Ann Beattie - Chilly Scenes of Winter

“I forget everything,” Pete says, pouring beer into his glass. “I know that on the way in you kids were telling me to do something.”

“Buy the car,” Charles says.

“That’s right. Buy a Honda Civic.”

Connie Francis is singing “Where the Boys Are.” He saw that movie. Yvette Mimieux got raped. He would like to rape Laura. That’s not even true. He would just like to have a cheeseburger at McDonald’s with Laura. For almost half an hour he had not thought of Laura. He tries to switch his thoughts to … what was her name … Betty, to have an erotic vision of Betty. He sees a slightly plump woman in a dress and heavy black boots. He tries to imagine her without the black boots. It is impossible. The black boots will not come off her.

“I’m here, Connie,” the man who was hollering to Maria Muldaur calls to the ceiling speakers. “Boogie, boogie,” he calls.

The waiter comes to the table. “Another pizza,” Pete says. “More to drink?”

“I’ll have another one,” Charles says.

“A Coke for me,” Susan says.

“I’m set,” Pete says. When the waiter walks away, Pete says, “She wouldn’t come here with us even if she was out of the hospital.”

“She won’t go to bars?” Charles asks.

Pete shakes his head. “Anywhere. I tried to get her to take a boat ride this summer. They had a jazz band that played on the boat. You know, just a two-hour boat ride. Drinks and stuff. She locked herself in the bathroom. Said the boat would sink.”

“Did you tell the doctor about that?” Charles asks.

“I forgot about it. I’ve told so many stories to so many doctors. I’m always rambling about heating pads all over the house and how my bed pillow’s been missing for six months, and about the look she gets that I can’t describe. I’m always looking into doctors’ faces, trying to do imitations. The last doctor wanted her to go for group therapy. She wouldn’t go. Probably thought the chair would collapse.”

Susan laughs. Charles smiles. God, I’m glad I don’t live with her, Charles thinks.

“We ought to work on that,” Charles says. “Group therapy.”

“She wouldn’t go,” Pete says.

The second pizza is put on the table. Pete cuts a piece off with a little plastic fork. The tines are bent under. The pizza is very hot.

“I did an awful thing. When the pillow had been gone for a week, I cornered her. I cornered her in the kitchen. ‘You tell me where that pillow is,’ I said. She started to shake, looking right into my eyes, shoulders going back and forth. I was ashamed of myself.”

“Ever find the pillow?” Susan asks.

“No,” Pete says, draining his glass.

Mick Jagger begins “Wild Horses”: Tiiiiiiired of living …”

It occurs to Charles that songs are always appropriate. No matter what record is played, it is always applicable. Once, on a date in high school, when he was going to tell his date he loved her, Elvis Presley came on the radio singing “Loving You.” It always happens: politicians are always crooks, records are always applicable to the situation. Charles shrugs off his sweater. Martha and the Vandellas start to sing “Heat Wave.” Charles laughs.

“I know,” Pete says. “It is funny. A grown man with a messed-up wife, and what does he do but sit around his office stewing all day, then come home and corner her about a pillow.”

Susan laughs again. She pours some of Pete’s beer into her glass.

Mick Taylor has left The Rolling Stones. Mick Taylor replaced Brian Jones. Brian Jones is dead. Women all over the world claim to have babies that are his. All the babies look like Brian Jones. Mick Jagger got dumped by Marianne Faithfull (“It is the evening of the day.…”), who took drugs with him, and married Bianca, who walks around with a feather hat and cane. She has expensive jewelry. They have a child. A daughter? Should John Lennon stay in the U.S.A.? John Lennon went to the Troubadour with a Kotex on his head. In reply to the announcer’s query, a girl called to say, “I think John should stay here because he’s such a groovy musician.” “And what do you think about people being denied citizenship because of drug offenses?” The girl hung up.

Pete is having a very good time. He is smiling and wolfing pizza and looking all around.

“I hope they don’t change their minds tomorrow,” Pete says. “They always do that at that place.”

“She was only there once before,” Susan says.

“One night I took her there. She was home the next night, though,” Pete says. “Then some doctor called. ‘Who discharged your wife?’ he said. He hung up on me.”

Bob Dylan: “Time will tell just who has fell and who’s been left behind.…”

Pete reaches in his pocket for his wallet. “Look at this,” he says, handing his BankAmericard to Susan. She turns it over, looks at the front of it again, hands it back. Pete takes a twenty out of his wallet and puts it on top of the tray with the bill. The waiter picks it up.

“Back into the cold,” Pete says. As they leave, Charles looks back and sees the man who screamed to Maria Muldaur with his hands over his head. His head is resting on the table. Lou Reed is singing: “Good night ladies, ladies good night.…”

The snow is falling fast now — big wet flakes that probably won’t last.

“Thanks for having a drink with me,” Pete says. There is a mustache of sauce above his top lip.

“Thanks for taking us,” Charles says.

“Yes,” Susan says.

“I wish I had kids,” Pete says. “You kids are nice. But if I had my own kid it would probably be nuts about me, don’t you think?”

“Well,” Charles says. “Kids are so alienated from their parents now …”

“It’s too late anyway,” Pete says.

They break into a trot, Pete taking Susan’s hand to guide her around slick patches. They are all out of breath and shivering when they reach the hospital parking lot. The three lights have been turned off.

“Well, I’ll be seeing you,” Pete says. “Thanks for having a drink with me.”

“Good-bye,” Charles says.

“Thanks again,” Susan says.

“Hell, if you didn’t have a drink with me, I don’t know what kids would,” Pete says. “I got none of my own.”

Charles and Susan get in the car and drive away. He should have said something nice to Pete. He finds it impossible to bring himself to say something really nice. What is there really nice to say that wouldn’t just sound foolish? Even the fruit that Pete brought to the house after their father died was always wrong. The time he brought the oranges they had just been sent a crate of oranges from neighbors visiting Florida. Their mother made them take all the oranges out of the refrigerator — there were a lot of oranges — and put them in the crate and hide the crate so Pete’s feelings wouldn’t be hurt. Charles had to sleep with the crate of oranges under his bed. He felt like there was a bomb there. He couldn’t sleep. He tried to tell his mother that the Florida oranges were better; they should just mix Pete’s in with them. The crate stayed under the bed. Every morning they had fresh-squeezed orange juice, and at school, in their lunch box, there was always one and maybe two oranges. Susan got diarrhea. Charles didn’t; he always gave both of his oranges away. He gave them to a Japanese boy. None of the other kids wanted the oranges. They all had cookies. When he pressed them on the Japanese boy he took them without saying anything and put them in his desk. The second day he gave them to the Japanese boy Charles noticed that when the boy opened his desk the two oranges were still there. When there were six oranges the Japanese boy took them all home in a bag. The Japanese boy had no friends. He wouldn’t talk to anybody, even when they talked to him. He’d say hello to Charles, though. He called him “Mister Oranges.” Charles could never get beyond that with him. He asked him to come over to his house and play, and the boy just shook hands. When the oranges stopped coming, no questions were asked. The Japanese boy didn’t come back for the sixth grade. Somebody in the class found out that he had gone to Japan.