Ann Beattie - Falling in Place

They went back to the apartment and she watched his going-to-bed routine: pushups, another shower and two spins of “Forever Young.” He said he would rather sleep on the floor than on the sofa. “God,” Bobby said. “I hope the first agent I see tomorrow is beautiful and single. Did I ruin your night? Did I keep you from doing your work?”

Her work was The Old Man and the Sea , and she had reread it twice recently. She told him honestly that he hadn’t, and went into the bedroom. She closed the door to undress, but opened it again when she was ready to sleep because so little air stirred in the apartment. When she went out to get a glass of ice water to put by the bed, she saw Bobby, earphones on his head, stretched on the floor like Christ crucified. He also reminded her of a pilot shot down. He still had on his denim shorts, and his feet in the orange running shoes were crossed at the ankle, and the music must have been loud, because his eyes stayed closed, and he never heard her come through the room. She tiptoed past him.

He was up before she was in the morning. When she went into the living room, she saw a white bag with donuts open on the table. On a blue index card was written: “Dame Daphne’s Revenge?” He had made coffee. He was in the bathroom, shaving. He had also gotten the paper. She took a donut out of the bag and bit into it, even though eating in the morning would make her sluggish. She was thinking about what she was going to do: She was going to talk about irony to students who, ironically, were too stupid to perceive irony. They were not going to care that Santiago got his great fish. They were just going to read it, and like the stupid tourists looking down at the skeleton and the boat, hardly even wonder about it. The book was perfect to close the course with, because it was a perfect comment on the course. Actually, it was the only novel they had read all the way through, and that was because it was short, and because she had argued with the assistant principal that they would have the wrong idea about literature if they just read bits and pieces. Not too long ago, she had cared enough to argue. Well, it was perfect: She was Santiago, and her students were the tourists. And the shark? What was out there that her students would have to grapple with? Nothing. They were unintelligent because they had easy lives. They were not stalked by anything. Their grappling with complexity was having a debate about what musician was playing on a guitar break. She had heard two of them arguing about that in the hallway the week before. It was probably the first argument she had heard all summer. They capitulated so easily. They all thought alike, so there was no tension. They looked alike. They were attractive, and you could tell that their families had money, but they were no more substantial than the white carcass slung beside Santiago’s boat.

She realized that she was getting carried away with making analogies and bit into the donut. A few crumbs rolled down the front of her white nightgown.

“I’ve never talked to an agent before,” Bobby said. “I wonder what you’re supposed to do when you walk in. I’ve always wondered what people did when they walked into a shrink’s office for the first time.” He had slicked back his hair — he was bald on top, but the hair was long and curly and frizzy on the sides, and now it hung in tiny wet curls. He had on jeans and a white shirt with “Don B.” sewn in red thread above the pocket, and he was wearing the sort of sunglasses people who work in factories wear, with clear plastic cups at the sides so that nothing can get in their eyes.

“Should I cut this name off?” Bobby said. “Do you think it matters? I’ve got a sports jacket in the trunk of the car that I think will cover it.”

“I’d leave it. Writers are supposed to be eccentric anyway.”

“Writers are so reasonable,” he said. “Thomas Wolfe was such a reasonable man. That little book of his Scribner’s put out — I hope I can find it. Where did I put that piece of paper? I put it in my suitcase, didn’t I? No — I put it in my shirt pocket, and I just stuffed my shirt in the green bag. Okay, take it easy, Bobby.” He wiped some drops of water off his shoulders. His hair was so wet it was dripping. “New York makes me nervous. It’s going to be a hot day, too. I hope I don’t sweat. You really saved my life letting me stay here last night. I’ll call you from New York after I’m done, and if you’re not doing anything, I’ll take you to dinner on my way home.”

He sat on the floor, reached up into the bag, and took out a donut. She was flipping through the paper.

“Anything I can bring you from New York?” Bobby said.

“Wait a minute,” she said. “This is impossible.”

“What’s impossible?”

“This,” she said.

Her eye had been caught by the name Knapp. It was a short article in the regional news — a girl named Mary Knapp had been shot by her brother. She had just seen Mary the day before, and asked her to stay after school to explain why she was late for class. She had just talked to Mary’s father. He had bought her lunch.

“This is one of my students,” she said, holding the paper out to Bobby. “What am I going to say in class? This is impossible. She was in class yesterday and today she’s shot?”

“Who shot her?” Bobby said. He chewed loudly, excited by the article. “Her brother! What do you know?”

“I can’t believe it,” she said.

“I know a man in Lyme who ran over his son backing into his driveway. The kid was a hemophiliac. A two-year-old in Lyme, New Hampshire, with the curse of kings — turned into a blood puddle in front of his father’s eyes. You just can’t believe what happens. I see that guy every time I go jogging. What do you think? His life is ruined. He just runs all day.”

She had put her hand over her mouth and was shaking her head.

“What do you think?” Bobby said. “How does a thing like this happen?” He picked up the white towel from the top of his suitcase and rubbed his hair, then draped the towel over his head. “She’s never going to be the same,” he said. “Just a few seconds determine everything. It’s like what would happen if I draped this towel over my head and just like that I turned into a sheik.”

“What?” she said.

“I’d be like the rest of them, probably. I’d get every cent I could for oil. Move into Beverly Hills and have statues of naked ladies on the front lawn. New York’s not Beverly Hills, at least. Thank God I’m not going to Beverly Hills.”

Bobby was walking her to her car and trying to cheer her up. He asked if she wanted him to come to school with her, and she said no, he was supposed to be in New York. Her hand shook a little when she reached into her purse for her car key .

There were flowers strewn on the sidewalk: daisies and small pink flowers she didn’t recognize, a rose or two. It looked as if somebody had picked a bunch of flowers from a yard and run, abandoned them, thrown them away — as if they had been taken spitefully, and not because someone wanted them for a bouquet. She didn’t notice them until Bobby pointed out a scattering of rose petals beside her car. Then the two of them looked back and saw that there was a crooked trail of flowers from the apartment to her car .

From behind a parked car on the next block the magician was watching it all through binoculars. Damn: She was telling the truth about being married. Her husband was worse-looking than he was, though; and when she got in the car, she didn’t kiss him goodbye. He watched her drive away, then turned the glasses to Bobby. Bobby went back into the building, where he had left the straw suitcase and the book bag in the lobby. The magician had put his binoculars down when he saw Bobby come out again, so he raised them again. He saw Bobby go to his car, and he smiled when he saw the New Hampshire license plates. “I Brake for People Who Brake.” Nice. Her husband had a sense of humor. Then she liked people with a sense of humor. It had been wrong to talk about national health care instead of telling her jokes. So she and her husband were living apart. That made it even easier. When he found out her name, he would send flowers to her apartment. For now, picking his mother’s flowers and tossing them down to make a path had seemed good enough. Romantic, even. She inspired in him a spirit of romance. He even wondered if, by some coincidence, a favorite song of his might also be one she knew. It was the song he had heard the night before on WYBC that had given him the idea to make the path of flowers: John Sebastian, singing “She’s a Lady”: “Oh lady, lady of ladies, I remember days that felt like it was raining daisies.” A shower of daisies. If only such a beautiful miracle were possible. The magician put his binoculars away and went to get breakfast .