Ann Beattie - The State We're In

“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.

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.