Tales of the City 08 - Mary Ann in Autumn

almost forgotten how good it felt to have a woman like that in her life.
    The anesthesiologist was a blotchy-faced bald guy with a German accent, who wasted no time smiling as he inserted the needle into her arm. “I think you are nervous,” he said sternly, almost as if he were scolding her. It struck her as odd and inappropriate. She was about to lose a smorgasbord of organs: uterus, cervix, ovaries, even her goddamn appendix; all things considered, she thought she was holding up pretty well.
    “No,” she said evenly. “I’m okay.”
    He shook his head. “I think you are nervous.”
    “Of course she’s nervous,” snapped DeDe. “She has cancer. What the hell do you expect her to be?” This was exactly why DeDe had worn Chanel, Mary Ann realized, so she could say things like that and not be thrown out of the room.
    But it dawned on Mary Ann that what had seemed like callousness on this man’s part may have been something else entirely. “I think,” she said, casting a quick glance at DeDe, “he’s asking that because he needs to determine … what he needs to give me in the way of … mood elevators.”
    “Oh,” said DeDe, looking instantly humbled. “She’s nervous, then. She’s really, really nervous.”
    The anesthesiologist permitted himself a smile. “Is that your opinion, too?”
    “Yes,” Mary Ann said, grinning back at him. “It is.”
    Once he had made his final adjustments and they were alone again, DeDe leaned closer to Mary Ann. “That’s what you get for bringing a pushy old lesbian.”
    Mary Ann smiled. “Will you stay until I’m out?”
    “You bet. And I’ll be here when you wake up. They’re putting a bed in your room for me. We can have a slumber party tonight.”
    “Forty-fives,” said Mary Ann.
    “What?”
    “You know, those little record cases we brought to slumber parties.”
    “Oh, yeah.”
    “Tell me you did that in Hillsborough. It wasn’t just Cleveland, was it?”
    “ ’Course not. I had slumber parties all the time. D’or and I still sleep in that room, in fact.”
    “Sweet.” Mary Ann looked at the tube sending sleep into her arm. “Anesthesia is such a beautiful word, isn’t it? A-nes-thesia. It’s like a little town in Mendocino. ‘Let’s go up to that wonderful B&B in Anesthesia.’ ”
    “Sounds like a plan.”
    “No … I didn’t mean that liberally.”
    “Literally.”
    “Right, I didn’t mean it … what?”
    “Nothing, Mary Ann. Sweet dreams.”

Chapter 25
Resident Darkness
    T hree or four times a week, usually in the afternoon, Ben would leave his workshop on Norfolk Street to swim laps at the Embarcadero Y. This stolid old brick building (according to Michael, at least) had been a sort of seedy flophouse/orgy palace back in the days before the Village People told the world that it was fun to play at the YMCA. Now—inside, at least—it was a modern health club whose indoor pool and StairMasters had dramatic close-up views of the Bay Bridge. The locker room could be cruisy from time to time, but only in a subtle, subterranean way, since there were plenty of straight guys and kids who went there. The members were wildly diverse, in fact. Some of them looked like CEOs, others like homeless men on a day pass.
    The showers were semiprivate. There were dividers between them, but they were open on the end, so you could see the person showering across from you. At the moment, that was a beefy, hook-nosed Mediterranean—Italian or Greek, Ben guessed, and probably in his mid-fifties—with a dense doormat of a chest and a hefty provolone between his legs. He was doing the familiar mating dance of the shower, lathering longer than necessary, making extravagant white slaloms of soap through his fur.
    He glanced at Ben enough to make his interest clear, so Ben shortened the ritual with a welcoming smile before heading to his locker. Three minutes later, as Ben was climbing into his jeans, the guy appeared in his boxer shorts, presenting his business card.
    “My cell is on the bottom there. If you wanna call.”
    “Cool,” said Ben, putting the card in his back pocket.
    “Unless you got time now. My place is in South Beach. Walking distance.” The guy smiled at him; his teeth were good, and he seemed straightforward enough, trustworthy. His hair was dyed—unnecessarily and not very well—but some things could be forgiven, if the other elements were right. And, man, were they.
    He had planned on going back to the studio to