Michael shot his lover a glance. Thack rarely touched the hard stuff. Was he that uncomfortable about the evening ahead?
“Awriight,” crowed Brian. “A serious drink.”
Burke grinned at this interchange, then addressed Brian: “You used to be a real bartender, didn’t you? Down at Benny’s.”
“Perry’s,” said Brian.
“That’s right.”
“I was a waiter, though.”
“Oh.”
“He was a lawyer before that,” Mary Ann put in, “but he took on so many liberal causes that he sort of burned out.”
Michael saw Brian’s expression and knew what he was thinking: Why does she always have to say that? Wouldn’t a waiter have been enough?
Brian locked eyes with his wife, plastered a sickly smile on his face, and returned his attention to Thack’s bourbon.
“And now you guys are nurserymen.” Still a little over-jovial, Burke looked first at Michael, then at Brian.
“Right,” Michael answered.
“You need water…soda?” Brian was talking to Thack now.
“On the rocks is fine.”
“You got it,” said Brian.
“We’ve been partners for three years,” Michael told Burke.
“That’s great.”
“Here you go, sport.” Brian handed Michael a Calistoga on the rocks. Michael and Thack went to the big curving couch and sat down in the space between Mary Ann and Burke.
Mary Ann reached over and gave Michael’s knee a shake. “I can’t get over how good you look.”
Michael smiled and nodded and said: “I feel good.”
“Hey,” said Burke. “You know who I was thinking about today?”
“Who?” Mary Ann turned, letting go of Michael’s knee.
“Our old landlady. Mrs. Thingamabob.”
“Madrigal,” said Michael. “Shit!”
Mary Ann frowned. “What?”
Flooded with guilt, Michael looked at Thack. “We were gonna call her. You were gonna remind me.”
“Oh, hell,” said his lover.
Brian settled into the big white leather chair across from the sofa. “You can use the phone in the bedroom if…”
“No,” said Michael. “It’s too late.”
“She went to Lesbos,” Thack explained.
Burke laughed. “Sounds like her.”
“Damn it,” muttered Michael.
Mary Ann looked lost. “Why on earth did she go to Lesbos?”
“Because it’s there,” said Burke, laughing.
“She’s meeting Mona there,” said Michael. “Her daughter.”
“Damn,” said Burke. “I remember her. Frizzy red hair, right?”
“That’s her,” said Michael.
“Didn’t you use to go out with her?” Burke was addressing Brian now.
“Once or twice,” said Brian.
“She became a lesbian,” said Mary Ann.
There was an awkward silence before Brian told Burke: “The two events were not related.”
This got an awkward chuckle.
Michael felt compelled to speak up on Mona’s behalf. “She was a lesbian long before she met Brian.”
“Thank you,” said Brian.
Mary Ann looked at her husband. “I wasn’t impugning your prowess, for God’s sake.”
“Sorry.” Burke laughed, obviously thinking he had opened a touchy subject.
“No,” said Mary Ann, laughing to reassure him. “Really.”
“Where is she now?” asked Burke.
“In England,” said Mary Ann. “She married a lord and lives in this huge house in the Cotswolds.”
“Does the lord know she’s a lesbian?”
“Oh, sure,” Michael told him. “He’s gay himself. They don’t live together. He lives here. He drives a cab for Veterans.”
“Well,” said Burke. “Thanks for clearing that up.”
As everyone laughed, Michael marveled at the apparent ease with which the four old housemates had reunited. Then, in a fleeting moment of self-torment, he pictured poor Mrs. Madrigal sitting alone amid her carpetbags in some fly-specked Grecian airport without benefit of his bon voyage.
They were seated at the big green glass dining table when Michael realized who was missing.
“Hey, where’s Shawna?”
“In her room,” said Mary Ann.
Brian glanced at his wife, then spoke to Michael: “She’s playing with her new Nintendo game.”
“Ah.” Michael nodded.
“She’s not very good around new grownups,” said Mary Ann.
