Tales of the City 01 - Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin Page B

there?”
    “Christ … a dilapidated Olds. We drove all night until we reached this disappointing-looking cinder-block house out in the middle of the desert.” He chuckled to himself. “I guess we wanted it to look like the Arabian Nights or, at least, one of those gaslight-and-red-velvet places.”
    “San Franciscans are spoiled rotten!”
    He laughed. “Well, I felt we deserved more. The house was ridiculously tame. They even had a photo of Franklin and Eleanor in the parlor.”
    “One has to keep up appearances, doesn’t one? Do you remember the name now?”
    Edgar’s eyebrows arched. “By God … the Blue Moon Lodge! I haven’t thought of that in years!”
    “And the girl’s name?”
    “She was hardly a girl. More like forty-five.”
    “That’s a girl. Believe me.”
    “No offense.”
    “What was her name?”
    “Oh, Christ … No, that one’s impossible.”
    “Margaret?”
    “Yes! How did you …?”
    “She read me all the Winnie-the-Pooh books.”
    “What?”
    “Are you sure you want to hear this?”
    “Look, if I’ve …”
    “My mother ran the Blue Moon Lodge. That was my home. I grew up there.”
    “You’re not making that up, are you?”
    “No.”
    “Christ!”
    “Don’t you dare apologize. If you apologize, so help me, I’ll take my sandwich and run home.”
    “Why did you let me go on like that?”
    “I wanted you to remember who you were then. You don’t seem too happy with who you are now.”
    Edgar stared at her. “I don’t, huh?”
    “Nope.”
    He took a bite of his sandwich. His own present made him much more uneasy than this woman’s questionable past. He shifted the focus. “Did you ever … you know …?” She smiled. “What do you think?”
    “No fair.”
    “O.K. I ran away from home when I was sixteen, several years before you patronized the Blue Moon. I never worked for my mother.”
    “I see.”
    “I’m currently running a house of my own.”
    “Here?”
    “At 28 Barbary Lane, San Francisco, 94109.”
    “On Russian Hill?”
    She gave up the game. “I’m a garden-variety landlady, Mr. Halcyon.”
    “Ah.”
    “Are you disappointed?”
    “Not a bit.”
    “Good. Then tomorrow … your turn to buy lunch.”

Mona’s New Roomie
    T HE UNCOSMIC JANGLE OF THE TELEPHONE BROUGHT AN abrupt end to Mona’s mantra.
    “Yeah?”
    “Hi. It’s Michael.”
    “Mouse! Jesus! I figured you got kidnaped by the CIA!”
    “Long time, huh?”
    “Three months.”
    “Yeah. That’s about my average.”
    “Oh … you got the shaft?”
    “Well, we parted amiably enough. He was terribly civilized about it, and I sat in Lafayette Park and cried all morning. Yeah … I got the shaft.”
    “I’m sorry, Mouse. I thought this one was gonna work out. I kinda liked … Robert, was it?”
    “Yeah. I kinda liked him too.” He laughed. “He used to be a Marine recruiter. Did I ever tell you that? He gave me this little key ring with a medallion that said, ‘The Marines Are Looking for a Few Good Men.’”
    “Sweet.”
    “We used to jog every morning in Golden Gate Park … right down to the ocean. Robert had a red Marine tank top, and all the old mossbacks would stop us and say how nice it was to know there were still some decent, upstanding young men left in the world. Boy, we’d laugh about that … usually in bed.”
    “So what happened?”
    “Who knows? He panicked, I guess. We were buying furniture together and stuff. Well … not exactly together. He’d buy a sofa and I’d buy a couple of matching chairs. One has to plan on divorce at all times … still, it was a landmark of sorts. I’d never gotten to the furniture-buying stage before.”
    “Well, that’s something .”
    “Yeah … and I never had anyone read me German poetry in bed before. In German.”
    “Hot stuff!”
    “He played the harmonica, Mona. Sometimes when we were walking down the street. I was so fucking proud to be with him!”
    “Talk much?”
    “What?”
    “Could he talk? Or was