Ann Beattie - Falling in Place

“A midget?”

“No. A serious guess.”

“A Rolfer.”

“No. You’re getting close. Sort of close.”

“Don’t let a Rolfer touch you. It’s just sadism.”

“Come on, guess.”

“Where on the West Coast?”

“Los Angeles.”

“Not much help. Is he a shrink of any kind?”

“No.”

“Movies.”

“Nope. Not movies.”

“If he’s not a midget Rolfer who’s writing a screenplay, I can’t guess.”

“A magician. A pull-the-rabbit-out-of-the-hat type magician.”

“Jesus. I’d watch out for him.”

“I guess I wouldn’t talk about him so much if he didn’t sort of give me the creeps. I’ve only seen him three times actually, but he just appears . He’s odd. He talks like we’re old friends.”

“You’re right. Don’t go out. You can insult me on the phone. It’s Bill’s money, too. Fifteen cents for a stamp.”

“Is he richer and richer?” Cynthia said.

“God, yes. Of course. He wants to have a baby.”

“Don’t do it.”

“Honey, I wouldn’t. Things are just calming down with us. I overate strawberries, and you remember how fruit used to make me break out? I went to a dermatologist and told him I sprayed myself with cologne all over, and he said it was the cologne, of course, and that I had to stop using it. I made him put it in writing. At first Bill wanted me to try new scents, but I told him that the dermatologist had said no: nothing on my skin but Castile soap. So for the first time in years I don’t smell like a florist’s. If he hints around about trying a new cologne, I just buy a pint of strawberries and eat them on the sly. But the baby thing — my God. He read that Leboyer book, which he got from some guy flying first-class with him from Atlanta to New York, and by the time he hit LaGuardia, he could hardly wait to get the limo home to tell me that he thought something of ours should be born to the Moonlight Sonata. God . The idiots you meet in first class.”

“You’re not going to marry him, are you?”

“Well, I might. I just wouldn’t have a baby. I know it’s corny, but I really do love the Moonlight Sonata, and once I’d gritted my teeth through it, it would be ruined forever.”

“What are you eating?” Cynthia said.

“A vegetable burrito. Leftovers from last night’s dinner. The same man who gave him the Leboyer book gave him a recipe for vegetable burritos, and he went out and bought all the ingredients and made them. God.” She stopped chewing. “But the reason I called is to say that we’re going to have a house on the Vineyard next month, and we want you to come see us. He has a rich friend who isn’t too old. Fortyish. He’d love to meet you. Spangle doesn’t deserve you. If he wanted to get home he could haul ass, you know.”

“I’m pretty disgusted with him. With his mother, too. She calls almost every damn night, and she means to be nice, but I just can’t stand to talk to her. She’s crazier than Spangle, in her way.”

“I never thought Spangle was particularly crazy. I just don’t think he has enough money. We’ll have a convertible on the Vineyard.”

“He’ll get you pregnant. Then what will you do?”

“Honey, I am not helpless.”

“He’s going to trick you, somehow.”

“You’re the one I’m worried about. It would be just like Spangle to come back to New Haven and propose to you, and I think you might even do it.”

“No. I feel differently from the way I felt when he left. It’s hot in this apartment and I work all the time, and I feel like I’ve been abandoned. I’m not in the mood to tie a bandanna around my head and be a happy housewife.”

“Come to the Vineyard. We’ll have the house full-time, after this weekend. It’s going to be a Mustang convertible.”

“Thanks for the invitation. I’ll probably come.”

“Spangle’s welcome, you know. I say awful things about him, but I like him. I even downplayed how crazy he was a minute ago. That was a nice thing to do for him, wasn’t it?”

“It would take a lot more than a casual remark from you to convince me at this point. I keep having the feeling that he’s not in Madrid, but I guess he is. I mean, where would he be? He wasn’t mad at me when he left. He was kidding around, like always.”

“Anybody could be anywhere. I’d say listen to your hunches.”

“I feel like he’s around. I feel that way about the magician, too, so maybe it’s just paranoia.”

“I thought you told me this magician kept appearing.”

“He does. But not every time. Never in the morning.”

“Stay in until morning,” she said. “Jesus.” She was chewing again. “I got lonesome for you tonight. I liked it when we saw each other more. Why don’t you come live near us in Philadelphia?”

“Why don’t you find me a job?”

“I found you a man. Good-looking, too. Forty-nine, to be honest with you, but a very nice body. He doesn’t even wear glasses. And there are no children. One Irish wolfhound only. He talks about getting another one, but I doubt it. You can see him running down the beach every morning with the dog from all the windows across the front of the house we’re going to be renting. Sometimes it just kills me that Bill has so much money. Like Dylan says: ‘I can’t help it if I’m lucky.’ ”

“Where does Dylan say that?”

“The song about how somebody gets shot and he runs away with the man’s wife, and she’s got all her husband’s money. Bill’s wife just dropped dead at fifty-four. I never even met her. I have nothing to feel guilty about. You’ve got a job and I don’t, though. Not that I ever wanted one, but maybe that was because I worked such shit jobs. Remember the telephone company? That awful dress shop where everything stank of incense?” She laughed. “God, there’s a whole bank of white hyacinths in the courtyard outside this window. The spotlight is on them, and there are moths flying above them, a storm of moths. You promise to come to the Vineyard?”

“I promise,” Cynthia said.

When she hung up, she went to the window again. A police car drove down the block very fast and turned the corner with its light flashing. A tall, thin girl that she recognized walked into the building. It seemed to be a normal night of street life. She was probably silly for staying in, for letting some pathetic, odd man get to her so much that she wouldn’t go out for food. She wouldn’t. She went back into the bedroom, set the alarm for early and went to bed.

It was strange not to have Spangle in the bed. She had gotten used to the way he tore the covers up from the bottom and turned and thrashed all night, flapping his arms like some big, heavy bird. She was even used to him screaming, his arms covering his head, his body tensed for the fireball that he imagined rolling toward him like a bowling ball rolling down the lane — the lane was the bed he slept in. It was so quiet in bed when Spangle wasn’t there. She bounced on the mattress a couple of times, to hear it make a noise. Then it was quiet again. When Spangle was there, he fell asleep so deeply so soon that she spent the first hour in bed awakening him, consoling him, carefully pulling covers out of his fist, across herself. When she was alone, she thought. She thought about what had become of her sister, and about Mrs. Pendergast’s breasts, and about what she had said — that she only wanted to play tennis. There were a lot of things for which graduate school did not prepare you. That was the virtue of it, Spangle said — that you could spend years learning, and in the end, almost nothing you learned would apply. But Cynthia thought it would be helpful if something prepared you for a talk with Mrs. Pendergast. When she had to think quickly, she could never think of anything to say. Her advice to Spangle was easy — she had it down to four words now: “There is no fireball.” She had not even thought of that many words to say when Mrs. Pendergast had started crying. It seemed wrong just to say no when she was asked if she played tennis. But that was the one word she had said. She suddenly remembered which Dylan song it was: the one that began, “Someone’s got it in for me.”