Ann Beattie - Falling in Place

She shook her head no.

“That was a selfish question, I guess. Coming to stand by your bed and be absolved of guilt.”

“What did you do?” she said.

“I went to live in Rye,” he said. “Among other things that I’ve done.”

“Rye seems like a pretty nice place to me,” she said. It was a joke. Only in this context did it seem reasonable. It wasn’t reasonable. John Joel knew that, and she thought that it was part of the reason why he had shot her. Although their mother liked John Joel better than she liked her. Rye. If he wanted to live in Rye, let him live in Rye. She did not think it reflected on her. But she thought it explained why her brother had done it, in part. The psychiatrists wanted her to think about all the reasons why her brother had shot her, and then they wanted to hear what she thought about those reasons: why she did or didn’t think she deserved to be shot. One of them gave her a legal pad. She made criss-crosses on the page, doodled flowers and moths and birds, wrote her name and inked over it and over it until the letters were tall and wide. She would just tell the psychiatrist again why he had done it. That it was because they didn’t like each other. That she taunted him. That her brother wasn’t happy. That he probably wasn’t thinking about what he was doing, for some reason. No — she didn’t think John Joel was sick. She thought that he had shot her maybe without even deciding to do it, and that now it was over. Things were going to change. The psychiatrist asked her how.

She tested her father: “Are things going to be different?”

“You’re going to get well,” he said. He looked huge, standing by the window. Everything in the room was low: the tray that came over the bed so she could eat, the little night table. He was playing with the cord to the Venetian blinds.

“Be different,” he sighed. “Yes. Things certainly seem to have changed, don’t they?” His little joke. She had made a little joke that it would be better to be in Rye with her grandmother than to be in Connecticut with her family, where she had been shot; he had made a little joke that being shot was a change.

Mary had been shot, and John was standing in her hospital room, playing with the cord to the blinds. The private nurse usually went out when someone came into the room, but he noticed that when he was there alone, she stayed. She feigned interest in the book she was reading, but from time to time she would look up. She disapproved of his fiddling with the cord.

“How would you like things to change?” he said.

“Am I going to flunk summer school? Or will she feel sorry enough for me to pass me? If she passes me, I never want to read another book as long as I live.”

“Summer school,” he said. “Summer school. Shell pass you, I’m sure. If you have to make up work, you can make up work.”

“But I don’t have to go back?”

“It’s almost over. You won’t be out of the hospital, I don’t think.”

“I mean ever.”

“To school?”

“Yeah. To school.”

He looked uncomfortable. He didn’t answer. He had made a knot in the cord that was too tight. It was going to be a problem to untie it. He ran his thumb over the knot. He thought about it-how to untangle the knot. Then he realized that it was there before he had started fooling with it. The other cord also had a knot. They were made that way. He hadn’t done it. He smiled, holding the cord.

“I’d be embarrassed to go back,” she said.

“What do you mean?” he said. “It wasn’t anything you did.”

“Yes it was.”

“No it wasn’t. What do you mean?”

The private nurse turned the page. She was reading a copy of Life. Life was back. Gone, then back. He wondered how Life was doing.

She would have shrugged, but it hurt to move her body that way. She looked at her hands. Angela had painted her nails before it happened. They were an orangey-red, a color she didn’t much like. She had already picked the polish off two of the fingers. It felt like a match had just been lit in her side.

“What can I do for you?” he said. “What would you like? Is there something I can bring you here, or something I can promise you?”

“I don’t want anything,” she said.

“But you want things to change. You want things to change-how? By my being in Connecticut?”

“Be where you want to be,” she said.

“I don’t blame you for taking it out on me.”

“I’m not,” she said. “Be where you want to be.”

The night before, Louise had said to him: “Maybe you flatter yourself. Maybe all of this doesn’t have much to do with you.”

The private nurse coughed. “If they keep making movies like this, the world is going to go to hell in a handbasket,” she said. She looked at John. “Please excuse me while I get a drink of water,” she said. She looked at Mary. “Is there anything I can get for you?” she said. “A Coke?”

“No, thank you,” Mary said.

It was the same private nurse his mother had had when she had a tonsillectomy five years ago. Then, he remembered, the nurse had been reading Robert Frost. Now she was reading Life . She had also dyed her hair the color of a tangerine, and she wore necklaces that you could hang ornaments on. There were several chains around her neck, but whatever dangled from them was hidden under her white uniform. She wore white clogs and white stockings and a white uniform with a pleated top and a wide skirt. He had no idea whether Mary liked her. Her name was Mrs. Patterson. He had no idea what her first name was. His mother paid the nurse. His mother had arranged for the nurse, and she was picking up the bill. Louise and his mother had worked it out and he didn’t know anything about her being there until he walked into the hospital room and she was there. Louise said that she had more things on her mind than to tell him about the nurse — did he mind that there was a nurse? Did he suddenly want to be consulted about decisions made in the family?

Mrs. Patterson came back. “They had a perfectly fine movie, a good movie, and they had to do it: They had to show Sally Field’s breasts. Norma Rae couldn’t just be a winner — she had to be a sexy winner. It disgusts me that a good movie like that existed, and they had to stoop to a — pardon me — a boobies shot.” She coughed into her hand. “Pardon me,” she said again.

“I thought we might go to Nantucket,” he said. “Your grandmother said she’d look after John Joel for a while. He’s seeing a doctor. You knew that?”

She nodded yes. He had sniped her, from up in a tree, when she didn’t know he was there. It was the first time he had ever gotten the best of her. It was hard to hate him for winning just once. She decided not to tell anyone that she didn’t hate him anymore, though. If she ever started to hate him again, she did not want to have to explain it.

“Mary?” John said.

“What?”

“What do you think about the idea of going to Nantucket?”

“If you want to,” she said.

“When you get out,” he said.

“If you want to,” she said. She began to chip the polish off another nail. It was sour on her tongue.

“Your mother and I would like to do something you’d like to do. Is there somewhere you’d like to go?”

“The beach is fine.”

“You don’t want to go,” he said.

“It’s okay. We can go.”

“I don’t know what to do,” he said. “I’m just guessing about what you might like. What can I do, send for Peter Frampton?”

“He wouldn’t come.”

“I was just kidding,” he said. “But is there anything I could do? Is there anything you’d like to talk about?”