Babycakes (33 page)

He fiddled with a loose thread on his quilt.

“What I’m trying to make you understand is … I’m a guest here too. Not even that, really. I’m here on business. I’m flying back to Seattle day after tomorrow. I can’t have friends just … showing up. Defecting from a tour, for Christ’s sake.”

He shrugged. “We could have left last night.”

“Mouse … there’s one cab in the whole fucking county.”

“What about that car?”

“What
car?”

“That yellow Honda in the courtyard.”

She jerked her head toward the window. He was right. Teddy was back from London. “That’s … uh … that came in during the night.”

“Oh, really?” he said archly. “Was anybody driving it?”

She gave him a dirty look. “I’ll see if I can make arrangements to drive you to Moreton-in-Marsh. The trains to London are fairly regular.”

“Is that Lord Roughton?”

She weighed that one for a moment, then nodded. “And he’s your client?”

She headed for the door. “I’ll pick up the tray later. Don’t bother to bring it down.”

“Am I allowed to leave my room?”

“If you want to. That food is for Wilfred too.”

“He’s out exploring,” said Michael.

That made her nervous. “Uh … what is he, by the way?”

“What do you mean, what is he?”

“C’mon, Mouse … his ethnic origin.”

“Aborigine,” he answered, seeming rather pleased with himself. “With a little Dutch and English thrown in.”

“He seems very nice,” she said.

“He
is
nice.”

“Are you shtupping him?”

He shot daggers at her.

“O.K., O.K. I’ll see about the car.”

She returned to the kitchen. It had warmed up considerably, so she sat there for a while, sipping her tea and collecting her thoughts. The raisin bread had moved from the top of the refrigerator to the counter next to the sink. Teddy, obviously, had fixed a quick breakfast and returned to his room.

She heard whistling in the topiary gardens, so she stood up and peered through the diamond panes. It was Wilfred, prancing along in the sunshine, enjoying his solitude the way a puppy would. She smiled involuntarily and went to the door.

“There’s breakfast in Michael’s room,” she yelled.

He stopped and hollered back: “Thanks, Mo.”

Mo? Where had he picked
that
up?

She walked toward him. “The weather’s nice, huh?”

“Super!” His sleeveless sweater was exactly the color of the daffodils along the path. He tilted his nose toward the sky and breathed deeply. “It smells … spicy.”

“It’s the box hedges,” she explained. “The sun does that to them.”

“Fancy that.”

She hesitated, then asked: “Why did you call me Mo just now?”

He shrugged. “Dunno.”

“Did Mouse call me that?”

“Mouse?”

“Michael,” she amended.

“Oh … no. Mo’s me own idea.”

She couldn’t help smiling. “You’ve known me half a day.”

He cocked his head at her. “So? I make up me own names for everything.”

“Oh.” It touched her to know that she already occupied a niche in this kid’s version of the universe. “Feel like a walk around the grounds?”

“Sure.”

“Great.” She pointed toward the stables. “Let’s head in that direction. Oh … I forgot. Your breakfast.”

“Doesn’t matter,” he said.

“I’ll make you some later. How about that?”

“Super.”

They strolled side by side through the pungent corridors of the topiary gardens. Finally, she asked: “Did Michael tell you anything about me?”

“A bit,” he replied.

“Like what?”

“Well … he said I would like you.”

That stung a little. She’d been anything but likable, she felt. “I’m usually better than this,” she said.

The kid nodded. “That’s what he said.”

She turned and looked at him.

“He said your hair isn’t usually that color and that you’re really just a good basic dyke.”

She broke stride, then came to a halt. “He said that?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Well …” She began to walk again. “I haven’t been quite so basic lately.”

“You mean … sleeping with men?”

“God, no. I mean … you know … not so political.”

He blinked at her.

“You
don’t
know, do you?”

He shook his head.

“Lucky little sonofabitch.”

“Eh?” He seemed to take that the wrong way.

“I just meant … you seem to have missed most of the bullshit we have in the States. It’s different back there.”

“I dunno …”

“It is. Trust me. How old are you?”

“Sixteen.”

“Jesus.”

He made a face. “That’s what
he
said. Sixteen’s not so bleedin’ young.”

“O.K. If you say so.”

“It’s
not.”

She picked a leaf off a shrub. “Are you and Michael …?”

He finished the question for her. “Doin’ it?”

She chuckled. “Yes.”

“He doesn’t want to,” said Wilfred. “I’ve done me best, believe me.”

She gave him a sympathetic smile. “Sometimes he’s hard to figure out.”

Wilfred nodded, looking straight ahead. “Yeah.”

“Don’t take it personally.”

“I don’t,” he said.

She stopped and gazed up at the folly on the hilltop. She could smell hyacinths and wet loam and the warm musk of the hedges. There were swallows making check marks in the cloudless blue sky. “I don’t want to leave this,” she said.

“When do you go?” he asked.

“Day after tomorrow.”

“How long have you been here?”

“Oh … almost three weeks. I’ve been in London off and on.”

