by Ann Beattie
“The worst thing is that she’s still with that Andrew. How can she stand that braying voice? At least we didn’t have to hear about Turks and Caicos from him, talking through that big nose like it’s a megaphone.”
“Remember when the hurricane was coming and the police cars came around with recordings blasting, telling us to leave the island?”
“We were dancing inside Harry Burns’s new house. We just kept dancing. He had those expensive shutters that rolled down and locked, so we were inside with the lights on until they all went out.”
“Key West was such a disaster. It would have gotten more attention if New Orleans hadn’t been destroyed.”
“And our little Kenneth, living in the Garden District. He thinks we care that he’s gay, and we don’t care. We’ve run out of different ways to insist that we’re happy if he’s happy. He glowered even as a little child. Maybe his bad eyes are hereditary.”
“You should talk. Wouldn’t you know that your pigeon-toed walk would be exactly the way poor Amity perambulates. None of the other goslings ever walked that way. She imitated everything you did. She still holds her hand out like it’s got a cigarette in it, and you gave up smoking thirty years ago.”
“Don’t you like the way they all chipped in for presents? For, excuse me, modern things? You can bet Kenneth bullied them all into that.”
“I don’t want any of those things. I like to make tea with loose tea in a tea ball. I hate tea bags, and I certainly don’t need a machine to make tea.”
“It’s modern.”
“That did make him sound so gay, didn’t it? ‘You need some new things, some modern things.’ Jesus.”
“Do you think they’re trying to hear us? I always thought they were listening like little foxes when we were fucking. Now I guess they know we’re not doing that.”
“We could listen intently and see if any of them are masturbating.”
“No one does that in their parents’ house. They forget they have genitals.”
“And didn’t you think Henry went on a little too long about the failure of the human pyramid? No one wants people to fall at a circus, but that’s old news. I think he just didn’t know what to talk about.”
“He never got over not being accepted at your alma mater.”
“Most people would think Stanford was every bit as impressive as Yale.”
“Well, but he’s not as rich as his classmates. He’s still brooding about not making it off the wait list at Yale.”
“He and Kenneth don’t seem very buddy-buddy, the way they did when they were younger. Into their twenties, I mean. After that it seems Kenneth only wanted to talk about how the gay world operates, which I notice he’s finally shut up about.”
“They all get along. I was happy to hear that Amity thought she and Jason might visit Kenneth in Brooklyn.”
“He’s got a place big enough to hold the next circus.”
“I know. I still don’t understand how he could afford it, even with those two Russian girls living in the basement.”
“Garden apartment.”
“I don’t like euphemisms.”
“You have divinely dimpled thighs.”
“I have a major cellulite problem.”
“Let’s make noise so they think we’re fucking.”
“They wouldn’t think that. They’d think you were trying to strangle me, or something.”
“Speaking of which, I think it’s absolutely ridiculous that you’ve got a scarf coiled around your throat even when you’re in your nightgown. As if I care about the tightness of the skin on your neck.”
“You wear lifts in your shoes.”
“I don’t. They’re orthotic inserts.”
“We love to bitch at each other, don’t we. Remember when we had real arguments? I hated your secretary. I still resent how bossy she was. Or I resent how cowardly you were in her presence. It bothered you so much that she was overqualified for the job. Why didn’t you hire someone unqualified?”
“Say that again. I like to see your expression when you say ‘unqualified.’ Also, may I ask why you’re suddenly sitting on the bed staring at me and acting like I’m obliged to be the evening’s entertainment?”
“Well, you’re a helluva lot better than having to sit out there with them watching Breaking Bad shows they missed. Though Amity isn’t. She’s knitting and trying to be sociable. I taught her some things too well.”
“I taught Kenneth to fish and he lost the fishing pole. And Amity crashed the car in driver’s ed. Remember that?”
“Don’t bring it up to her anymore, even if you do find it so funny. I’m serious about that.”
“Can’t you say ‘unqualified’ again?”
“Why don’t you have your pajamas on?”
