MARY ANN DRAGGED her American Tourister into Connie’s apartment, groaned softly and sank into a mock zebra-skin captain’s chair.

‘Well . . . hello, Sodom and Gomorrah.’

Connie laughed. ‘Your mom freaked, huh?’

‘God!’

‘Poor baby! I know the feeling. When I told my mom I was moving to San Francisco, she had an absolute hissy-fit! It was a zillion times worse than the summer I tried to join Up With People!’

‘God . . . I almost forgot.’

Connie’s eyes glazed nostalgically. ‘Yeah . . . Hey, you work up a thirst, hon?’

‘Sure.’

‘Sit tight. I’ll be right back.’

Thirty seconds later, Connie emerged from the kitchen with two airlines glasses and a bottle of Banana Cow. She poured a drink for Mary Ann.

Mary Ann sipped warily. ‘Well . . . look at all this. You’re practically a native, aren’t you? This is . . . quite something.’

‘Quite something’ was the best she could manage. Connie’s apartment was a potpourri of plastic Tiffany lamps and ankle-deep shag carpeting, needlepoint Snoopy pictures and ‘Hang in There, Baby’ kitten posters, monkey pod salad sets and macramé plant hangers and – please, no, thought Mary Ann – a Pet Rock.

‘I’ve been lucky,’ Connie beamed. ‘Being a stew and all . . . well, you can pick up a lot of art objects in your travels.’

‘Mmm.’ Mary Ann wondered if Connie regarded her black velvet bullfighter painting as an art object.

The stewardess kept smiling. ‘Cow OK?’

‘What? Oh . . . yes. Hits the spot.’

‘I love the stuff.’ She downed some more of it to demonstrate her point, then looked up as if she had just discovered Mary Ann’s presence in the room. ‘Hey, hon! Long time no see!’

‘Yeah. Too long. Eight years.’

‘Eight years . . . Eight years! You’re lookin’ good, though. You’re lookin’ real . . . Hey, you wanna see something absolutely yucky?’

Without waiting for an answer, she leaped to her feet and went to the bookshelf made of six orange plastic Foremost milk crates. Mary Ann could make out copies of Jonathan Livingston Seagull, How to Be Tour Own Best Friend, The Sensuous Woman, More Joy of Sex and Listen to the Warm.

Connie reached for a large book bound in burgundy vinyl and held it up to Mary Ann.

‘Ta-ta!’

‘Oh, God! The Buccaneer?’

Connie nodded triumphantly and pulled up a chair. She opened the yearbook. ‘You’ll absolutely die over your hair!’

Mary Ann found her senior picture. Her hair was very blond and meticulously ironed. She was wearing the obligatory sweater and pearl necklace. Despite the camouflage of an airbrush, she could still remember the exact location of the zit she had sprouted on the day of the photograph.

The inscription read:

MARY ANN SINGLETON

‘Still Waters Run Deep’

Pep Club 2,3,4; Future Homemakers of America 3,4;

National Forensic League 4;

Plume and Palette, 3,4

Mary Ann shook her head. ‘Rest in peace,’ she said and winced.

Connie, mercifully, didn’t offer her own biography for examination. Mary Ann remembered it all too well: head majorette, class treasurer for three years, president of the Y-Teens. Connie’s waters had run fast and shallow. She had been popular.

Mary Ann struggled back into the present. ‘So what do you do – like for fun?’

Connie rolled her eyes. ‘You name it.’

‘I’d rather not.’

‘Well . . . for instance.’ Connie bent over her hatch-cover coffee table and dug out a copy of Oui magazine. ‘You read that?’ asked Mary Ann.

‘No. Some guy left it.’

‘Oh.’

‘Check out page seventy.’

Mary Ann turned to an article entitled ‘Coed Baths – Welcome to the World’s Cleanest Orgy.’ It was illustrated by a photograph of intermingling legs, breasts and buttocks.

‘Charming.’

‘It’s down on Valencia Street. You pays your money and you takes your chances.’

‘You’ve been there?’

‘No. But I wouldn’t rule it out.’

‘I’m afraid you’ll have to count me out, if you’re planning on . . .’

Connie laughed throatily. ‘Relax, hon. I wasn’t suggesting we . . . You’re a new girl. Give it time. This city loosens people up.’

‘I’ll never be that loose . . . or desperate.’

Connie shrugged, looking vaguely hurt. She took another sip of her Banana Cow.

‘Connie, I didn’t . . .’

‘It’s OK, hon. I knew what you meant. Hey, I’m hungry as hell.

How ‘bout a little Hamburger Helper?’

*

After dinner, Mary Ann napped for an hour.

She dreamed she was in a huge tile room full of steam. She was naked. Her mother and father were there, watching Let’s Make a Deal through the steam. Connie walked in with Mr Lassiter, who was furious at Mary Ann and began to shout at her. Mary Ann’s mother and father were shouting at Monty Hall’s first contestant.

‘Take the box,’ they screamed. ‘Take the box . . .’

Mary Ann woke up. She stumbled into the bathroom and splashed water on her face.

When she opened the cabinet over the sink, she discovered an assortment of after-shave lotions: Brut, Old Spice, Jade East.

Connie, apparently, was still popular.