Ann Beattie - Another You

“Did the Beatles know it?” he said.

She shrugged. “What do you think: they were such upstanding lads they would have objected?”

“You assume I’m inextricable from my generation? That naturally I’d have great reverence for the Beatles?”

They were on the verge of really arguing, to his surprise. It must be that they needed to blow off steam, both of them feeling used, both feeling foolish, but left for the moment with only each other.

In the downstairs hallway she reached in among the coats and pulled her down jacket off a peg; underneath the jacket hung the scarf he’d insisted she take in the car, which surprised him for a second because he’d forgotten he’d given it to her. Instead of wearing it, though, she straightened it on the peg, then zipped her jacket, still without speaking. What did this mean? That they’d had an argument and that now she was renouncing him by renouncing his gift?

“I’m sorry for dragging you into this,” she said coolly, sitting primly in the car.

“Well, my stepmother is in the hospital. It gave me something to think about other than that,” he said. If she was going to tell him about her family, he’d tell her something about his.

“Is it serious?” she said, after a pause.

“She had a stroke. The third one. At first they thought it was a seizure, but it turns out it was another stroke.”

“I’m sorry,” she said.

At the intersection, he headed toward Dover. He asked if she wanted him to stop so she could call her friends before they got there. “No. That’s something people from your generation do,” she said. It worked, too; until he whirled around to look at her and saw her sly smile, he had taken her seriously, aghast at how cryptic she’d suddenly become.

“Don’t worry. I’m not your worst fear,” she said. “I’m not mean, and I’m not down on older men. If they’re attractive.”

“Cheryl,” he said, “I admit that flirting is more interesting than arguing, but let’s drop it, okay? Think about this from my perspective: I’ve just been trying to do the right thing. I guess by now it’s clear that in some way, we’ve both been had.”

“We’re a great team,” she said.

“We’re not a team,” he said. “I have a wife.”

She looked at him. “Would you be more comfortable if I got out and walked?”

“You’re the one who’s been trying to provoke me,” he said.

“Does that make me your worst fear? A woman who’s provocative?”

“Worst fear? What are you talking about? That’s like a question on a psychological exam: ‘Often I feel that other people are …’; ‘My worst fear is that.…’ ”

“Often I feel that other people are going to succeed, and I’m not,” Cheryl said. “My worst fear is that for reasons I don’t understand, I’m trying to antagonize someone I want to be my friend.”

Think of something to say; she’s opened up to you , he kept thinking, all the way through the town, past the empty factory buildings, past used-book stores and out-of-business boutiques, up the dirt road she directed him to, thinking it still as he coasted to a stop outside a large clapboard house bordered by a second-growth pine forest. Say something , he told himself as she opened the car door, but urgency only paralyzed him further. If he hadn’t reached over and grabbed her jacket and pulled her back and pressed his forehead against hers, closing his eyes, inhaling the smell of her shampoo, his lips parting slightly against her cheek, his lips trailing down to kiss her lips, she would simply have gotten out of the car and disappeared into the house in silence.

Martine, Martine, Martine, Martine—

How often in the two days since we last spoke has your name echoed in my mind, as if by incantation I could conjure up your strong spirit and derive strength from it. I have been almost unable to look anyone in the eye since Alice’s admission to the hospital in Connecticut. They are not so much polite as exceedingly businesslike: every time I admit to my stupidity, they tell me there will be plenty of time to discuss it later, treating me like a child being told to play inside on a rainy day, because the next day is sure to be sunny. They’re very skeptical — with reason, I suppose — of a man whose wife is addicted to drugs and alcohol and who claims to have noticed nothing out of the ordinary. Well, Martine, what has been “ordinary” about Alice since M’s death? And if this might have been the situation when he was alive, did you have the slightest indication this was so? How amazing I didn’t ask you that when I phoned, and how equally amazing that I am ashamed to call again, half because I suspect you, also, must think me a fool, and half because if you do not, and pity me, I would be undone. I know the truth is that you were so horrified by the facts I laid out that you never recovered yourself during my call. Also, I was in the administrative office when I called — just a few big antique tables with typewriters and vases of flowers on them, in the Greek Revival building that is on the hospital grounds — and there was nowhere to sit, the recorded Vivaldi was maddening, a doctor came in and began to argue with an insurance company representative — it wouldn’t seem that in such a moment of crisis I could be so distracted, but I find I hardly remember what I said to you, and what you said to me I remember almost not at all. I felt I knew nothing of the world and that I never have, standing in a room that looked exactly like a room in someone’s private home, yet this was a hospital, my wife was in another similarly antique studded building across a vast Gatsbyesque lawn, and I was expected to sign forms agreeing to pay them any amount they demanded and disappear without seeing her again and to return only after several days had passed, believing that it would take that long to detoxify her body from an assortment of drugs, most of which I had never heard of, that she had presumably washed down with various liquors ingested right under my nose? Fortunately, I was able to reach Dr. St. Vance at once, so at least his overseeing of the situation will begin immediately. Once in the office, I simply ignored the young doctor and managed several calls before the noise level got so loud I gave up. I realize that the welfare of spouses is secondary at such a time, but I find it astonishing that no thought is given to the shock we may be experiencing. On my way out, one of the women sitting at a desk asked if I wished to buy a raffle ticket! It did not instill confidence about the hospital, which Amelia tells me is very fine, and which Dr. St. Vance also seemed to feel would be a good enough place for Alice to be at present. But still, Martine: no one wants to think about winning a bicycle when their wife has been found passed out. It was so annoying as to drive me almost mad .

I am in Amelia’s apartment now, waiting for her to return from work so I can talk to someone friendly and understanding, instead of someone who wants me to sign away all rights to my money and/or buy a raffle ticket. I cannot at this moment stand to go back to the hotel room after the shock of entering it and finding Alice passed out on the bed, the sickening stench of vomit in the air. As coincidence would have it, kind Amelia had phoned the hotel and left a message for me, begging me to find time in the evening to see her and to tell her about Alice, so here I am — let in by her landlord — sitting in her apartment, which I find I have so often imagined, and imagined wrong. It is rather dilapidated, and any movement seems to result in more paint flaking from the walls. Alice always spoke of her fondness for the place by calling it a good place to nest, though I, myself, feel it’s more like the scrap from which a nest could be assembled. I find it difficult to imagine you, so tidy and so given to beautiful arrangements, spending time here without damage to the spirit. I am thinking of the time you occupied this apartment when Alice and I went to Key Largo the fall after M’s death .