“Because I’ve suddenly become very old and terribly tired. If I didn’t have a machine to brew my tea, I might never have the mental energy to make tea again. Let alone climb onto a riding mower. I’m senile, and I’m afraid of that big new shiny machine. It’d be like jumping onto the back of a bull.”
“Put your pajamas on.”
“I don’t think I’ll wear them anymore. I think I’ll skinny dip into bed.”
“I don’t care what you do, but I’m about to turn off the light.”
“We haven’t had our ritual!”
“That’s out. We’ve got to live in the modern world. We have to change our old habits. I see that now. I don’t care if you skip it tonight, but please do something other than mock the children’s good intentions.”
“You like the tea machine?”
“I do not. But I’m not fixated on it.”
“It will have to be visible when they Skype us!”
“They know perfectly well we’re never going to do that.”
“But Kenneth can be quite a nag, can’t he?”
“And you can be quite the chatterbox. Good night.”
“Oh, I’m just kidding. Let me take off all my clothes and throw them on the floor like the vile man I am, taking extra care to put my smelly socks on top of the pile . . . there . . . and hand me that hairbrush, if you’ll be so kind.”
She handed it to him. It was silver. Part of a vanity set that had belonged to her mother. No hair ever touched the bristles, which seemed misnamed, because they were as soft as down. He ran his fingers over them. It was a little gesture of warm-up, like a pianist stretching his fingers above a keyboard.
He held her foot in one hand, though she certainly had the strength to keep her foot in the air, but that was an old debate, and actually she was reassured by her total reliance on him. He placed the brush against the undersides of her toes and brushed down, slowly, only the first split second ever so slightly tickling; thereafter, she felt no such sensation. He brushed a hundred times, always stroking in the same direction, as if brushing hair. She trusted that he brushed her foot one hundred times because she’d long ago stopped counting. The stroking took away the ache in her elbow and the pain in her shoulder, and it dulled the pain behind her head, where the stitches had been taken against her will, after she tripped and fell. “Six stitches! They’re nothing! Only the tiniest bit of hair had to be shaved, and the other hair lies on top of it.” He’d held out the mirror, the silver mirror, which she’d taken in her hand but not been willing to look into, after turning her back to the mirror on the bureau. Now, as he stroked, she had a vision of the children when they were children: blurry and romanticized, not the crying, biting, pushy, and often wild-eyed creatures they’d been. They’d been one big snaggle, and in her worst moments she’d thought about how lovely it would be to just grab the clump of them and cut them out, no different than you’d cut out the unbrushable part of a dog’s matted ruff, worth doing sometimes even with a hopelessly knotted little clump of your own hair. Though she hadn’t. Only monstrous parents did that—or nowadays mothers put them in the car and drove into the water, eager to perish with them.
“Two hundred and six, two hundred and seven
, two hundred and eight,” he murmured. It was a lie. One hundred strokes was all he’d do, that was it, but if his joke contained a little protest, she imagined he must be nearing the end.
MISSED CALLS
Dear Mr. Cavassa: I received both your letters, the first belatedly because it was sent to my Virginia address and only forwarded today. So my reluctance to talk about Truman Capote isn’t as great as you suspect in letter #2—just a problem of getting the mail at the right address. In #2 you say that you are working with a former student of mine who is digitalizing your archives. I remember Billie fondly and hope she is still writing those wonderful, subversive little vignettes. Your quote from Diane Arbus was wonderful (to the effect that we can’t despair, since we’re all we’ve got). I met her once, btw (as I now know to say), when I went to a surprise party for Dick Avedon. Blowing up balloons with her seemed easier than gushing admiration. Now, I wish we’d talked—though that sort of imbalance rarely results in anything long-lasting, in my experience. I was dating a friend of Avedon’s who took me to the party as a last-minute substitute when his mother developed a toothache. All more than you want to know. Capote I hardly knew at all, so I doubt that a trip to Maine would benefit you—though it’s not at all a question of my “finding time.” When would you like to meet? With best wishes, Clair Levinson-Jones.
