by Ann Beattie
The neighbor’s boy was cutting the grass, stalling the mower every few minutes. Joanna fell asleep in my arms as I drank her mother’s mug of almost-untouched coffee, after pouring in some milk. That, too, would have scandalized Barbara. You never, ever drank after anyone. Barbara never even drank after herself; she pulled a Dixie cup out of the dispenser near the sink, or else got a new glass. When I first met Barbara, I once made the mistake of rinsing her orange juice glass to put wine in it. “Oh—it’s your glass,” I had said, reassuringly. She had held the glass at a distance, discreetly, using only a thumb and finger, a few beads of water still adhering after my quick rinse and dry, looking at it as if I’d dug up a buried pet and reassured her that it had once belonged to her. It took me a while to understand the family, and sometimes I wished I hadn’t learned so well.
The dentist managed to file Janey’s tooth; she would not have to get a crown. But her head ached, and she asked me to stay for a while. On the way in, she had seen the neatly stacked laundry and almost burst into tears, she said. She was so lucky to have me. “I somehow feel Grandma and Barbara did more for each other than we do,” I said.
“What? Like move in together?” Janey said, shaking Excedrin out of the bottle. “They were fixated on each other. I think it’s a growth move that at least Grandma’s gotten away from home and made it all the way to Boston.”
What she said made me yearn to confide the news about Drake, but I knew I shouldn’t. I sat on a stool and watched her look for the coffee mug, realize it was gone (who had time to think about how or why?), and take another glass out of the sink, rinse it, then fill it with water and swallow, one pill at a time. Careful Janey. Who would surely never endanger a pregnancy by walking when she’d been told to stay in bed.
“What are you looking at?” she said. “Do I look dishevelled?”
“No. Sorry,” I said, self-conscious about having been caught staring.
“I’m becoming a terrible person,” Janey said, turning on the water again and splashing it on her face. Dripping, she headed for the dish towel. “I feel bad about how I look, and then I accuse everyone of staring. Frank’s afraid to make eye contact.”
“I had an attack of paranoia about Bob a couple of days ago. He got so huffy that he wouldn’t accept my apology.”
“It’s just too hard, being married,” Janey said. Then she said: “What did you get paranoid about?”
“I found something, and I assumed it meant one thing, and really it meant another.”
“What did you think was one thing that was really another?” she said.
“Oh,” I said miserably, having worried as I spoke that she’d ask, “I can’t tell you. It was something Bob was hiding for somebody, and I thought it was his.”
“Dirty magazine?”
“No, but now that you mention it, one of the guys he went sailing with in the spring gave him a Playboy at the end of the sail because he didn’t want to take it home and have his wife find it. I wonder whether he just sat there reading the magazine, or whether he paid attention to the scenery on the sail.”
“Frank has drawers he just doesn’t go into,” Janey said. “I have one drawer in the refrigerator I feel basically that way about.”
“I had turnips that sprouted one time, and the sprouts grew like a vine. They wrapped around the shelf above them.”
“Oh, God,” Janey said. “What if they really have lives? Or souls. Or whatever it was that made people think you should play music to your houseplants.”
“Turnips? I don’t think so,” I said.
“But remember those scientists who put electrodes on houseplants, and the plants went crazy when Dizzy Gillespie was played?”
“I know, I know. But—”
“Frank believes it. That’s why he’s always got the stereo set up inside the big greenhouse, playing music he doesn’t care anything about. They wanted to know if I wanted music in the labor room. I tried Tina Turner, but it only made it worse.”
“You really did?”
“Honey—you are questioning every single thing that I say. When did I ever put you on? Doctors are music junkies. They play it while they operate. A friend of mine is married to a surgeon who learned conversational Japanese while he was taking out gall bladders. And don’t say ‘Reeeeally?’ ”
“You mean that’s common knowledge?” I said.
“Probably not, but why would you think I was kidding you? You seem slightly off-kilter. Not that I’m criticizing. I mean, who got the wash done today? Who rushed over to take care of my kid?”
“That was nothing,” I said.
“Listen to you. You’re so self-deprecating. You’re nice to everybody. You always come through, but you don’t want to hear about it.”
“Maybe because I still have no idea what I want to do,” I said. “It’s one thing to do nice things for people, but what am I going to do with my life? It’s embarrassing not to have figured it out yet.”
“It isn’t as if you’re in New York City, where so much stuff is available. I mean, what should you do? Go down the road and waitress? Join the nursery like the rest of the lemmings?”
“I don’t even have good luck keeping houseplants alive.”
