by Ann Beattie
“You’re gay, but you’re trying to pass by having a house full of women and by whipping my ass at tennis?”
“Can you talk seriously for one minute?” It bothered him that the only time he could be sure Steve was entirely serious was when they were playing tennis, and it was Steve’s turn to serve.
“Shoot,” Steve said.
“Well, it was a very weird visit. I mean, as close as we are, I don’t really feel like I understand LouLou.”
“Gay chicks are different,” Steve said. “That come as news?”
“Steve, that’s more of your stereotyping. It’s not a factor that she’s gay.”
“You’re here to reform my thinking? What, exactly, do you wanna tell me?”
He decided to say nothing about the drama that had just unfolded. It was good that Steve talked so much, because it gave him time to think. “She and her partner intend to have a family,” he said instead.
“Oh, yeah? The full catastrophe? Have I met the girlfriend?”
“Sure. Dale. You met them the first time they came to the house. The one whose mother dressed up like a lion and roared all night.”
“Oh, that woman! I read an excerpt online. I ordered the book.”
“You did?”
“Well, yeah. What a story! I heard her on the radio the other day. Leave it to you to move to the middle of nowhere and still be on the cutting edge of who to hang out with. Sounds like she lived through an amazing amount of shit until the bear put an end to it.”
“I can’t bring myself to read it,” he said. “Somehow, having Dale tell me about it has been more than enough.” What he didn’t say was that he’d been reading volume two of Proust. No need to give Steve ammunition to prove that he was not of this world. Though if Steve thought it was the same town it had been when they moved in, he was just plain wrong. A brokerage house had opened where the toy shop used to be. The owner had sold out and moved to Florida to be near her son and family. In the back of the florist’s, there was now a six-table restaurant that had really delighted Elin. They took reservations for “high tea.”
“You heard her on the radio?” Ben asked.
“WNYC. The guy who does the interviews.”
“What did he ask?”
“What she thought of Halloween. I’m not kidding. He did come out with that, and she burst into laughter and sort of embarrassed him, I think. You’re stalling for time so you don’t have to lift your side of the TV.”
“Absolutely.”
“I’ve got a wonky shoulder and I shouldn’t be doing this,” Steve said. “Also, it makes my balls ache, and I hate to be conscious of my balls.”
“Tough shit. I can’t possibly support the entire weight. Where’s it going?”
“She thinks the den, but I’d say the living room.”
“Can you decide, so I can go home?”
“Let’s leave it on the floor. I’ll talk to Gin when she gets back. Get out. Thanks for coming over,” Steve said. “What I’m really thinking, to be perfectly honest? That she’ll realize this TV is interchangeable with the other one, and we can put this in the bedroom. Watch porn on a bigger screen.”
“Is that right? Do you do that?”
“No,” Steve said. “I think you don’t get my jokes because of the age gap. But then, how do I know what assumptions you have? Some days you act like I’m a monster, like all of America hates everything I stand for. The financial crisis is over, but you bring it up all the time. Then I remind myself: We’re from different generations.”
“So if you were to say one thing that strikes you as young about me—you know what I mean; you’re the one who’s obsessed with the fact that I’m younger—what would it be?”
“That you’re hopeful,” Steve said. “I admire optimism.”
“Really? I didn’t expect any sort of compliment. Thank you.”
“Uh-huh. I didn’t expect it of myself, after that crack you made about how I’m pussy-whipped.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You all but said it when I told you my plan about leaving the other TV in place. Go on, go home. Aw, shit, it sounds like I’m talking to a dog. Anyway, come back and watch Big Bird. Or send your friend. With her background, somebody shedding feathers and talking shit, bouncing around pretending to be a bird, or whatever the hell, has got to be just another day. You know, I never imagined living next to somebody like you, but I’ve got to say—Arly? Now it’s interesting that you’ve probably got this ménage-à-trois thing going on, and you’re just not telling me.”
