Ann Beattie - Burning House

“Oooh,” Tucker says, feigning disappointment, “I thought Freddy smooched her.”

“I’m sorry,” J.D. says again. “I thought you’d know it was me.

The rain must have started again, because J.D. is soaking wet. He has turned the mask around so that the goat’s head stares out from the back of his head. “I got lost,” J.D. says. He has a farmhouse upstate. “I missed the turn. I went miles. I missed the whole dinner, didn’t I?”

“What did you do wrong?” Frank asks.

“I didn’t turn left onto 58. I don’t know why I didn’t realize my mistake, but I went miles . It was raining so hard I couldn’t go over twenty-five miles an hour. Your driveway is all mud. You’re going to have to push me out.”

“There’s some roast left over. And salad, if you want it,” I say.

“Bring it in the living room,” Frank says to J.D. Freddy is holding out a plate to him. J.D. reaches for the plate. Freddy pulls it back. J.D. reaches again, and Freddy is so stoned that he isn’t quick enough this time — J.D. grabs it.

“I thought you’d know it was me,” J.D. says. “I apologize.” He dishes salad onto the plate. “You’ll be rid of me for six months, in the morning.”

“Where does your plane leave from?” Freddy says.

“Kennedy.”

“Come in here!” Tucker calls. “I’ve got a story for you about Perry Dwyer down at the Anvil last week, when he thought he saw Aristotle Onassis.”

“Who’s Perry Dwyer?” J.D. says.

“That is not the point of the story, dear man. And when you’re in Cassis, I want you to look up an American painter over there. Will you? He doesn’t have a phone. Anyway — I’ve been tracking him, and I know where he is now, and I am very interested, if you would stress that with him, to do a show in June that will be only him. He doesn’t answer my letters.”

“Your hand is cut,” J.D. says to me.

“Forget it,” I say. “Go ahead.”

“I’m sorry,” he says. “Did I make you do that?”

“Yes, you did.”

“Don’t keep your finger under the water. Put pressure on it to stop the bleeding.”

He puts the plate on the table. Freddy is leaning against the counter, staring at the blood swirling in the sink, and smoking the joint all by himself. I can feel the little curls on my forehead that Freddy was talking about. They feel heavy on my skin. I hate to see my own blood. I’m sweating. I let J.D. do what he does; he turns off the water and wraps his hand around my second finger, squeezing. Water runs down our wrists.

Freddy jumps to answer the phone when it rings, as though a siren just went off behind him. He calls me to the phone, but J.D. steps in front of me, shakes his head no, and takes the dish towel and wraps it around my hand before he lets me go.

“Well,” Marilyn says. “I had the best of intentions, but my battery’s dead.”

J.D. is standing behind me, with his hand on my shoulder.

“I’ll be right over,” I say. “He’s not upset now, is he?”

“No, but he’s dropped enough hints that he doesn’t think he can make it through the night.”

“O.K.,” I say. “I’m sorry about all of this.”

“Six years old,” Marilyn says. “Wait till he grows up and gets that feeling.”

I hang up.

“Let me see your hand,” J.D. says.

“I don’t want to look at it. Just go get me a Band-Aid, please.”

He turns and goes upstairs. I unwrap the towel and look at it. It’s pretty deep, but no glass is in my finger. I feel funny; the outlines of things are turning yellow. I sit in the chair by the phone. Sam comes and lies beside me, and I stare at his black-and-yellow tail, beating. I reach down with my good hand and pat him, breathing deeply in time with every second pat.

“Rothko? ” Tucker says bitterly, in the living room. “Nothing is great that can appear on greeting cards. Wyeth is that way. Would ‘Christina’s World’ look bad on a cocktail napkin? You know it wouldn’t.”

I jump as the phone rings again. “Hello?” I say, wedging the phone against my shoulder with my ear, wrapping the dish towel tighter around my hand.

“Tell them it’s a crank call. Tell them anything,” Johnny says. “I miss you. How’s Saturday night at your house?”

“All right,” I say. I catch my breath.

“Everything’s all right here, too. Yes indeed. Roast rack of lamb. Friend of Nicole’s who’s going to Key West tomorrow had too much to drink and got depressed because he thought it was raining in Key West, and I said I’d go in my study and call the National Weather Service. Hello, Weather Service. How are you?”

J.D. comes down from upstairs with two Band-Aids and stands beside me, unwrapping one. I want to say to Johnny, “I’m cut. I’m bleeding. It’s no joke.”

It’s all right to talk in front of J.D., but I don’t know who else might overhear me.

“I’d say they made the delivery about four this afternoon,” I say.

“This is the church, this is the steeple. Open the door, and see all the people,” Johnny says. “Take care of yourself. I’ll hang up and find out if it’s raining in Key West.”

“Late in the afternoon,” I say. “Everything is fine.”

“Nothing is fine,” Johnny says. “Take care of yourself.”

He hangs up. I put the phone down, and realize that I’m still having trouble focusing, the sight of my cut finger made me so light-headed. I don’t look at the finger again as J.D. undoes the towel and wraps the Band-Aids around my finger.

“What’s going on in here?” Frank says, coming into the dining room.

“I cut my finger,” I say. “It’s O.K.”

“You did?” he says. He looks woozy — a little drunk. “Who keeps calling?”

“Marilyn. Mark changed his mind about staying all night. She was going to bring him home, but her battery’s dead. You’ll have to get him. Or I will.”

“Who called the second time?” he says.

“The oil company. They wanted to know if we got our delivery today.”

He nods. “I’ll go get him, if you want,” he says. He lowers his voice. “Tucker’s probably going to whirl himself into a tornado for an encore,” he says, nodding toward the living room. “I’ll take him with me.”

“Do you want me to go get him?” J.D. says.

“I don’t mind getting some air,” Frank says. “Thanks, though. Why don’t you go in the living room and eat your dinner?”

“You forgive me?” J.D. says.

“Sure,” I say. “It wasn’t your fault. Where did you get that mask?”

“I found it on top of a Goodwill box in Manchester. There was also a beautiful old birdcage — solid brass.”

The phone rings again. I pick it up. “Wouldn’t I love to be in Key West with you,” Johnny says. He makes a sound as though he’s kissing me and hangs up.

“Wrong number,” I say.

Frank feels in his pants pocket for the car keys.

J.D. knows about Johnny. He introduced me, in the faculty lounge, where J.D. and I had gone to get a cup of coffee after I registered for classes. After being gone for nearly two years, J.D. still gets mail at the department — he said he had to stop by for the mail anyway, so he’d drive me to campus and point me toward the registrar’s. J.D. taught English; now he does nothing. J.D. is glad that I’ve gone back to college to study art again, now that Mark is in school. I’m six credits away from an M.A. in art history. He wants me to think about myself, instead of thinking about Mark all the time. He talks as though I could roll Mark out on a string and let him fly off, high above me. J.D.’s wife and son died in a car crash. His son was Mark’s age. “I wasn’t prepared,” J.D. said when we were driving over that day. He always says this when he talks about it. “How could you be prepared for such a thing?” I asked him. “I am now,” he said. Then, realizing he was acting very hardboiled, made fun of himself. “Go on,” he said, “punch me in the stomach. Hit me as hard as you can.” We both knew he wasn’t prepared for anything. When he couldn’t find a parking place that day, his hands were wrapped around the wheel so tightly that his knuckles turned white.