“I wasn’t suggesting you should be at the nursery,” she said. “Far from it. But didn’t Bob ever try to pressure you into it?”
“No,” I said.
“Then you were luckier than me. Frank used to take it personally that I wouldn’t work there. Forget my degree in nursing. When we got married, he assumed I’d work there, but I didn’t find out how strongly he felt until I made it absolutely clear that wasn’t going to happen.”
“I am naive. I thought you and Frank always agreed on everything. I mean, I don’t assume any married couple always agrees, but—”
“Frank? Me? He wants the kids to go to camp; I think they’re too young. He wants to live in New Hampshire; I want to go live in Florida, where the winters are warm. He wants to go to his mother’s to plant lilacs at night; I tell him to send somebody from the nursery, in the day. He wants to go to the Grand Canyon. I want to see Paris. You know when Ehrlichman asked Judge Sirica to send him as a volunteer to an Indian reservation, instead of to jail? Frank thought Sirica should have done it, because Ehrlichman was such a good man. Such a patriot. Frank doesn’t think what Nixon did was terrible either; it’s just that he got caught. You know what else Frank said? He said that he’d been reading an article in The New York Times about how Europeans didn’t understand why there was so much fuss made over Watergate. Which he brought up to club me over the head with, as if we couldn’t possibly vacation in a place where the average Frenchman didn’t share my perceptions of right and wrong. He is so juvenile, sometimes. I love Frank, but he’s impossible. You just have to accept that.”
I nodded. I was half thinking about what Janey was telling me, half drifting off in thought about this afternoon’s meeting with Tom Van Sant. I was doing anything I could not to focus on it. What would I say to him? What Janey said was true: I was not only self-deprecating, I lacked confidence. I felt sure I would be going through the motions, even saying the right things, but still there would be no chance that anything I said would result in Tom’s changing his mind.
“Can I tell you two things that I want you to swear you will never, ever, under any circumstances, breathe a word of to anybody?” I said.
She looked at me wide-eyed. “Are you having an affair?” she said.
It took me so much aback that my eyes widened more than hers, which she seized upon as confirmation. She looked crestfallen when I shook my head no.
“Then it’s no big deal,” she said. “Don’t worry about telling me.”
She reached for Joanna. I handed her over. Beneath the spot she had warmed against my breast, I could feel my heart beating. As my body cooled, the heartbeat was more noticeable. I looked down to see if I could see anything. Janey took this to be shame, and urged me to speak up, saying that she was entirely t
rustworthy and crossing her heart, like a little girl.
“One thing isn’t a big deal, but I haven’t told anybody. I mean, I told Frank I intended to, but I didn’t tell him I’d made the call. I’m having coffee with Tom Van Sant this afternoon, to try to talk him out of opening his business.”
“And?” Janey said.
“And,” I said, different words coming out of my mouth from what I’d intended, “he’s going to marry that woman. Dara Falcon. She’s engaged to him.” What I had intended to say was that I had found an engagement ring, hidden by Bob in his shoe, that Drake was going to give his girlfriend.
Janey shrugged. “Why is that top secret?”
“Because she swore me to secrecy,” I said. Which was true enough. She had.
“Well, I, for one, would be happy to have her spoken for,” Janey said. “Let me also let you in on a little secret. I found a letter Frank had written to her. It wasn’t romantic or anything, so at first I was consoled by that, but then I realized that they must write each other often, if he was just sending her a note about not much of anything.”
“When did you find this out?”
“When I almost had the miscarriage. I told him that if he was having any sort of relationship with another woman, that I had no intention of going through with the pregnancy.”
“You did?”
“Honey, really—it’s getting to be a tic, your questioning everything.” She reached out and put her hand on the baby’s back. “Not that I was exactly reassured by his reaction, but he said there was nothing sexual between them, and that he’d already stopped seeing her. A few days after our talk, it occurred to me that it wasn’t exactly great that women automatically suspect every other woman. If she was sitting in a bar and Frank started talking to her, so what, really? Maybe he just needed to talk to someone other than me, and maybe she was lonesome that night. At least, that’s been the attitude I’ve been trying out. And every time I think that way, it becomes a little more convincing.”
“I think I’d kill Bob,” I said.
“Well, Bob’s not Frank. I’m not trying to play one-upsmanship about husbands here, but maybe Frank did need somebody to talk to other than me. Bob at least talks to Barbara, doesn’t he?”
“About what?” I said.
“About anything.”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so.”