On the quick drive home, no deer crossed his path, though he drove slowly. He hated people who hunted deer for sport when they didn’t even eat venison. Some did need the meat. People who lived not far away. Sure, because of the huge deer population a lot of gardens had been gnawed like ragged cuticles, but couldn’t people just go to the farmers’ markets and buy what they’d lost? Pride stopped them; they wanted to grow their own food; it wasn’t enough to support some hardworking farmer. With every fucking sprouting radish, you were staking a claim to what was rightfully yours. It was a form of vanity to think you were obliged to be self-sufficient.
Eighteen
Six weeks later, LouLou and Dale were coming to visit again. He’d felt like he was in exile in his own house. Finally LouLou had called and admitted that she’d just been too embarrassed to communicate with him—that was why she hadn’t responded to his messages. Dale had texted a few times, first saying that she hoped his silence meant he might be reconsidering, then apologizing for sending the message, then inviting themselves for the weekend, then apologizing for being so bold, then leaving a voice message that she meant to be funny, saying that if he’d like to come stay with them in Brooklyn, that would be fine, and she’d even make her specialty, grilled cheese sandwiches. “You bring the wine,” she’d said.
They were embarrassed. He was, too. He couldn’t let things stay that way. He could still remember how bad he’d felt at Bailey, when LouLou wouldn’t speak to him for days after their stupid attempt to get to Vermont.
He’d written back, apologizing, then apologizing for apologizing. In her reply, Dale said that they’d be there Friday night, “as usual.” He’d written back that there was another, bigger antique show. Would they be interested in that? Her response: DOES THE CHESHIRE CAT SMILE?
Now they were coming.
He took the roast out to get it to room temperature before seasoning it, a pork loin he thought he might slice into cutlets and cook outside on the Weber. He started assembling bottles. A health food store had recently opened, and one of the clerks had been so enthusiastic, he’d bought too many unwanted spices. Tunisian braising spice? He’d learned to avoid turmeric, since it stained anything it came in contact with. Pink peppercorns, which he’d found out were not peppercorns (as a shooting star was not a star), had been a happy surprise, though. White pepper. How was white pepper different from, and sometimes preferable to, black pepper? The clerk had really run with that.
When he heard the car in the driveway, he felt relieved—and then was relieved that he felt that way. He went out to greet them. No pretending he hadn’t heard the car, no standing his territory. Dale fumbled in the car, probably intentionally, to delay getting out. Once again he had LouLou in his arms.
“We’re going to the antique thing tonight?” LouLou asked, almost inaudibly, nuzzling his chest.
“Yeah, I got tickets to the preview.” He rocked her back and forth a little. “I told you that, right?”
“Mmm,” she said, not letting go of him. Dale got out of the car and hugged LouLou’s back. “If the three of us fall, we go down like dominoes,” Dale said.
The awkwardness was over. A weight was lifted.
They followed him into the kitchen. Dale examined the roast from a distance. “At first I thought you might have gotten a pet,” she
said. It was a rather large roast.
“Why don’t we go now? Can we, Ben, before dinner? I feel like if I have a drink and sit down, I’ll start apologizing and I won’t be able to stop myself.”
“Hon, do you remember in the car that you told me over and over not to mention it?” Dale said.
“We can do that, if you want,” Ben said. This was the old LouLou, the one who was always on the run. “But are you tired from driving, Dale? Need a few minutes?”
“You drive—I don’t care,” Dale said. “I’ll even sit in the backseat.”
He took his key ring from the nail by the door.
“It’s really such a beautiful spot you live in,” Dale said.
“Yeah,” he said. He was feeling better about everything. Dale did get in the backseat. LouLou sat beside him. She stepped on something and leaned over to pick it up. “You’d be in trouble if I was your wife and I found this lipstick,” she said.
He took it from her hand. Whether she was joking or not, that wasn’t what it was. It was saffron, inside a narrow tube. It had fallen out of the grocery bag.
“Hey, tell him who you heard from,” Dale said, poking LouLou’s shoulder.
