Edited to Death (3 page)

Quentin interrupted, “When, precisely, was the last time
Small Town
investigated anything more toxic than badly made martinis?”

I conceded the point. “I don’t really think the magazine ought to do that stuff. It’s
just that I’ve been watching too many reruns of
The Year of Living Dangerously
. I think I want to be a journalist where the action is.”

“There’s plenty of action here,” said Quentin. “All the people in East Pumpkin Corner
think this is the most dangerous place on earth. They think if you don’t get AIDS
from the mud baths in Calistoga or a hot tub in Marin, you’ll get knocked off in the
crossfire of some overdressed drug kings in Oakland or underdressed drag queens in
San Francisco.”

“You happen to be stereotyping the place I’m raising my children.”

“Well, read the papers. I happen to think we live with more than an adequate amount
of danger myself.” For a moment, Quentin’s arch tone had a new edge.

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, I don’t know. We’ll probably all die of raspberry vinaigrette poisoning in some
stainless-steel, high-concept yuppie-teria next week. Listen, if you want to go cover
war-torn nations and unstable dictatorships, do it. What are you waiting for?”

“Well, for openers, there’s Josh and Zach. And, in my limited experience, war-torn
nations rarely need tax lawyers.”

“A point in their favor,” said Quentin. “And that’s exactly the issue. You want all
your domestic bliss—and excitement, too.”

I didn’t respond. Quentin knew far too much about my dueling desires for domesticity
and thrills.

He continued, “Life is choices, my dear. So make yours, and as you say to one and
all, don’t kvetch.”

“You shouldn’t pronounce both the k and the v with equal weight,” I said. “On second
thought, you just may be too WASPy to even use that word, Quentin.”

“I’ll bear that in mind,” he replied dryly.

“Okay, I’m sorry,” I said. “Last week there was a partners’ dinner at Michael’s firm,
a bar association cocktail party, and I had to make cupcakes for Josh’s class. I’m
just feeling a little too wife and mommy-ish.”

“You made cupcakes? You hate to bake.”

“Well, actually Michael made them. But I had to frost them. Truly, I will stop kvetching.
Tell me what you’ve got that’s coming up. I’ll even do a ‘In Search of the Perfect
Chocolate Truffle’ story for Valentine’s Day.”

“Spare me,” said Quentin. “Actually, it’s quite peculiar, you raising this issue about
stretching your usual repertoire. That’s exactly what I’ve got in mind. Tell me,”
he paused, “what do you know about the Cock of the Walk?”

I snorted. “It’s how my boys behave when they think they’ve pulled a fast one on me.”

“Mothers,” muttered Quentin. “Imagine how uninterested I am in the little darlings’
psychology. So you don’t know anything about the Cock of the Walk?”

I sighed, “Come on, Quentin, let’s not play Twenty Questions.”

“Usually you like games,” he said.

I didn’t want to encourage further discussion along those lines either. “Okay, okay,”
I said. “Sounds like a restaurant on Polk Street.” Polk Street, which predated the
Castro district as San Francisco’s most notable gay neighborhood, featured restaurants,
bars, and boutiques with relentlessly cute names that mined predictable veins—a local
spirits store named Sukkers Likkers, for example.

“You’re not far off the mark. It is a restaurant.”

“Hey,” I protested. “I thought this was going to be different.”

“Patience, my pet. It is a restaurant, although not on Polk Street. It’s in the Frog
Pond.”

The Frog Pond was the latest in a series of gentrified revivals of old buildings,
à la Boston’s Fanueil Hall and San Francisco’s Ghirardelli Square.

“A review? You want me to do a review? What about Lisbet?” Lisbet Traumer was
Small Town
’s regular restaurant reviewer, a woman who thought capital punishment was an under-reaction
to overcooked vegetables and indifferent service.

“Don’t worry about Lisbet. She’ll do the review in good time. My interest in the Cock
of the Walk has nothing to do with the food there. I think we have the opportunity
to run a good story—and right a few wrongs along the way.”

“How moral,” I said. “How surprising.”

“Yes, isn’t it?” said Quentin. “It could ruin my reputation as a self-absorbed son
of a bitch.”

