The Accomplished Guest: Stories

by Ann Beattie

  The Mitchums were in the living room, standing beside Joe Jaye and Hubert Gunderphaal, deep in conversation. Ed Mitchum had a four-pronged cane (such canes had a name that Gerald couldn’t remember). Sarah Mitchum’s foot was in a cast—she had broken her ankle simply stepping off the curb, she told Gerald immediately, grabbing his hand in greeting while rolling her eyes. “You’re looking splendid!” Ed exclaimed, clapping Gerald on the back. He took the compliment, though talk of his appearance always made him desperate to move on to another topic.

  That topic was quickly found: the horrible news of the shooting in California, which he knew nothing about, having watched no television, having not even wandered out until evening. What had he done all day? A crossword puzzle. He’d also spoken to Timothy on the phone, and exchanged e-mail messages with several people. He’d napped. To be honest, he’d watched unabashedly as two women in an office across the street seemed to have simultaneous temper tantrums, throwing crumpled sheets of paper in the air; strangely, neither of them had confronted the other or seemed to register her presence. When a man entered the brightly lit room, the tossing of paper instantly stopped and the women returned to their desks, sitting up straight in their chairs, staring at their computers.

  Janice Evans and her second husband, Tim something-or-other (Gerald remembered the first name because it was the same as his son’s), arrived. Tim had acted in his youth and still occasionally had a minor role off Broadway, but what he obviously devoted his time to now was having work done (as was the euphemism): He looked like someone with a mask stretched tightly over his face, cheekbones protruding. He wore a gold ring on his pinkie—a clunky, unattractive school ring. His knuckles were so swollen that he must have had to shift it over from his ring finger. Janice, always standoffish, shook Gerald’s hand, then joked that in flu season one should really only rub elbows. From the many speakers of the Bose system, Frank Sinatra brayed Christmas carols, his band never as good as one might wish.

  Inevitably, the looming election got many people involved in the same conversation, except for Brenda’s goddaughter, who’d discovered that Ed Mitchum had attended Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, where she was studying, and pulled him aside to talk. Their discussion seemed lively, as they debated the pros and cons of changing the school’s name. Gerald accepted a flute of champagne and thought, Goodness, I forgot that Charlotte was even coming! He looked around in case he’d missed her entrance. Seeing him searching the room, Tim walked over and told him that he looked like he’d gotten lost in a department store. The implication was that Gerald looked like a desperate child. One way or another, Tim’s conversation, Gerald now remembered, was always centered on youth. At a Fourth of July party in Maine, Tim had shown Gerald a photograph of a young actor he was mentoring and asked whether Gerald didn’t think he looked much younger than thirty. Indeed, Gerald had assumed that he was a teenager. He had also assumed more than that.

  “What’s at the top of your list for Santa?” Tim whatever-his-name-was asked. They had little in common, but Gerald gave him credit for coming over to talk. “Anything but a lump of coal,” he replied, “since fossil fuels have to be done away with.” Tim smiled and began talking about the conference on global warming. He seemed very well informed. Brenda drifted over and joined in. Gerald excused himself and greeted Todd Browne, who was without his longtime live-in boyfriend. “How’s the stock market going to treat us in 2016?” Todd asked. “Or is the subject of money out of bounds?” Gerald did his best to provide an answer that was at once concise and ambiguous. For many years, he’d worked at Dean Witter Reynolds—a financial institution that no longer existed. Todd was a tall black-haired fellow who wore brightly colored bow ties and the very newest shoes. Tonight’s were ridiculous, with squared toes, made of some sort of animal skin that had to be deeply politically incorrect.

  The Orrs came. Henrietta House walked in alone. An hour after the party started, another flood of people arrived—“flood” being the operative word, as the woman at the door struggled to keep up with all the wet umbrellas. For some reason, she was intent on putting them in tall ceramic containers instead of allowing them to be left in the hallway with the coats. She was bent over nearly double, rolling out another container from the kitchen. Gerald had been distracted, but tuned in to a conversation about Hillary Clinton that seemed to have just concluded. Now Brenda was inviting Tim to the Museum of Natural History for the private unveiling of a recently donated skeleton of a feathered dinosaur. She should have spoken more softly, since her invitation extended to no one else. “After all the years, I can’t bear the tears to fall,” Sinatra sang. He’d obviously moved on from Christmas music.