“Oh, yeah. I asked her to remind me. Aqua. She’s in L.A., working for ICM—can you believe that? They gave her an AmEx Gold Card and an expense account. She met Tom Cruise—watch out, if he’s looking for the next wife—and she sent a selfie with that comic, the English guy who cross-dresses. She met him at a comedy club near the Chateau Marmont.”
“I hate it that John Belushi’s dead,” Dale said. “‘Cheeseburger, cheeseburger.’”
“That’s cool. How long has she been out there?”
What was this sudden exodus to L.A.? What was that about?
LouLou shrugged. “She’s back to being called Aquinnah. She’s sharing a tiny place in Venice with her sister’s ex. It’s that reverse-snobbery California thing, you know? Like your space is the teeniest, tiniest, couldn’t be any smaller or you couldn’t stand up in it, but meanwhile it’s got light-sensitive shades, central air, and a view of the water. The sister’s ex-boyfriend was in rehab and didn’t ask Aqua to leave when he got home. He came back in a limo that was probably bigger than the space they lived in, though she forgot to say that. She wouldn’t tell me who he was, but she said I’d recognize his name.”
Arly, he thought. Somewhere in California was Arly.
“I remember her sister. She came to graduation and had a flower on her collar that squirted water.”
“You were so lucky,” Dale said. “At my school I was known by my Social Security number. I had to ride a bus an hour each way. A bully who knew my mother hosed animal shit out of cages would bring plastic baggies filled with dog poop onto the bus and send them around, saying it was my mother’s homemade fudge.”
“That’s horrible,” he said.
LouLou said, as if she hadn’t been listening, “I want one of those golden oak coat racks with an oval mirror. I envision it in the hallway of our country house. I’ve already ordered the perfect runner on eBay. Caucasians are as cheap as golden oak now; they’re the Diet Pepsi of rugs.”
Country house? They lived in a one-bedroom in Park Slope, where someone had removed one of the bedroom windows to install an aquarium empty of fish. Air leaked in around it. Plastic seaweed and an unattractive gray castle sat nestled in faded pink stones. “As for me,” Dale said, “I’m looking for a claw-foot bathtub. We can store it in our detached studio until the renovation gets finished.”
“There was one other person I got a message from,” LouLou said. “LaVerdere. He was in Key West, renting a house that once belonged to Tom McGuane.”
“Who’s Tom McGuane?” Dale asked.
“A writer,” LouLou said. “I used to go out with a guy who thought Ninety-two in the Shade was the best American novel since Gatsby.”
“What does he say he’s doing?” Ben asked.
“I’ll tell you,” she said, checking her cell phone, and scrolling. It took her a minute. “Okay,” she said. “He’s convinced watching the sun go down and waiting for the green flash is like looking into the bottom of an empty glass and expecting to see pixie dust. Pure LaVerdere.” She turned off her phone and dropped it into her bag.
“After all I’ve heard about this guy, I still never find him a million laughs,” Dale said.
“Is he still at Bailey?” Ben asked.
“He left. He’s teaching philosophy at The New School.”
“Really?” he said. He was still having trouble imagining LaVerdere in the tropics.
“Yeah. You never hear from him?”
He didn’t, though he’d thought of him recently when he’d reread an essay by Flannery O’Connor. It was one LaVerdere had particularly admired (for a long time, Ben had thought Flannery O’Connor was a man)—something to the effect that when writers succeed, it’s because their conscious mind, alone, hasn’t been the most significant factor. To the extent that LaVerdere could be called mystical (he wouldn’t have liked that word), he did seem to believe, as O’Connor did, that there were enormous realms—pre-existing realms, like as-yet-unseen galaxies—that contextualized for you. That was why writers were so often quoted as being paradoxically relieved to be surprised. At Cornell, when he wasn’t busy learning how to code, Ben had briefly joined the debate team, but at Bailey he’d distrusted his ability to talk almost in proportion to how successful he’d been. Now, he took pleasure in silence. A day would pass when he’d forgotten to put on music.