“That’s not exactly what I meant,” I protested.

Quentin laughed. “Certainly it is. Now, here’s what we need to do to get you out of
your wife-and-mommy funk. Shed that dreary little wraparound khaki skirt I know you
have on.” I looked down. It was denim, not khaki. “Put on something splendid, come
to the city, and I’ll take you to lunch and we’ll talk about this piece.”

“Can I wear a hat?”

Quentin was the only man of my acquaintance who actually liked women in hats. This,
of course, irritated Michael, who found it further evidence that Quentin was “not
his kind of guy.” He wasn’t, but for reasons Michael had yet to fathom.

“Certainly,” said Quentin. “The little brown derby with the veil, I think. The one
that makes you act like Myrna Loy.”

“I’ll run by the office just before noon?”

“No, come by my flat. I’m working at home this morning. We’ll go somewhere in the
neighborhood and eat decadent things.”

2

Across the Bay

No one needs to issue lunch invitations twice to Maggie Fiori. Not to mention dangling
a big, serious, and—okay—moral story.

By eleven thirty, with visions of a congratulatory letter from the Pulitzer Committee
and a really good meal as motivation, I had knocked out a first draft of the lox piece,
given instructions to Anya about starting dinner and retrieving the boys at school,
and cleared up the worst of the kitchen clutter.

Quentin prompted a woman to rise to the occasion. The denim skirt was gone, replaced
by a gabardine suit, silk shirt, pearls, and the little brown derby he liked so well.
I surveyed myself in the mirror. “Maggie,” I said, rearranging an undisciplined red
curl under the derby, “you may feel like a suburban matron, but you put together a
damn fine masquerade.”

The feeling of fashion-forward well-being lasted until I opened the garage. The Fiori
family owns matching turbocharged Volvo station wagons. So I had my choice of station
wagon or station wagon, red or blue, but that was it. Today, Michael had left me the
blue one, looking wholesome and cheerful underneath its battle scars of dents and
grime.

Oh well, I thought, at least these things can move, and putting suede pump pedal to
the metal, I whisked down MacArthur, onto the freeway, across the Bay Bridge, and
into the city. Out Broadway, past the strip joints, past Chinatown, and then into
the Broadway Tunnel and beyond, sweeping across Van Ness and up the hill into Pacific
Heights. My favorite view in San Francisco comes at the corner of Broadway and Fillmore.
Just past the block of exclusive private schools that educate the children of the
privileged into a lifetime of noblesse oblige, the view waits. From the corner of
Fillmore and Broadway you see: a precipitous descent into the Marina and the Bay,
with boats snuggled close to the St. Francis Yacht Club, and the Bridge—the one and
only, graceful and gleaming—the Golden Gate linking San Francisco with Marin County.

Quentin’s no fool, I thought for the hundredth time, living here. For his flat, one
of two in a meticulously restored Victorian, commanded that same view.

But the neighborhood has its drawbacks. Parking within three blocks of Quentin’s flat
could drive a person to desperation. Fully half my annual quota of parking tickets
(a cost of living in the Greater Bay Area) came from throwing in the vehicular towel
and, after countless circles around Quentin’s block, parking in whatever illegal spot
I could find. Driveways, fire hydrants, bus zones; you name it. I am pleased to report,
however, that I always steer clear of disabled parking spaces. It’s a bad example
to set for the boys, and I didn’t want it coming up in their “it’s all my mother’s
fault” therapy fifteen years hence.

It was twelve fifteen and I was late. Quentin considered lateness in the same light
he considered social diseases—an unforgivable lapse in manners. Still, I was getting
my excuses in order. Quentin had promised on the phone to put his aged-but-perfect
little Audi in his perfect little garage and leave me his driveway space. He must
have forgotten, I thought. There sat his car in the driveway.

Live dangerously, I thought, as I trotted up the steps to the tiny porch in front
of the doorways to the two flats. Life passes the conservative and cautious right
on by. I’d acted on that philosophy. Since Quentin had so thoughtlessly co-opted his
own driveway, I decided to go ahead and block him. Of course, the police had been
known to put people away for eight to ten to punish lesser offenses, but I trusted
Quentin, and I felt confident that I’d be in and out of his flat and on the way to
lunch before any of San Francisco’s finest discovered my transgression.

