Ann Beattie - The State We're In

“What did you think of someone coming in and accepting your hospitality and basically brushing you off?”

“I was only the famous photographer’s wife.”

“Would women have treated you that way?”

“Most all our visitors were men.”

“But you mentioned Diane Arbus in your letter.”

“Her daughter went to school in Maine. She built her own yurt to live in. She loved her school. Diane was skeptical of how much education she was getting, but she was glad Amy — that was her name — had found a place she felt she belonged. Diane Arbus certainly didn’t autograph anything before leaving!”

“Didn’t May Sarton also live in York?”

“She did, and we went out of our way to avoid her. She was a very contentious person.”

“I’m obviously lucky you agreed to see me! Here comes the coffee, finally. They aren’t in any hurry here, are they? Just meeting you has put my mind back on my project. What a strange story about Capote, though. Do you think he mistook himself for Picasso and thought anything could be his merely for signing a napkin?”

“See the man coming in, in the Boston Whaler? Diane Arbus should be here. He used to be Karen Welber. Had surgery at Johns Hopkins. Ken’s been married for thirty years to a German girl who doesn’t speak a word of English, or pretends she doesn’t. She pantomimes to the butcher how she wants the meat prepared. The butcher hates it when she comes in.”

“Is that right? Really?”

“Yes. There’s also a midget who lives in town.”

“But you like it here? You haven’t thought about getting away for the winter, at least? Florida’s not for you?”

“Not for me, no.”

“Some dependable people who shovel you out? All that?”

“I haven’t had any trouble doing the walkway and the steps myself, and if Adver isn’t too drunk or hungover, he gets to my driveway quite fast, since his ex lives on the same street and would kill him if he didn’t drive the plow over before the snow stopped falling.”

“Your husband did a different sort of photography, of course, but did he… for his own purposes, I mean — did he photograph people in town? Landscapes? Anything like that?”

“A lot of nude shots of me, but no landscapes, no.”

“Oh, I see!”

“I was kidding.”

“Oh! Right!”

He blushed! She’d made him blush!

“What exactly are your plans when your young friend’s fiancé comes on the bus, Terry? Hadn’t you better check on Hannah’s state of mind? Everyone seems to have ditched you with a twenty-one-year-old girl. I’ve never heard of anything like that.”

“I know what you mean. I’m feeling a bit sorry for myself, like I’ve got to see that this comes to some good conclusion, even though it’s not really my responsibility.”

“It’s none of my business, but when you were younger, were you Hannah’s mother’s boyfriend? I couldn’t make that out from the way you told the story.”

“Well, I–I don’t really know if I was. I mean, at the time I thought I was, or at least that that might happen any moment. She always had her various unhappy romances going on. But we had something special, I know we had that. It was probably just wishful thinking on my part that there would be anything more. You know, I don’t tend to talk about her. No one’s ever asked me that.”

“Your being her daughter’s godfather, and your long friendship…”

“Oh, perfectly logical question, exactly right. I don’t think I knew quite what to do. I didn’t want to ruin the friendship, I suppose. So I never did anything — anything that a real boyfriend would do, I mean — though sex alone doesn’t account for closeness, does it?”

“As you mentioned earlier: Bishop and Lowell.”

“Exactly. Perfect example. They had so much in common and they were so much on each other’s side. Really quite remarkable, that friendship. And then at the very end, you have to wonder what he was thinking when he was going to visit her here. Here being Maine, I mean. He meant to bring Mary McCarthy along, and Elizabeth Bishop was living with a woman, and she didn’t want Mary McCarthy to see that, or whatever it was she feared, so Lowell didn’t come. It was obtuse of him, really stupid. They never saw each other again. It would have been the last visit. It’s really too sad to think about.”

“That isn’t Hannah down there throwing rocks in the water, is it?”

“It is Hannah. My god! I didn’t even see her crouched down there. I’ve known her since she was four days old. Yet you never know another person, do you? That’s the old cliché, at least. She’s always been willful. She’s always felt her way is the right way. What a strange feeling to be spying on her from afar. Sometimes when they’re that age you feel like they’re performing for you, but that’s not what we’re seeing.”

“No. She has no idea we’re watching.”

“Look what she’s doing. It’s like tossing coins in a fountain. She’s wishing for good luck, whatever that might mean to her. I don’t see why they didn’t try to find out at least what she was thinking, or if she was suffering in some way. They’ve left it to me, you’re right. Not the sort of parents I’d want to have. Where did she get all those stones?”

“She’s filled her pockets like Virginia Woolf. She probably scooped them up from the parking lot.”

He frowned into his empty coffee cup. They had not been offered refills. “Let’s hope she’s not that disturbed by anything,” he said.

“What time does the bus come in?”

“She hasn’t told me. There was some question about whether he could get here in time for dinner, or whether she and I should eat alone.”

“You could call her and ask if it’s been decided.”

“You wouldn’t mind? I find it so rude when—”

“Also, Terry, to put you at ease: I know my little stories aren’t anything that can help you. You won’t disappoint me if I read the book and they aren’t in it. There were interviews with Dem — interviewers who came, who asked questions for days, and we knew that the longer someone asks questions, the more likely it is that very little of what you say will appear in print. Dem and I both felt that.”

“That the sense of the person would be lost, rather than discovered, do you mean?”

“Exactly.”

“You know, I’m really going to try to work in the story about signing the money. Everyone likes to read about peculiar actions. Especially ones that aren’t hugely significant. Ones that don’t sum everything up, I mean. Things that just happened because they happened.”

A stone glinted in the sunlight before plunking into the water where boats bobbed on their moorings. Hannah’s hair was flaxen. It was wavy and thick and caught the light like a yellow, shot-silk curtain. Part of it was gathered back, but the rest was an unruly, gorgeous mess of blond hair. It overpowered everything, including her slim body.

“I won’t take offense if you call her before our lunch arrives.”

“All right, then,” he said, taking his phone out of his pocket.

He scrolled quickly to find her number, but when his thumb pressed the button, he used enough force to push it through the phone. The expression on his face as the phone rang and rang — turned off? Or was she willfully not answering? — was dolorous, filled with intense sorrow in the second before he remembered where he was and raised his eyes and shrugged his feigned dismissal. Then, almost instantly, he turned his head and narrowed his eyes, staring into the distance. Clair glanced quickly over her shoulder to see what he was seeing. It was the waiter, approaching with a huge circular tray. The young man had no more idea how to carry the tray aloft than a blind man would know how to proceed if handed an Olympic torch.