Ann Beattie - Distortions

That left Gloria, who was the only other person he knew in Connecticut. And what were the chances that the amazing animal woman, that woman of perseverance and strength, was going to pick up and go to the Grand Canyon with him? They were slim. Especially since she avoided talking to him. At least they were slim until he found out about her weakness. Her weakness was cats, and she loved to talk about how independent and smart and cute they were. She owned five cats. Hale found out about it from Paula, who found it out from Mary, who got the word from Paula’s ex-husband. Why any of them bothered to talk about it was something else. He went to the Humane Society and got another one for her, a cat that came with a blue collar that matched its blue eyes. “La la la,” Gloria sang, and the cat responded by turning his head to listen instead of jumping out of her arms. She gave it a dollar bill to play with, money wrinkled and twisted from being carried a long time in that deep apron pocket. The cat pounced on it, stuck his nose under it. Gloria had a new cat. His friendship with Gloria was beginning. From the living-room window a red-and-violet sunset flashed upon the sky.

*

Hale daydreams of Gloria, her paw-feet, her cat-eyes, only big, b-i-i-i-i-i-g. She is so competent; she will share the driving; her hand will be steady around the camera. Later, they would have lots of little kittens. It would be their house she took care of. No more exploitation of Gloria; let Paula and Mary keep house for themselves. On her birthday a little Siamese kitten; for Christmas an Angora. The pitter-patter of little paws. Cats, too: regal, willful, splendid cats. To broach the subject …

*

She might be willing to go to the Grand Canyon, but she would never marry him. She harbors a secret love? She says not. She says all her sisters are married and unhappy. One sister goes to a clinic for unhappiness. One brother-in-law, not married to that sister, also goes to unhappiness meeting.

“Group therapy, Gloria?”

“Yes. That’s what I’m saying.”

“The Grand Canyon is in the opposite direction from Niagara Falls.”

She is not convinced.

“Paula and Mary and their dirty, dirty house. They exploit you.”

“What’s that?”

“They don’t keep their own house clean.”

“That’s right. I have to clean for them.”

“They exploit you. There’s no reason they can’t do it themselves. Paula and Mary are strong, aren’t they?”

“Paula is divorced. Not strong.”

“Paula is not too weak to take care of herself. We’re talking about dust, Gloria. Getting rid of dust. Isn’t it easy to clean up dust?”

Gloria dusts and listens.

“My sisters all got married and they are all unhappy.”

“Not getting married. Just taking a trip.”

“Immoral.”

“A trip is immoral?”

“Sex.”

“You don’t have to sleep with me on the trip.”

“I would sleep with you if you loved me. I don’t think you’re in love with me.”

“I am, Gloria. I am.”

“I’ll think about it.”

She pouts with her big lips.

“At least sleep with me here, Gloria.”

She says she is willing to do that. Hale and Gloria go upstairs and lie down on the bed she has made earlier in the day. He gets on top of her big body. Over her head there is a window. The sky has begun to pale, a romantic pink. Gloria’s body is pink. The sky gets pinker and pinker. How beautiful the sunsets must be over the Grand Canyon. Hale is looking at George Washington. A dollar fell out of some of Gloria’s clothing. Gloria brushes her hair out of her eyes and says she wants to take Hale home with her. Why? “To think about going to the Grand Canyon with you.” “I want to come home with you, Gloria, but how will my being there help you think?” “I will see you and think of you.” “You’re going to go to the Grand Canyon with me, aren’t you?” Hale clutches Gloria’s thigh. “Come home and let me think about it.”

Paula and Mary do not speak to Gloria and Hale when they come downstairs. Hale senses that he is no longer welcome in the house — good he has somewhere to go. He wonders if there will be sunsets out Gloria’s window. Gloria sings a happy tune, swinging her arms at her side, stubbornly refusing to hold hands: “La la la dum dum la la la.”

*

There are cats all over Gloria’s house. She loves them all, calls them to her, spoon-feeds her kitten. The cats walk across the table, superior, aggressive. He knows a few of the names: Mister Tom, Lucky, Antonio, Prince. Some are the offspring of others. She explains the lineages and he forgets as fast as she speaks. Her newest, the cat he gave her, has been named Blue Boy. It is the Superman of cats, that jumps suddenly into action, leaping from chair to table to floor. Hale watches the cats and they watch him. At night one of them mews; Prince, they think. He has never really felt a fondness for cats, and he does not like them better now that he lives with them. He thinks about getting rid of one of them; Prince, he thinks.

He asks Gloria when they can leave. She wants to know if there is a best time to go West. He tells her now, now is the best time, and she says she is thinking hard. She sits and looks puzzled. Her sisters call all the time, whining with unhappiness. Gloria strokes a passing cat, shakes her head, picks cat hair out of her slacks when things get tense.

“What do your sisters have to do with your taking a trip? I’ve already said it doesn’t mean marriage. Can’t we take a trip?”

One of her sisters took a trip, then married the man. Gloria sulks. A cat rubs against Hale’s legs. He has to feed the cats. From a dark corner, small green eyes stare.

*

“You don’t really love me. Why do you want to take this trip?”

“I love you. I really love you. I can’t go on a trip and leave you.”

“What would I do with my cats?”

“We can take them. We’ll just put them in the car.”

“Some of them won’t ride.”

“What do you mean they won’t ride?”

“They’re scared. They meow and walk all around the car.”

“We’ll put them in a box.”

“Cruel.”

“Gloria, it’s cats. Just cats.”

“I want to tell you something, then. I wasn’t going to tell. Once I was a cat. You have to know that I am reincarnated.”

That’s the biggest word he’s ever heard her use. He questions her to find out if she knows what she just said.

“I went to a fortune teller, and she said what I thought was right. Once I was a cat, and I think I lived somewhere very, very cold. I don’t remember too much.”

“You really think you were a cat?”

“I know I was a cat”

“Well, what does that have to do with our going across country?”

“I can’t put a cat in a box. What if somebody put me in a box? How would I like it?”

“We’ll leave it out of the box.”

“Two would have to be in boxes.”

“You conducted experiments with these cats or something?”

“I’ve tried to ride with them. Two won’t ride.”

“When they get to the Grand Canyon they’ll love it. How many cats get taken to see the wonders of the world?”

“Why don’t we go see my sister and then she wouldn’t be so unhappy? It would only take eight hours of driving to see my sister.”

“Your sister isn’t one of the wonders of the world.”

The plans for driving to the Grand Canyon are going badly.

*

He gives her a new kitten, hoping that now she will love him enough to take the trip. Instead, she loves the cat. She tries out names, strokes it, shields it from the other cats’ curiosity.

She tells Hale that once she was a cat who sat on a velvet cushion in some cold room, maybe in Russia the fortune teller said, and was tended by some beautiful woman, maybe a princess, who wished she would become human. And now that she has, she imagines that the beautiful woman is dead, or that this all happened in some far country that she will never find again. The story puts her to sleep as she tells it, night after night, her own personal fairy tale. He shudders to think that before he came to live with her she probably told the story to the cats. He knows it. But there is something about Gloria that reminds him of an animal. When he thought of her as a skunk maybe he was close to seeing her as a cat. He doesn’t believe or disbelieve the idea of reincarnation. He just wants to go to the Grand Canyon.