Ann Beattie - Chilly Scenes of Winter

“Is your wife having a baby?” the woman says.

“No,” Charles says.

“My daughter is,” the woman says.

“That’s nice,” Charles says. He and Laura were always worried that she would get pregnant. He frowns. The woman smiles.

“What are you hoping for?” Charles says.

“Health,” the woman says. “Good health. That’s what’s important.”

Predictable. Everything is predictable.

“She has three boys, so she’s hoping for a girl,” the woman says.

“That’s nice,” Charles says. He gets up and leaves the sun room. He walks slowly down the corridor to his mother’s room. He sees the back of Pete’s coat and turns around. He goes back to the telephone and dials his number. He is going to tell Sam to go to his place with Elise — it’s depressing him. The phone rings twice. Sam answers it.

“Sam. It’s been a rotten day and I’m tired, so I want you and Elise out of my bed when I get back there. I hope you don’t take offense, but I don’t want to sleep on the sofa again tonight.”

“She’s gone,” Sam says. “She had me drive her to the train.”

“Gone? Where did she go?”

“Home. She said that by now her mother wouldn’t be drunk. Her mother always sobers up about this time so she won’t have to make it a New Year’s resolution.”

“Oh,” Charles says. “What are you doing there?”

“I just got back from the train. I was eating the leftover chili.”

“I forgot to ask you for New Year’s Day dinner,” Charles says.

“Oh, yeah. I figured I was invited.”

“Maybe I’ll see you later, if I’m lucky enough to get out of here soon.”

“Pete there?”

“Yeah. I’ll have to think of some reason not to go out for a drink with him.”

“How’s your mother?”

“I haven’t seen her yet. Tomorrow I’m seeing Laura.”

“That’s great. Did you call her?”

“No. Mental telepathy.”

“Oh. You’ve just got a feeling, huh?”

“I was kidding. I called her. She was baking bread in her A-frame.”

“I wish I had something to go with this chili,” Sam says. “Don’t you ever buy groceries? Maybe I could call Laura and she’d run some over.”

“Hell,” Charles says. “With your luck she probably would. With my luck she’d fall in love with you and be rolling around in my bed when I got back.”

“I’ll see you,” Sam says.

“Yeah. Good night, Sam.”

Charles walks down to his mother’s room. His mother is sitting up in bed. The curtain is pulled around the other woman’s bed. His sister is sitting in a chair beside the bed. Pete is dancing across the floor. He stops, embarrassed.

“I was demonstrating how to turn,” Pete says.

“Go ahead,” Charles says.

“I did. I already did it,” Pete says, slapping Charles’s back.

“He wants me to go dancing,” Clara says.

Charles nods.

“Show some enthusiasm, my boy,” Pete says, slapping his back harder. “Wouldn’t a few twirls fix anybody up?”

Charles moves over to Susan’s chair. He wants to sit down. He wants to sit down on her lap. He would like to be smaller, and her child instead of her brother, and then he could curl up and shut his eyes, and everyone would think he was being good, instead of being bad. It is wrong not to encourage Pete, who is trying hard to be helpful. He is just a jackass.

“Do you dance?” Charles’s mother says. It is the first time she has acknowledged his presence.

“Yes,” Charles lies, smiling at Pete that he is going along.

“What do you dance?” Clara asks.

Charles cannot think of the names of any dances. “The hula,” he says.

Susan laughs. Pete frowns.

“Aw, he’s just kidding. All young kids dance.”

“The tango,” Charles says. He has just remembered the name of that movie: Last Tango in Paris . Marlon Brando running around, cornering that Parisian, his dead wife, that young girl, the streets of Paris, all those people doing the tango, that girl running off, the streets of Paris, Laura.…

“The tango!” Pete laughs. Pete is getting mad. Susan looks down, trying not to show her smile.

“You don’t tango,” Pete says.

“I don’t know the name of the dance I do,” Charles says. “I just sort of move around.”

“Well, you’d know what you were doing if you’d take a few lessons,” Pete says. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell Mommy. Then at the convention she could take a twirl or two like the other wives. She doesn’t want to go, because she just sits in the hotel room. We don’t have to have that, do we, Charles?”

“No,” Charles says. “She should go.”

Pete smiles approval.

“Did you hear your boy say you should take a few twirls?” Pete says. Pete does not know how to get off a subject. Susan looks down, disguising a yawn. Clara reaches for the water glass and deliberately drops it.

“I’m so clumsy,” she says, as Susan picks up the glass. Susan’s stockings are wet. “How could I be a dancer?”

“We’re going to take a museum tour when you’re on your feet,” Pete says. “We live in a city with a fine museum, and we’re going to tour it.”

“I don’t know anything about art,” she says.

“What do you have to know? You can look at a picture and enjoy it, right? What did you know about children until you had them?”

“I read Doctor Spock.”

“There! Mommy’s going to read a book about art and then hit those pictures!” Pete says, smiling broadly.

“If I ever get well,” she says.

“You are well, honey. You’re going to be looking over those pictures before you know it.”

She closes her eyes. “I never saw a Picasso I liked,” she says.

“He was a great painter,” Pete says. Charles doubts that Pete knows who Picasso is.

“I guess I could look at some of them again,” she says. Her eyes are still closed.

“That’s the idea,” Pete says. “Isn’t it?”

No one answers. Pete moves over to Charles. “That’s the idea, right?” he says.

“Right,” Charles says.

“Maybe we should let her get some rest,” Susan says.

“Rest those feet,” Pete says, patting them under the covers. “Those feet are going to twirl you around the floor at the convention.”

“I’ve never been to a convention,” she says.

“Three weeks!” Pete says. “There are probably art galleries in Chicago. We can hit the pictures there, too.”

“I don’t know. I try to read books, but I never get through them.”

“Just read the section on that artist you like,” Pete says.

“What artist do I like?”

“You were talking about some artist.…”

“I said I never saw a painting of his that I liked, Pete.”

“Well, you will in Chicago,” Pete says. He grabs her foot and shakes it.

“See you tomorrow, honey,” he says.

“I guess so,” she says. “Where’s my Susan’s hand?”

Susan goes back to the bed and holds her mother’s hand.

“Good-bye,” Clara says.

“Rest,” Susan says, patting her hand.

“I might not go to the convention,” Clara says. “I might stay home and rest.”

Pete’s mouth opens, but he doesn’t say anything. He smiles a big smile.

“See you tomorrow,” he says.

“Where’s my Charles?” she says.

“Oh, shit,” Charles says, loud enough for Pete to hear. He walks to his mother’s bed and gives her his hand.

“You were my first baby,” she says. “I guess that doesn’t matter to you, but it matters to me.”

“What do you mean?” Charles says, but her eyes are closed and she doesn’t answer. Deliberately. She wants them to leave thinking that she is still ill.