by Ann Beattie
Everyone looks at him. “I’m tired as hell,” Gus says. “Is there any beer?”
“I’ll get you some,” Sugar says. Almost in slow motion, she goes to the refrigerator.
Gus has been looking at Ray’s pictures of Sugar, and suddenly he snatches one off the wall. “On my wall?” Gus says. “Who did that? Who hung them up?”
“Ray,” Sugar says. She hands him the can of beer.
“Ray,” Gus repeats. He shakes his head. He shakes the beer in the can lightly but doesn’t drink it.
“May,” Sugar says, “why don’t you go upstairs and get ready for bed?”
“Go upstairs,” Gus says. Gus’s face is red, and he looks tired and wild.
May runs up the stairs and then sits down there and listens. No one is talking. Then she hears Gus say, “Do you intend to spend the night, Ray? Turn this into a little social occasion?”
“I would like to stay for a while to—” Ray begins.
Gus says something, but his voice is so low and angry that May can’t make out the words.
Silence again.
“Gus—” Ray begins again.
“What?” Gus shouts. “What have you got to say to me, Ray? You don’t have a damned thing to say to me. Will you get out of here now?”
Footsteps. May looks down and sees her father walk past the stairs. He does not look up. He did not see her. He has gone out the door, leaving her. In a minute she hears his motorcycle start and the noise the tires make riding through gravel. May runs downstairs to Sugar, who is picking up the pictures Gus has ripped off the walls.
“I’m going to take you home, May,” Sugar says.
“I’m coming with you,” Gus says. “If I let you go, you’ll go after Ray.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Sugar says.
“I’m going with you,” Gus says.
“Let’s go, then,” Sugar says. May is the first one to the door.
Gus is barefoot. He stares at Sugar and walks as if he is drunk. He is still holding the can of beer.
Sugar gets into the driver’s seat of the Cadillac. The key is in the ignition. She starts the car and then puts her head against the wheel and begins to cry.
“Get moving, will you?” Gus says. “Or move over.” Gus gets out and walks around the car. “I knew you were going crazy when you dyed your hair,” Gus says. “Shove over, will you?”
Sugar moves over. May is in the back seat, in one corner.
“For God’s sake, stop crying,” Gus says. “What am I doing to you?”
Gus drives slowly, then very fast. The radio is on, in a faint mumble. For half an hour they ride in silence, except for the sounds of the radio and Sugar blowing her nose.
“Your father’s O.K.,” Sugar says at last. “He was just upset, you know.”
In the back seat, May nods, but Sugar does not see it.
At last the car slows, and May sits up and sees they are in the block where she lives. Ray’s motorcycle is not in the driveway. All the lights are out in the house.
“It’s empty,” Sugar says. “Or else she’s asleep in there. Do you want to knock on the door, May?”
“What do you mean, it’s empty?” Gus says.
“She’s in Colorado,” Sugar says. “I thought she might be back.”
May begins to cry. She tries to get out of the car, but she can’t work the door handle.
“Come on,” Gus says to her. “Come on, now. We can go back. I don’t believe this.”
May’s legs are still sandy, and they itch. She rubs them, crying.
“You can take her back to Wanda’s,” Sugar says. “Is that O.K., May?”
“Wanda? Who’s that?”
“Her mother’s friend. It’s not far from here. I’ll show you.”
“What am I even doing talking to you?” Gus says.
The radio drones. In another ten minutes they are at Wanda’s.
“I suppose nobody’s here, either,” Gus says, looking at the dark house. He leans back and opens the door for May, who runs up the walk. “Please be here, Wanda,” she whispers. She runs up to the door and knocks. No one answers. She knocks harder, and a light goes on in the hall. “Who is it?” Wanda calls.
“May,” May says.
“May!” Wanda hollers. She fumbles with the door. The door opens. May hears the tires as Gus pulls the car away. She stands there in Sugar’s raincoat, with the red belt hanging down the front.
