Ann Beattie - Chilly Scenes of Winter

“They were all different. All the girls were different. You’re talking nonsense.”

“Okay, even if they were. Laura is just what Jill Peterson would look like grown up.”

“You sound like my sister. This is incredible.”

“She might be right You really might not understand yourself.”

“Leave me alone.”

“I’m trying to help you.”

But they are already on Laura’s block.

“There are a million girls with blond hair. Skinny blond girls. Is that all you see by way of similarity?” Charles says.

Sam is slumped in the seat, disgusted. He won’t speak. Charles sighs.

“If it were true, why wouldn’t I think about Jill Peterson?”

At five miles an hour, the car rolls by Laura’s driveway. The light is on in the kitchen again, but the kitchen window is too far from the road to see through. She could be standing right in the window and he wouldn’t know it. If only the house were closer to the road. If only she didn’t live in that house at all. She could live in his house. Did he ever make that clear enough to her? Yes. A hundred times. She even agreed that his house was more spacious. She is in there, somewhere in that house, in one of those lighted rooms. He turns in a driveway and rolls by again, this time even slower. The trees are blowing in the wind. He is nothing like Jay Gatsby. Gatsby waited all his life, and then Daisy slipped away. Charles has only been waiting for two years, and he’ll get her back. He has to get her back. He will get her back and take her to Bermuda. “Bermuda?” she will say. She always thought the things he said were strange. Maybe he was a weird conversationalist. And he can’t blame her for thinking him peculiar when he said the calendar had to go. In general, though, she didn’t think him peculiar. She loved him, in general. If she still loves him, he will get her back. She has to still love him. She just has to. She laughed wildly when he showed her the butter box trick.

“Jesus Christ.” Sam swears under his breath as they turn back onto the main road.

“I’ve got to get her back. Wasn’t she great, Sam?”

“Here we go. I knew. I just knew it.” Sam sighs dramatically. “Yeah, she was a swell woman.”

“I’m going to get her back.”

“I hope so.” Sam says. He shakes his head.

“If she didn’t like me, why would she have driven to school that day she said she’d meet me?”

Driving home, Charles realizes that it’s too late to suggest going to a movie. Just as well, because he spent all his money at dinner.

“I sure am waiting for that Dylan album,” Sam says. “I really want to know what Bob Dylan’s got to say in 1975.”

Charles thinks of the cookies at home and drives faster. Devil’s food cookies. In fifteen minutes they are there. Charles heads for the cookie bag as he goes through the door. He is suddenly starving.

“Have some,” he says to Sam, then sees the note next to the bag: “My brother is driving me to California. It’s a long story. I had intended to stay with you, but I realized talking to my brother that I really had to head west. I can never thank you enough for coming out that night to get me. I’m leaving some books here that you and Sam might like, and when I get to California, I’ll call with a longer explanation. My brother is waiting. Long explanation later. Love, Pamela.”

“Oh no,” Sam says, reading over his shoulder.

Charles shoves another cookie in his mouth. “I’m actually disappointed,” Charles says through the cookie.

“Why?” Sam says.

“After all we went through to get her, it seems like she should have stuck around for a while.”

“I know what you mean,” Sam says.

“She left her sweater,” Charles says, looking at the kitchen chair. “She left in a hurry.”

“You think that’s true? About her brother?”

“Maybe he figured he’d transport her himself, be sure to get rid of her.”

“Yeah. That could be it.”

“Wow. It really seems strange that she’s gone,” Charles says. Sam takes another cookie. “Well, back to cooking for ourselves,” he says. “Yeah.”

“We still might hear from her before she hits the West Coast, knock on wood,” Sam says, rapping his knuckles on the kitchen cabinet “Women,” Charles says.

“She’s a very odd one,” Sam says. “Do you remember when women didn’t use to be odd? I’d pick up some girl in the park and she’d be a nice, normal chick.”

“I’ve got to get Laura back” Charles says, putting another cookie in his mouth.

The phone rings.

“Don’t tell me,” Sam says. “Should I answer it?”

“Go ahead.”

“Hello?” Sam says. “Yes. Just a minute.” He covers the mouthpiece. “Pete,” he says. “Hello?” Charles says. “How’s my boy? Did I disturb you?”

“No. We just got in.”

“Get into those pants, ha ha ha?”

“She’s gone back to California.”

“That’s the breaks,” Pete says. Silence.

“I don’t have anything major to report,” Pete says. “I think sometimes that you must dread a call from me, because it might bring word of your mother being in trouble. It’s too bad I can’t just call you and we can’t chat without that hanging over us.”

“Yeah,” Charles says. “What’s new?”

“Well, the reason I called, I’ve been to two hardware stores today, and damned if I can find Turtle Wax. You know, that’s the stuff you want to take to your car. Get it waxed up while it’s new, you’ll never have a problem. But I can’t find the stuff anywhere. Now, it’s not what the manufacturer recommends, but I know my car wax, and I want to go over it with Turtle Wax. If in your travels you come across it, why, buy the stuff and I’ll reimburse you.”

“Sure,” Charles says. “I’ll look.”

“Cooked the chicken and it went fine,” Pete whispers.

“Good,” Charles says. “Things are looking up.”

Silence.

“I’ll hang up now and let you get on with it,” Pete says. “Good to talk to you, and thanks for keeping an eye out.”

“Sure,” Charles says. “Good-bye.”

It is nine-fifteen. He puts on a record that has always been one of his favorites: The New Lost City Ramblers with Cousin Emmy. Cousin Emmy has her red-painted mouth open wide. She looks like his mother being hauled out of the tub. He gets up and moves the needle to “Chilly Scenes of Winter.” Sing it, Emmy. He eats a cookie and tries to think what to do to get Laura. Sam is right; he can’t keep driving by her house. He will call her. Tomorrow. He’ll call her and ask to see her again, ask whether he can meet her at the school for just five minutes. Or maybe that doesn’t seem self-assured enough. He’ll ask if he can see her and put no time limit on it. He’ll be a little casual. He won’t say it’s important the way he did the other time. He will just say that he’d like to see her. He won’t tell her he loves her on the phone — nothing to scare her away, nothing to give her an excuse to say no. And then he’ll see her. What will he say? What will he say to persuade her never to drive home again? He gets up and walks around the house. Pamela Smith’s things are everywhere. He will have to box them and send them. He hates wrapping things for mailing. Maybe there’s a way to get Sam to do it. Sam has more time than he does. Get Sam to do it. He opens the Lido cookies. They are wonderful. He gets a glass of water and paces the kitchen. What can he say to her? What can he say to Laura?

He takes a shower and watches the eleven o’clock news. He gets in bed with a magazine. At midnight he calls good night to Sam and turns off the light. He thinks back over the day. One thing keeps coming back to him: when he was leaving work he stopped at the blind man’s stand for a Hershey bar. “What have you got?” the blind man said and Charles was suddenly tempted to break into song with, “I’ve got a never-ending love for you.…” He laughed out loud when he thought of singing that to the blind man. “Hershey bar,” he said, and laughed again. The blind man reached out and felt the Hershey bar before he took the money from Charles. He felt all along it, and had his head cocked to one side when Charles left. The blind man is beginning to distrust him.