Ann Beattie - Chilly Scenes of Winter

Charles tells Pete as they wait for the elevator that he and Susan are very tired — otherwise they’d enjoy that drink with him.

“You don’t like me,” Pete says. “I didn’t kill your father. He just died.”

The woman knitting in the sun room waves. Charles waves back. He looks at the phone. Two o’clock tomorrow.

“We’re just not very much alike,” Charles says.

Pete looks surprised; he expected some other answer. He pushes the “down” button again, straightens his coat collar.

“You’re not coming to dinner either, are you?” Pete says.

“Yes we are,” Susan says.

Pete smiles. “Ah!” he says. “That’s good. We’ll have a turkey.” He turns to Charles. Charles can’t bear to refuse.

“Sure,” Charles says.

“What could I get that you would like?” Pete says.

Charles feels sorry for him. He remembers him dancing in the room, remembers Pete refusing to sign his report card when he got a “B” in conduct, how he had to stay after school every day for a week, until the teacher gave up, because of the unsigned report card.

“Olives,” Charles says.

“Olives!” Pete says. “Any special kind?”

“Just regular olives,” Charles says.

“They come in jars with big ones or the small kind,” Pete says.

Charles does not like olives. Olives were one of the things Jim’s first wife always asked to have brought to her. She would eat olives with Tootsie Rolls, and then drink grape soda. The foods Laura named made a great impression on Charles; he has trouble forgetting them.

“The big ones,” Charles says.

“Big ones. I hope they can be found,” Pete says, pushing the “down” button again. Pete talks about things tirelessly. The woman waves to Charles again. He pretends not to see.

“We should have olives and celery and all the trimmings,” Pete says. “You know, Mommy wasn’t up to cooking at Christmas, but she’s up to it now. She’ll be dancing around that kitchen.”

“I’ll come cook it,” Susan says.

“That’s very nice of you,” Pete says.

Laura is baking bread. She is probably not still baking. It is probably out of the oven. The Ox is probably eating it. Charles is hungry; he would like some of that bread. More than that, he would like that dessert. More than that, he would like Laura.

“Kids dance nowadays, don’t they?” Pete says, riding down in the elevator.

“Not much,” Susan says. “Nobody does much of anything any more. I don’t even think there are many drugs on campus.”

“I should hope not,” Pete says.

“Well,” Charles says. “We’ll see you in a couple of days.”

“Right,” Pete says. “Where are you parked?”

“To the left,” Charles says.

“Me too,” Pete says.

As they walk down the street, Pete says, “How’s the car holding out?”

“It runs okay. Uses a lot of gas.”

“If you ever want a good car wax, let me recommend Turtle Wax,” Pete says. “That’s really the stuff.”

“I’ll remember that,” Charles says.

“No you won’t,” Pete says.

“Turtle Wax,” Charles repeats, not wanting to have to hear again that he doesn’t like Pete.

“You don’t like me a damn,” Pete says. “But it’ll be good to have you to dinner all the same.”

There is an awkward moment when they reach Charles’s car.

“Headed home?” Pete says.

“Yeah. We’ll see you.”

“I guess I’m headed there,” Pete says, shrugging his shoulder toward a bar.

“Well, we’ll see you,” Susan says.

Pete nods his head. “See you,” he says.

“Poor Pete,” Susan says in the car.

“Nobody told him to marry her.”

“She did. She told me that once. She told him that if he was going to come over all the time, he should marry her.”

“Well, that should have told him,” Charles says.

“I feel sorry for him,” she says.

“Your friend left,” he says. “I forgot to tell you.”

“She didn’t have a good time, I guess.”

“What do you care? She’s just some girl on your floor.”

“Yeah,” Susan says. “She might have had a good time with Sam.”

“I don’t care if she had a good time or not,” Charles says.

“Sam’s really something,” Susan says. “Is he still selling clothes?”

“Yeah.”

“Maybe we could ask him to dinner at Pete’s place,” Susan says.

“He wouldn’t come.”

“How do you know?”

“He doesn’t like Pete.”

“Does he know him?”

“We ran into him once in a hardware store. We were there to get a hammer for Sam. Pete got onto a thing about ‘security systems’—how Sam owed it to himself to install ‘a high-power security system.’ He ran around pointing out locks and bolts. You know — Sam hasn’t got anything anybody would bother to steal. He thought Pete was a jackass.”

“You’re the one who always says that. Sam probably didn’t say anything like that.”

“He said, ‘What a goon.’ ”

“Maybe he’d go to dinner anyway. You’d like him there.”

“Sure I would. I’d like to put him through that.”

“He came before.”

“That was when she was a lot better. The last time he came, her dress kept slipping off her at the table, and he was humiliated. You remember. You were there, weren’t you?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Sure. It was just before you started college. Pete was in Chicago. She kept saying, ‘One of my men might be gone, but I have two others.’ Sam was humiliated.”

Susan combs her hair. She leaves her black mittens on, and Charles thinks that she looks like some weird animal with big paws. She’s a nice sister. He wishes he could think of something to do with her.

“If you stop at a store, I’ll buy something to fix for dinner,” she says.

“You feel like fixing dinner?”

She shrugs. Laura likes to cook. Laura and the Ox are probably eating a late dinner together in their cold A-frame. Tomorrow he will see Laura. Laura’s hair is longer than Susan’s. Laura wears perfume. She wears Vol de Nuit. She gives Vol de Nuit to Jim’s first wife for a present. They sit in the visiting room of the loony bin, smelling the same. Charles feels that he knows the woman, that he has been to the bin, but only Laura and Jim have been there. He hates Jim for getting to spend so much time with Laura, envies him the moments with her in the bin, visiting his first wife, thinks that he would be able to stand watching the woman eat, if only he could go there with Laura. Anywhere with Laura.

“I’m seeing Laura tomorrow,” he says. “I called her from the hospital.”

“That’s good,” Susan says. “I hope she’s nice to you.”

“She’s always nice. She just won’t leave her husband.”

“Aren’t there other attractive women where you work?”

“No. They all look and act the same, but the fat ones are a little louder, and the thin ones either bite their nails or twist their hair.”

“They can’t all be bad.”

“I can’t make myself look. When I do look, they all look bad.”

He pulls up in front of a Safeway. “How about some money?” he says.

“I’ve got plenty of money.” She gets out of the car and he sits there double parked, waiting for her. He hopes she will buy oranges and cream and chocolate and make the dessert for him. When she comes back, she has bought a roasting chicken and stuffing and green peas.

“What’s the guy you go with like?” Charles says.

“He’s in pre-med. What do you want to know about him?”

“Are you going to marry him?”

“I don’t know. He wants to go to Mexico.”

“What for?”

“Just for a vacation. To buy a statue. He’s very smart, but he’s sort of nuts. I haven’t wanted to call him since I got here. He’s on a Mexico thing. He wears brown huaraches and a poncho. He saw the statue he wants to buy in the travel section of The Times.”