Tales of the City 08 - Mary Ann in Autumn Read Online Free PDF Page B

smile was unchanged.
    She leaned against him for a moment, accepting his warmth in silence.
    Finally, she pulled way. “This is sweet of you.”
    “C’mon.”
    “I’m so fucked up.”
    He gave her an ironic smile. “I’m gonna need more than that.”
    “You’ll get it. Trust me.”
    He led her into the house. Once he had settled her on the couch, he brought out a cheesecake, which prompted him, naturally, to make a forced joke about The Golden Girls . She wondered if some of that belly might be attributable to natural causes.
    “This isn’t my usual practice,” he said, apparently reading her mind.
    “It looks yummy,” she said. “Can I pass for now?”
    He looked more bewildered than offended. “Sure … of course. Would you rather vaporize?”
    “Do what?”
    “I told you about it, remember? Very little smoke, just cannabis-flavored air. It’s a great buzz, and it saves your lungs.”
    The last thing she needed right now was something that would make her story more vivid than it already was. “You wouldn’t have any vodka, would you?”
    “You bet.” He headed back to the kitchen with the cheesecake, stopping at the door. “Cranberry or tonic?”
    “On the rocks would be fine.”
    “Should I make one for myself, or do you want me sober?”
    “Whatever you want,” she said absently. “It doesn’t matter.”
    Michael returned with two glasses of vodka—one on the rocks for her, one with cranberry for him. She took a sip of hers without waiting to toast him, since it would have felt weird at a time like this. Then she widened her eyes to approximate delight and offered her own bit of stalling: “It’s wonderful about Obama, isn’t it?”
    He agreed with her less exuberantly than she’d expected. “Yeah … pretty amazing.”
    “But?”
    “C’mon … it was ‘Yes, We Can’ followed by ‘No, You Can’t.’ ”
    “Oh you mean … the proposition?” She knew how clumsy this sounded the moment she said it, but she couldn’t remember the number of the damn proposition and she didn’t want to sound disinterested. “What a heartbreak that was.”
    “More like a rat-fuck.”
    “I should have mentioned that first. I’ve just been so preoccupied … to put it mildly. It didn’t un marry you, did it?”
    “Who knows? There’s gonna be a ruling in the spring.”
    Michael and Ben had been married for the third time in August. The first wedding had been performed at City Hall but was thrown out by the state courts. The second had happened at a B&B in Vancouver but was valid only in Canada. The third one Michael had referred to as the “shotgun marriage” since he and Ben had rushed to say their vows before the November election, when the voters would have their say.
    “Well,” she said lamely, “I’m sure it’ll take eventually.”
    “Like a flu shot.” He gave her a half-lidded smile.
    “If only,” she replied ruefully.
    “If only what?”
    “There were an inoculation against marriage.”
    Michael’s brow furrowed. “Are we still talking about me?”
    She took a long slug of her drink, set it down and turned to face him.
    “I’m leaving Bob,” she said quietly. “I’ve left him.”
    Michael nodded slowly, seemingly unsurprised.
    Had she been that obvious? She knew her late-night phone calls to Michael had sometimes been protracted rants, but they had mostly been nonspecific, focused on the tedium of life in Darien or the tedium of life in general. She had hardly talked about Bob at all. “How did you know?” she asked.
    He shrugged as if it were obvious. “You never talked about him. Happy people talk about their spouses.”
    “Do they?”
    “Did you just get bored or something?”
    “No … well, a little, but I could’ve dealt with that. He was decent enough most of the time and … you know, a good provider.”
    “As they say,” Michael added, and Mary Ann could have sworn she detected the shadow of a smirk. She wondered if he saw her as a spoiled suburban