Tales of the City 08 - Mary Ann in Autumn

grain of crud in the corner of his eye, so she picked it out with delicate care, only to have the creature turn and lunge at her hand.
    “Shit … sorry.”
    “What happened?” Ben found her in the mirror.
    “I was picking something out of his eye.”
    Michael chuckled. “He wasn’t trying to hurt you. He just wanted the booger.”
    “What?”
    “He loves to eat eye boogers. It’s his favorite thing.”
    She saw Ben shoot a peevish glance at his husband. “Michael … TMI.”
    “And you feed them to him? Ew … Mouse … that’s disgusting. And who calls them eye boogers, anyway?”
    “Who says ‘ew’ anymore?”
    “Plenty of people.”
    “At our age, I mean.”
    “Our age,” she echoed flatly, shooting him a look. He had tried this several times already: invoking their common decrepitude in front of Ben, so that he, Michael, could strike the pose of the wise old sage. She wasn’t ready to claim that crown yet.
    “All dogs like to do that,” Michael insisted. “It’s a natural thing. Besides, it’s neater. What did you do with it?”
    “What do you mean? I flicked it away.”
    “On the floor ?”
    She reached out to swat him, but he intercepted her hand and held it for a while, almost tenderly, against the snowy bristles on the back of his neck.
    “You’re bad,” she said, embarrassed by the intimacy.
    T HEY STOPPED FOR LUNCH, AS custom seemed to demand, at an In-N-Out Burger just off the freeway. It was perched on a small, barbered knoll that offered a surprisingly unspoiled view of the foothills. The air was much colder here, and the sky was as dingy as an old hankie, but there was no evidence of snow beyond a few ski-racked Outbacks in the parking lot. Some of these patrons had to be locals, she figured, given the patriotic frenzy of their bumper stickers and the sheer height of their vehicles.
    For ten minutes, they went their separate ways, two-and four-legged creatures alike. While Ben was at the counter placing their orders, Michael led Roman around a plaza of asphalt-framed grass, and the lone female finally relieved herself in a restroom that was much cleaner than she’d expected. When she was done, she pushed the paper horseshoe into the toilet with the tip of her Pumas and flushed without looking. She would not dwell morbidly on her cancer. Dr. Ginny had laid down the law about that in their last phone conversation. Stop horriblizing , Mary Ann. It will do you no good.
    She studied her face in a streaky mirror as she washed her hands. She’d been accused of horriblizing before—that very term, in fact—by someone else looking out for her welfare. Calliope, of course, had not been a doctor; her certification had been from a place called Coach U. That should have been a fucking clue, thought Mary Ann. That should have given me the tiniest inkling that this oh-so-earnest shaman with trout pout and cone-shaped breasts might not be the most trustworthy keeper of my heart’s secrets.
    “Don’t be such a horriblizer,” Calliope used to say whenever Mary Ann began to fret about the world. “You’re just worrying about stuff that hasn’t happened yet.”
    Right, thought Mary Ann, drying her hands on a paper towel, like the sight of my life coach sucking off my husband in a fancy Italian hotel. Good thing I didn’t horriblize about that before it happened. Who knows where I would have gone with it. She flung the towel into the trash and charged out of the restroom in a blind fury, nearly colliding with a balding, pink-haired old woman toting an infant in a Baby Bjorn. Outside, where a gust of cold air slapped her into a semblance of sanity, she saw that Ben had already returned to the car, so she collected herself as believably as possible before climbing into the backseat. She was instantly enveloped in a warm fog of cheeseburger smells.
    “Yum,” she said.
    “Eat yours now,” Ben told her with a wink. “It’s a lot easier without the doodle in here.”
    “I guess I shouldn’t ask,” she said, unwrapping one of the burgers.
    He grinned knowingly as he wiped cheese from the corner of his mouth. “It’s hard to be vegetarian on the road. We let ourselves transgress when we’re out of town.”
    “No complaints here.”
    “Good, aren’t they?”
    “Mmm.”
    “It’s the soda cups that bother Michael.”
    “What’s wrong with them?”
    “They’ve got Bible verses printed on the bottom.”
    “Really?” Mary Ann tilted a cup to see what he meant, and