Tales of the City 08 - Mary Ann in Autumn

“jonesing” for hot chocolate, so he’d already made a run to the general store for the necessary ingredients, including a bag of mini-marshmallows so ancient and crusty they might have been geological specimens.
    “They’re okay,” he said, after sipping from his mug. “They soften up a lot once they get hot.”
    She half-expected him to make a bawdy joke about that, but, for once, he didn’t strain for a double entendre. He did worse; he asked her about Bob.
    “Do we have to talk about him?”
    He shrugged. “Just wondering if you’ve heard anything.”
    “He left a message on my cell.”
    “And?”
    “I deleted it.”
    “Well, fine, but—”
    “I’m divorcing him, Mouse. I have nothing to talk to him about.”
    “Then … how will he know you want one?”
    Why was he doing this? Couldn’t he see that she might not want to talk to Bob about anything —especially the smoking wreckage of the marriage—when she was on the verge of having her womanhood extracted? She wouldn’t have put it that way to Mouse, of course, since she didn’t want to be smothered with platitudes about femininity not being an organ but something in the heart and the mind, and blah, blah, blah …
    “He’ll find out soon enough,” she told him. “I texted Robbie.”
    Michael’s forehead furrowed in bald-faced disapproval. “You really think he should hear that from his son?”
    “Why not?”
    “It’s not fair to Robbie, for one thing. He shouldn’t have to deal with that. He’s just barely got his toes into college.”
    “You don’t know what’s fair to Robbie. You’ve never even met him. He and I are very close. We talk about a lot of things.”
    “Did you talk to him about the tennis pro?”
    “What tennis pro?”
    “At the country club. Last year.”
    “He was a scuba diver, Mouse. I was getting certified.”
    “You certainly were.” If he’d had a big cigar in his hand, he would have waggled it at her, Groucho-style. “So, did you?”
    “Did I what?”
    “Tell your stepson about the redheaded scuba diver. With the crooked dick.”
    Mary Ann sighed. Interesting, the details Michael chose to remember. “I love Robbie too much to tell him about something like that.”
    “But not enough to keep quiet about his father screwing your life coach.”
    “It’s not the same thing, Mouse. It’s entirely different.”
    “How?”
    “Why are you picking on me?”
    “I’m not. I just wanna know how it’s different.”
    “Okay, then, think about it for a while … these were my two closest confidantes. Well, she was, anyway. I told her everything , Mouse.”
    Michael’s mouth slowly went slack. “You told her about Crooked Dick.”
    It wasn’t a question, exactly, so she didn’t reply.
    “Tell me you didn’t tell her about Crooked Dick.”
    “Stop calling him that. Of course I told her. That’s what you do with a life coach.”
    “No. That’s what you do with a shrink. A life coach teaches you how to keep a gratitude journal and sleep with potpourri under your pillow.”
    She almost smiled, but repressed it. “This hurts , Mouse. You don’t seem to be getting that at all. I told Calliope the most intimate details of my … issues with Bob, and she just took them and ran with them. She used them to lure him.”
    “What sort of issues?”
    “Oh, no. Not on cocoa.”
    “You’ll tell Calliope but you won’t tell me?”
    “That’s right.”
    “Well, thanks a whole heap. That’s nice to know.”
    “It’s not that big a deal. You’re making too much of it.” She leaned forward and set her mug on the coffee table in slow motion, buying time so she could compose her thoughts. “I just got tired of doing certain things, that’s all.”
    “Like … ?”
    “Like blowing his wrinkly old cock.”
    Michael’s expression betrayed nothing, so she went on:
    “Calliope agreed with me, too. That’s what pisses me off. She’d just gotten a divorce and we had a big laugh over it. It was a real bonding moment for us.”
    Michael was frowning now. “Cocks don’t wrinkle, for the record. They’re pretty much the only thing that doesn’t, thank God. If you mean plain ol’ bed death—”
    “No, Mouse. I didn’t want it in my mouth anymore. It’s no more complicated than that. It was okay for a while, but I got tired of it. I wanted to sit by the fire and go on trips with my husband and look at sunsets. I didn’t want Cirque du Fellatio!”
    “And you told Calliope