“What did they do to you? What did they do?” Wanda says. Her eyes are swollen from sleep. Her hair has been clipped into rows of neat pin curls.
“You didn’t even try to find me,” May says.
“I called the house every hour!” Wanda says. “I called the police, and they wouldn’t do anything—he was your father. I did too try to find you. Look, there’s a letter from your mother. Tell me if you’re all right. Your father is crazy. He’ll never get you again after this, I know that. Are you all right, May? Talk to me.” Wanda turns on the hall lamp. “Are you all right? You saw how he got you in the car. What could I do? The police told me there was nothing else I could do. Do you want your mother’s letter? What have you got on?”
May takes the letter from Wanda and turns her back. She opens the envelope and reads: “Dear May, A last letter before I drive home. I looked up some friends of your father’s here, and they asked me to stay for a couple of days to unwind, so here I am. At first I thought he might be in the closet—jump out at me for a joke! Tell Wanda that I’ve lost five pounds. Sweated it away, I guess. I’ve been thinking, honey, and when I come home I want us to get a dog. I think you should have a dog. There are some that hardly shed at all, and maybe some that just plain don’t. It would be good to get a medium-size dog—maybe a terrier, or something like that. I meant to get you a dog years ago, but now I’ve been thinking that I should still do it. When I get back, first thing we’ll go and get you a dog. Love, Mama.”
It is the longest letter May has ever gotten from her mother. She stands in Wanda’s hallway, amazed.
The
Parking Lot
Walking across the parking lot, she becomes fascinated by the sameness of the surface: so black and regular. She rubs the tops of her arms—more to protest the cold than to warm herself. When she was a little girl her father rubbed her arms for her. She doesn’t remember complaining about the cold, but her father often stopped, just the same, and rubbed her arms, which hung stiffly at her sides as she walked in a heavy winter coat, always one size too big. He rubbed so hard she was almost lifted off the ground. She gives another rub. Her shoulder bag swings forward and interrupts. She’s awkward. Tired—the end of the day. She has been working here, in this gigantic building, for five months. She used to walk across the parking lot smelling the air, knowing it was almost spring. Now it is autumn. The surface of the parking lot, which she suddenly realizes she has been studying for five months, doesn’t change.
At home, which is a four-room apartment (Do you count the bathroom? She always forgets), she collapses in her favorite chair. Collapse is no exaggeration. After she sits down it takes her at least an hour to get up. He has to bring her a drink, smooth her hair. He hovers over her. He’s always lonesome without her. The other reason he hovers, she knows, is to make her nervous about all the fussing so she will get up. When she gets up she starts their dinner, and she is an excellent cook. He is a good cook too, and has offered to do the cooking, saying that she works hard enough during the day. Secretly, he wants her to continue. He is a good cook, but she is excellent. From her he learned to frequent gourmet shops, to sneer at frozen vegetables. In the morning before she leaves, she writes a note telling him what he needs to buy at the store. Tonight he watches as she squeezes lemon juice over chicken, picks parsley from the herb box and sprinkles it gently over the top. A dash of nutmeg. Her energy comes back to her as she prepares their dinner. She pats his hand, where it rests on the counter. His hand is in her way, but as she begins to feel less tired she becomes more tolerant.
As they eat she explains that tomorrow, Friday, she’ll be late. She’s taking care of Paula’s children tomorrow night so she can have a night out—picking them up at nursery school after work. Paula is a girl she works with. He knows that. He nods vigorously to dismiss the explanation. Actually, he doesn’t like conversation at dinner. The food she prepares is so delicious, so delicate. He doesn’t want to be distracted.
She is always too tired to go out after the day of work, so they stay home at night. He stays in too much. She mentions it to him. Does she want to go out? He misunderstands. She meant that he should go out during the day. He does; he shops for food every day. Yes, but she didn’t mean it so literally; she meant he should do something that wasn’t an errand. It’s such a beautiful time for the park. She is enthusiastic, but wouldn’t want to be sitting in a park in autumn herself. Only work has seemed real to her since she began her job. She feels sorry for him—browsing in aisles of imported food, sitting on a bench by the fountain. The fluorescent lights in her office excite her. The wide, shining hallway gives her a sense of purpose.
