Mary Ann in Autumn (23 page)

Chapter 36
Bad Juju

T
hey had given her a sedative. She had asked for one, in fact. She was tired of being brave, and oblivion had had a lot going for it at the time. When she woke up in Michael and Ben’s bed, the house was full of familiar faces: Michael, Ben, Jake, even Shawna, who’d brought Mrs. Madrigal with her as soon as they’d heard the news. Mary Ann thought of Michael’s
Wizard of Oz
joke when Roman pulled out of his epileptic seizure: “And you were there, and you, and you . . .” Roman himself was there, in fact, curled up next to her feet on the bed. He’d had something of a trauma himself.

What struck her as peculiar was how remorseful they all seemed. Ben, after all, had not known the history of the old man in the dog park, and Michael had never met “Cliff,” so therefore could not possibly have identified him as Norman. Shawna, of course, had less reason than anyone to feel responsible, since she hadn’t even been born the first time Norman “died.” She’d been totally in the dark about everything.

“I’m so sorry,” Mary Ann told her after the others had left for the living room.

“For what?” asked Shawna.

“This whole mess. You don’t deserve to have this nightmare laid on you.”

“Actually,” said Shawna. “I laid it on myself.”

This made no sense to Mary Ann. “In what way?” she asked.

Shawna sat down on the edge of the bed. “You don’t follow my blog, do you?”

Mary Ann shook her head. “Not a lot, no. I’m sorry.” She wanted to explain that the brazenly frank subject matter bothered her because she still thought of Shawna as her little girl, but she knew, better than anyone, that she had long ago forfeited the right to say that. “
Should
I have been reading it?”

“It might have helped,” her daughter replied with an odd little smile.

“I don’t get it.”

Shawna was fidgeting. “I’ve been more involved than you think.”

“You’re scaring me now.”

“No . . . please . . . don’t. It’s all good. I’d just rather you read it when you’re feeling stronger. Anna told me about the cancer. I’m glad you’re kicking its ass.”

“Thanks, Puppy.” Shawna’s baby name had just tumbled out unconsciously. “Do people still call you that? Besides your dad.”

Shawna shook her head. “He’s never called me that, actually. He said that’s what
you
called me.”

She doesn’t even remember
, thought Mary Ann. “Would you mind if I still do?”

“If that’s what you want. Sure.”

An awkward silence.

“They told you about me and Bob, I guess.”

Shawna nodded. “For what’s it’s worth . . . I think it’s for the best. I think you’re gonna make a sick single lady.”

Robbie also used the word “sick” in a complimentary way, but Mary Ann had never gotten used to it. As she basked in her daughter’s smile she realized, with a sense of completely undeserved relief, that Shawna wasn’t doing that awful snood thing anymore. “I love your hair,” she told her. “That’s a nice cut.”

Shawna smiled. “It’s sort of yours, isn’t it?”

As if to confirm this, Mary Ann touched the side of her own head. “I guess you’re right.”

“It wasn’t intentional.”

“No . . . I’m sure.”

“I didn’t mean it like that.”

“I know, Puppy. There’s not a mean bone in your body.”

Shawna, surprisingly, reached out and took her hand. “I know this sounds funny, but . . . I think this was all for a reason. I think it was meant to bring us together.”

Mary Ann rolled her eyes. “Facebook might have been easier.”

“No . . . seriously . . . we had all the pieces all along. We just needed to talk to each other.” Shawna paused, studying Mary Ann’s reaction. “Do I sound like a total flake?”

Mary Ann shook her head. “You just sound like Anna.”

“Well . . . duh.”

Mary Ann smiled. Mrs. Madrigal had left her imprint, all right.

“Tell me something, Puppy . . . did you talk to the police?”

Shawna nodded. “We all did.”

“Did they say what that stuff was?”

“What stuff?”

“You know. That he sprinkled on himself. They were ashes, right? Cremated remains?”

Shawna stood up, suddenly looking flustered. “Let’s save that for another day. Tonight’s all about getting bad juju out of the house.”

What did
that
mean
?

“Seriously,” said Shawna, catching Mary Ann’s anxious expression. “It’s all good.”

That was another thing the kids said today that offended Mary Ann’s ears. How could that possibly be true, after all? Nothing in the world had ever been “all good.”

W
HEN
M
ARY
A
NN FINALLY JOINED
the others in the living room, they had closed the curtains on the cottage side of the house, presumably to spare her the sight of what she had already seen. Mrs. Madrigal had settled into Michael’s armchair; Jake sat at her feet; Shawna was fiddling with an iPod; Ben and Michael were serving a late supper.

