Ann Beattie - Burning House

“Yeah,” Nick said. “I guess that’s where the snow is.”

“He’s so creepy. He gives me the creepy-crawls. I hope he doesn’t call here anymore.”

“Just tell him that I can’t do it.”

“That chocolate body in the other room gives me the creeps too.

“Other than that,” he said, “is everything all right there?”

“Manuela wanted a raise, so I gave her one.”

“Does that mean she’s going to clean the bathroom?”

“I told her you didn’t like her smoking cigars. She said she wouldn’t anymore.”

“Great. Sounds like everything will be perfect when I get back.”

“What would you know about perfection? I’m perfect, and you don’t appreciate me. I don’t even have an eroded cervix anymore.”

“I hope you feel better soon, Ilena.”

“Thanks,” she said. “See you when I see you. I might go to Ojai with Perry Dwyer and his sister this weekend.”

“Have a good time in Ojai,” he said.

They said goodbye and he hung up the kitchen phone. Elizabeth was leaning against the stove, staring at him. He waited for her to say something, but she didn’t. She went to the window and looked at Jason and Benton, playing tag in the circle of light in the back yard.

“He must be doing well,” she said. “He’s been paying child support.”

“He’s got quite a reputation on the West Coast.”

“Do you know the man he sells the paintings to?”

“I saw him again when Benton was in L.A.”

“Is he crazy, or does Benton exaggerate?”

“Crazy,” Nick said.

Nick stood beside her and watched Benton chugging along, pretending to be running as fast as he could to catch Jason, then moving in comic slow motion.

“That’s like the picture,” Elizabeth said.

“What is?”

“That.”

She was pointing to his hands, folded on the window sill. He felt a tingling in his fingers, as if his hands were about to move.

“Benton told me that picture always embarrassed you,” she said. “You know — everybody in this family is embarrassed by beautiful things. That’s why Benton never shows Ena or Cal his paintings. Even Benton’s given in to it: he made fun of me for putting one of my watercolors up on the bulletin board alongside Jason’s. You’ve probably hung around all these people so long that you’ve fallen into the pattern.”

“I’m not embarrassed by it. It was just a picture he took one day when I was sitting in some diner.”

“You look like a holy person when you clasp your hands.”

She looked out the window again.

“What did you want to say to me when I was on the phone, Elizabeth?”

“Nothing,” she said. “I was being envious. I was thinking how nice it is that he has a friend who’ll fly from one coast to the other to pal around with him.” She coughed. “And I’ve always been a little jealous of you — that people study you, photograph you — and they don’t pay attention to me.” She put her nose against the window. “Saying that Lizzie was a nickname for a lizard,” she said.

Benton did not go to Westport with them because Jason acted up. Jason said that Benton had promised that the two of them could play tag. He was about to cry, and Benton had been trying since the day before to get back into Jason’s good graces.

After Nick had opened the door on the driver’s side of Elizabeth’s car, he realized that he had made a silly, macho move. She was sober, and he had been drunk since before he called Ilena. He should have let her drive the car.

Elizabeth was shivering, her scarf over her mouth, staring straight ahead. He couldn’t think of anything to say. It had been her idea to get out of the house and go get a drink, and he was surprised that he had agreed. Finally she said something. “Turn right,” she said.

He turned, and was on a narrow road he wished she were navigating. “Hard to believe we’re an hour outside New York,” she said. “It’s nice, when it isn’t pitch black. This road reminds me of a road that winds in back of my grandmother’s house in Pennsylvania.”

She reached over and pushed down a lever. The heat came on.

“What kills me is that she knows Hanley Paulson charges outrageous prices for firewood, and she still won’t consider having anyone else deliver it because Hanley is an old-timer, and she’s so charmed by people who hang on.”

She adjusted the heater to low. This time Nick remembered to look at the road, and not at what she was doing. He was trying to remember if he had just been told that his dog was, or was not, eating. A small animal ran in front of the car and made it to the other side. “Again,” she said, and pointed for him to turn right.

They went to a bar with a lot of cars parked outside. A man was inside, sitting on a stool, collecting money. “Zenith String Band,” he said, although neither of them had asked.

They sat side-by-side behind a small round table. One of the people on stage had broken a string, and another member of the band had stopped playing to pretend to beat him over the head with his fiddle. They ordered bourbon. A curly-haired girl handed another guitar up onto the stage, and everyone was playing together again.

“I hated it that he turned everybody against me,” she said. “He was so angry that I wouldn’t have an abortion, and look at the way he loves Jason. You’d think he’d be glad I didn’t listen to him, but he’s still making jokes, and I’m still the villain.”

She was speaking quite loudly. The people at the next table were looking at them and pretending not to. He knew he should do something to pass it off, so he gave them a little smile, but he was drunk and the smile spread too far over his face; what he was giving them was an evil smirk.

“What a family. Cal with his mansion on Long Island, never liking what the decorator does, having some goddam vegetarian decorator who paints the walls the color of carrots and turnips. He gives better Christmas presents to his decorator than he does to Jason. Poor Cal, out in East Hampton, and poor Ena, who’s staying in Wesley’s house when he’s dead because he wouldn’t have her there when he was alive. The only person in the family worth anything was Wesley.”

They sat in silence, drinking, until the set was over. It was slowly starting to sink in that he was not in California — that lantana would not be growing outside when they went out, that it would be dark and cold. He usually said that he loved California, but when he was back East he felt much better. He began to wish for snow again. When the musicians climbed down from the stage he asked for the check. He left money on the table, wondering if he was crazy to suspect that the people at the next table were going to take the money. Since no one ran out of the bar after them in all the time it took to start Elizabeth’s car in the cold, he decided that it was paranoia.

He thought that he remembered the way back and was glad that he did. Elizabeth’s eyes were closed. He put on the heater. Elizabeth put it off.

“It’s cold,” he said.

“Better ways to keep warm.”

He was looking at the speedometer, to make sure he was driving fast enough. It felt like he was floating. He accelerated a little, watched the needle climb. Drunken driving.

“Pull over,” Elizabeth said, hand over her mouth, other hand on his wrist. He did, quickly, expecting her to be sick.

Wind blew in the car as she jumped out and ran through the leaves unsteadily, over to a stone wall. He looked away as she bent over.

She came back to the car carrying a cat.

“I got myself something nice,” she said, shivering.

“It’s somebody’s cat,” he said.

“He might be your friend, but he’s a real bastard. Telling Jason that lizards are called Lizzie.”