By arrangement, they work alternate years. Last year he was a house painter. He was very good at it, and he made quite a bit of money. Before that, she was a waitress at a private club. She got good tips. She had nothing against that job. But this job—it amazes her that she could have been so wrong in thinking that working in an office would be depressing. She likes this even better than waitressing. She was more tired when she was a waitress, she thinks with satisfaction.
She finds herself in the parking lot, a whole day gone. What happened in the period between sitting at the dinner table and now, when she is walking across the parking lot? She’s left work a little early, dutiful about picking up Paula’s children. Usually she has to be alert walking through the parking lot, but tonight she’s left earlier than the other drivers. Other people, already in their cars and as tired as her, back up without looking carefully. She would have been hit last week if she had not shrieked. She was nowhere near the man’s car, but as he pulled out he swung backwards in an arc … she remembers putting her arms out, as though that would stop the car. The cry she gave stopped it.
She parks at the back of the lot because there’s less chance of the car being hit there. They fight for places at the front. Let them. She wonders, as she puts the key in the lock to open the car door, what people do about finding their car when they’re color blind. It’s her car’s color she rivets her eyes to. She moves toward the bright, bright red. There are a lot of VW’s in the lot that look like hers. Sometimes there are three in a row, even back here. They must look in the window, she thinks a little giddily. People keep so much junk in their cars.
Paula’s children are glad to see her. They’ve met her twice before. They’re very glad to see her. Three-and four-year-old children get nervous about any deviation from their routine, even when they’ve been told what to expect. She feels sorry for them—particularly the three-year-old—and kids around with them. It’s only nervousness that makes them so glad she’s there, but she’s flattered anyway.
He entertains the children while she fixes dinner. She makes a formal meal for the four of them, as though they are honored company: beef stroganoff, fresh lima beans, salade niçoise. The children love it. They’ve never eaten by candlelight. The older one is confused and wants to know if it’s Halloween. She went a little light on the burgundy in the sauce because of the children, but compensated for it beautifully with a sprinkle of sage. He looks at her across the table. She can tell by his smile that he’s grateful she didn’t fix fried chicken, or something children supposedly like. The oldest child asks what the salad is. “Salade niçoise,” she tells her, and details the ingredients. He pays as close attention as the child. Being a good cook himself, he appreciates this.
It is Saturday, and his friend Sam is visiting. Sam has separated from his wife and visits more often now. Jim and Sam always invite her to go out with them, but she doesn’t feel like tagging along. They don’t make her feel that way, she makes herself feel that way. By now they’re so used to her staying that they don’t expect an excuse. She’s happy Jim is getting out of the apartment; ever since he quit painting he’s stayed close—just going out for food and sometimes, but not often, a walk before bed. When they leave the apartment it seems suddenly as though space is opening up around her. It’s still such a small apartment, though: you walk into the living room, and if you turn right you’re in the bedroom, and if you turn left there’s a small hallway with a bathroom and a kitchen at the end of it. The kitchen is really too small—the other rooms are an adequate size, except that she feels cramped when anyone besides the two of them are in the apartment. He thinks of moving, somewhere where there will be a larger kitchen, so she can work better. It’s too much trouble to move, so she insists she can move freely in the kitchen. She takes a look at the kitchen; it’s a bright, functional room, much too small. The living room is small, too. And the bedroom. She paces the apartment, then grabs a jacket and goes out, catches a bus and goes shopping. There’s no sense in spending her day off feeling closed in. At the store she buys a little bottle of perfume that the salesgirl tells her smells autumn-y. The salesgirl has long fingernails painted pale orange. Her fingernail polish sparkles as she hands her the bag. Her smile is bright as well.
