Ann Beattie - The State We're In

“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.”

“She hasn’t graduated, is the thing. What I don’t understand is that this failure to graduate came as no surprise to her, but why she let her mother and father arrange a celebration and book two rooms — Rand came from San Francisco with his girlfriend. Why Hannah didn’t say something beforehand, I don’t understand, though now she tells me they’re intimidating. That her father roars at her. That was her exact word. Not the stereotype of someone who lives in San Francisco, is it? I understand that Leigh can be quite bullish. It’s a crisis of some sort, that’s obvious, and at the college there was absolutely no one to see about it. The dean couldn’t meet with them at all yesterday because of her responsibilities at graduation. What we were all expected to do, other than sitting around the motel, I can’t imagine. There was only one blessed time-out when everyone agreed not to discuss it and we had gelato. It was over in twenty minutes, then the accusations started again and the tears. Hannah seemed to have calmed down by the time she and I left. There’s a boyfriend who’s coming for her tonight, on the bus from Boston. He’s premed. I’m awfully sorry to be dumping all this in your lap. I really must shut up.”

“Not on my account. I don’t get many visitors, let alone people who are caught up in a great drama. All I understand so far, though, is that for some reason this young woman didn’t graduate.”

“She didn’t take any of her final exams! You’d think they’d get in touch with her, see if there was some reason for it. Maybe they did try to contact her. I don’t know. She called this Boston fellow her fiancé and Leigh acted like she’d said ‘my shaman’ or something. What if he is? Her fiancé, I mean. Not that I have the slightest idea what that would have to do with her not finishing her work.”

“Have you spoken to him?”

“I don’t know his name. I’ve never met anyone she’s dated. She keeps that information top secret. You try to listen, to let them talk about what they’re inclined to talk about, isn’t that right? What do I know? I’m not a father.”

“I’m not a mother, so I’m not the best person to give advice.”

“I don’t quite know how to handle it. Not that I know what ‘it’ is, if you’ll excuse me for sounding like Bill Clinton. Leigh went absolutely berserk, pointing her finger at me, saying, ‘You’re so sympathetic, you figure this out, you support her so I’m not working two jobs.’ She was exaggerating there. She has one part-time job, and I know for a fact that Rand gave her a very nice financial settlement. If she thinks of her volunteer work as a job, I suppose that’s fair enough, but money’s not a problem. Actually, she may have been a bit unnerved from the moment she met Rand’s girlfriend, who plays with the San Francisco symphony. These aren’t inherently strange people, a musician and a medical student. I do agree with Hannah that in this circumstance, Leigh’s temper was quite terrible.”

“The girlfriend’s young?”

“She’s thirtysomething. Leigh and I are both forty-eight. We met when I had my first job. We were guides in Colonial Williamsburg.”

“Really? I grew up in Charlottesville.”

“Ah, that’s also a beautiful place. We drove there a few times for Leigh to see a shrink. She got pregnant by the candlemaker, during the time she was in love with the blacksmith. She couldn’t decide what to do. I must say, back then when she leaned on me it was much easier to take than her finger pointed in my face like a witch, as though I shared any responsibility for this.”

“So Hannah is the child of Leigh and a candlemaker?”

“No, that happened five years before she had Hannah. She had an abortion.”

“I see. But her relationship with her daughter was good, you thought? Why do you think Hannah did what she did?”

“I’m not saying this to dodge the question, but I think I just don’t understand women. I don’t mean to disparage women. There’s something I don’t get. Me. That I, personally, don’t get.”

“But how can you understand them if they won’t discuss the situation? The Perrier’s on the top shelf, if you’d like more.”

“Let’s go to Dockside! I’m terribly sorry to have brought my problems to you. I’m entirely sure she’s in her room, trying to figure things out, for all I know she’s called her mother and apologized and everything’s fine. I felt like Humbert Humbert checking in with her. The woman at the desk gave us such a skeptical look, even though I said two bedrooms and explained that she was my goddaughter. Hannah’s eyes were red and almost swollen shut at that point, which the woman no doubt noticed. We both had to show our driver’s licenses. I guess that’s become routine. When you check in anywhere.”

“I’ve heard that.”

“Rand flew back home from Bangor. He’s a surgeon. There was no way to stay. And the girlfriend couldn’t miss another rehearsal. It was the first time she’d met Hannah, so what use could she be?”

“Are you using vacation time from your own job to make this trip, Terry? Which is a not very subtle way of asking what you do, I guess.”

“What I do? I’m a writer, like you. I published a book in England about Emily Dickinson’s neighbors. An expansion of my thesis. I majored in psychology at Brown, with a minor in American studies.”

“Ah. Understanding psychology would be a prerequisite for writing about Mr. Capote, I should think.”

“I’m not so much writing about him as about people who have negative effects on other people’s lives. People are always writing about their mentors and thanking everyone they’ve ever met on the acknowledgments page. Everybody has wonderful, supportive, devoted people in their lives. All their pets are perfect. I think there needs to be another kind of book, a more realistic book, out there.”

“I see. So how does Truman Capote fit into this?”

“Being responsible for Ann Woodward’s suicide, for example. The woman who pretended she thought her husband was a burglar and shot him?”

“And now Pistorius. Plus ça change . But let me understand: you’re writing a book about people who have adversely affected other people.”