Dear Clair (if I may), Thank you for the quick reply. I’ll be attending my goddaughter’s graduation from Bowdoin in early June, and if you could see me on either side of that—the 5th or 7th would be ideal—I would be grateful for a little of your time. If you’re so inclined, and there’s somewhere you like to have lunch, it would be my pleasure to have a meal together. I do understand how busy you must be, however—so even a glass of water and a few moments of conversation will be fine! Thank you again for getting back to me so quickly. All best, Terry.
Terry—the 7th is good, though there may be some banging because of a new sink being installed in the upstairs bathroom. Tell me approximately what time to expect you, so I will not be running an errand. Again, I hope that my very few recollections about Capote are not a disappointment, but you’ve been warned! With best wishes, Clair.
Noon, Clair, so I might take you to lunch? Anticipating meeting with great pleasure. Best, T.
Terry—I will look for you about noon. Dockside is a restaurant near the water that I sometimes go to, though lunch tends to be a meal I forget. And breakfast consists mostly of vitamins. Though perhaps it would be good to have a bit of midday fuel. It is slightly tricky to find, so come to the house and we’ll go together. Do you need any driving instructions? Best wishes, Clair.
My GPS should get me there. Until then, T. Anticipating with great pleasure.
Terry—I won’t send this letter, though sometimes it’s good to write something and tear it up, since the simplest things one wants to write just dissipate into words that sound good and have a logical configuration on the page, yet don’t really communicate what I want to say. Do you already know that Capote visited us, and are you expecting his essence might be indelible, even if—assuming you’re like other writers and photographers I know—you have no mystical beliefs? He peed in the toilet upstairs across from what will be the new pedestal sink. He may have done more than pee—that might be why he went upstairs, rather than using the downstairs half bath. Would it be amusing if I dithered aloud about this to you, a bit nervously, wanting to ingratiate myself, as the old do with the young? Or should I make an attempt to take your subject seriously and not conduct myself for my amusement? We must not talk of toilets at all, but of how good the fish chowder is, or how lovely the lobster salad (which I’ll probably not order, since the days of lavish expense accounts are over). Chances are we’ll never meet again but instead have some little flutter of follow-up on some minor point, and at Christmas I suppose you could astonish me by sending an unintentionally bizarre floral display with glittery pinecones protruding like enormous hatpins. My resentment of the young drips into everything I say, I fear—I, too, am a leaking sink. What it costs to install a sink nowadays! But I’ll save that for hectoring the repairman. No one thinks Capote was a major talent any longer. Now everyone is a prodigy. No one even knows the names of the most serious contemporary writers unless they’re local “celebs” who come out to eat organic cheese on hand-hewn toothpicks to benefit some do-good organization. I was once in a car when the GPS registered “CR” as CRESCENT, rather than CIRCLE. It turned out there was a CRESCENT (in New York State!) in some built-yesterday housing development, and there we were, the driver and me, at the wrong address for the B and B at nearly midnight. It’s good you’re Anticipating with great pleasure, because like all old people I fear the future (An’ forward, tho’ I canna see, I guess an’ fear). The sound you hear is paper ripping, Terry of the genteel manners.
Adver had not come to install the new sink, just as she’d suspected he wouldn’t. He had no phone. He was probably hungover. He often had the “flu.” He would show up eventually, and she’d begun to enjoy brushing her teeth in the shower, so what did it matter? Better that the house be quiet for their conversation.
Across the street she saw the bushes, slightly greener than the day before. This intermediate stage was not her favorite. In certain light, she liked to photograph the tangled branches with the iPad, whose camera was the only one she had anymore. All of Demeter’s things had been donated to the Maine College of Art, where he’d guest-lectured the last few years of his life. Eight days from diagnosis to death. No memorial service, as he’d requested. Instead, she’d bought half a dozen kites and given them to the front desk clerk, who handed them out to children staying at the Stage Neck Inn—the hotel right above the beach. She’d sat in the bar having a glass of wine with her friend Barb Gillicut, still in shock the weekend after Dem’s death, watching the surprised children lean like cats stretching their paws on the thighs of their fathers, who prepared the kites to be sailed. Eventually a sumo wrestler flapped by with Silence of the Lambs teeth and contorted mightily in the wind before crashing to the sand. Unlike balloons, no kites simply drifted away as she watched, sharing a second glass of wine with Barb, aware that the bartender had her eye on them and was drying glasses like a Gypsy having a manic fit over a crystal ball, simultaneously polishing and trying to appear disinterested.
