Ann Beattie - Chilly Scenes of Winter

“Potatoes. Where would they be?”

He follows her. He picks up a bag of potatoes. He gets a package of spinach and a large bottle of Coke. They stand in line. He wonders if anyone in the grocery store mistakes her for his wife. People used to mistake Laura for his wife. “Your wife left this,” the woman at the bank said, when Laura left her hat on the table. People used to smile at him when he was with Laura. They don’t smile now.

“Working makes me so tired,” Betty says.

“You could do some isometrics,” he says. What is he talking about?

“Do you know the exercises?” she says.

“I have a book you can borrow.” Pamela Smith left the book. What is she going to think if all those women’s lib books are still lying around? She’ll think it’s peculiar he reads Germaine Greer and Kate Millett and Simone de Beauvoir. And if she asks for an opinion on any of them he’s sunk. Maybe Sam cleaned. He is sure that Sam did not.

“I’ll probably be having that party this weekend,” he says. What did he bring that up for?

She nods. She does not believe him. She has no reason to believe him. There is no possible way he could have a party over the weekend. He could call J.D. J.D. might come to the party if he didn’t have to work. That would make him, J.D., Sam, and Betty. Pete would come for sure. Pete would be so flattered. What a travesty that would be. What would Betty say to Pete?

“I’d be glad to come over and help you get organized,” she says.

“Thanks,” he says.

He pays for the food and is very relieved when he sees that he has enough money. How would a psychiatrist work him through this trauma? Tell him to go to a store and get more food than he has money for and see that it’s not the end of the world? Probably. Shrinks. The indirect approach: “Don’t you think …”

They get back in his car and start toward the house. Sam is going to be very surprised. Charles himself is very surprised. It would be nice to take all this food home and have dinner with Sam. He pulls into traffic.

“Where do you live?” she asks.

“Colony Street”

“I don’t know where that is.”

“It’s not far from here.”

“Is your friend visiting from out of town?”

“He’s actually staying there. He just lost his job.”

“Things are awful,” Betty says. “What was he doing?”

“He had a shit job selling men’s jackets, and last week they fired him.”

“That’s too bad. Do you think he’ll find another job?”

“Eventually.”

“So many people are out of work. My sister’s fiancé says you wouldn’t believe the lines in Detroit for welfare checks.”

Come on, Charles. Keep the conversation going. He stares straight ahead at the line of cars he is in. When the light changes, the line begins to move. He turns right and is on an almost empty stretch of road that goes to his house.

“It’s nice out here.”

“Yeah. My grandmother bought the house I live in not too long before she died, and she left it to me in her will.”

“Wow. You never hear of things like that happening.”

“The other house was nicer. Handmade by my grandfather, but she sold that and got this newer one. Still, you’re right. It’s a nice house.”

“Are your neighbors nice?”

“I don’t know my neighbors.”

“That’s what Ginny — the girl who lived with me — complained about. That everything was so impersonal. In Georgia everybody knew everybody else, I guess.”

He turns into his driveway. She opens her own door and gets out He carries the grocery bag, walking in front of her. Sam opens the door.

“Prepare yourself,” Sam says. “Oh — hello,” he says to Betty.

“What’s wrong? What’s the matter?”

“Nothing bad.”

“Betty, this is Sam.”

“How do you do?” Sam says. He has on a pair of ripped pants and his snowmobile socks and a black sweater with a hole over the left nipple.

“Hello,” Betty says.

Sam turns and pushes open the door. A black dog is sitting in the kitchen. It wags its tail and walks up to Charles. It is one of the ugliest dogs he has ever seen.

“Oh, a dog,” Betty says.

“I can explain why I got him. It was next in line, if you know what I mean. It cost me five dollars.”

“Look at it,” Charles says. “It’s a male?”

“Wait until you hear what they told me it was a mixture of. Can you guess?”

“Dachshund?”

“Right. And what else?”

“God. I have no idea.”

“Cocker spaniel. It’s seven months old.”

The dog does, on close inspection, have some cocker spaniel features. It has long curly ears and the sharp nose of a dachshund. Its fur is curly and a little long, but its body is all chest and no rear, like a dachshund. It is definitely one of the oddest dogs Charles has ever seen. It looks like a very old dog. There is white in its coat.

“Are you sure this is a puppy?”

“Yeah. They told me.”

“It’s …”

“I know. I just got it because it was so ugly I knew it would never be saved before nine A.M. tomorrow. I know,” Sam says, shaking his head.

“I think it’s a nice puppy,” Betty says.

“It is nice. It follows me around, and it’s not at all wild.”

Charles shakes his head. He picks it up and examines it in his arms. Its narrow rat-tail looks doubly awkward coming out of the soft, curly hair. He cannot believe that there is such a dog.

“Well. You got a dog.”

“You’ll get to like it. You really will. I like it already, and I’ve carried out the newspapers twice.”

Charles puts it back on the floor. “Got a name for it?”

“No. Can you think of anything?”

Charles shakes his head. “Well, come in,” he says to Betty. He leads the way into the living room and takes her coat He hangs it over Sam’s coat on the ironing board.

“Have a seat,” he says. She sits in the chair. On the footstool in front of it is The Female Eunuch .

“I’ll get the steaks ready to broil,” he says. “Excuse me.”

Sam is in the kitchen, stroking the dog. The dog is a terrible genetic mistake. And he urged Sam to get a dog.

Charles gestures with his thumb. “Go in there,” he mouths. Sam gets up and carries the dog into the living room.

“So. You work with Charles?” he says.

“Yes,” he hears Betty say.

He rummages around for the broiling pan. He unwraps the steaks and puts them in the pan. He takes the spinach out of the package and dumps it in a pot. He runs water over it, pours the water out, runs more water over it, pours that out, fills the pot with water and puts it on the stove. He rinses three potatoes and puts them in another pot and turns the fire on under them. He takes them out and slices them in half so they will cook more quickly. He drops them in. He goes back to the counter to get the cellophane to throw away and picks up a lottery ticket. Sam has bought a lottery ticket. He looks at the lottery ticket and feels very sad. He is embarrassed to have seen it It reminds him of another thing he saw by accident: a bloody Kotex of his mother’s that tumbled out when he dumped the trash. He didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t touch it. He pushed it back of the trash cans with a stick.

“No,” he hears Sam say. “I was born here.”

He gets three plates down and stacks them on the counter. He pushes the lottery ticket away with his elbow.

“Yeah,” Sam says. “Jackets.”

Charles goes into the dining room and begins to clear the table. He takes The Second Sex into Sam’s room and throws it on the bed. The dog runs into the dining room and looks at Charles.

“Hi,” Charles says.

The dog wags its tail. It goes into Sam’s room, in pursuit of The Second Sex . Charles hears it skidding on the newspaper. Charles takes several record albums off the table, and his pajamas. He puts them on a chair they won’t be using, Sam seems to be conversing very easily with Betty. They are talking about Marvin Mandel. How did they get on that? He would never have the ingenuity to talk to Betty about Marvin Mandel, Maybe Sam is regaining his old touch with women. The dog stands at Charles’s feet, looking up. “Hey, did you feed this dog?”