Tommy squirmed. "Maybe," he said. He hurried along until the barker two doors up, this one a buxom woman wearing leather and a ring in her nose, stopped him.

"The most beautiful girls in town, sir. All nude. All hot. Come on in."

"No, thanks. I have a dinner date in a few minutes."

"Bring her -"

"Maybe," Tommy said, walking on.

He was stopped three more times before he reached the end of the block, and each time he declined politely. He noticed that he was the only one who stopped. The other pedestrians just walked on, ignoring the barkers.

Back home, he thought, it's impolite to ignore someone who is speaking to you, especially if they call you "sir." I guess I'm going to have to learn City manners.

She had fifteen minutes before she was supposed to meet Tommy at Enrico's. Allowing for another bus ride and a short walk, she had about seven minutes to find an outfit. She walked into the Gap on the corner of Van Ness and Vallejo with a stack of hundred-dollar bills in her hand and announced, "I need help. Now!"

Ten salespeople, all young, all dressed in generic cotton casual, looked up from their conversations, spotted the money in her hand, and simultaneously stopped breathing their brains shutting down bodily functions and rerouting the needed energy to calculate the projected commissions contained in Jody's cash. One by one they resumed breathing and marched toward her, a look of dazed hunger in their eyes: a pack of zombies from the perky, youthful version of The Night of the Living Dead The Night of the Living Dead.

"I wear a size four and I've got a date in fifteen minutes," Jody said. "Dress me."

They descended on her like an evil khaki wave.

Tommy sat at a patio table with only a low brick planter box between him and the sidewalk. To avoid the t.i.tty bar barkers, he had crossed the street eight times in the half block from City Lights Bookstore to Enrico's and he was a little jangled from dodging traffic. He ordered a cappuccino from a waiter who fawned over him like a mother hen, then stared in amazement when the waiter returned with a cup the size of a large soup bowl and a plate of brown crystalline cubes.

"These are raw sugar cubes, honey. So much better for you than that white poison."

Tommy picked up the soup spoon and reached for a sugar cube.

"No, no, no," the waiter scolded. "We use our demita.s.se spoon for our cappuccino." He pointed to a tiny spoon that rested in the saucer.

"Demita.s.se," Tommy repeated, feeling reckless. In Indiana the use of the word "demita.s.se" was tantamount to leaping out of the closet in scandalous flames. San Francisco was a great city! A great place to be a writer! And gay guys seemed like pretty nice people, once you got past their seeming obsession with Barbra Streisand music. Tommy smiled at the waiter. "Thanks, I may need a little help with the forks."

"Is she special?" the waiter asked.

"I think she's going to break my heart."

"How exciting!" the waiter gushed. "Then we'll make you look marvelous. Just remember, use from the outside first on the forks. The big spoon is for winding pasta. Is this your first date?"

Tommy nodded.

"Then order the raviolis bite-size no muss, no fuss. You'll look good eating them. And order for her, the rosemary chicken with roasted bell peppers and wild mushrooms in cream sauce a beautiful dish. Tastes horrid, but on a first date she won't eat it anyway. You don't have time to run home and change, do you?"

The waiter looked at Tommy's flannel shirt as if it were a foul, dead animal.

"No, this is all I have clean."

"Oh well, it does have a certain Mr. Green Jeans charm, I guess."

Tommy caught a flash of red hair out of the corner of his eye and looked up to see Jody walking into the cafe. The waiter followed his gaze.

"Is that her?"

"Yes," Tommy said, waving to catch her attention. She spotted him, smiled, and approached the table.

Jody was dressed in a khaki skirt, a light-blue chambray blouse, light-blue leggings, and tan suede flats. She wore a woven leather belt, a green tartan scarf tied around her shoulders, silver earrings, bracelet, and necklace, and carried a suede backpack in place of her airline flight bag.

The waiter, keeping his gaze fixed on Jody, bent and whispered in Tommy's ear, "The flannel is fine, honey. I haven't seen anyone that over-accessorized since Batman." He stood and pulled the chair out for Jody. "Hi, we've been waiting for you."

Jody sat.

"My name is Frederick," the waiter said with a slight bow. "I'll be serving you this evening." He pinched the fabric of Jody's scarf. "Lovely tartan, dear. Sets off your eyes. I'll be back with some menus."

"Hi," Jody said to Tommy. "Have you been waiting long?"

"A little while, I wasn't sure of the time. I brought you something." He reached under the table and pulled a book out of a City Lights bag. "It's an almanac. You said you needed one."

"That's very sweet."

Tommy looked down and mimed an "Aw, shucks, it was nothing."

"So, do you live around here?" Jody asked.

"I'm sort of looking for a place."

"Really? Have you been in town long?"

