Tales of the City 08 - Mary Ann in Autumn

window seat, as if in anticipation of their evening alone together.
    O NCE THE GUYS WERE GONE, she accepted their long-standing offer to use their shower. Compared to the fiberglass cubicle in the cottage, this was a luxuriously roomy space, and the rain showerhead was the size of a Frisbee. Standing beneath a tropical downpour, she used their extension mirror to examine her incisions. She was starting to think of those four little cat scratches as a sort of Map to the Stars’ Homes. (“This is where Lucille Ball used to live … and over there is the former home of Ava Gardner.”)
    Her surgery had been like a clever burglary, where the house had been left so tidy you could barely notice that someone had broken in. That had certainly been a bonus, but, more than anything, she was grateful to her uterus for being such a pilferable item, such a sturdy, yet disposable, little carrying-case for cancer. She visualized the bad stuff being taken somewhere far away, somewhere she would never have to go again.
    Something soft and fleshy brushed against her knee and made her jump. It was Roman, or rather Roman’s tongue, a sensation she was learning to recognize. He had walked into the shower as if he owned the place, which he pretty much did, as far as she could tell. Michael and Ben had been giving him shampoos in here.
    “Go on,” she said, giggling. “That’s very nice of you, but I don’t need your help.”
    The dog just gaped at her as if he needed convincing.
    “Go, Roman … go find your monster.”
    His monster was a hard-sided felt cyclops that he was encouraged to mangle in lieu of destroying the sofa cushions. Its white polyester innards were strewn all over the house. He had been through several monsters in the course of Mary Ann’s stay.
    The dog wagged his tail excitedly and left on his quest. She showered for another five minutes, dried off with one of their thirsty white towels and slipped into clean flannel pajamas. She had told the guys she would curl up with a book, but that had just been a figure of speech. She wondered how many people who said that actually did it, or if they ended up, as she had, back around the campfire of the Web, telling tales to strangers.
    But she felt curled up, at least. It was so cozy there on her bed in the cottage, with her laptop at her fingertips and Roman’s fleecy body radiating warmth against her leg. Facebook lifted her spirits even more, since there were seven new people soliciting her friendship, two of whom she actually remembered. One was a realtor named Shelley, whom she’d met on a Pilates retreat at Canyon Ranch; the other was someone she had known during her pre-Bob party-planning days in Manhattan. She told both of them about her surgery, calling herself a cancer survivor for the very first time. It felt remarkably good.
    She had four private messages tonight. Three of them were just people thanking her for the add. The other was from Fogbound One, the faceless Facebooker who had spooked her by having known Norman Neal Williams all those years ago.
    The message said: “Did you like the T-shirt?”
    It made no sense to her. The only T-shirt that came to mind was the “Middle of Nowhere” T-shirt from Pinyon City that the guys had left on her doorstep the night before her surgery. She had never even thanked them for it, and, for that matter, didn’t recall having seen it since her return from St. Sebastian’s. That wasn’t especially remarkable, of course, since Ben had a way of tidying things up.
    She wondered if Fogbound One had come to her by way of Ben’s Pinyon City network. Maybe someone he and Michael knew up there had seen them buy the T-shirt. Or Ben or Michael had mentioned it to someone who was using it now to presume an intimacy with her. It was annoying, at any rate, since the vagueness of the message was clearly meant to force a reply from her. She wasn’t taking the bait. Fogbound One was one of those losers who glutted her news feed with reams of their favorite poems and quotations but had nothing much to say themselves. Besides, if this person had really been friends with Norman, why on earth would she want to share anything with them?
    This was a no-brainer.
    She went to her Friends list, scrolled down to Fogbound One and clicked on the x that would defriend this faceless nuisance forever.
    T HE NOISE ON THE ROOF didn’t surprise her—or Roman, for that matter. They were both used to the sound of raccoons crossing the