Ann Beattie - Falling in Place

He shook the man’s hand. Nina went into the kitchen, and he could see her, bowl of cereal on the counter at her side, peeling an orange.

“I have to talk to you,” John said, going into the kitchen. He rubbed his hand across her shoulder blades, low, where the yellow tiger was lunging. “My robe,” he said. “Nina?” he said.

“I’ve got to go to work. I don’t have a rich husband like you to support me. If I don’t go to work, I get fired. It’s nobody’s fault but mine that I got wrecked last night, but I am trying—” She nicked her thumb cutting the orange. She put the knife down and went to the cold water and turned it on. She put her cut finger under the water, and started to cry.

Jesus Christ , he thought: blood .

“You two want to talk. I guess I ought to get going anyway,” Spangle said. He pulled his T-shirt over his head. “What she said was the truth,” he said, brushing his hair out of his face.

“I’m sure it is the truth.”

“I’m sure it doesn’t much matter to anybody,” Nina said. “We never really discussed it, but since you think I’m so perfect, that must be something you’re liberal-minded about, right?”

John leaned over, bracing himself with his elbows on the kitchen counter. “Why are you doing this?” he said. “Nina?”

“What are you doing here at seven o’clock in the morning? I might like a little privacy. People show up whenever they want, spend the night — you don’t show up and spend the night, you do that when you feel inclined and you don’t when you don’t, and you show up in the morning as though I’d owe you some apology.”

“I’m going to call you,” Spangle said. “Take care.”

“Wait,” Nina said. “Just wait.”

She followed Spangle out of the apartment, closing the door behind her. “I embarrassed you,” she said, at the foot of the stairs.

“You didn’t embarrass me. You’re his girl, right? You didn’t sleep with me. We both agree. How can I be embarrassed?”

“Please don’t go,” she said. “Wait a minute. I’m not even clear on what you two were doing here.”

“We flew back from Madrid and I didn’t feel like going back to New Haven, and he certainly didn’t want to check in with my mother, and my esteemed brother scored some hash in the toilet at Kennedy and we looked you up in the phone book, and the rest of it — Horton what’s-his-name — is all your fault.” Spangle looked down, shook his head, laughed. “My motives weren’t pure,” he said. “Maybe if we hadn’t gotten wrecked, you wouldn’t have been telling him the truth this morning.”

“I would have told him the truth whatever it was.”

“Then I’m glad we didn’t. After a night like that, the last thing I need is to have my head knocked all the way off.”

“I’m embarrassed now,” Nina said.

“Then we’re even,” he said. “You were right. I was embarrassed. You ought to go back up.”

She shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said. “I still can’t believe that I’m standing in this hallway talking to you. The two of you were in Spain all these years?”

“I was just over there a couple of weeks. He was shacked up with some señorita who was trying to get him to pay for a lot of expensive dental work she needed done, it turns out. I went over to get him.”

“I wish I had a sister or a brother,” she said.

“You’ve got good friends. Reliable friends,” he said. “They might go a few years without seeing you, but eventually they show up.”

“It makes me nervous that everything just happens,” she said. “I mean, I can sort of count on people, sometimes, but other times… for some reason, I just didn’t appreciate his coming over here this morning unannounced.”

“You’d better go back,” Spangle said. “Jonathan’s going to be staying with friends in the West Village. I’ll be coming in to see him. Can we see you? Straight?”

“What about the girl you live with? Isn’t she coming?”

“I’ve been trying to think about that, and all I know is that right now I can’t think about that. I don’t think I’m going back to New Haven right away. She blames me for living. She’s got a lousy job this summer, and she takes it out on me. I guess she’s got a right to. I’m just not up for it today.”

“Where are you going?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you want me to leave you the key? You could come back here when I’m at work. You could use some sleep.”

“The offer’s just for the key and sleep?”

She sighed, shook her head no, but said, “I don’t know. Do you want it?”

“I’d be a real shit to louse things up for you,” he said. “No. But let’s have dinner, you and me and Jonathan.”

“Okay,” she said. “Thanks.” He turned to go.

“It was so strange seeing you again. I shouldn’t have gotten that stuff from Horton. It was my fault.”

“I don’t know how to deal with anything either,” he said. He took his comb out of his pocket, ran it through his hair a few times. He could only comb the top part; his hair was long, and it had gotten hopelessly matted from the ears to the shoulder. He looked the way he had at Bard. If she remembered correctly what he had looked like when he first walked in, he had even looked healthy. No living on Drake’s Ring Dings and reds; the sunshine of — where was it?

“Where were you in Spain?” she said.

“Madrid.” He shook his head. “I know,” he said. “Fucked, fucked, fucked. Call you later in the week.”

“Call me,” she said.

“I’ll call you,” he said.

“Call me,” she said.

He laughed and she smiled. She went upstairs smiling. She had not recovered as well from the night before as she had thought; she realized it when she went to open the door: Her finger was still bleeding, and blood stained the sleeve of the robe. She took it off the minute she got in the door, disgusted, and took it to the bathroom, holding the sleeve under cold water in the sink.

“What’s the matter?” he said, standing in the doorway to the bedroom. He wanted her to say: Nothing. What’s the matter with you? She didn’t answer him.

He watched her washing the sleeve of the robe. She had on a pair of white underpants, and nothing else. Her hair wasn’t combed.

“I cut up the orange for you,” he said. He walked away, went to the sofa and lifted books and papers off it and sat down.

She went from the bathroom into the kitchen without saying anything.

“I think what I blurted out was the truth: that I hardly ever see you, and if I work all the time, I should get to have fun, too. Why don’t you give your wife your money and me your time?”

“Jesus,” he said. “You really don’t know what you’re saying.”

“Why don’t I know what I’m saying?” She started to sit next to him, decided to sit on the floor instead. When she sat down, everything started to slow up: She couldn’t say the sentences she had thought to say; lifting the spoon from the bowl to her mouth was an effort. Her finger throbbed, and she looked down at the toilet paper she had wrapped around her finger, to see if it was red. It was white. She spooned another piece of orange off the top of the cereal and put it in her mouth and chewed.

“Why don’t I know what I’m saying?”

“Can we talk?” he said. “Are you going to rush out of here?”

He was crying. She looked up and saw that tears were rolling down his cheeks. She got up and walked to the sofa, sat down beside him. “What is going on?” she said.

“You’re right,” he said. “I don’t do this well, and I certainly didn’t do that well.”