Ann Beattie - The State We're In

“I don’t understand. He was going to California? Why?”

“Your uncle used to call these spur-of-the-moment trips his Magical Mystery Tours. He doesn’t give very good explanations, you know that. But wait. I think he’s taking that trip next week. Did he tell you about it?”

“No,” Jocelyn said glumly. Adults were totally secretive. They wouldn’t tell you the most interesting things, like about a trip somewhere, but they’d ask repeatedly how many washings were still to go before the color came out of your hair, and why you were wearing tights. A robin pulling a worm from the grass got Jocelyn’s attention. It was obvious why Charlotte Octavia had broken off contact with her mother, but it seemed sad that she didn’t have much of a relationship with her father, either. Try as she might, Jocelyn couldn’t imagine Raleigh acting as aggressively as his wife.

Bettina had parked far away, though there were many closer parking places. When they got to the car, Bettina said, “You’re on your own with those essays from now on. I’ve told Raleigh, he’s off the hook. It’s your future and you can figure out how to proceed. You aren’t helped by his substituting one word for another.”

“Aunt Bettina, excuse me, but Uncle Raleigh makes me show him my homework.”

“Well, I personally think he might have gone to McLean with Hank Murrey and his lawyer, that’s where he is, not pitching a softball game, I don’t think.” Bettina raised the cotton vest she was wearing to her face and blotted her forehead. Gross! Anybody knew not to do a thing like that. Her aunt was sweating. She did not turn on the ignition. Finally, talking more to herself than to Jocelyn, she said, “Okay, it’s off to the eye doctor’s.”

“I didn’t know about this appointment,” Jocelyn said. Her aunt said nothing. She felt like she was in Alice in Wonderland . Nothing made much sense. Next, a white rabbit would appear, but until it did, she stared at the digital clock in the car. She thought if she focused her attention on something, she might not cry. Summer school was exhausting, T. G. was in a hospital somewhere she’d have no way to visit, and her mother had Lyme disease. Just great.

Parallel-parking, Bettina hit the curb with the back wheels, hard. “For Christ’s sake,” she said. “They build curbs now like they’re soapboxes in Trafalgar Square, like we’re supposed to stand there and rant about something. Just like my trip to England, which I suppose I’ll never see again, it’s so impossible to travel because they have to body-search everyone.”

Oh, please let me live through this summer, Jocelyn thought, as she followed Bettina into the building. This was the eye doctor’s? Why were they there? She sank into a chair and picked up People magazine, while Bettina charmed the receptionist, thanking her profusely for working her in, her sickly sweet smile at odds with her bizarre body language. The vest she was wearing made her look like she’d gotten tangled in a parachute. And she was sweating like she’d been doing Zumba. She stared at the magazine as her aunt took the clipboard from the receptionist and sat in a chair beside her to fill it out. She skimmed an article about Jennifer Aniston and her new fiancé. Good looking, in a conventional way. It would be so great to be Jen, with totally perfect hair and a flawless complexion and no Aunt Bettina in her life. So what if she’d lost Brad Pitt?

A man sitting in the waiting room got up and went to the watercooler, pulled a paper cup from the dispenser, and filled it quaveringly with cold water. He sipped. Jocelyn thought that he was aware that her aunt was in a state, he so deliberately avoided looking in their direction.

“Do you have allergies to medicine?” Bettina asked.

“Not that I know of,” she muttered.

“What’s your birthday?”

“Aunt Bettina, it’s the same day as yours. We’ve had, like, ten joint birthday celebrations.”

“Show some respect when you speak to me,” Bettina said. At this, the man shot Jocelyn a sympathetic look. He picked up a copy of Garden & Gun, leaned back in the orange plastic chair, opened the magazine to the middle, and crossed his legs.

“Jocelyn?” the receptionist said. “And Dr. Miller? Sir, you’ll be in the first room on the right, and Jocelyn, I’m happy to meet you, I’m Jenny, if you’ll follow me.”

Jocelyn stood and followed the receptionist and the other man through the door. In her peripheral vision, she saw her aunt draw a large X through an entire section of the form. She drew in a deep breath, then exhaled. “Jenny,” she said. “My aunt’s acting really strange. You’ve got to trust me on this. I’ve got to call my mother. Or no, I should call my uncle. I’ve got to call my uncle.”

“Really?” Jenny said.

“Really. She was raving about Girl Scouts on the way over here. She was driving, like, crazy.”

The toes of Jenny’s black patent leather clogs touched each other. “She did seem a little upset when she called,” she said. “What do you want me to do?”

“I don’t want to intrude,” Dr. Miller said, coming into the room, “but your mother is in a sweat and seems in some distress.” Where did he come from? He thought Aunt Bettina was her mother ? She was totally not. Jenny seemed as surprised as Jocelyn that he’d simply walked into their room.

“What’s the problem out there?” said a man in a white coat — though not the White Rabbit — coming into the room, frowning deeply.

“We should call an ambulance, I think,” Dr. Miller said.

“That’s what I thought,” the tall man said. “How do you do,” he said, suddenly, turning to Jocelyn. “I’m Dr. Baird. Are things not so good with your aunt?”

“I texted him from the waiting room,” Dr. Miller said to Jocelyn. All of this was amazing. Somebody was going to do something. She couldn’t believe her good luck.

“I’ve never seen her before today,” Jenny said to no one in particular.

“Ambulance on the way,” Dr. Baird said, dropping his iPhone back into his coat pocket. “And you are Ms.—”

“Jocelyn,” Jocelyn said.

“Ms. Jocelyn,” Dr. Baird said. “May I ask how old you are?”

“Seventeen,” Jocelyn said. “I like to read with a magnifying lens, because it makes the print huge. I can see fine without it. I don’t even wear glasses. She saw me reading with it the other night and—”

“Is your aunt your legal guardian?” Dr. Baird said, looking at her chart.

“No. I live with my mother.”

“I see,” Dr. Baird said. “Well, the ambulance will be here any minute. She’ll be fine. Jenny, shouldn’t we call Jocelyn’s mother?”

“We have to call my uncle,” Jocelyn said. “My mom’s in Massachusetts. She just had an operation, and she’s got Lyme disease, too. She, like, totally couldn’t do anything about this. She doesn’t even know there is a magnifying lens.”

“Okay, Jenny, can you help out here?” Dr. Baird said.

“She’s secretive about everything. My aunt, I mean. Her own daughter doesn’t speak to her, really. She keeps a diary and writes in it in the bathroom. She basically hates me.”

Dr. Baird looked at Dr. Miller, who stood mutely in the doorway. “Fridays are always the worst,” he said.

“Isn’t that the truth,” Dr. Miller said.

“It’s all going to be fine,” Jenny said. “Excuse me, and I’ll…”

“Is your aunt diabetic?” Dr. Miller asked.

“I don’t think so.”

“Do you think we might look in her handbag?” Dr. Miller said to Jocelyn.

“I don’t care,” she said.

Jenny exited and came back holding her aunt’s purse by one strap. It bulged open. On the first rummage, she brought out a bottle of pills and handed them to Dr. Baird.