Ann Beattie - Distortions

Bernie just called to check on things. Xerox has developed an improved reproduction-machine paper. He is going to a convention to describe the new product to clients. He tells me his mind will be at rest if I persuade her to see a doctor before he leaves town.

The messenger has come and gone. Romeo and Juliet was not accounted for when she returned the books we had finished to the library today. She told me the book had to be in this house, because it was not in her house. She described putting the pile on her bureau and removing the pile this morning to return on her way to school. She carried them in a book bag, so she could not have dropped the book. I tried to treat the subject lightly and asked, “Wherefore art thou, book?” as she sprawled to look under the bed. Wanted to ask about the kitten, but she seemed very agitated. Decided to wait until Saturday. She made a thorough search of all but one room, and did not have time to do that because it was her lunch hour, and she had to return to school.

I raised what I thought might be a touchy subject: a charcoal filter for the spigot. She agreed.

Abandoned Confessions of Z for The Red and the Black . Listened to Brahms. Dinner of crab-stuffed flounder, lima beans and corn. She went to bed an hour earlier than usual, not feeling well again.

Tuesday

Arose early, prepared pancake batter for breakfast. Wrote two notes: one to the mail-order house for a charcoal filter, the other to Dr. Yeusa. The messenger arrived just as I finished writing. She was distraught and said she must find Romeo and Juliet . The search ended in vain at eight-thirty when she had to leave for school.

Must call Mrs. Edway’s attention to “High Hopes”—two withering leaves.

She slept through the phone call from Bernie, allowing me to tell him that I had contacted the doctor, asking him to stop by unannounced. He thanked me, promised a supply of the new Xerox paper.

When she awakens we will have breakfast and take the Tuesday stroll.

Radio bulletin about a missing two-engine plane.

Walked by the frozen pond, where children were ice-skating. One child recognized us, a girl about eleven, and asked if she could stop by with a selection of Girl Scout cookies. A nice little girl — remembered her from last year. Mrs. Edway knew her name, I think, but wouldn’t say it in front of me. She points up my deficiencies, such as forgetting names, by not helping out. She knows the messenger’s name, too, but won’t use it. Am waiting to ask the favor about the kitten because things are still strained between us. Looked for Romeo and Juliet myself. No luck. Told the messenger it had to be either here or there. She is convinced it is here and has arranged to stop by with a friend after school. I think her job may be in jeopardy and will suggest to Mrs. Edway that she offer to repay the library for the loss and to assume responsibility.

Mrs. Edway’s cousin from San Francisco mailed her a belated birthday gift: an embroidered picture of the Eiffel Tower. La Tour Eiffel in black cross-stitch at the bottom. Took a secret vote to see if it should be hung: “Yes.” We decided on the dining room without having to vote. Mrs. Edway wrote a note to the librarian offering to replace the book before I suggested it. She leaves the envelopes for me to lick and seal because she doesn’t like the taste. Peeked before I mailed it, but the note didn’t mention the messenger’s name.

Fell asleep in the afternoon after the episode in which Julien wishes he had died in M. de Renal’s garden. Dinner was late, and I didn’t concentrate as much as usual on the preparation because I was trying to piece together the nightmare I’d had about a plane circling a garden. Someone had asked questions of me, and the correct answer would allow the plane to land. If Mrs. Edway slept when I did, she didn’t say. I awoke to see her examining a magazine close to her face. She always looks over the top of her magazine to let me know she is aware I’m dozing. When she dozes, I ignore it.

She makes a shopping list for Wednesday. I have my own little private joke about the list: she can’t see well and lists toothpaste every week, although she has over a hundred tubes in reserve, and I keep buying them, stacking them up so if her vision improves and she sees them we will have something to argue about. We can well afford the toothpaste — no harm done. We spend some time, while the food cooks, making lists of vegetables and meats we will both eat, then buy seven dinners of items we have both agreed upon. She has added a few things to the list when she gives it to me: a hairnet, vitamins, toothpaste (I laugh to myself).

Chicken casserole and tossed salad for dinner. She asks me if it is iceberg lettuce. I chopped it small on purpose, knowing she’d ask. I answer that it is romaine. No argument.

Search parties have gone out for the plane.

Mrs. Edway answers the phone. It is the messenger, who says she was kept after school and hopes we weren’t inconvenienced waiting for her. Sensing that things have turned around a bit, I ask her for the phone and tell the messenger that we are replacing the book. I inquire about the kitten. She thinks she knows where she can get one and promises to call back.

Wednesday

Pushing the grocery cart back from the store, I see a car parked in front of the house. Dr. Yeusa received my note in the morning mail. He is a thin man with curly, bushy hair and small silver-rimmed glasses. Mrs. Edway and the doctor look at each other over the tops of their glasses. She refuses to stand when asked, and asks him to join her on the couch. I will fix them tea. She is angry with me for what I have done, so surely I will at least fix tea. She allows the doctor to question her. It is a pain in the stomach that usually comes only at night. He takes her blood pressure; she turns her head to avoid looking. She sees the bad leaves on the violet, the ones I forgot to mention, and gets up, the device still wrapped around her arm. On her way back from the violets, the doctor blocks her way and examines her abdomen. He takes a blood sample and puts it out of sight in his bag at tea-drinking time. Before he leaves he phones in a prescription for sedatives.

She will not speak to me.

There is a knock at the door. Mrs. Edway says, “I like the mint and the assorted.” But it isn’t the Girl Scout. It’s another girl, and she’s brought a basket of kittens — all six weeks old, she says. She takes the blanket off. Mrs. Edway and I study the contents. We each write on a slip of paper which one we like. Her slip reads: gray and white, all gray, the largest kitten. Mine: gray, multicolored, orange-ish one. We confer; yes, by “the largest kitten” she meant the multicolored one. So it is narrowed down to that one or the gray one. I tell her that either is all right with me. She chooses the multicolored kitten. The girl stares, even after we have chosen. No, she says, they’re free, and leaves the house.

I offer the kitten a can of liver, but it seems uninterested and walks off to explore the kitchen.

Dinner: liver and onions, succotash, pound cake. Lately we have been arguing about the necessity of both a green and a yellow vegetable daily, now that vitamin pills are so fashionable. I fix dinner, so she gets both, but the idea of having to eat them for good health gives us something to talk about To annoy me, she used to finish her vegetables and take a vitamin pill. Now, since I shop, I ignore vitamin pills when they are on the list.

On one of my pieces of paper she has begun a thank-you note. I see “Merci, Celeste,” but she shades the note with her hand when she sees me looking.

Two cowboys die, shot by another cowboy on horseback. The rest of the movie shows the cowboy’s dog walking home without his master, and the wife of one of the dead cowboys standing on the front porch staring curiously at the dog, who slinks under the porch. The wife goes down the stairs to look at the dog. Program interrupted by delivery boy from drugstore. Embarrassed to say I nearly tipped him a nickel instead of a quarter. Usually keep that nickel separate from my other change because it’s an Indian head. Mrs. Edway sits stirring the batter for carrot bread. The movie depresses her and she speaks bitterly against Bernie for not calling, wonders what will happen to the inn across the street when it’s sold. She asks how many years we’ve lived in the house, and I tell her fifty. She gets confused when she’s tired. She tosses the kitten a ball of yarn that is nearly as big as the animal itself. The kitten circles it. She asks what we decided to name the kitten. No use lying, telling her the name I like; if it doesn’t ring a bell, she won’t believe me. “Rainbow,” I tell her all the same. She nods. I suspect she’s not tired, but in pain.