cavallo Point last week.”
    “Mmm.”
    “What did you think of the new restaurant?”
    “It used to be a military base, you know.”
    “I did … yes. Did you like it?”
    Ray eased himself into a big armchair upholstered in paisley wool. “I thought it was completely stark and charmless, to tell you the truth. And way too expensive.”
    “I agree with you completely.”
    “Arlene adored it, though. She’s always been partial to fancy places.”
    Arlene had once been Ray’s wife. They had divorced several months before the life-changing Faerie Gathering where he met Mark. Arlene had stayed in Fort Wayne for a few more years before moving to South Dakota with a widower she’d met on a bus tour of the Holy Land. After that, by mutual consent, Ray and Arlene lost touch. Ray, in fact, hadn’t learned of Arlene’s death until eight months after her funeral, when a former neighbor from Fort Wayne was visiting San Francisco. Mark, who was almost forty by then and had never even met Arlene, had confessed, shamefully, to a certain relief. With Arlene gone, the slate would finally be clean; Ray would be his and his