  Sometime during the next hour, when everyone who was going to get a bit tipsy already had, the music changed to the Hallelujah Chorus. “Did you know,” Todd said to Rorra, “that the Hallelujah Chorus was first performed in Dublin?”

  “I certainly did not. You are a fount of information,” she said, though from the tone of her voice, it was clear that she found him tedious. Gerald accepted a small Swedish meatball, already speared with a toothpick. With his other hand, he took a golden olive on a tiny silver fork, which the server waited for him to replace on the tray. When he looked up again, he caught sight of Ned, who had been invited after all and was beckoning Gerald over with his cane. No, no, it wasn’t Ned . . . It was someone he didn’t know. The man was summoning someone else. The woman at the man’s side was in her thirties or forties, wearing a short blue shot-satin dress and boots with high silver heels. She was laughing at her own joke, unless the bird sconces had become animated and were chirping. Gerald remembered how furious it had made Charlotte when he engaged in this kind of fantasy. “You’re no poet!” was the way she’d expressed her objection those times when he pretended that oncoming cars bearing down on them were just toys, or that Monopoly was actually a way to contact the spirit world. “Don’t say such asinine things in public! It’s far from charming.”

  Late in the evening, two thirds of the way through, if one paid attention to the time listed on the invitation, there was still no sign of Charlotte. Was the champagne interacting with his blood-pressure medication? He felt a little queasy and confused, though he couldn’t focus on what, exactly, was confusing. His line of thought was cut off by Brenda’s goddaughter coming to his side, asking if he thought Janice Evans might have had too much to drink, because she’d more or less, sort of—well, actually, she had—accused the goddaughter of being in league with the enemy, for attending a school named for Woodrow Wilson, one of our most contemptible presidents. “I wouldn’t want to hear what she thinks about Jefferson!” the goddaughter said. Food and drink had removed her lipstick. She was equally pretty without it. A natural beauty. “She must be drunk if she spoke to you that way, yes,” Gerald said. “Pay it no mind. We get to a certain age and we think everyone wants to hear our opinion.”

  “You aren’t that way at all,” she said.

  What did she mean? They’d hardly spoken. Now she was clinging to his side. “Didn’t you . . . Brenda said you used to teach at Princeton,” she said.

  “Ah. As a graduate student. Then I became a stockbroker for a time. Later, I was at Yale, in New Haven.” Good God. As if she wouldn’t know where Yale was. “I don’t know why I said that,” he said. “I don’t take you for a fool.”

  “My fiancé, who just broke up with me, was at Yale. He won some fellowship to Italy, and got on a flight, then never showed up where he was supposed to go,” she said. “I was engaged to be married to someone that mean.”

  “I’m so sorry. It sounds as if he might have had some sort of breakdown.”

  “I know,” she said glumly. “But it’s easier to think that it was just malice. If I thought he’d flipped out, I’d have to be even more worried about him. To be perfectly honest, a friend of mine sent me a picture of him at a party in Rome last week, so I know he’s alive.”

  “What mysteries
people can be. Who in his right mind would leave you?” he asked.

  “You’re sweet,” she said. “Thanks for talking to me.”

  She walked away without saying goodbye, though her smile lingered. It was an enigmatic smile, one sometimes seen in Botticelli paintings. Gerald went to all the museums regularly, though he’d not yet made it to the new Whitney.

  * * *

  The Mitchums stood at the door, saying goodbye to their hosts. Brenda was approaching the door, the goddaughter trailing behind her. The girl had loosened her hair, which fell to her shoulders. Really a lovely young woman. And so accomplished! What a world she was inheriting. No doubt there was an update on the people who’d done the California shooting—news he’d get from Alonzo. He felt drawn home, as if Alonzo were the North Star, he thought, bemused. He pictured the sturdy doorman in his hat and gloves, so padded they made him look as if he were about to enter a boxing ring.

