Ann Beattie - Chilly Scenes of Winter

“Pete at dinner?” Charles says.

“Yes, he is. I want you to meet a very fine friend, Mrs. DeLillo.”

“The lord have mercy on your soul,” she says. “Do you smoke?”

“A cigarette. Yes,” Charles says, extending the pack. She folds the pack into her hand, puts it down the front of her nightgown.

“Matches?” she says.

“Can you have matches?” he asks.

“What good are cigarettes without matches?” she asks. He gives her a book of matches.

“Charles, I’m so glad not to be dead. My first baby.”

“We’re having quite a snow,” Susan says.

“Imagine the snow in Madison, Wisconsin,” their mother says. “My girl goes to school far away,” she says to Mrs. DeLillo.

“I don’t have to imagine snow,” Mrs. DeLillo says. “I can see it right out this window.”

“My friend Mark is coming down tonight. He’s going to drive me back.”

“Who’s that?” Clara says.

“I told you, Mom. Mark. The pre-med student.”

“When did you tell me?”

“In a letter.”

“I save all your letters. My second baby.” She looks past Mrs. DeLillo, out the window. The lights in the parking lot are visible through the window. They light up the slowly falling snow.

“How long ago did Pete leave?” Charles asks.

Clara opens a night-table drawer. There is a piece of paper inside. She hands it to Charles. “Gone to dinner, 7:15, return approximately 7:45,” it says. He should like Pete. He nods and hands it back.

“Charles, they don’t believe me, except for the young doctor who knows I’m telling the truth, about the woman in the bed next to me dying.”

“I’m not dead, I’m here,” Mrs. DeLillo says. She lights a cigarette.

“She was discharged, I heard,” Susan says.

“With a blanket over her head, honey?”

“I don’t know.… I wasn’t there,” Susan says.

Their mother takes the yellow ribbon out of her hair. “When they put this on me, I said, ‘Oh, the yellow ribbon of the old oak tree.’ Everything you say to them here they think you’re crazy.”

“It’s a song,” Charles says stupidly. He looks at his watch. It is 7:40.

“Here’s my family,” Pete says, coming up in back of Charles and Susan.

“I’m Mrs. DeLillo,” Mrs. DeLillo says.

“I should have called to save you the trip. Mommy’s coming home tomorrow. The doctor says it was a mistake to have Mommy brought here, but since Mommy’s so weak, she might as well rest up one place as another.”

“And I’ve met my fine friend Mrs. DeLillo,” she says.

“Thank you,” Mrs. DeLillo says. Mrs. DeLillo has a green ribbon in her hair. Her hair is too short to hide the ribbon. You can see it going around both sides of her head.

“My Pete,” Clara says. Pete is sweating. He looks like he’s been drinking.

“Mighty cold and snowy out,” Pete says. “I saw it start, sitting down in the cafeteria.”

“Do you have snow tires?” Susan asks. She is better at making conversation with Pete than he is.

“ Studded snow tires,” Pete says.

“All my family take care of themselves,” Clara says.

“Today was my first day back at work,” Charles says.

Pete slaps him on the back. “Thatta boy,” he says.

“You don’t drive in the rush hour, do you?” Clara says.

“I have to drive in the rush hour. I have to be there at nine o’clock.”

“Oh, Mommy knows the way things are,” Pete says, slapping Charles again. “Nobody’s going to put one over on Mommy.”

“She’s a sensible woman,” Mrs. DeLillo says.

“Charles, when I came here the nurse reported something I said to the doctor, the young doctor …”

“What a fine fellow,” Pete interrupts.

“And he came to me and he said, ‘You know that song about the yellow ribbon on the old oak tree, don’t you?’ Charles, I was very sick in the hospital, but now that I’m not so weak I see that I’m not so sick. I told the young doctor that I was much improved, and if it hadn’t been for the pain, you have my word of honor, Charles, I would not have medicated myself with the laxatives.”

“They give you laxatives here,” Mrs. DeLillo says.

“Talk to the doctor,” Clara says.

“The doctor?” Susan says.

“He will tell you — the young one — that my word is good, and it was an accident that I made the mistake of taking the laxatives in the bathroom.”

“Well,” Pete says. “Let’s not dwell on past mistakes.”

“Did you get to see the football game Sunday?” Susan asks Pete.

“No,” he says. “I didn’t.”

Susan seems to have run out of things to talk to Pete about.

“But I wish I had,” Pete says.

Charles looks at Pete’s shoes. They are shiny brown cordovans.

“What did the doctor say about a few twirls?” Pete says.

“Take them,” Clara answers.

“Ya-hoo!” Pete says. He says it very quietly; it sounds absurd not being shouted.

“What has happened to Wilbur Mills?” she asks.

“He showed up in Boston where Fanne Foxe was stripping and got on stage drunk,” Pete says, brightening.

“I knew that. I mean, how is he now?”

“A wife cheater,” Mrs. DiLillo says. “You know the saying: ‘Wife cheater, child beater.’ ”

“He’s still there, as far as I know,” Susan says. “In Walter Reed.”

“I read that that place was a firetrap,” Charles says.

“You be very careful when you drive to work tomorrow, Charles.”

“I will,” he says.

“Bring my fitch coat when you come tomorrow,” Clara says to Pete.

“Yes, sir,” he says. “Mommy’s going home in style.”

“In the meantime, in between time, ain’t we got fun?” Clara says.

“What’s that?” he says.

“Another song!” she says, delightedly.

“I remember that one,” Mrs. DeLillo says. “Not so long ago, huh?”

“Do you remember that one?” their mother says to Charles.

“Sure,” Charles says.

“No,” Susan says.

“Mommy knows her music,” Pete says. He looks at his watch. “Mommy,” he says, “if we don’t leave on time they come around, you know. Shall we say goodnight?”

“My Pete,” she says. “And my Charles and Susan.”

“Good-bye, Mom,” Susan says, kissing her. “I’ll be home in a while. I have to leave tomorrow.”

“Be careful in rush-hour traffic,” she says, pressing Susan’s hand.

“I’ll see you soon,” Charles says.

“I know you will,” she says, pressing his hand. “And my Pete.”

“Tomorrow,” Pete says. “Good night, honey.”

“My family,” she says.

In the corridor, Pete says, “What do you think?”

“Is she weak, is that why she’s acting so strange?”

“What do you think?” Pete says. “She took herself a dozen laxative tablets. She’s still not on solid food. Only soup and milk.”

They walk past the guard’s desk. “All clean,” Pete says, flashing the inside of his overcoat. The guard does not smile. Charles glances at the book on the guard’s desk: Seventeenth Century Poetry . Probably the only job the guard could get.

“I guess my asking you for a drink is getting to be a joke,” Pete says. “I guess you wouldn’t have a drink with me after I called and said that you were a son of a bitch.”

“Sure I would,” Charles says. “Maybe I should get Susan home, in case Mark is there, and meet you somewhere.”

“Couldn’t you come for a short drink?” Pete says to Susan.

“Sure I could.”

“You mean you’re both coming?”

“Sure,” Charles says. Pete looks surprised. He smiles — the same smile he gave when he came to the hospital to visit Charles and saw his plastic pillow in use.