He nodded. “That’s where we saw you.”

“You were on the heath that day?”

“No. When you were at Harrods. Buying the pajamas.”

She couldn’t believe it. “You were
there?”

He nodded delightedly. “I followed you to Beauchamp Place. Where you bought the dress.”

She shook her head in amazement.

His expression was almost devilish. “The dress you needed by Easter.”

She paused, then gave him a reproving glance. “You’re dangerous.” He laughed.

“And
that’s
how you got the address.”

He nodded proudly.

“Has Michael told you what he thinks about … all this?”

He shrugged. “He doesn’t know what you’re doing.”

“Do you?”

“No. Michael thinks you’re ashamed of it, whatever it is.”

“It’s nothing to be ashamed of,” she replied somewhat defensively. “And stop looking at my hair.”

“I’m not.”

“Yes you were.”

“I was just wondering … you know … what it really looks like.”

“Well,” she snapped, “right now it really looks like this.”

“O.K.”

“I only dyed it for … this job. I wanted a change and this seemed like a good excuse.”

He nodded.

“It locks like shit, doesn’t it?” Another nod.

“Your honesty is refreshing,” she scowled.

A Theory

I
T WAS THEIR THIRD, MAYBE FOURTH, TRIP TO THE SCREENING
room.

“My appetite is shot,” said Brian.

Theresa was hunched over the mirror, chopping away. “This is why they invented sushi. Or why they imported it to Beverly Hills. Here. Do that one.” A blood-red nail pointed the way to Nirvana.

Brian sucked it up.

“The crowd’s getting smaller,” she said. “Thank God.”

“Is it Easter yet?”

She rolled her eyes. “Two hours ago. Where have you been?”

“Well … no one blew a horn or put on a funny hat or anything.”

“Right.” She took the rolled bill from him.

“How many are spending the night?” he asked.

“Oh … five or six, I guess. That’s all I want to deal with for brunch. Arch and his new indiscretion. The Stonecyphers. Binky Gruen, maybe. You. I don’t know … we’ll see.”

“What about that guy with the beard?”

Theresa snorted a line. “What? Who? Oh … Bernie Pastorini?”

“Yeah. I guess so.”

“I don’t know if he’s staying or not. Why?”

“Nothing. I just wondered about him.”

“Wondered what?”

“Well … he said he wanted to talk to me about something. Maximal something. It didn’t make any sense.”

“Oh …
Maximale.”
“What’s that?”

“His male empowerment group.”

“Huh?”

“Well … the theory is that some guys have been turned into wimps by feminism and the peace movement, so they … you know, leach them to be aggressive again.” She pushed the mirror toward him. “Take some more.”

“No, thanks.”

“C’mon.”

He hesitated a moment, then complied. “Is it … like … a serious thing?”

“At three hundred bucks a pop? You bet it’s serious! He’s raking it in like Werner Erhard did in the old days.”

“Jesus.”

She shrugged. “Makes sense to me. I’ve known plenty of ‘em.”

“Plenty of what?”

“Soft males. That’s what they call ‘em.”

“What do they do with them?”

“I don’t know. Take them on wilderness hikes … survival living, that sort of thing. There’s also some aikido, I think. And hypnosis.”

He was beginning to take this personally. “So this guy thinks I’m a wimp, huh?”

She glanced at him sideways. “Don’t get threatened, now. He pitches it to everybody. Besides, it’s what
you
think that matters.”

“It’s really unbelievable.”

“No it isn’t.”

“A seminar for guys who are pussy-whipped.”

She threw back her mane and roared. “Now,
there’s
an expression I haven’t heard for a hundred years or so.”

He gave her a rueful look. “I guess it’s in fashion again.”

“Relax,” she said, “I think you’d be wasting your money.” She gave him a smoldering glance.
‘Now …
the late Mr. Cross was another story. He was practically a classic case.”

“Of what?”

“Soft male.”

“Really?”

She nodded. “He was so-o-o-o in touch with his feelings. Christ. Sometimes it made me wanna puke.”

It jarred him to hear his idol defamed. “I admired him for that,” he said.

She shrugged. “It made for a pretty song, I guess.”

“It made for a nice guy too.”

“Listen,” she said. “You weren’t married to him. I would push and push just to get a rise out of him, and he would cave in every time. There are times when a woman wants … you know … authority.”

“So we march bravely back to the fifties and drag our women by the hair. Is that it?”

“Sometimes,” she replied. “Sometimes that’s just the ticket.”

He thought for a moment, “If men are soft now … it’s because women want it that way.”

She smiled faintly. “I know marriages that have collapsed under that assumption.”

He met her eyes, wondering what she meant.

“Of course,” she added, “I’m sure yours is different.”

Mad for the Place

W
HEN WILFRED DIDN’T RETURN, MICHAEL LEFT
his room and searched the hallway for a toilet. Most of the rooms he passed were devoid of furniture—musty, mildewed spaces inhabited only by spiders. Suddenly, a man’s head emerged from a doorway. “Hallo!”

Michael jumped.