“Pizza,” said Michael with a sardonic grin. “Perfect for every occasion.”

She sat down on the sofa across from Anna. “Are the police gone?”

“Of course,” said Jake, holding up the tube of the vaporizer. “Or we wouldn’t be doing this.” He handed the tube to Anna, who puffed on it demurely and handed it back. Mary Ann flashed on the pot plants Anna had grown at 28 Barbary Lane and the joints she had taped to every new tenant’s door. No one in the house had ever disapproved of that gesture except Norman. For someone so wicked, he had been curiously square.

When dinner was over, Mary Ann followed Jake’s example and sat on the floor next to Mrs. Madrigal. She leaned against the old woman’s leg
—
just because it felt so right
—
and was duly rewarded with the silent benediction of Anna’s hand on her head. Mary Ann wasn’t talking much herself that evening—just listening, just being.

They stayed with her until almost midnight, laughing and playing music and telling stories about the old days. No one talked about the mess that had been made of the cottage, or the man who had made it. When Anna dozed off in the armchair, Jake woke her gently and helped her out to Shawna’s car. Mary Ann’s heart sank as they left.

Michael turned to her as soon as the door was closed.

“You’re sleeping with us tonight,” he said.

She didn’t put up an argument. She slept between them on their big matrimonial bed, like a child in flight from the boogieman. Death had been chasing her for weeks, she realized, but not in the way she’d imagined. It had found its intended quarry in the garden cottage and left her to live another day. What she would do with the time she had left was entirely up to her. As she drifted off in that bunker of warm, breathing bodies, it occurred to her that her fear of dying had left far too little room for the joy of living.

It’s all good
, she told herself.
It’s all good
.

Chapter 37
Treat

T
he flight attendant in first class was a gregarious sort who kept talking about how much he’d love to live in “San Fran.” She hated hearing the city called that—it jarred her ears even more than “Frisco” did—but he was fiftyish and kind of rugged-looking and, though she couldn’t have told you exactly why, struck her as being straight.

“How long were you in town?” he asked, as he replenished her warm nuts.

“Just a few weeks.”

“Such a great place.”

“It is, isn’t it? I used to live there years ago.”

“Lucky you.”

“Yeah. I’m thinking of moving back.”

“Oh . . . wow. You have family there?”

“Yeah.” The undeniable truth of this made her giggle. “I do . . . yeah.”

“That’s great.”

“I have to sort a few things out first.”

“So . . . you live in Manhattan now?”

She nodded. “I have a little place in the Village.” Why mention Darien, after all? It would only make her sound married and boring.

“Where are you?” he asked. “Just out of curiosity.”

“Charles Street,” she told him.

“I’m on Waverly Place.”

“Hey. Small world.”

“Isn’t it?”

What was the protocol here, anyway?
Exactly how brazen could you get with a flight attendant?

“Excuse me,” he said, touching her arm lightly as he headed off to deal with another passenger. She gazed out the window at the cartoon clouds and the endless blue, feeling like a giddy teenager again. He looked a lot like George Clooney, she decided.

When he returned a few minutes later, he knelt next to her and, without uttering a word, left his card on her tray. He had written his phone number on the back.

“Would your friend like a treat?” he asked.

She looked directly into his eyes. “I’m sure she would love one.”

He smiled a languid George Clooney smile as he reached into his shirt pocket for a dog biscuit. She took it from him without comment, leaning down to the Burberry-plaid carrying case at her feet and unzipping the panel on its side.

Blossom gobbled it up with gusto.

Acknowledgments

I
am grateful to the people whose support and shared personal histories made this story imaginable: Matt Alber, Steven Barclay, Sara Bixler, Rob Crawford, Todd Hargis, Phil Jamieson, Pam Ling, Nick Meinzer, Davia Nelson, Kate O’Hanlan, Rakesh Satyal, Alison Schwartz, Polina Smith, Binky Urban, Darryl Vance, Louise Vance, Judd Winick, Jane Yates and, as always, Christopher Turner, my unimaginable love.

About the Author

Also by Armistead Maupin

N
OVELS

Tales of the City

More Tales of the City

Further Tales of the City

Babycakes

Significant Others

Sure of You

Maybe the Moon

The Night Listener

Michael Tolliver Lives

C
OLLECTIONS

28 Barbary Lane

Back to Barbary Lane

Copyright

This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

MARY ANN IN AUTUMN.
Copyright © 2010 by Armistead Maupin. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

FIRST EDITION

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.

ISBN: 978-0-06-147088-2

EPub Edition © 2010 ISBN: 9780062020147

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