“She was fine,” said Burke. “Really.”
Brian looked faintly apologetic. “Sometimes it takes her a while,” he told Burke.
“No problem,” said Burke. “Really.”
Michael and Thack communicated briefly with their eyes. Had Shawna been antisocial? Had she thrown a tantrum and been banished to her room?
When the maid appeared with a tray of mint-wrapped fish, Mary Ann jumped at the chance to change the subject. “Nguyet,” she said, beaming up at the girl, “those spring rolls were absolutely your best ever.”
Burke murmured in agreement, his mouth still full of the food under discussion.
The maid giggled. “You like?”
“Very much,” said Thack, joining in the praise. “Absolutely delicious.”
Nguyet ducked her eyes, then set down the tray and fled the room.
“She’s shy,” said Mary Ann.
“But sweet,” said Burke.
“Isn’t she?” Mary Ann waited until the girl was out of earshot. “Her family had a horrible time getting out of Saigon.”
“She was a baby. She doesn’t even remember that,” said Brian.
“Well, I know, but…you can’t help but feel for her.”
Burke nodded, eyes fixed on the door to the kitchen.
“They live in some awful tenement in the Tenderloin, but they’re the nicest, most industrious people.” Mary Ann handed the tray of fish to Burke. “They’re also incredibly clean. They’re much cleaner than…almost anybody.”
Than who? thought Michael. Cleaner than who? Across the table he saw a homicidal glint come into Thack’s eyes. Please, he telegraphed, just leave it alone.
There was one of those moments of total silence—a “mind fart,” as Mona used to say—before Thack turned to Burke and announced: “I just realized something.”
“What’s that?”
“I saw you on CNN last month.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“It was some sort of panel discussion about television.”
“Oh, right.”
“You’re producing something, aren’t you? Some new show?”
“Well…” Burke looked vaguely uncomfortable. Or maybe it was modesty. “There’s a new project in the works, but it’s not very far along yet.”
Mary Ann jumped in. “Burke did that special on Martin Luther King last year.”
“I saw that,” said Michael. “It was wonderful.”
“Thanks,” said Burke.
“I actually went to Selma,” said Brian. “I mean, I participated.”
“Really?” Burke’s response seemed a little patronizing, though he undoubtedly hadn’t intended it that way. Michael found it touching that Brian had offered up this ancient credential for his guest’s approval.
“What’s this new show about?” asked Thack.
“Oh…just a general magazine format.” Looking distracted, Burke turned back to Brian. “You were part of the civil disobedience and all that?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“That’s when he was a lawyer,” said Mary Ann.
“No,” said Brian. “That was earlier. I didn’t pass the bar until 1969.”
“Right,” said Mary Ann. “Of course.”
“I wish I’d been there,” said Burke.
“You were too young,” said Mary Ann.
Burke shrugged. “Not by much, really. Anyway, i
t was a great time. Things happened. People cared enough to make them happen. I mean, look at the seventies. What a great big blank that was.”
Michael saw the cloud pass over his lover’s face and realized with certainty what was about to happen. “I don’t know about that,” Thack said.
Burke offered him a sporting smile. “O.K. What happened?”
“Well,” said Thack, “gay liberation for one thing.”
“How so?”
“What do you mean—how so?”
“In what form? Discos and bathhouses?”
“Yeah,” answered Thack, clearly beginning to bristle. “Among other things.”
Burke, thankfully, was still smiling. “For instance?”
“For instance…marches and political action, a new literature, marching bands, choruses…a whole new culture. You guys didn’t cover it, of course, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.”
“We guys?”
“The press,” said Thack. “The people who decided that black pride was heroic but gay pride was just hedonism.”
“Hey, sport,” said Brian. “I don’t think he said that.”
“He means the press in general,” said Michael.
“Well, then don’t blame me for…”
“I’m not,” said Thack, more pleasantly than before. “I just think you should know that something happened in the seventies. It may not have been part of your experience, but something happened.”