He’d begun to envision the rest of the evening, which was probably going to be fine. His thoughts returned to Aqua, to how annoying she could be. “That girl kissed me on the lips!” his father had exclaimed at graduation. “I always tell you you’re attractive,” Elin had replied. Women were never as jealous as men thought. It was the only time Elin had been to Bailey, except for the time she and his father had dropped him off. Still, she’d looked at colleges with Ben, which was more than his father had done. She’d been the one who urged him to rethink Cornell. It was due to her generosity that he had the house he was living in. And his father had hit her. Once.
They saw a fox, though it had a thin tail and pronounced ribs. Darius Beltz, he thought, as they turned in to the parking lot. People emerging from their cars looked fashionable, a totally different crowd from the regulars at Rick’s.
There’d been another recent exodus from New York City here, as well as to other towns nearby. Of course: Rents never stopped increasing in the city; people burned out; more people were working from home. In the last six months he’d observed many fortyish women—the Claire woman among them—in stiletto-heeled boots. LouLou had never worn heels. Only boots or flats. She’d always been her own person. She’d never changed the way she wore her hair. It remained long, eye-catching. Now she didn’t bother with contacts, though, so she conveyed a different message with the seal-slick hair; the sexy Prada geek glasses; lip gloss, no lipstick. She resembled the young Susan Sontag, as photographed by Thomas Victor. Sontag had been one of the first people to write an eminently sensible thing after 9/11, asking people to think seriously whether there might not be reasons for our enemies to hate us.
When they walked into the drafty grange hall, things were still being unpacked at some of the booths. A long table had been set up in the entranceway, with organic popcorn in small brown bags and shakers that offered a choice of Indian spices or Parmesan cheese. A photograph of Barack Obama was hung above the table. Obama was wearing a red tie and smiling. Middle school kids, dressed in party dresses and suits, giggled as they took tickets. Locals were lucky to get peanuts at Rick’s, watching Homeland. It did not augur well for what the dealers would be asking, though Steve had informed him that “Grandma’s attic shit” was already being bulldozed into landfills. Steve was always aware of how the world was changing around him, adjusting his attention toward what he
could get, rather than being sentimental about what was vanishing. Ben had paid attention when Steve recommended a stock. He’d done well. Steve’s father owned stock in the same fund. “Stock is like a marriage. At some point, you opt for it or you opt out, but if you buy in, it’s better to hold,” as the old man put it.
“Let’s meet every half hour at the front if we get separated,” LouLou said.
“I’m sticking close. I’m worried you might act on your country house fantasy,” Dale said. To Ben, she said, “If we ever get one, it’ll be in Red Hook.”
Very little he saw at antique sales (he’d been to several, one with his real estate agent, though that potential friendship had never taken off) made him nostalgic for his youth. His mother had loved hand-painted porcelain vases. Though he’d tried to remember, he could bring to mind very little of what his childhood environment had looked like. At Cornell, he’d seen a psychiatrist, who’d observed that he was quite critical of himself for not having a good visual memory. “You’ve got an amazing ability to recall what music was playing at a certain time, for literature, for doing mathematical computations in your head. Many people might think you were being a little hard on yourself.”
Wasn’t he supposed to remember what everything looked like? He always got in trouble when he didn’t recognize someone, though he got into almost as much trouble when he complimented a jacket the person had worn for years, or didn’t know what they liked to drink. What did they think—that he was the bartender on Cheers? People could tell you in excruciating detail how horrible the fabrics had been in their childhood bedrooms, how ugly the wallpaper looked, how pathetic the furniture their parents had inherited was, with feeble chair legs and broken springs, sofas draped in bedspreads.
“Why do you find this upsetting?” Dr. Minetti had asked. She must have thought she was dealing with a crazed interior decorator.
He saw few Victorian pieces around him as he walked down the wide center aisle. Maybe Steve was right, and a meteor had killed it all. What he saw was modern, along with Italian furniture, the primary features of which were length and proximity to the floor.
