Ann Beattie - Love Always

She went downstairs. Lucy’s new column was finished, so she read that:

Dear Cindi Coeur,

My husband has pet names for everything in our trailer, but he often has trouble remembering our son’s name. This has so disturbed Elbert Jr. that he has repeatedly questioned me about whether Elbert Sr. is really his father. What can I do to make Elbert Sr. take the time to care?

Honeybuns

Dear Honey,

There may be a psychological (psy.cho.log.i.cal: having to do with the mind) reason for what Elbert Sr. is doing. Think about what a terrible name Elbert is. Hardly anyone would name their child Elbert if they wished him success. Elbert Sr. is probably maladjusted because of his name, and he may be displacing his resentment or anger onto your son. You do not say what your own name is, but I notice that “honeybuns” refers to a part of the female anatomy that has obviously caught your husband’s attention. Perhaps he is so taken with your derrière that he is unable to concentrate on his son. Try sitting down when your husband comes home from work, and then see if he has his wits about him to greet your son by name. Also, you do not give your husband’s age. It is possible that he is suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. Often, when people’s faculties start to go, they have an awareness that this is happening, and they become afraid. Probably your husband would not admit that this was the case, even if you confronted him with the evidence. It might be a good idea to suggest to him that you move to the South, where it is still very much the style for everyone to greet each other as “honey.”

Nicole got her Walkman, found the Madonna tape, and put it on and went out into the yard. Lucy’s house was on top of a hill, but everywhere Nicole looked, it was flat. It wasn’t late enough in the afternoon for the cows to have been herded into the pasture, so Nicole could see in all directions, and there was nothing in sight. It was windy and overcast. Lucy and Hildon were going to be cold at the waterfall.

Nicole tapped one foot on the chaise, keeping time with the music and keeping a fly away at the same time. She began to tap both feet. The sky brightened a little. This early in the day, the moon was already visible. The moon had been full, huge and orange over the weekend; it looked like a special effect, something seen through the window of a spacecraft, instead of the real moon seen through the windshield of Lucy’s car. Nicole missed driving. That was the one thing Bobby Blue had taught her to do: he had taught her to drive. His chauffeur, really. Out at the beach. Not on the freeways or anything. She tried to think of Bobby as a friend. She actually liked the chauffeur better. He was going to be an actor. When he got off work he hung out, waiting to be discovered. He had turned her on to Madonna long before Madonna had a hit song; he was a friend of hers, and he’d recorded her. Now, he said, she wouldn’t even speak to him.

A butterfly flew past. It was a Monarch butterfly. Nicole knew that because she had read for a part in a TV movie called Monarch . She lost out to some kid who wasn’t even around Hollywood six months later. Somebody said she cracked up, but Piggy’s wife said she’d heard she went back to Montana. Maybe it was the same story, but Piggy’s wife just filled in the detail.

She wondered what it was going to be like, living with her mother and Steven when she got back to L.A. She hoped her mother wasn’t in some lovey-dovey mind-set.

When the tape was over, she got up and went in the house. Brooke Shields was on the cover of one of Lucy’s magazines. Nicole couldn’t imagine why they didn’t make her pluck her eyebrows. Nicole flipped through the magazine. Brooke Shields with Michael Jackson. That was about as convincing as Liberace with Farrah Fawcett. She carried the magazine, and a couple of others, upstairs. She started the water in the tub and dropped in champagne bath beads. She probably should have gone to the waterfall. There was nothing to do.

Nicole rummaged around in her Sportsac. She took out a cigarette case Piggy had given her years ago. She liked it because it had a mirror inside, and because of the inlay: a mother-of-pearl Christmas tree with rhinestone lights. The engraving beneath it said: “Merry Christmas, 1960—Michael and Ginger.” Nicole kept her joints in it. She took the radio into the bathroom, put it on the back of the sink, and turned up the volume: Cyndi Lauper, singing “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.” It was weird, Nicole thought: what would be background noise in L.A. was noticeable in the country. Out the window, what looked like a funnel of butterflies spread out and flew away. Nicole looked down at the ground, but there was nothing. After a few minutes a swallow swooped low over the lawn and shot away. Nicole dumped the little pink conch-shaped soaps out of the clamshell-shaped soap dish and used it for an ashtray. Naturally, the minute she took the pack of matches out of the cigarette case, struck one, lit the joint and sat down, static started on the radio. The radio station was playing “Here Comes the Sun” throughout the day, and the first listener to call when it began would get a bottle of orange soda. Through the static she could hear Walter Mondale saying that he did not think he was unexciting.

She stretched out in the tub, raising her toes under the stream of water. She wondered who Piggy was going to vote for in the election. Piggy always said that he supported whoever buttered his bread. Piggy’s way of talking made the whole world seem like an enormous restaurant.

The talk with Lucy had upset her. She turned off the water and slid forward until her shoulders were under water. She puffed on the last of the joint. She was remembering an episode of Passionate Intensity when Cora, her adoptive doctor-mother, took her aside and told her that she was being given an award at the hospital. She wanted Stephanie to go, but she had to think of a way to leave Gerald at home: the constant acclaim was too much for him — he needed friends of his own, not her friends. Gerald was lost in his fictional world; he didn’t know how to deal with people any longer. And Cora was beginning to feel guilty; of course her lover would be there, and she didn’t want her big night spoiled by having to shun him to protect Gerald’s feelings. Pauline, who played Cora, was always catching flies, wringing her hands and improvising — anything to hog the camera. In real life, she was having an affair with the main scriptwriter, so she always had monologues anyway.

Nicole slipped lower, turned her head to the side and blew bubbles in the water. She could not remember why it was, exactly, that she had been drunk in the bathtub when Cora was dressing in her strapless evening gown to go to the awards banquet. They had done so many takes of the bathtub scene that her skin had gotten shriveled. Also, she had to sit in the tub in a flesh-toned body suit, which felt gross. There wasn’t enough hot water, but the director said her shivering just made her look more drunk. In real life, Henry, who played Gerald, was writing a novel. He was also seeing a psychiatrist, to figure out if he was writing the novel because he was genuinely motivated or because he strongly identified with his character, who was a wimp and a failure. The doctor suggested that these issues were fascinating and that he write a nonfiction book about them instead. He came to talk to Henry every day during the lunch break. The psychiatrist was overweight, and spent much of the time trading jokes with the cast and eating ham sandwiches and olives from the buffet table set up on the side. Henry was beginning to wonder aloud to the cast whether the doctor was bucking for inclusion in his book. His nickname for the doctor was Brine Breath.