  Gerald took his leave, kissing Rorra lightly on both cheeks and asking her to thank her dear husband for him. The door closed behind him, and he found himself at the coatrack, where Brenda and her goddaughter were still putting on their coats. The Mitchums had preceded them to the elevator but were waiting until they arrived to push the button. “Is something the matter?” he heard Brenda ask the goddaughter. “No, I just, I just don’t know . . . it’s just the damn zipper, that’s all,” she replied, though she’d gotten her coat zipped on the first try.

  “Mark my words, things will turn out for the best,” he said in as consoling a whisper as he could manage, steering the young woman toward the elevator with one hand placed lightly on her back. He felt a real bond with her. He hoped he’d see her again. She was one of those pretty women who didn’t give any indication that she knew it or cared. But how had she intuited that she liked him, since he’d said almost nothing to her and there must have been little to differentiate him from the other party guests? Lost in his thoughts, he was frowning as the elevator doors parted on the ground floor.

  “Boo!” Charlotte said, jumping out from behind the lobby Christmas tree.

  “Oh my God! Oh my God, Charlotte!” Sarah Mitchum said. “What are you doing? Were you really lying in wait behind the tree?”

  No words came. It was as if Gerald’s eyes were hiccupping—they batted so many times. “Charlotte,” he finally echoed.

  Whereupon she threw herself into his arms, her gray coat trailing its belt, her hair damp and frizzy, her breath reeking of alcohol.

  “The lady insisted,” the man behind the desk said, wide-eyed and clearly nervous. Whatever was going on, the doorman suddenly knew that the lady had not leveled with him. Sarah continued to gawk at Charlotte while her husband strode on as if he knew neither of them. She said, “Charlotte, that wasn’t funny. I can hardly walk as it is,” her voice quavering as she spoke. Go on, go on, Gerald tried to signal to Sarah with his eyes, because Charlotte had released him and he didn’t know what to do. Brenda, exasperated, was tugging her goddaughter forward, though the girl was looking over her shoulder at Gerald with an expression of real concern. As she was led away, their eyes briefly locked. Then she turned, and she and Brenda more or less staggered across the lobby.

  Behind Charlotte, who was now standing very still, the green and white lights on the tree with its falling angel suddenly looked garish and out of place. He could think—he was empathizing with the tree, for heaven’s sake, for having been taken out of the woods and into New York City, where it was foolishly clad—but he really could not speak.

  Todd Browne exited the elevator, whistling, as Charlotte moved in for a second, firmer embrace of Gerald. “Merry, merry,” Todd said, nodding as he passed.

  Charlotte held Gerald tightly around the waist and was crying against his lapel. “You and your wonderful clothes, your perfect clothes, your perfect friends, your uptight, ruinous friends,” she said, her head thrown back, her mascara-streaked eyes looking directly into his.

  Ruinous friends? She was wearing stockings with a run down one calf, and short red boots. Her eyes were as red as her footwear. That was hyperbole; still, her eyes were alarmingly red from such a brief burst of crying.

  “Let’s get a drink,” he said, finally finding his voice and leading Charlotte to the door. “Merry Christmas,” he said, nodding to the soldier-straight doorman as they walked past him. “And to all a good night,” he heard himself adding. He turned toward Charlotte, giving her a false smile. “And laying his finger aside of his nose . . .”

  “Oh, why don’t you just admit you’re discombobulated, instead of talking nonsense, like some proud little schoolboy who’s memorized his lesson,” she said when they got outside. “If you can’t tell, the last thing I need is another drink. I wasn’t even able to come upstairs. Let’s go to Rockefeller Center. The tree’s being lit tonight. It’s what people do in New York at Christmas. They have cocktail parties and they go off to see the tree. I had my cocktail party alone, while you had yours with your wonderful friends.”

  He put his arm around her shoulders. There were many puddles, though it was not, at the moment, raining. It was difficult to walk with his arm around her shoulders, her gait was so irregular, so he let go and clasped her hand. What had she called him? A proud schoolboy, was that it?

  “We do have a son in common, you know,” she said.

  “I’m quite aware of that. A wonderful son,” he said.

  “We could have had more children, if you hadn’t been so selfish.”

