Ann Beattie - Love Always

Nicole blew on her toes. “Notice that she’s too much of a coward to have told Grammy,” she said. “And notice that Piggy was too much of a coward to tell me.” Nicole sighed. “I mean, I bust ass so we can have this great life, and she runs off with some kid.”

Except for her vocabulary, Lucy thought, Nicole sounded very much like her grandmother.

“Who is he?” Lucy said, unable to hide her distress.

“He’s not Jimmy Connors, or you would have heard of him.”

The cows had come into the back field and were grazing, swishing their tails and occasionally snapping their heads around, trying to scare off flies. St. Francis was tied up in his spot by the rhododendrons. He was feeling very bad after all the screaming he had had to endure regarding the incident with the sheep.

“Honest to God,” Nicole said, “if you don’t have Brooke Shields’ mother and that set of problems, you’ve got a mother like mine and a whole different mess to deal with.”

“Do you think she loves him?” Lucy asked.

“She hardly knows him. I’ll tell you, she was getting really down because she wasn’t meeting anybody interesting who was straight. She told me she was beginning to think all straight guys were like Piggy. This guy’s some jock.”

“He doesn’t want to be in the movies, at least,” Lucy said.

Nicole rolled her eyes. “Sure he wants to be in the movies.”

“How do you know?” Lucy said.

“Because he got all excited about being an extra. He got to jump out of his seat and catch a baseball in some movie that never got released, and he had a still blown up and hung it on the back of the bedroom door.”

Nicole had been reading magazines. From time to time she had also been reading Pride and Prejudice , but she thought it was too weird. She read a chapter or two, then got back to the news of Princess Di. She was on the cover of this month’s Good Housekeeping , which was on the top of the magazine pile. Princess Di was shown in profile, the hat she wore indistinguishable from a cow pat except for the spray of feathers.

Jane had told Lucy that what she wanted for a wedding present was for her to make the call to their mother. Lucy had offered to send a silver-rimmed salad bowl instead. Jane had gone into gales of laughter. Stoned. She had made the call stoned.

Now, Nicole was walking around the lawn, aimlessly, like a small child. She was squinting in the sun, and the breeze was blowing through her hair. Standing by the car, she looked small — just a pretty little girl in summertime. She could have been happier, but the truth was that her mother’s phone call hadn’t been the only blow; part of her world had ended the day Ralston-Purina and Campbell’s Soup canceled.

Lucy decided that the best thing to do was to let Nicole be alone for a while. She went into the house and dialed her mother. This was really her summer of doing favors for her sister.

“I have something to tell you,” Lucy said when Rita answered. “It’s not terrible, but I don’t think you’re going to think it’s good news.”

“Say it,” her mother said, her voice almost a whisper.

“I don’t really have the details,” Lucy said, “but a few days ago Jane got married, in California.”

There was complete silence on the line.

“She didn’t tell us right away.”

“Who did she marry?” her mother said.

“Well, it’s embarrassing to admit, but I didn’t write his name down when she told me, and I don’t remember.”

“What does he do?”

“I’m not sure of everything that he does, but he’s a tennis player.”

“If that’s the best thing you can start with, I don’t know that I want to know what else he does,” her mother said.

“It’s her life,” Lucy said. “She can take care of herself.”

“She’ll have to, married to somebody who plays tennis.”

“But it’s just that I’m not sure of what else he does.”

“He wants to be in the movies, if he isn’t already. That’s what he does.”

Lucy said nothing.

“She didn’t invite you to this wedding?”

“No,” Lucy said. “She just called us. Nicole was hurt. I wish Jane had given her the option of being there.”

“Jane doesn’t think about anybody but herself.”

“That isn’t true.”

“I’m not going to argue with you,” her mother said.

“She was afraid to call you,” Lucy said. “Are you going to call her and wish her the best when you get yourself together?”

“Give her my best wishes when you speak to her,” her mother said.

“I don’t want to be the go-between,” Lucy said.

“No one wants to star in a movie that’s already been made,” her mother said.

“Please call her.”

“Couldn’t Piggy stop her?” her mother said.

“Piggy gave her away.”

“What does Piggy say about this?”

“I haven’t spoken to him about it.”

“Is she pregnant again?”

“I don’t think so,” Lucy said. “That wouldn’t be any reason—”

“Your sister doesn’t do anything as the result of reason.”

“I don’t think so,” Lucy said. “Is he foreign?”

“No. Apparently he’s a Wasp. She’s sending pictures.”

“Is he an old man?”

“Quite young.”

“I assume that he isn’t well off, or you would have said so.”

“I assumed that if he was, Jane would have told me.”

“What does Piggy say?”

“We-we-we, I want some.”

Her mother was silent.

“I didn’t speak to Piggy.”

Lucy waited for her mother to continue. There was a long silence.

“How is Nicole?”

“We’re all as surprised by this news as you are. She’s taking it okay. I think she’s having a pretty good time here — better than I thought she’d have.”

“Are you carrying on with Hildon while she’s there?”

“I don’t carry on with Hildon. He’s my oldest friend. We went out on the Fourth of July with a bunch of people, including Hildon and Maureen.”

“God!” her mother said.

“I know that you like Maureen sight unseen because she’s a wife,” Lucy said.

“To feel sorry for her is not to say that I like her. If she stays married to Hildon, I don’t have much respect for her.”

“How is it this has turned into a conversation criticizing me?” Lucy said.

“I’m glad you realize that it’s criticism, instead of just thinking that I’m commenting,” her mother said. “Unless you or your sister are hit over the head, you act like I’m Dan Rather with the news.”

“You know I’m not going to give up a fifteen-year friendship just to please you,” Lucy said. “Try to be nice to me. I don’t find it easy to break news like this to you.”

“Yes,” her mother said, softening her voice a little. “I can’t understand why your sister pretends to be afraid of me. She does anything she wants, and she knows I have no control over her.”

“How are you feeling? Is your hay fever better?”

“I have new antihistamines, but they make me too sleepy.”

“It is her own life,” Lucy said.

“I feel like she’s just thrown it to the wind,” her mother said. “She was that way when she was a baby, of course. She liked to be bought a balloon so she could let go of the string. She never even cried.”

“Well, she’s married him, and that’s that.”

“I’m going to go lie down,” her mother said. “If the pictures are going to upset me, don’t send them. If you talk to Piggy, tell him that he’d better have something good to say for himself when he calls me.”

“Goodbye,” Lucy said. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” her mother said. “Goodbye.”