Burke nodded. “Fair enough.”
“The seventies were our sixties, so to speak.” Michael contributed this inanity and regretted it as soon as it tumbled out of his mouth. “This decade talk is ridiculous. Everybody’s experience is different.”
“Maybe so,” said Thack, still addressing Burke, “but you should know something about the gay movement if you’re doing a story on AIDS.”
Burke looked confused.
“Did I get that wrong?” Thack turned to Brian. “Didn’t you say he was…?”
Brian shrugged and gestured toward his wife. “That’s what she said.”
“Oh.” Mary Ann looked flustered for a moment, then addressed Burke. “I explained that that’s why you’re here. To do a story on AIDS.”
“Oh,” said Burke. “Right. Of course. I drifted there for a moment.”
Mary Ann seized a bottle of wine and held it out. “Who needs a little freshener?”
Almost everyone did.
After dinner, while the group was resettling in the living room, Michael headed off to take a leak. On his way back he passed Shawna’s room and found the little girl wielding a crayon at her child-sized drafting table.
He spoke to her from the doorway. “Hi, Shawna.”
She looked over her shoulder for a moment, then continued drawing. “Hi, Michael.”
“Whatcha drawing?”
No answer.
“Just…art, huh?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Can I come in?”
“May I,” said Shawna.
He grinned. “May I?”
“Yes.”
He stood behind her and studied her work, a jumble of brown rectangles scribbled over with green. In the corner, inscribed on a much smaller rectangle, was the number 28.
“I know what that is,” he said.
The child shook her head. “Huh-uh. It’s a secret.”
“Well, it looks to me like Anna’s house.”
She gazed up at him, blinking once or twice, apparently surprised at his cleverness.
“That’s one of my favorite houses,” he said.
She hesitated a moment, then said: “I like it ’cause it’s a on-the-ground house.”
He chuckled.
“What’s funny?”
“Nothing. I agree with you.” He touched her shoulder lightly. She was wearing a white ruffled blouse and a midi-length blue velvet skirt, obviously meant for company. Yet here she sat, stately and alone at her easel, like some miniature version of Georgia O’Keeffe.
He went to the window and peered down on the silvery plain of the bay. A freighter slid toward the ocean, lit up like a power station yet tiny as a toy from this height. Directly beneath him—how many hundred feet?—the house in Shawna’s drawing slept unseen in the neighboring greenery.
He turned back to the child. “Anna’s gone to Greece on vacation. Did she tell you that?”
Shawna shook her head. “I don’t go see her anymore.”
“Why not?”
Silence.
“Why not, Shawna?”
“Mary Ann doesn’t want me to.”
This threw him, but he didn’t respond. The kid could make up some pretty off-the-wall stuff. Especially when it came to Mary Ann. It was bound to be more complicated than that.
Shawna asked: “Are you gonna make that noise tonight?”
“What noise?”
“You know. Beep, beep.”
He smiled at her. “Not for a few hours.”
“Can I see it? I mean, may I?”
“Well, you could, but it’s in my overcoat, and that’s on the bed in…”
“Is she giving you a hard time?”
Michael turned to see Brian standing in the doorway. “No way,” he said.
“How’s it going, Puppy?”
“O.K.”
“She’s done some beautiful work,” said Michael.
Brian looked at the picture and ruffled his daughter’s hair.
“Hey…not bad. What do you call it?”
“Art,” said Shawna.
Brian laughed. “Well, O.K. Makes sense to me. Did you tell Michael what you’re gonna be?”
Shawna gave him a blank look.
“For Halloween,” Brian added.
“Oh…Michaelangelo.”
Michael was impressed. “The painter, eh?”
“No,” said Shawna. “The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle.” Michael looked to Brian for translation.
“You don’t wanna know,” said Brian. “It’s an actual thing. She’s not making it up.”
“Teenage Mutant…?”
“Ninja Turtle,” said Shawna.
