Ann Beattie - Chilly Scenes of Winter

“I left New Mexico for a lot of reasons,” J.D. says. “Shit on me.”

Her hair always crackles with electricity. She puts hair spray on the brush, hoping this will cure it George Harrison is her favorite Beatle. She never had to wear braces. She likes expensive, delicately scented soaps. Her hair is long and wavy. She was so thrilled when she got her own car, even if it was an old car. She got Bs in college. The first drink she ever tasted was at eighteen, a rum collins. Now she drinks scotch. She feels sorry for giraffes. She doesn’t care what’s on her pizza, as long as it isn’t anchovies. She loves Caesar salad, however, and was surprised to find out that crushed anchovies were in it She likes Jules and Jim . She thought about being a filmmaker. She saw Otto Preminger on the street. Of course she was sure. She stirred tiny slivers of meat, almonds, and vegetables in her wok, grew violets the same colors as her round, pastel bars of soap, showered in water too hot for him. She asked, once, why May Day was celebrated. She does not remember names or dates well and is not apologetic about it She has big feet. Big, narrow feet. Butchers are kind to her, men in gas stations clean her windshield.

“What time are you going over there?” Sam asks.

“Around eight Another half hour or so.”

Actually, Laura set no time. He could go right this minute, but he doesn’t want her to think he’s too eager. He is very eager. At work, he thought about going out and buying her a diamond ring, proposing to her on the spot, pushing the ring on as he talked. He had no idea what size ring she wears. Or if she liked diamonds. Ox had given her only a silver band.

“Anybody call me?” Charles asks.

“No,” Sam says. “Unless it was when I was out.”

“How long were you out?”

“To get my check. I don’t know how long. I remember looking at my watch when I got there, and it had stopped.”

“If you want to go out tonight, I’ve got my car,” J.D. says.

“Nah,” Sam says. “I’m happy to sit here and drink.”

“I guess I didn’t tell you,” J.D. says to Charles. “I finally got tires to put on the car, had the guy come around and jack it up and put them on. The next morning when I came out of my apartment there was a kid with a crowbar, getting ready to take it to my trunk. I chased him for two blocks, then didn’t know what I’d do if I caught him. He had the crowbar.”

Charles shakes his head. “Place you live didn’t look like a very bad area.”

“There he was, just getting ready to pry it open.”

“Maybe it was a narc,” Sam says.

“My God. I never thought that. Do you really think that?”

“Got a lot of stuff around?” Sam asks. “Hey — you guys could be narcs for all I know.”

“Sure,” Sam says. He puts his empty beer bottle in line with the others.

“Clever thinking,” Charles says. “You’re under arrest.”

“I’ve got a gun! Don’t make a move!” Sam hollers.

“Okay … I was just thinking,” J.D. says.

“Get your head together, J.D.,” Sam says.

“I wasn’t thinking it seriously,” J.D. says.

“We fooled you, then,” Charles says. “Stick ’em up.”

“Forget it,” J.D. says.

“Narcs,” Sam says. “Jeez.”

“I didn’t really think that,” J.D. says.

“My long-suffering ass,” Sam says. “Narcs!”

“I wonder who becomes a narc nowadays?” Charles says.

“Abbie Hoffman,” J.D. says.

“Your mother,” Sam says to Charles.

“My mother. That would be funny. She’d find the stuff and sit there staring at it, and when they got back she’d be in the bathtub with it.”

“What’s this?” J.D. says.

“His mother is nuts,” Sam says.

“Oh,” J.D. says. “My aunt was.” He opens another beer. “She was a waitress, and she went out into the kitchen and cooked up a whole box of eggs and went out and dumped them on a customer who reminded her of her first husband.”

“How many husbands did she have?” Charles asks.

“Two. The second one was a cop. He’d practice his fast draw on her. She’d be walking through the house, and the gun would be pointing at her.”

“Need we ask what happened to her?” Sam asks.

“She’s milking cows in Vermont.” J.D. takes a long swig of beer. “At Christmas she sent me a picture of her milking a cow, and two dollars. Jesus.”

“Well, we’ve got enough information to run him in,” Charles says.

“Cut it out,” J.D. says. “I never really thought that.”

Charles goes into the bathroom. The toothbrush. He keeps meaning to get Sam a new toothbrush. He takes his own toothbrush down and brushes his teeth. He wants to take the toothbrush with him, to take his toothbrush to Laura’s and put it next to hers and never leave. The other woman’s toothbrush is next to here. Who is she? He combs his hair. It is quite a bit longer now. He can’t tell if it looks good or not. Why is he standing around the bathroom? Why isn’t he at Laura’s? He leaves the bathroom and asks Sam and J.D. if either of them knows where Wicker Street is. J.D. thinks he does and gives directions. Charles has trouble concentrating. There is a ringing in his head. He feels like he might black out. He sits on the floor, hearing J.D.’s voice faintly in the background.

“What’s the matter with you?” Sam says.

“Nothing,” Charles says.

“You look awful. She’s getting to you already, and you haven’t even seen her.”

“I’m okay,” Charles says. He wishes he were okay.

“Got it?” J.D. says.

“No. You’d better write it down.”

Sam goes out to the kitchen to get paper for J.D.

“Drink a beer before you go. You don’t want to be too sober,” Sam says.

“Why do you say that?”

“How much has sobriety ever helped you?”

Charles shrugs, accepts the beer. J.D. mumbles street names as he writes.

“Thanks,” Charles says, taking the piece of paper from him. “You two going to be here?”

“Yeah,” Sam says.

“If Betty calls, don’t tell her where I am. Say that I’ll call back.”

“She’d never call you after what you did.”

“Yes she will. Just say I’ll return the call.”

“I’d be plenty surprised,” Sam says.

Charles leaves most of the beer in the bottle, puts it on the hearth. “See you,” he says.

“Yeah,” J.D. says.

Sam says nothing. He shakes his head.

It is very cold outside. The bushes bordering the driveway look very stark; black twigs shoot in all directions. They are almond bushes. His grandmother made a list of all the bushes and trees and flowers in the yard that he discovered in a drawer when he moved in. There were instructions on how to prune them, feed, and propagate each. He has never done anything for the bushes, and they are all doing fine, but he still feels guilty when he thinks about that piece of paper. He never takes up the tulip bulbs, and every year they bloom. The lilies of the valley have crept out into the sunshine, and they, too, multiply.

He would like to marry Laura and move to another house, a big house in the country with no other houses around, and gardens that Laura would dig and plant in. Does she have any interest in gardening? Of course she must, if she once considered majoring in botany. That will be something he can tell her tonight — that they can sell his house and move to a big house in the country. What will happen to Sam? Sam can come, too. He can stay with them. They will get Rebecca, too, somehow, to make Laura happy. And then they should probably get a dog. It sounds too Norman Rockwellish to be true. Who would somebody assume Sam was, if they saw him seated at a table with a happy family in a Norman Rockwell picture? They might think he was an uncle. They would never think he was there because he was unemployed and didn’t have enough money to live. He imagines a conversation between a mother and her child: