Sure of You by Armistead Maupin Page B

don’t…”
    “Scoot. I’ve got shrimp to stuff.”
    “You do?”
    “Hey,” she said, mugging at his amazement. “I’m a Total Woman.”
    She hadn’t stuffed shrimp for years.
     
    In the living room he sat on the floor and listened as Shawna recited—a little too cheerfully, perhaps—the deficiencies of her soon-to-be-homeless dolls.
    “This one doesn’t talk anymore.”
    “Oh, yeah?”
    “And this one has dumb hair. And this one I hate.”
    “You don’t hate it, Puppy.”
    “Yes I do. And this one has a really funny smell.”
    Brian frowned, then sniffed the doll. The odor nipped his nostrils like tiny fangs.
    “Pedro peed on her,” Shawna explained.
    “Who?”
    “The Sorensens’ iguana.”
    “Great.” He returned the doll to its resting place.
    “Can we get a iguana?”
    “No way.”
    “I’d take care of him.”
    “Yeah. Right.”
    “I would.”
    He thought for a moment, then picked up the reeking doll. “I think we’d better retire this one, O.K.?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Throw it out.”
    “Why?”
    “Because, Puppy, if it smells bad to us, it’ll smell just as bad to some other little girl.”
    “Uh-uh.” Shawna, miraculously, shook her head and scratched her butt at the same time. “Not if she’s homeless.”
    “Yes she would. Trust me on this, Puppy.”
    His daughter gave him a blank look. “Whatever.”
    “C’mon,” he said, taking her hand. “Let’s go help Mommy set the table.”
     
    The first time he’d seen The Singing Detective , Mary Ann had been off networking at a cocktail party.
    “It’s amazing,” he told her now, back in the kitchen. “This ugly of guy is in bed in the hospital, with like crooked teeth and this craggy-ass face, and he opens his mouth to sing and out comes ’It Might As Well Be Spring.’ Only with like a crooner’s voice—you know, whoever sang it originally—and with all the orchestration and everything.”
    “I don’t get it,” said Mary Ann.
    “Me either,” said Shawna.
    “You will when you see it,” he told his wife.
    She wasn’t convinced. “Not if it takes six hours.”
    “Well…we can watch it a little bit at a time.”
    “Forget it,” said Shawna.
    He turned to his daughter and tickled her under the arms. “You’re not watching it, anyway.”
    The child squirmed, giggling. “Yes I am.”
    “Nope. You’re watching Cosby in your room.”
    “Says who?”
    “Says me. And Freddy!” He stiffed his fingers into a claw and clamped it on the back of her head, getting a squeal out of her.
    Mary Ann frowned at him. “Brian…”
    “What?”
    “That isn’t funny.”
    “Oh…O.K.” He let the claw wilt, then winked at Shawna. “Mommy’s making us sweet potatoes with teeny marshmallows.”
    “Yummy,” said Shawna.
    “Why do you think she did that?”
    Shawna shrugged.
    “He’s a child-molester, you know,” his wife said.
    He glanced at her. “Who?”
    “Freddy. In that movie.”
    “Yeah. O.K.” He turned back to Shawna. “You think it was because we were good all week?”
    “They’ve made a total hero of him. He’s got his own posters, even. It’s disgusting.”
    “I guess it is,” he said.
    “We’re doing a show on it, actually.”
    He nodded, having guessed as much already.
    “I like him,” said Shawna.
    Mary Ann frowned at her. “Who?”
    “Freddy.”
    “No you don’t,” she said. “You do not like him.”
    “Yes I do.”
    “Shawna.” Mary Ann shot him a rueful look. “See?” she said.
    “I think he’s funny,” said Shawna.
    Brian gave his wife a glance that said: Lighten up. “She thinks he’s funny.”
    “Right.” Mary Ann dumped a handful of peas into a sauce-pan. “A child-molester.”
    “You want wine with the meal?” he asked.
    “Sure. Whatever.”
    He went to the refrigerator and removed a bottle of sauvignon blanc, transferring it to the freezer so it would chill the way they liked it. Seeing Shawna wander off again, he sat down on the stool at the