Two rings on the bell. No answer. Some raps on the door. No answer. “Quentin,” I called.
“It’s Maggie.” No answer.

He’s gone, I thought. This is what happens when you’re late to lunch with Quentin.
“Quentin!” I tried again. “It’s Maggie. Come on, I’m just fifteen minutes late and
it’s not even my fault,” I could hear the whine in my voice, and stamped my foot in
frustration. Very adult.

“He’s not there, Maggie dear. Don’t yell. It just wastes your instrument.”

I whirled, embarrassed to be caught mid-tantrum. Quentin’s downstairs neighbor was
standing in her doorway.

“My instrument?” I asked the kimono-ed figure who confronted me.

“Your voice, darling, your voice,” she explained patiently. “It’s terrible to shriek.
You mustn’t, mustn’t do it.”

Madame DeBurgos (or DeBurger, as Michael likes to say in recognition of her generous
proportions) was a retired operatic star. A minor diva, to be sure, but she had, in
her time, sung roles in many of the major opera houses in Europe. We’d heard about
“her time” each and every year at Quentin’s Christmas party, which Madame DeBurgos
always attended in one bejeweled extravaganza or another. She and Quentin and Claire
had been neighbors for more than fifteen years.

“What do you mean, Quentin’s gone? Did you see him go out? We had a lunch date.”

“No,
cherie
, I didn’t see him go out. But I heard him. My, my, I heard him.” She broke off, looking
smug and mysterious, patting the elaborate concoction into which she’d spun her improbably
colored hair that morning.

I was getting impatient. “What do you mean? You heard him leave?”

“Well, I can’t be certain,” she hesitated.

“Oh, Madame, try.” She looked as if she might waver. “If you know something, you should
tell me. I’m really feeling cranky with Quentin right now.”

“Well,” she began with obvious relish. “You know, Quentin is such a considerate neighbor.
I hardly hear a peep out of him. But this morning—such a noise. First, his stereo
was turned up—my dear, I thought I might be deafened. Such a noise! And such music!
It must have been—whatever is that strange young man’s name?”

“Stuart Levesque,” I supplied, beginning to feel nervous. I had an all-too-clear mental
picture of Quentin popping out onto their shared porch any moment, finding me deep
in speculation about his private life with Madame DeBurger.

“Yes, Stuart, that’s it. Anyway, this dreadful noise was shaking the building. It
stopped a little later, and I assumed Quentin had returned from walking Nuke and ordered
Stuart to cease and desist that racket.” She fluttered her hand in the air; half a
papal wave, half an imperial order.

Nuke was Quentin’s terrier mutt, a preternaturally ugly little creature he had named
for what he assumed would happen to our species if a nuclear device were exploded
at the corner of Broadway and Laguna. “We’d all end up looking like Nuke,” he’d said.
Despite Nuke’s lack of visual appeal, Quentin was devoted to the dog and faithfully
walked him each morning and evening.

“So you heard him go out after that?” I asked.

“Goodness, no,” she said. “Then I heard—well, I heard the most awful quarrel. Such
shouting and noises!”

“What was it about?”

“Maggie, dear!” She looked shocked. “Would I eavesdrop? However would I know what
it was about?”

“I’m sorry. Of course not,” I muttered.

“Then I heard the door slam, and that was that.”

“Perhaps Stuart went out,” I suggested.

“No, my dear. It must have been Quentin. Because shortly after the door slammed, that
dreadful music began again. Now, you know Quentin wouldn’t put that on.”

“Well,” I said, peering into the etched-glass panel on the door. “Then Stuart must
be home.”

“I should think so,” said Madame. “I haven’t heard music for a bit, but I haven’t
heard the door slam, either.”

I rapped again. “Stuart,” I called. “It’s Maggie. Open up.”

No answer. “I’ll just leave Quentin a note,” I said, rummaging in my bag. The only
paper that came to hand was a book of deposit slips. I noted that Zach had already
decorated them with rockets and monsters. “Madame, could I possibly borrow a piece
of note paper?” I asked.