Sam comments on the perfume at dinner. She is glad that he doesn’t say it smells like autumn, but only that it smells good. He takes her wrist in his hand for a second to sniff it. Sam has always been a little in love with her. She would like him anyway, because he is a nice person, but she likes him a little more because she knows about his secret love. They talk a little about his wife. She thinks he’s secretly in love with his wife as well. She doesn’t like his wife; she’s the sort of woman who gives in to everything: she eats too much and is overweight, she thinks too hard and is always dissatisfied, turning all conversations to politics and the state of the country. She was never pleasant to have to dinner. A little embarrassed that he’s talking about his wife again, Sam closes off with a bit of flattery: “And she wasn’t as good a cook as you.” They are eating a roast beef dinner. Baked stuffed potatoes. Very American—Sam’s favorite kind of food. She likes to cook what people particularly like; it makes everything more pleasant. And sure enough, Sam isn’t feeling blue any more when they’ve finished eating.
Late that night they go to a little restaurant for French pastry and espresso. She could have served that at home, but Sam likes to take them out—he feels a little guilty that he can’t reciprocate any more. When Jim goes to the men’s room Sam speaks hurriedly. She didn’t expect that at all—was there an undercurrent all night she didn’t catch? Sam says that he is worried about Jim. Jim doesn’t go out much, and he seems at loose ends now that he isn’t working. Sam laughs, a little embarrassed, sensing, no doubt, her surprise at all this hurried talk. “I don’t want everybody to fall apart,” he says. Then he asks outright if their arrangement is that Jim can’t work when she works. No—he could if he wanted to. It’s just that he doesn’t have to. Sam seems confused by that. Or embarrassed. He says that it’s all none of his business. But then he speaks again, a question she can’t answer because Jim is walking toward them as he asks: “Wouldn’t it be better if he went back to work?”
Sam’s question nags at her. Back at work on Monday, she thinks about calling Jim. She’s busy, though, and forgets to do it, or else when she remembers the phone is in use. By five o’clock she feels differently. Sam meant to be helpful, but he misunderstood. She regrets wasting so much of her day thinking about what he said. She regrets the weekend, too—Saturday was wasted; she had felt vaguely depressed all day, and now she realizes that Sam was responsible. Not only what he said about Jim—or what he insinuated, really—but his presence, a reminder of what can happen to a marriage, the distressing realization that two adults who care about each other, as Sam and his wife do, can’t reach some agreement, have some arrangement that will make
them both happy.
A car coasts along beside her. She recognizes the driver, a man she has spoken to several times in the elevator. “Parked all the way in the back?” he asks, and she tells him she is. She does what she knows is expected: she shrugs and looks a little perturbed about what everyone calls “the parking problem.” She’s sure that telling him she parks there deliberately would sound too preachy. So when he leans over and swings open the door on the passenger’s side, she has to get in. They drive up alongside her car in a minute—too short a time to start a conversation, he says. She agrees. And instead of getting out she sits there. She smiles, which is something she hasn’t done all weekend. During the next hour they have a conversation—in a bar. The conversation lasts about an hour, and then they go to a motel and go to bed. She thinks, then, of Jim—as she has most of the afternoon. She can’t think of what to tell him, so she stays in the motel for another hour, thinking. Eventually they leave. He drives her back to her car. They smile again. This time there is no conversation, and she gets out.
He isn’t in the apartment when she gets back. She knocks and he doesn’t open the door. She imagines he’s sulking, so she rummages through her purse until she finds the key and goes in, ready to defend herself. He isn’t there. She looks for him like a dog searching for a missing bone, feeling foolish as she does it. Then she collapses in the chair. She falls asleep and is awakened by a key in the door. Jim looks terrible. Through the darkness of the room, and half asleep, she can tell that. He has a bag with him, which he sets on the floor by the chair. He smooths her hair. He tells her she looks tired. He has been out looking for shallots. It was his mistake to have slept away most of the afternoon, but who would think shallots would be impossible to find? He had to take the bus crosstown, and then he found them at that reliable specialty store next to the dry cleaner’s.
