Babycakes

by Armistead Maupin

  “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

  IT 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

  WHEN 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.

  “Sorry,” said the man. “You gave me a fright too.”

  Collecting himself, Michael said: “I’m looking for the bathroom…. I’m sorry.”

  “Well, I shouldn’t be sorry about that. It’s the last room on the right.” He thought for a moment. “Unless you mean the loo.”

  Michael smiled sheepishly. “I do, actually.”

  “Ah. Just across the way there.”

  “Thanks so much.”

  The man extended his hand. “I’m Teddy Roughton. Uh … what are you doing here?”

  “Oh.” Michael flushed, shaking his hand. “I’m Michael Tolliver, a friend of Mona’s. I thought she’d told you.”

  “Well … no matter. I expect she will. How splendid. A guest for Easter.”

  “Guests, actually. There’s two of us.”

  “Even better.”

  “I hope it isn’t an imposition.”

  “Don’t be silly. Look … why don’t you lurk off to the loo, then come back and join me for elevenses?”

  “If you’re sure …”

  “Of course I’m sure.”

  “Thanks. Then I’ll just …” He made an ineffectual gesture toward the loo.

  “Yes. Go on. I’ll be here.”

  When Michael returned, Lord Roughton was pouring tea at a little table by his bedroom window. He was forty-five or thereabouts, tall and lean, almost gangly, with melancholy gray eyes that bulged slightly. His graying hair was cut very short, and he was wearing the pajamas Mona had bought at Harrods.

  “So,” he said, looking up. “How is everything in Seattle?”

  “Oh … I’m not from there.”

  “Sit down, for heaven’s sake.”

  Michael sat down.

  “Where are you from?”

  “San Francisco.”

  “Really? How extraordinary!”

  “How so?”

  The gray goldfish eyes popped at Michael. “I’m moving there. Didn’t Mona tell you?”

  “No. She didn’t, actually.”

  “Well … I am. I was there six months ago and went mad for the place. What do you take in your tea?”

  “Thanks, I just had …”

  “Please. I insist. You may be my last houseguest.”

  Michael smiled at him. “Thanks. Milk is fine.”

  “Good.” He doctored the tea and handed it to Michael. “I must say, this is a pleasant surprise.”

  Michael sought refuge in his tea, then asked: “When are you moving to San Francisco?”

  “Oh … a fortnight or so. I have to sell the house first.” Michael hadn’t figured on that. “I see. Then this is … really permanent.”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “And there’s no one in your family who can …”

  “Carry on? I should hope not. I am … how shall we put this delicately …?”

  “The end of the line?”

  “The end of the line,” nodded Lord Roughton, whispering as if he’d offered an intimate confession.

  Michael smiled at him.

  Lord Roughton returned it. “Mummy and Daddy are still alive—as you’ll see soon enough—but I’m afraid they’re never coming back from the Scillies.”

  The sillies? They were senile? “You mean …?”

  “They live in the Scillies now. To escape the taxes.”

  Michael nodded.

  “Off Lands End, you know. The islands.”

  “Oh … right.”

  “It’s the only way to be an expatriate and still be British about it.” He lifted his teacup and stared down his lashes at Michael. “We’ve driven our aristocrats into the sea.”

  Michael laughed.

  “So,” said Lord Roughton, “how long have you lived in San Francisco?”

  “Almost … nine years.”

  Lord Roughton sighed, peering out the window at the moss-tufted gatehouse and the fields beyond. “We’ve lived here nine hundred.” He rolled his head languidly toward Michael. “That’s the family, mind you. I’ve lived here barely half that time.”

  Michael wouldn’t indulge him. “It can’t be that bad.”

  “Well … it isn’t. Not always. But I’ve made so
me decisions about the rest of my life, and Easley isn’t part of the picture. Do you know what I do here? I’m a landlord. I sit at that table once a month and take money from the villagers. I live in two rooms—the kitchen mostly, because I can heat it—and sometimes I get money for having tea with people named Gary and Shirley who arrive at my doorstep in charabancs. I spend long, leisurely mornings sweeping the batshit out of the guest bedrooms and picking moss off the stone, because it costs five hundred pounds to replace one of those ornamental blocks along the parapet and the moss is eating this place alive.”

  Michael smiled at him. “I hope this isn’t your sales pitch.”

  That got a chuckle. “1 have a buyer already.”

  “Someone you know?”

  He nodded. “A woman I’ve known for years and her horrid new husband. They’ve already begun making noises about Returning It To Its Former Glory.” He shuddered noticeably.

  “I like it like this,” offered Michael, “all frayed around the edges.”

  “Thank you.”

  I mean it.”

  “I can tell you do.” His brow furrowed earnestly. “Would you mind awfully if I showed you something?”

  “No,” Michael replied. “Of course not.”

  Lord Roughton hesitated, then set down his teacup and unbuttoned his pajama top, holding it open. There were substantial gold tit rings in both his nipples.

  “Aha,” said Michael, somewhat awkwardly.

  “Folsom Street,” said Lord Roughton.

  “No kidding.”

  He gazed down at them like a proud sow regarding her piglets. “It took me three Scotches to work up the nerve. The man who did it was a shop assistant in that little emporium above the Ambush. Do you know it?”

  “Sure. That’s Harrison Street, actually. Same thing.”

  Lord Roughton let go of his lapels.

  “Nice job,” Michael added, to be polite.

  “I expect it’s frightfully old hat to you.” He buttoned the buttons.

  “No … well, I’ve seen it before, but … I think it suits you.” The man was giving up Queen and Country to hang jewelry from his nipples; the very least you could do was admire it.

  Lord Roughton thanked him with a nod. “The pajamas are a bit of a cop-out, I’m afraid. I don’t usually wear them.”

  “I was with Mona when she bought them.”

  “Really?”

  Michael nodded. “At Harrods.”

  “How extraordinary.” His jaw slackened for a moment, then went rigid again. “At any rate … I thought it best to keep the gold out of sight while there are houseguests.”