  “One seemed like all we could cope with,” he said.

  “Oh, I don’t know about that. Speak for yourself.”

  He had no intention of reminding her how exhausted she’d been. She hadn’t been young when Timothy was born, but she was the one who’d wanted to go back to work. She’d insisted: No staying at home with the howling baby. She was the one who’d voted no to everything: a cat, a dog, a summer house, another child. He’d given her more than he’d been required to in the divorce. At first he’d intended to keep their place in Redding—she’d gotten their apartment and the Florida bungalow they’d hardly ever gone to—but that, too, he’d relinquished, along with Pet, his dog, Pet, never to see him again, not even when he went to get Timothy, because she always had the dog shut in another room.

  Police were everywhere on Sixth Avenue: on motorcycles; flanking the barricades by Rockefeller Center; many on foot; one on horseback. Was this—it had to be—because of the terrorist attack in Paris? Only one sidewalk was open. Finally they walked east, cutting through the dense crowd to get a side view of the tree, its blue and green and white lights blinking. “It’s always so beautiful and so unexpected, even though you know exactly what you’re coming to look at, isn’t it?” Charlotte said. He nodded. His thoughts were more about his son, his capable, seemingly contented son, who had no tattoos, no body piercings, who’d been born after the draft was abolished, and was a graduate of Gerald’s own alma mater, not a neo-Nazi or even a surf bum.

  “Did you bring Timothy to see the tree?” he said.

  “He’s in Seattle,” she said.

  “I know where he lives,” he said, trying to keep his voice level. “I meant when he was a child.”

  “I suppose,” she said after a moment. “Didn’t you?”

  They stood with their backs to a building on Fifth Avenue. Music had begun to play, and a light show projected images onto the blanched facade of Saks. Ingeniously, someone had used the architecture to create a landscape, with stars appearing and constantly changing colors transforming the building. iPhones were everywhere, glowing, like the Cheshire cat’s smile—disembodied, floating.

  “That old windbag Henrietta House came into the lobby and had a spat with some man who was with her, and he stormed out, and she made fists and all but jumped up and down. That was right after I hid behind the tree,” she said.

  “You made the man at the desk quite nervous,” he said.

  “Yes.” She smiled. “Did I embarrass you?”

  “No,�
�� he said. Of the many things he’d felt, embarrassment hadn’t been one of them.

  “Oh, if only I hadn’t had so many drinks, we could go to the Warwick, the remodeled Warwick, and sit in their nice bar,” she said. “Or walk over to the Parker Meridien and go to that strange Moorish bar where the sofas are so comfortable and all the Eurotrash hangs out.”

  “Eurotrash?” he said with surprise.

  “Did the Orrs come to the party? I’d have liked to see them.”

  “They were there. We didn’t really get to talk.”

  “Horrible, long-suffering Sarah Mitchum. If it’s not her foot, it’s something else—so long as she’s the center of attention. You tell me: Who seemed more likely to divorce, the Mitchums or us? But they’re still together, and he’s still pussy-whipped.”

  “Really?” he said. “I thought they had a good marriage.”

  “So good he tried to get into my pants once,” she said.

  “Really?” he said a second time.

  “No, I’m making it up because I want us to remarry, and I know you’ll feel all sorts of jealousy and protective impulses toward your seventy-year-old ex-wife.”

  “It isn’t always easy to decipher your meaning,” he said.

  “You love to appear dense. It’s part of your defense system. You’ve also always been something of an ass.”

  “Please. It’s Christmas.”

  “It is not. It’s the second of December.”

  Beside them, a man in a cloak sat down, as quickly and gracefully as a dancer concluding a twirl. From under his cloak he pulled a piece of cardboard, which he propped up on the wet sidewalk. Again, the lights at Saks began to blink. The man’s sign said, NEED $22 TO GET HOME TO WEST VIRGINIA. The second 2 had been drawn over a 1. Beside the sign, the man placed a cup wrapped entirely in masking tape. He was wearing a hoodie underneath the formless, dirty cloak, which he retreated into like a wet bird, ducking his head until his face could no longer be seen. His final gesture was to remove one hand from inside the cloak to check his cell phone.