“We’re going for Turtle mostly, with just a hint of Ninja. Wanna come along? It’s Halloween morning. Mary Ann’ll be at the station.”
“What is it?” he asked.
“Just a thing at the school. A parade or something.”
“Well…”
“We’d be back by eleven, tops.” Brian winked at him.
“O.K., then. Great.”
“Yay,” crowed Shawna.
“See,” said Brian. “I told you he’d do it.”
The child looked at her father. “Can Michael be a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle?”
“Well, he could…”
“It’s either that,” said Michael, “or Ann Miller.”
Brian laughed. “I think your Ann Miller days are over.”
“Why?” Michael grinned back at him. “Ann Miller’s aren’t.”
Shawna looked at them both. “Who’s Ann Miller?”
“Oh, God,” said Michael, laughing. “Don’t ask.”
“Yeah,” said Brian, letting his eyes dart toward Shawna as a signal to Michael. “Certain undersized personages know too much about lipstick as it is.”
Michael chuckled, remembering the incident—or at least Brian’s version of Mary Ann’s version of the incident. “Is she still upset about that?”
“Who’s Ann Miller?” Shawna persisted.
“She wasn’t really upset,” said Brian.
The child, Michael was thinking, must have looked uncannily like her natural mother once a stiff’ coat of makeup had been applied. No wonder Mary Ann had freaked. Tacky of Connie Bradshaw, the bane of Mary Ann’s existence, back from the grave to do her embarrassing number all over again.
“Who’s Ann Miller?”
“She’s a lady who dances,” said Brian. “A woman.”
“A lady,” said Michael.
Brian laughed and touched his daughter?
??s shoulder. “You wanna hit the sack, Puppy?”
“Yeah.”
“Kiss Michael good night, then.”
Shawna gave Michael a peck on the cheek.
“That’s a cool dress,” said Michael.
“Thanks,” she replied solemnly.
“She got that special for tonight,” said Brian.
“Well, it’s just right,” he told her. “It brings out the blue in your eyes.”
Shawna basked in the attention for a moment, then looked at her father. “Are you gonna tuck me in?”
“And anyway,” Mary Ann was saying when Michael returned, “it’s not exactly a state secret. Raquel Welch is absolutely notorious for being difficult…”
Burke chuckled. “To put it mildly.”
Thack laughed, apparently enjoying himself. Seeing Michael, he asked: “Have you heard this story?”
“Oh, God,” said Mary Ann. “Too many times, I’m sure.”
“A few,” he said. “It’s a good one.”
“Well, it’s over,” she said, laughing, “so you’re safe. Where’s Brian?”
“Putting Shawna to bed.”
“Oh.”
The phone rang in the guest bedroom. Since Michael was nearest to it, he said: “Shall I?”
“Leave it,” said Mary Ann. “The machine’s on.”
“Actually,” said Burke, “I’m halfway expecting a call from some friends. I left your number. I hope that’s all right.”
“Of course.” Mary Ann hurried toward the ring.
Burke offered the rest of his explanation to Thack and Michael. “They’re just here for a little while, and they wanted to meet for drinks later. I thought, if no one minded…”
“Whatever,” said Michael.
“Yeah,” said Thack.
Mary Ann reappeared in the doorway. “It’s for you,” she told Burke quietly, almost reverently. “It’s Chloe Rand.”
Desperadoes
SHE COULDN’T HELP NOTICING HOW PLACIDLY BURKE received this information. He smiled faintly and nodded, but his face betrayed nothing, not the slightest degree of amazement. She might just as well have told him his wife was on the phone.
When he was out of the room, she turned to find Michael gaping at her. “Not the Chloe Rand?”
Thack gave Michael a cranky look. “How many Chloe Rands can there be?”
“They’re in town, you mean?” His expression was truly gratifying.
“Yeah.” She resolved to remain as nonchalant about this as Burke. “Just for a day or so. They’re doing an AIDS benefit in L.A.”