Ann Beattie - Distortions

“Here,” the boy says. He has opened two bottles of beer.

Kathy’s hands are wet and soapy. Mary stands in back of Kathy.

He puts the bottles down. “I’m going to get you the iron,” he says.

Kathy and Mary go out of the bathroom. Mary has a towel around her.

“I’ll do it,” Kathy says.

Mary is left standing next to the boy. She stands there a minute, then goes back into the bathroom and gets the bottles of beer the boy left on the windowsill. She leans against the wall and drinks some beer.

“It came out pretty good,” Kathy says. “It’s awfully wet to iron.”

Kathy takes a sip of beer.

“I was gonna ask you to dance,” the boy says to Mary, “before you got all that crap on you.”

“We dance all the time.”

“I’ll give you two dollars if you’ll dance now.”

Mary considers. “What records have you got?”

“Without records.”

“All right,” she says. “Come on.”

“Without me.”

“Just dance by myself?”

He nods. Kathy laughs.

Mary shrugs. She turns toward the boy and starts dancing. Her wet hair swings in front of her face. The other boy has left the living room. He is stroking the cat in his arms, watching. Kathy has stopped ironing and is watching too.

“Are you going to give me two dollars to dance?” Kathy asks the other boy.

He shakes his head. His friend grabs the front of Mary’s towel and pulls.

*

Edna pulls the cord. The engine starts. She rides her Arctic Cat over the grave in the snow. Edna goes to the store early, before the customers arrive. She turns on the television and the radio. There is no picture on the television, only bright streaks rolling down the picture tube. She turns up the volume on the radio. It has been so quiet at home since she died. Marshall and George and Anna speak in whispers. It is so quiet you can hear the snow in the wind. She sits in the chair and shakes the radio, then throws it hard against the door of the shop. The television pushes over easily. It is snowing hard — there will be a lot of people on the weekend, but unless the snow lets up, few people will come into the shop today. The broken glass is only in back of the counter. No danger to the customers.

*

“It’s not going away.”

Beverly is talking to George in a bar in New York.

“You’re very pale,” George says. “Do you feel any better?”

Didn’t he hear her? Maybe she didn’t say anything. It hurts to talk. She feels drowsy, but at the same time she is in pain. Her hands are on her ribs. No — his hands are on her ribs.

“Let me get a cab outside. Did this just happen suddenly?”

He nods. She must be answering him. Suddenly there is no more pain. She is talking to more than one man, several men, or a nurse and a man, in a hospital. Then there is pain again. She is on a bed. The man is not with her any more. The doctor sees her looking around.

“Your husband is in the waiting room. He has your things.”

“He comes to New York. He’s my lover. Someone else’s husband.”

New York was a crazy idea. Seeing George in New York was a crazy idea. The pain has come back; it makes her feel like she’s going crazy. The doctor is still talking. She is having trouble hearing. They have given her an injection. His hand is out to pay the cab driver. His hand is out putting a needle in her arm. The nurse’s hand is on top of her hand. They are holding hands in a bar. Someone’s hands are on her ribs. Someone’s hands remove her appendix.

*

He takes them out carefully, throwing the crumbs low so the wind doesn’t take them away after he crumbles the bread in his hand. Edna watches. He is so methodical, so thorough. She imagines that just for him there will be one bird that otherwise might have starved that will find these breadcrumbs. But the sky is empty, except for snow.

“There aren’t any birds, Marshall.”

“There are animals.”

“I’m surprised you don’t scatter vitamin pills in the snow.”

Edna’s helmet sparkles. Marshall has scattered all the crumbs. He looks satisfied. Usually she tries to disturb him when he looks satisfied. She laughed at his vitamin pills when he first took them. She decides that, yes, there will be one bird — just as God punished her with a cold because she ridiculed Marshall’s vitamin pills. Marshall does not seem to notice when she tries to disturb him. The only way she can disturb him is by being a martyr about his mother, and even then Marshall can offer no response: Edna is with the old lady all day; Edna drives her to doctors; Edna sits up with her at night when Marshall is asleep. They both know that she is dying. Edna sits on her snowmobile and watches. He has carefully put the empty bread bag in his pocket.

“Want to go back?” Marshall asks.

There is snow all over Marshall’s coat and hair.

“You told her we’d be right back,” Edna says.

She is cold and doesn’t want to ride any more. But Marshall understands something else. There is nothing he can say.

*

Mary picks up the phone, but the boy doesn’t say anything. He can see her at Sam’s — he doesn’t have to ask her to the dance.

*

“I don’t know what to say, Marshall. You don’t think it was deliberate, do you? I thought he came back in when I was holding the door open. I thought I saw him.”

*

Why say anything to the cardiologist? He is a young man, his office is filled with books. Would he believe that her heart stops and starts again? That she knows when her heart is going to stop?

It’s awkward; they run into each other in town. There is a boutique, painted white and yellow, where the card shop used to be: a post office, a drugstore, beauty salon, movie house, sporting-goods store. They both hate the town — no need to say anything about that. When they walk through town they think of New York. Neither of them understands what happened in New York. When she got well she came home. They can’t think of anything to say.

*

The snow continues to fall, three nights after the funeral. Mary and Kathy are sitting in Sam’s. The boys are sitting with them. Kathy is already at the jukebox, putting money in, and Beverly has come to the table to offer condolences. A cold night. There aren’t many people in Sam’s. Beverly sits down a minute, rearranging her hair. She complains that her car acted funny earlier and decides to call her sister to pick her up after work.

“I’m staying until closing if Miriam’s coming,” the boy says.

Kathy is dancing with his friend.

“Christ, look,” Beverly says. “I couldn’t move my feet that much. They’re so painful now that I’d like to cut them off.”

“That’s what I did,” a boy tells Beverly, looking at her through the gap in his hand where his middle finger is missing.

“You get crazy when you’re drunk,” Beverly says. “I remember the night you almost hauled off and hit Mary.”

Beverly leaves the table. She makes a phone call, then waits on two women at a table on the other side of the bar. Mary is listening to the boys at the table in back of her, singing along with the jukebox. She can’t tell what they’re singing because the jukebox is turned up full blast. Mary takes a bite of the hamburger. One of the boys ordered it for her. They order food for her without telling her, then Mary has to argue with them about who pays for it. Tonight she doesn’t care, though. Her father gave her some money and told her to go have a good time. It’s depressing at Edna and Marshall’s house night after night. It’s worse than school. Edna is very upset, but she doesn’t talk about the death. She says things that make no sense — that she’s going to sell her snowmobile and never ride again. Her mother and father go to her aunt and uncle’s every night; Edna sits in the rocking chair by the window and rocks back and forth, holding her knees, asking what they’re going to do. One of the boys is smiling at Mary. He’s the one who ordered the hamburger.