Ann Beattie - Falling in Place

Driving away, he wondered what he would do with it if he were granted just one wish. He thought that the wish should be a selfish one, not a wish to change things for other people, but a wish for self-salvation, a wish that dared whatever force governed wishes to come through: that his family all disappear in a puff of smoke, and that he could start over again with Nina. That was two wishes, not one. Either the disappearance, or the starting over with Nina. As he drove, though, it came to him that he was now thinking about wish number three. What had numbers one and number two been? One and two and then a million more: for enough money not to have to work, for a perfect kiss, for rain to change to sun, sun to change to rain, a bee sting to stop itching, a photograph not to show the lines on his forehead, a ball to fly into his glove, to tag the runner in time, to find pesto in a New York restaurant in the winter, for his headache to go away, for the shell of the robin’s egg never to break. He had used up his wishes. So if it happened, it would just have to happen. There was no way he could wish for it

He wished for it. And that the car radio wouldn’t be full of static so he could hear music instead of his thoughts. And that the police not catch him for speeding. That he miss the frog hopping across the road. He looked in the rear-view mirror and saw the frog, still hopping. Mary was alive. He was alive. The doctor was wrong: It wasn’t John Joel he identified with, but Mary. He was the victim, not the one who pulled the trigger. He certainly did not think that he had charge of his own life. As the doctor would have put it, he had the sense of reacting instead of acting .

“Would you like to go out for a drink and forget all this bullshit?” he had asked the woman doctor .

“If I thought this was bullshit,” the doctor said, “I wouldn’t be doing it. The question that interests me is why you kept going, if you felt you had no control.”

“Cruise control,” he said .

“Do you have cruise control on your car?” she said, writing .

“No,” he said. “And no pillars at the end of my driveway, either.”

“What is the connection?” she said .

“No connection. A non sequitur.”

“No it wasn’t,” she said. “Let me in on the joke.”

“The joke is that my lover overestimates how rich I am. I told her I had pillars at the end of my driveway, and she believed me.”

She said, writing, “You have a lover?”

THIS IS HOW she found out that Spangle was back in the States: Bobby, in New York, had given his friend Victor the rough draft of chapters one and two of the novel he was writing; and Victor, who thought his apartment might burn and knowing that Bobby never made photocopies, had walked to the photocopying shop on Third Avenue around the corner from his apartment. There he found an old acquaintance, a woman he had dated years ago, manning the counter. From Marielle Dekker, Victor had found out that Jonathan Spangle was in town. She had just run into him at Kenny’s Castaways. She said that she had been surprised to find out that he had a brother, because she had thought she remembered a discussion in the far-distant past, when he had attributed his selfishness to being an only child. But there the brother had sat, drinking beer. Victor told Bobby that he had run into Marielle Dekker, and that she had just run into Jonathan and Peter Spangle at Kenny’s Castaways. Bobby had said that he had just tried to look up Spangle, and had been told he was in Madrid: What was he doing at Kenny’s Castaways? Secretly he was delighted. He found Cynthia very attractive, and fair was fair — if Spangle was back, and not interested, he was interested. Bobby had made Victor call Marielle Dekker to ask if there had been a woman with Peter Spangle. No. Peter Spangle had been there alone. Well — fair was fair: If he was back from Madrid and not interested, the road to Cynthia was clear.

After his appointments in New York, and a couple of nights at Victor’s apartment (a big Buddha in the corner, wearing a rubber Nixon mask, very realistic), he started back to New Haven.

Cynthia was still freaked out by the shooting, and she wondered what was the correct thing to do. What kind of a note do you write to the father of a student who has been shot? Say that she was sorry — just that, perhaps. Thank him for lunch. Mention subtly that Mary would pass the course. Hope that she would recover from her injuries so she would be able to read the first chapters of a lot of novels. A gift, perhaps: pages torn out of the Great Books. Quote Elvis Costello? “ ‘Accidents will happen …’ ”

She was thinking about it, pen in hand, when the phone rang. It was Bobby, who had been gone for more than two weeks, calling as if he had just left, from a phone on the highway, asking her not to eat. He was on his way to New Haven, and if she’d wait for him, and they could go out to dinner. She agreed. There was a pause. Then he said, “Have I got news for you.”

“What is it?” she said.

“First of all,” he said, “I would like to talk to you at dinner about the possibility of your coming to live with me.”

“What’s the joke?”

“No joke. The joke’s on you, apparently. Victor saw Marielle, and Marielle just saw Spangle and Jonathan having a night on the town. New York town.”

“What?” she said. “Who’s Muriel?”

“She’s an actress. Works at a Xerox place on Third Avenue, around the corner from Victor’s apartment.”

“Who’s Victor?” she said.

She was stalling. Had he just asked her to come live with him? After spending one night on her floor? She tried to remember what color eyes Bobby had. Instead, she got a picture of Spangle. Could it really be true that Spangle was back, but he hadn’t come back to her? Not even a call, a letter?

“Victor runs the lights in a place that does sex shows. He flashes blue lights on people butt-fucking. He was studying to be a bartender, but now he’s on welfare. They don’t know about the part-time work at the sex show. He paid to have the two chapters of my book Xeroxed, and he’s hardly got money to eat. That’s Victor.”

“So Victor knows Muriel and Muriel knows Spangle?”

Stalling.

“Marielle,” he said. “Cynthia, I can’t get you out of my head. I had no intention of saying all of this on the phone.”

She couldn’t think of what to say.

“I bought a dozen bagels,” he said. “Assorted. We can just eat bagels if you want.”

“I think I’d rather have a meal.”

“I don’t have any money, though. Except for gas to get back to New Hampshire. I gave Victor what I had. He’s sold half of his record collection.”

“I have money,” she said.

“The disadvantage of teaching is that you don’t get paid in the summer,” he said.

“You do if you teach summer school.”

“I couldn’t,” he said. “It’s the only way I keep my sanity, getting out of there.”

“Doesn’t matter,” she said. “I have money.”

“I’ve upset you.”

“You’ve surprised me. I wonder if somebody made a mistake? Is that woman sure that it was Spangle with Jonathan?”

“There’s no mistake,” he said. “Oh — I’m so upset. I’m so upset because Victor doesn’t realize what he’s doing , selling off his records. I would have gotten money together for him, he wouldn’t have had to do it. He’ll never be able to find those records again. He told me that one night he was working the lights and he kept thinking there was something familiar about one of the men on the stage, and finally he stopped the strobes and flooded the stage with bright-yellow light, and he saw it was his father’s accountant. His father’s accountant was belly-down with a Chinaman in a motorcycle helmet, butt fucking him. Jesus. Victor has got to get out of there. I think I can find him a job tending bar in New Hampshire. I know a girl who knows the owner of a restaurant.”