Dem was long dead. Dead for years and years. She herself was seventy-four. If he’d lived, he would have been eighty-eight. The Stage Neck now employed a female bartender, who therefore undoubtedly worried less about the mental state of other women. She picked up a crumpled bag in the road. Any car turning onto the street might be Terry in his rental car, which might be either white or red, as rental cars tended to be. All other cars were silver.
How had she ended up here? She was a Virginia girl. Virginia, where spring came a month and a half earlier than it did in southern Maine. In Virginia the problem was bees. In Maine, blackflies and mosquitoes. Well—the problem with bees now was that they were dying. It was a very bad situation. One Dem would have worried about incessantly, pointing out every terrible thing that would arise due to the death of the bees. He would have made photographs of dead bees, and eventually—when the moon no longer appeared at night, or something equally dire—his photographs would be shown at MoMA. Eventually one would be sold at auction in New York City and a framed print of a dead bee would be hung above the marble-topped table of a discerning, socially correct, environmentally anxious couple in Park Slope, so they’d have an expensive little altar of sadness, the photograph taking the place of Christ on the cross, the table an old-fashioned, humble altar that sometimes might feature the perfect still life of our times (of course minus flowers or fruit): a key ring and a Binky and a bottle of Klonopin and an unopened Dasani water.
Red. An unpleasant maroon shade, like menstrual blood. Better, though, than a screaming fire-engine red. So many things going on in the car: a wave; a hand flipping the sun visor back into place; the side window rolling down, then rising again,
finally all the way down to allow for an awkward first handshake. Terry wore rectangular glasses with heavy black frames that magnified his eyes and called attention to his facial asymmetry, one eye larger than the other. Brown eyes. Slightly thinning brown hair. Nervous hands: smoothing his hair, dropping the keys, snatching them up again, a sort of stammering dance in the driveway as he wondered aloud about locking the car. He reached back in for his notebook and cell phone, which he slid into the pocket of his sports coat.
She preceded him up the walkway, not wide enough for two at a time (one of Dem’s complaints). She imagined that Terry, behind her, was sneaking a last, quick look at the phone. A robin hopped across the lawn. There was a nest in the climbing rose.
“I confess, I’ve already been to Dockside,” he said. “This is no way for us to begin, but I’ve just been through the most awful couple of days, and to be honest, my goddaughter’s with me. At Dockside. I found out when I called for a lunch reservation that they rent rooms. She won’t join us for lunch, of course, but she’s there because . . . well, because her mother is acting far worse than Hannah, she has a frightful temper when things don’t go her way. I do apologize for bursting out with what’s troubling me, but it’s left me quite disoriented, really.”
She poured him a glass of Perrier. She poured one for herself. He didn’t seem in any shape to question about ice or no ice, so she held out the glass. “What’s happened?” she said. She’d feared he’d be some somber academician, but she suddenly realized that there was no reason to assume he taught. He was certainly voluble. Nothing to worry about there. A man Dem would have taken to instantly. When he was alive, she resisted his spontaneously formed likes and dislikes. Now that he was dead, she channeled his opinions.
“Leigh’s inability to have any empathy whatsoever is hardly helpful in a bad situation. I’m so sorry. Of course you don’t even know these people . . .”
Water wet his chin, he’d taken such a big gulp. He sat at the kitchen table without asking if he might. Which was fine. It was a little chilly on the back porch. There was a space heater, but she suddenly felt embarrassed that he might know she sat on the porch with a heater aimed at her. She pulled out a chair and sat across from him. She said, “I must admit, you’ve got me very interested.”
