Ann Beattie - Love Always

“The kids around here who are your age have friends. They talk to each other. I know they do.”

“I’m not saying that people don’t talk. Look — it’s a small town. You’ve got to act nice around here. These kids are snowed in half the year, right? You can move around L.A. It’s a different thing.”

“But don’t you want to learn things? That’s the thing about friends — you find things out, you …”

“Right. You find out they want to borrow money, or they tell you about their boyfriends. Around here, maybe they tell you about restaurants. There’s not much disagreement about restaurants in L.A.”

“I don’t mean trivia when I say that they can tell you things. I mean that you can bounce ideas off of each other. You have somebody you trust. You help them and they help you.”

“What do I need help with?”

“Whatever you needed help with.”

“If I need something, or I need to find something out, Piggy gets it for me or has somebody find out and tell me.”

“What would you do if Piggy died?”

“Lucy: it’s business. If Piggy dies, there’s another Piggy. This is a whole different system from the way you operate. It’s just different.”

Lucy wondered how much of what Nicole was telling her might be true — how little she might need or desire any closeness with other people. As crazy as it was to envy such an attitude, she did envy it, a little — she had even envied it in Les, whose ability to know when to withdraw was as flawless as having perfect pitch. Unlike Nicole, though, Les had developed his strategy for a reason: he thought he was out of control. That was why he chose his career — so the students would adore him; that was why everything he said was put forth in the best possible light — to insure people’s approval. But all the undeserved adulation and applause only intensified the problem. It made him question himself more, spend time thinking about improving his act so that he wouldn’t be found out. If they didn’t find him out, he didn’t respect them; on the other hand, he was grateful. So when Les left people, he left them warmly. They were surprised that he had abandoned them and had no idea of what had gone wrong. Long after they had picked up the pieces and gone on with their lives, they wrote bewildered notes on their Christmas cards. They called late at night, hardly able to articulate what was wrong. They kept in touch, because they didn’t understand that the tie was irrevocably broken. He had stayed around so long to give them every chance; he didn’t want to face the fact that they had failed, either. He switched on the answering machine to take care of late night phone calls. He never sent cards or letters. Actually, he did write them but he tore them up. It was a game. He played alone — a very private person, everyone agreed, but they did not discuss it and come to any deeper conclusions. The cardinal rule was that he did not introduce his friends to one another.

Lucy didn’t know what else she could say to Nicole. Somehow, by osmosis, Nicole had to learn how people related to each other and what they did for each other. It really was good that Nicole had gotten away from her environment for a while. Lucy was going to try to have her spend more time with people. She had always thought it was a natural impulse to reach out to people, but Nicole obviously disagreed. In spite of all the activity in her life — all she did and saw, all the travel and things expected of her — Nicole was obviously isolated. Lucy had seen this in adults, but as a fear reaction. It was possible that Nicole was disguising her fears with a mask of coldness, but Lucy didn’t think so. Nicole, amazingly, had the sense that everything was programmed: she knew what she was supposed to do, and she did it; she knew what other people were supposed to do, and if they didn’t do it, they were fired, and people who would do it were brought in. And the sad thing was, Nicole wasn’t even cynical — she didn’t get the mean sense of satisfaction some cynic would get from living in such a world. Nicole wasn’t angry. But she also wasn’t inspired. She was complacent, and Lucy found that scary. There was no smugness about the complacency, so it was hard to try to attack it without seeming to be a flag-waving fool. Lucy was going to have to figure out how to deal with it.

When she went downstairs she was depressed to realize that subconsciously Nicole had gotten to her: there was Hildon, hanging out, and now he’d start talking about how hopeless Maureen was, and expecting help.

She looked at St. Francis, and was pleased — almost gratified — that he was a monster, pure and simple: he lived for fun, and fun meant carnage. He was devious when he meant to be and direct when that was the best course to take. They would take him to the waterfall and he would love it: people to sniff and threaten, wildlife to chase, rocks to bark at in the clear, shallow stream. He could swim in the deep part and get out and shake all over everybody, and it was hard to get mad at him because it was natural. How shocking to think that Nicole’s natural state was to do what she did, with no real pull toward excess or passion or even the belief that something might be fun.

THE night before Myra DeVane turned in her Country Daze piece, she got a phone call from Edward, in California. She was surprised: kissing and not calling seemed to be the operative mode these days — every bit as popular and a more pleasantly passive version than the tried-and-true kiss and tell. They had gone out to dinner on Sunday, and then she had gone to bed with him. They had gone back to his room after dinner, where wallpaper printed with Golden Eagles replaced the clichéd etchings. An etching would have been welcome; she felt as if they were making love in a gigantic bird’s nest and that she might be plucked away at any time. The eagles glowed in the dark, and seemed to swirl around the room as she and Edward moved on the bed.

When she heard that he was in California, she softened a little. He had probably had to leave town on short notice, as he had always said he might. She had had the phone unplugged most of the day before, when she was at home working. She was making excuses for him before he made them for himself.

What he had to say was even more interesting. He obviously assumed that she knew something she knew nothing about. Jail? Nicole? The car in the woods? She had no idea what he was talking about, and said as much. And then he leaped to his defense, not believing that she was serious. “Have you written me off?” he said. “Without even hearing my side of the story?”

She asked to hear his side of the story. She said again that she had no idea what he was talking about. No, it wasn’t in the paper. Yes, she was sure. No, the front page was all about the mass murders at McDonald’s. Then he turned the subject to police corruption. He had paid a bribe to keep his name out of the paper, taken a long shot. Was she telling him that it had worked?

Maybe she was wrong, but she hadn’t read anything about it in the paper. She had been in town that day, and nobody was talking about it. What exactly happened ? she asked him. He began to describe two cops who sounded like something from a Marx Brothers movie. Two cops, one of whom he swore was stoned, who had nearly crashed into a car he had borrowed for the day. The crazy cop had insisted on arresting him, and in the cop car, he had made it plain that money would be just the thing to hush this up. He had talked about how much toys cost these days, saying that he bet his son would be very pleased to have as many Kermits as money would buy. Edward, terrified and trying to console Nicole, had to listen to a long talk about toilet training on the way to the police station. There wasn’t anything about … indecent exposure in the paper?