“Frank always says Bob’s the good son. That’s his nickname for him, behind his back. Sandra’s close to Barbara, of course, and Drake doesn’t much like her, but he’s at least decided to keep out of her hair—he’s pretty much vanished. Maybe I’m giving Bob too much credit. Maybe it’s more you than Bob. The errands, and taking Barbara on picnics and all the thoughtful things you do. Maybe that’s you.”
It was, I thought. Especially lately.
“So give yourself some credit,” Janey said.
I nodded. This talk was making me feel better. If nothing else, it was clear how well Janey thought of me.
“So tell me about the great romance,” she said.
“She’s a little ambivalent,” I said. “That’s why she wanted to talk to me about it. We had coffee a few days ago.”
“Do you like her?” Janey said.
“Do I…I’m not really sure. I mean, she seems nice enough. Sort of overwrought, though. I sort of feel the way Barbara felt, when we first ran into Tom Van Sant—that somebody ought to be nice. To her, I mean. Yeah, sure. I like her.”
“Just remember your loyalty to your sister-in-law,” Janey said.
“Oh, I do,” I said.
“I know you do,” Janey said. “I shouldn’t tease you.”
“I’ll let you know how it turns out,” I said. I had spent so much time at Janey’s, it was almost time to meet Tom. As I got off the stool, I realized one of my feet had gone dead. I hobbled, but Janey didn’t seem to notice. What I noticed was that she seemed tired—that circles had begun to darken under her eyes as we talked.
She waved from the back door as I started the car. On the radio, Elvis was singing “I Can’t Help Falling in Love with You.” What would the philodendrons do if they heard that? Aim their pointy chins down toward the floor and weep? I unrolled the windows and winced as clouds of hot air escaped past my face, waving quickly to Janey and Joanna, empowered by our discussion to try my best to prevail with Tom Van Sant. But as I drove, my certainty disappeared. As the song continued, I thought about Elvis in Memphis, at Graceland. It never occurred to me that soon he would be dead, collapsed on the bathroom floor, and all the rumors that had swirled around him would settle down into the grim realization that obese Elvis had been a drug addict, incontinent, yet still possessed of enough sense to shoot out the television every time Robert Goulet’s name was mentioned. Robert Goulet was Barbara’s favorite singer. Barbara this, Barbara that, which made me realize what Janey had not said, directly: too much of my life was being subsumed by Barbara.
I pulled into the shopping center and was surprised to see, again parked under a NO PARKING sign, Dara’s big red wreck of a car. It never occurred to me that she, or anyone else, would be accompanying Tom, but when I saw the two of them, already at a table, I tried to persuade myself that this was for the best; together, we might talk him out of his plans.
Again, her John Wesley Harding hat sat on the table, but the rest of her clothes were different: a transparent white sleeveless blouse with a lacy bra visible underneath; denim cutoffs, scuffed red high heels with pointy toes. An ankle bracelet. Her outfit looked more like something Bernie would wear than anything Dara would put together. Her legs were quite lean and tan.
“Hello, sweetie!” she called.
I looked at them and smiled, Elvis’s voice still ringing in my ears.
“Hey, I know why you’re here, and I understand completely,” Tom said, as I climbed up the two cement steps to where they sat.
I was flustered; I smiled insincerely. I couldn’t think of any quick response, so I didn’t say anything. I pulled out a chair and sat down. They had been there for a while; they both had empty coffee cups in front of them.
“Let me get you something,” Tom said, rising. Every table was taken. Tourists sat at one table, discussing the route they would take to Bar Harbor. Two women sat at another table. Three teenage girls giggled at another. The ordinariness of it took all my momentum away. I felt faintly embarrassed to be there.
“I’d like an iced cappuccino,” I said.
“Another espresso, please,” Dara said.
The second Tom left, Dara leaned close. She smelled faintly of roses; the smell swung toward me as her hair did. “Forgive me,” she said. “He was just too curious. I don’t think I did your cause any harm.”
“Oh, it’s fine,” I said.
“The situation’s slightly more complicated than it seems,” she said. “He’ll tell you.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to tell her that Janey knew about her—knew something about her—but I didn’t. Beside us, one of the girls was dancing a Danish pastry through the air. Another girl almost slapped it out of her hand, but the first girl zoomed it away, like a toy plane.
“We’ve talked about a cooling-off period for the romance,” she said. “Big Bernie,” she said, but fell silent as Tom bumped open the door with one hip and came toward us, carrying a tray with cookies on a plate and three coffees. His, like mine, was iced, in a tall glass.
