Tales of the City 05 - Significant Others

“lifestyle” (God help her, she had actually used that word) than could ever be provided by the funky old bear of a building at 28 Barbary Lane.
    Mrs. Madrigal had taken it well, but Brian knew she’d been hurt by their departure. At the very least, her sense of family had been violated. Even now, five months after their ascension, their old apartment on the lane remained empty and unrented, as if something had died there.
    Maybe something had.
    Life was different now; he knew that. The guy who had once waited tables at Perry’s bore scant resemblance to this new and improved postmodern version of Brian Hawkins.
    The new Brian drove a twenty-thousand-dollar Jeep. He owned three tuxedos and a mink-lined bomber jacket from Wilkes (which he wore only while driving the Jeep). Something of a fixture at Pier 23, he knew how to do lunch with the best of them.
    When the new Brian went to parties, he usually ended up making man talk with the mayor’s husband or Danielle Steel’s husband—and once even with Geraldine Ferraro’s husband.
    O.K. He was a consort.
    But even that took skill, didn’t it?
    And who was to say he didn’t rank among the best?
    When Shawna grew bored with television, he helped her into a windbreaker and briefed her for the trek to Barbary Lane. His basic requirements were two: Don’t scream bloody murder on the elevator, and don’t point at the doorman and yell “Mr. T!”
    She did as she was told, miraculously enough, and they reached Green Street without a hitch. As they trooped along the crest of Russian Hill, his limbs felt curiously leaden; his temples pulsed a little, threatening a headache.
    If this was the flu, he didn’t need it. There were four major events in the next week alone.
    Shawna insisted on being carried in his arms as they descended the steepest slope of Leavenworth, but she squirmed her way to the ground again as soon as they reached the rickety wooden stairs leading to Barbary Lane.
    “Anna steps,” she said, already recognizing the boundaries of another duchy. The lane, after all, belonged to Mrs. Madrigal. Even the grownups knew that.
    There was a bulletin on the landing that confirmed the landlady’s sovereignty: SAVE THE BARBARY STEPS— Insensitive city officials have plans to replace our beloved wooden steps with hideous concrete ones. Now is the time to speak up. Contact Anna Madrigal, 28 Barbary Lane.
    Damn right, he thought. Give ‘em hell, Anna.
    Nevertheless, he took Shawna’s hand as the beloved rotting planks creaked ominously beneath their tread. At the top, where the ground bristled with a stubble of dry fennel, he let her go and watched as she pranced between the garbage cans into the musky gloom of the eucalyptus trees. She looked like a child heading home.
    By the time he’d arrived at the first clump of cottages, she was already playing havoc with Boris.
    “Take it easy,” he told her. “He’s an old kitty. Don’t pet him so hard.”
    She snatched her hand away from the tabby, cackling in her best mad-scientist fashion, then dashed up the lane again. The path at this point was paved with ballast stones, treacherous even for grownups.
    “Slow down, Puppy. You’re gonna hurt yourself again.” He caught up with her and took her hand, leading the way toward the smoother, wider portion of the lane.
    “You remember Anna’s number?” he asked the kid.
    Of course she didn’t.
    “It’s twenty-eight,” he said, feeling stupid as soon as he said it.
    Why the hell should she have to learn that?
    Because the house at the end of the lane was all he had to give a child.
    It was all the lore he knew, his only storybook.
    The door to the lych-gate was open.
    The landlady stood in the courtyard, hunched over her largest sinsemilla plant. She was plucking its leaves with a tweezer, coaxing the potency into its blossoms. Her face suggested brain surgery in progress, but she was humming a merry little tune.
    Shawna bolted into the courtyard, losing herself in the folds of Mrs. Madrigal’s pale muslin skirt. The landlady gave a startled yelp, dropping the tweezers, then laughed along with the kid.
    “It’s the Feds,” said Brian, grinning.
    Mrs. Madrigal looked down at the creature clamped to her leg and stroked its hair affectionately.
    “She’s missed you,” said Brian. “It’s been two whole days.”
    The landlady’s huge blue eyes swung in his direction momentarily. She offered him a dim smile before returning her attention to Shawna.