Tales of the City 08 - Mary Ann in Autumn

about Shawna? Where did they get that?”
    “I never knew, actually. The woman who gave birth to me picked it out, and she died just after I was born. She just passed it on to my adoptive mom.”
    “She raised you, then? Your mom?”
    Shawna shook her head. “She left when I was little. My dad raised me. I can’t say I’ve ever had a mother.”
    Leia nodded. “That’s some bad shit.”
    “Hey … we deal.”
    “Musta been hard when you were little.”
    “Well, I always tried to—”
    “My mom rented me out to perverts when I was little.”
    Shawna flinched. “What do you mean?”
    “Sent me on dates with grown men. They messed with me and took pictures of it for paying customers. Split the profits with my folks.”
    “Your father was in on it, too?”
    Shawna’s reaction drew a phlegmy chortle from Leia. “Got you beat, huh?”
    “Guess so.”
    “Parents ain’t always a good thing, ya know.”
    Shawna gave her a sardonic smile, feeling shamefully self-indulgent. She retreated to more practical matters. “Is there somebody I should notify, Alexandra?”
    The woman frowned suspiciously. “About what?”
    “About you. About your being here.” In the event of your death were the words she couldn’t bring herself to speak.
    “Oh … no … nobody. Well, you could tell Maurice.”
    “The guy who made the sign?”
    “Yeah.”
    “I thought you said he was dead.”
    “Oh, yeah … right.” Leia nodded slowly, tears streaming down her face.
    “I’m so sorry,” said Shawna.
    “Ain’t your fault,” said Leia.

Chapter 17
A Thing About Cliffs
    M ary Ann had considered defriending the Facebooker who asked her about Norman, but decided against it. Such a move would only make her look as if she had something to hide. Instead, she just deactivated the chat function. Her fear, of course, was that Fogbound One was someone who had known Norman well—or well enough to know that he’d been with Mary Ann that long-ago Christmas Eve.
    Worse yet, what if this guy was a homicide cop investigating a new development in the long-cold case of Norman’s disappearance?
    This was paranoia, she told herself. Ben had warned her that social networking could unearth all sorts of stuff, so it wasn’t that surprising, really, that Norman’s name had surfaced. She had dated this man, after all, so lots of people could have seen them together. She and Norman had eaten at Sam Wo’s in Chinatown and gone to an old movie at the Castro Theater. They had even gone treat-or-treating on Russian Hill with that poor little girl, though Mary Ann had still been clueless at the time. She’d found it endearing that this shambling sasquatch of a man would babysit for his friends. She took it as a sign of Norman’s basic decency, his obvious yearning for home and family.
    She had never been serious about him. He’d been forty-four, for one thing—almost twenty years older—and not all that handsome. She had seen him more as a project, a humanitarian effort. After only a year in the city, she had already had her fill of beautiful, unavailable men, so Norman, with his low self-esteem and adoring gaze, had struck her as an easy, risk-free object of her affection. Since she’d never slept with him, she’d been caught off-guard the night he’d all but proposed to her at the Beach Chalet.
    She had sometimes wondered if Norman had seen her as a cure for his pedophilia, his last serious shot at a normal life. Whatever his motives, his anguish had seemed real enough when she turned him down. And it was still in his eyes on Christmas Eve when they were walking along the cliffs at the Legion of Honor and she confronted him about the disgusting magazines she’d found in his apartment. Even then, he still wanted her, still believed he could win her over, if only she would listen to his side of the story.
    She’d been over this so many times in her head. Things might have been different if he hadn’t been so drunk that day, if they hadn’t chosen that particular path, if he hadn’t stumbled and lost his footing, if he’d just held still when he began to slide on his back toward the precipice, if he’d worn the goddamn tie she’d bought him instead of his usual tacky clip-on, which came loose in her hand when she reached down to rescue him.
    There’d been nothing to like about Norman, but she hadn’t wanted him to die. She had never seen herself as someone who could flee such a terrible scene, but fate or karma or something