"Less than a week. I came here to write. The grocery store is just a... just a..."

"Job," Jody finished for him.

"Right, just a job. What do you do?"

"I used to be a claims clerk at Transamerica. I'm looking for something else, now."

Frederick appeared at the table and opened two menus in front of them. "If you don't mind me saying," he said, "you two are just darling together. There's a Raggedy-Ann-and-Andy energy going between you two that is simply electric."

Frederick walked away.

Jody eyed Tommy over the menu. "Have we just been insulted?"

"I hear the rosemary chicken breast is wonderful," Tommy said.

Chapter 8 Dinner with the Vampire.

"Is there something wrong with your food?"

"No, I'm just not very hungry."

"You're going to break my heart, aren't you?"

Chapter 9 He Knows If You've.

Been Bad or Good, So You'd Better...

For the few days he had been in San Francisco, because of the newness of it all, because of the mystery of the flowers and the worries of finding a job, Tommy had completely forgotten that he was h.o.r.n.y. He had always been h.o.r.n.y, and had accepted that he always would be h.o.r.n.y. So when Jody sat down across from him and the tsunami of hormones washed over him, he was quite shocked that he had ever forgotten.

Through dinner he missed most of her small talk and bought all the polite lies she told about her eating habits because his mind was busy with a single obsessive thought: She must move that scarf so I can see her b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

When Tommy finished eating, Frederick came to the table. "Was there something wrong with your food?" he asked Jody.

"No, I'm just not very hungry."

Frederick winked at Tommy and took their plates. Jody sat back, unwrapped her scarf and threw it over the back of her chair. "What a nice night," she said.

Tommy ripped his gaze from the front of her blouse and pretended to look out over the street. "Yep," he said.

"You know, I've never asked a man out before."

"Me either," Tommy said.

He had decided that he would throw himself at her feet and beg. Please, please, please, take me home and have s.e.x with me. You have no idea how badly I need it. I've only done it twice in my life and both times I was so drunk that I had to be told about it the next day. Please, for the love of G.o.d, end this suffering, f.u.c.k me now or kill me!

"Would you like a cappuccino?" he asked.

She shook her head. "Tommy, can I trust you? Can I be honest with you?"

"Sure."

"Look, I don't want to be too forward, but I think I have to be..."

"I knew it." He fell forward until his head hit the table, rattling the silverware. He spoke into the tablecloth. "You just broke up with a guy, and this date seemed like a good idea at the time, but you think that you're still in love with him. And I'm a really nice guy and you'll always be my friend. Right?"

"No. I wasn't going to say that."

"Oh, then you've just gotten out of a bad relationship and you're not ready to get into another one. You need to be alone for a while and find out what you really want. Right?"

"No..."

"Right," Tommy said into the tablecloth. "But things are moving a little too fast and maybe we should see other people for a while. I knew it. I knew you would break my -"

Jody whacked him on the back of the head with a soup spoon. "Ouch!" Tommy sat up, rubbing the rising lump. "Hey, that hurt."

"Are you okay?" she asked, holding the soup spoon at ready.

"That really hurt."

"Good." She put the spoon down. "I was going to say that I don't want to be too forward, but you and I both need a place to live, and I need some help with some things, and I like you, and I was wondering if you wanted to get a place together?"

Tommy stopped rubbing his head. "Now?"

"If you don't have other plans."

"But we haven't even, you know..."

"We can just be roommates if you'd like. And if you need to think it over, I'll understand, but I really need your help."

Tommy was stunned. No woman had ever said anything like that to him before. In just these few minutes she had come to trust him enough to lay herself open to total rejection. Women didn't do that, did they? Maybe she was nuts. Well, that would be okay; she could be Zelda to his F. Scott. Still, he felt as if he owed her some sort of confession that would leave him equally vulnerable.

"Five Chinese guys asked me to marry them today," he said.

Jody didn't know what to say, so she said, "Congratulations."

"I didn't accept."

"Thinking it over?"

"No, I wouldn't two-time you."

"That's sweet, but technically you'd be six-timing me."

Tommy smiled. "I like you, I really do."

"Then let's move in together."

Frederick appeared at the table. "Well, I can see things are going along just swimmingly between you two."

"Check, please," Jody said.

"Right away." Frederick headed back into the cafe in a bit of a snit.

Tommy said, "You're going to break my heart, aren't you?"

"Irreparably. Would you like to go for a walk?"

"Sure, I guess."

Frederick returned to the table with the check wallet. Jody pulled a wad of cash out of her backpack and handed him a hundred-dollar bill. As Tommy started to protest, standing to dig money out of his jeans pocket, Jody picked up her soup spoon and brandished it threateningly. "I'll get this." Tommy sat back down. To Frederick, Jody said, "Keep the change."