Ann Beattie - Falling in Place

“You don’t do voodoo, do you?” Bobby said. “That was something a poet would say: voodoo/do you. No, wait: It’s a Frank Sinatra song. I almost pirated a Frank Sinatra song.” Bobby shook his head. “Can I see those binoculars?”

“No voodoo,” the magician said. “I don’t fool with anything messy.” He took his binoculars from around his neck and handed them to Bobby. Bobby trained them on a bird in a tree.

“I’ve got to get binoculars,” Bobby said. “Why didn’t I think of that? I’m going to buy the most powerful binoculars I can find.” Bobby handed them to her. “This is so amazing,” he said. “Look through these. Look at the way everything jumps at you.”

“Here’s my card,” the magician was saying, talking to Bobby as she stood still on the sidewalk, looking through the binoculars. “I know that we’ll meet again,” the magician said.

“Let me walk you home,” Bobby said to the magician. “Do you ever cast spells, make ladies fall in love with men?”

“Keep the binoculars,” the magician said to Cynthia. “Please.” He put his hand on top of hers, and then he and Bobby began to walk away. She watched until they turned the corner.

The next time she raised the binoculars, she saw Spangle, sitting on the front step of the building, eating an ice-cream cone. She stared, pressing the binoculars hard against her eyes. Finally he looked her way, stood up. He saw her. He was smiling. She could see that, as he ran, getting larger and larger, until he was right on her, a blur.

“Save me,” she said, half-jokingly, falling against him without ever lowering the binoculars.

“I was locked out,” he said. “Jonathan and I were broke one night in Madrid, and he made a wish by throwing the key into a fountain.”

“What did he wish for?” she said, head buried in his shoulder.

“I don’t know,” Spangle said. “The usual, I guess.”

Ann Beattie lives in Charlottesville, Virginia, with her husband, the painter Lincoln Perry.