Ann Beattie - Another You

Without too much trouble, Tony found the motel. Moments later, on this odd, odd day that had followed the calamitous day that had gone before, they lay curled together in the king-size bed, candle glowing on the night table, watching a Bruce Lee movie on TV. Sonja drew her feet higher, under the blankets. He felt her stirring and put a hand on her hip. He was sick of talking about her wrecked home, about McCallum, and about the two of them. He was engrossed in watching Bruce Lee.

“The blood wasn’t all that bad?” she said, trying to get his attention.

“I lied. It freaked me out. It was very upsetting.”

“So why tell me now?”

Bruce Lee’s foot connected with a man’s ribs, and the man went over backward.

“Because it was wrong of me to mislead you. Your house is a mess. Furthermore, you can live with me, if you want. You can live with me without Marshall, that would be the best idea. Then I could save on motel bills.”

“Is all of this a sick joke, or was some of it what you really think?” she said, yanking the covers over her back.

His hand returned to pat her hip. He touched her with the same rhythm, the same intensity, people use when they’re in a hurry, drumming their fingers on a tabletop. Bruce Lee was doing very well for himself. Tony was spellbound.

“You know, I almost told Marshall yesterday morning,” she said. “Diligent Marshall, suddenly finding out he’s been living with someone who’s stopped being … diligent.”

He looked at her. “Are you going to tell him or keep this a secret?”

“Keep it a secret,” she said. She waited for his response, but there was none. A commercial for cat food came on, an aging movie actress whose name she couldn’t remember stooping to shower crunchy stars into a cat’s bowl. The cat sprouted wings and flew to the food. The woman sprouted wings and disappeared through the ceiling.

Tony was propped on one elbow, still watching TV. “Doesn’t something horrible like this make you realize that life is short and that, I don’t know, maybe nothing good comes of hiding your feelings? I mean, we can’t all be as extroverted as Susan McCallum, but it seems quite possible that if any good is to come out of something like this, maybe it’s to make the people on the sidelines introspective. What I mean is, maybe you should think about telling him.”

“You’re not afraid of what he’d do?”

There was a long silence, during which she decided he wasn’t going to answer. In another room, she heard someone flipping through the channels, getting mostly static, as she and Tony had earlier.

“No,” he said.

“Why?” she said.

“Because he likes me well enough.”

“Likes you? I don’t think he gives you a moment’s thought.”

Another long pause. “Well, you said he hardly knew McCallum either,” Tony said.

“Tony,” she said, “what are we talking about?”

“A teeny, tiny bit of cowardice that might exist on your husband’s part,” he said.

“You think he wouldn’t do anything? ”

“Well, what are you saying?” Tony said. “That I couldn’t stand someone’s angry words?” He turned toward her. “You’re mad at me for stating something that you already understand completely, which is that Marshall wouldn’t be an insurmountable problem.”

“What would you have him do?” she said.

“Sonja, don’t blame me for his disposition. I would have him do just what he would do: complain, or lecture us, or just go off and lick his wounds, I don’t know.”

“I can’t believe it. You don’t think he’d care.”

“When did I say that?”

“You want him to come on like Bruce Lee.”

“There’s been enough violence.”

“Tony—”

“ ‘Tony,’ nothing. You like it that I don’t mind being adversarial. In this case, though, I’m only pointing out the obvious. I’m not saying he’s a lily-livered coward. I mean, in his place, what would I do myself?”

She had pulled herself up in bed and was feeling the full extent of her discomfort: the wrinkled sheets, cold seeping underneath from where Tony’d pulled them out from under the mattress, the stiff pillow impossible to pound into a comfortable headrest. Here she was in a motel with her lover, with whom she found herself in frivolous fights all too often, listening to him as if he had a great psychic ability to see the future. His expression implied a kind of superiority: the raised eyebrows letting her know he found her slightly ridiculous; his jutting chin set belligerently, as if whatever position he took was the only possible way to think about something. As he turned away from her to rest on his hip again, exasperated, looking once more at Bruce Lee, it dawned on her that he might have said everything he’d said to provoke her. To provoke her not into telling Marshall about their affair, but to ensure that she wouldn’t. Her intuition told her she was right. Wasn’t it possible Tony was trying to be disagreeable so she would like him less, so she would measure him against Marshall, conventional, diligent Marshall, and find Tony lacking … which would mean that if she chose her husband, instead of him, he could come out of their affair feeling self-righteous, superior to her by making it seem she’d opted for the status quo?

“I’m getting bad vibes,” Tony said. “I’m feeling that you’re put out with me.”

“Isn’t that what you intended?”

“Look at me,” he said, turning toward her. “That is not what I want. I admit I’m in a little over my head. It’s made me feel guilty, having him in the house, relating to him like he’s my friend. I know it’s not my business to tell you what to do about your marriage, but what I am definitely not telling you is to write me off.”

She couldn’t tell, for sure; looking straight at him, she couldn’t tell whether she’d been subsumed by paranoia, or whether there was at least some truth to her suspicions, until he cleared his throat and said that he’d been thinking he needed some time to sort through his feelings. All he was talking about was a few days in the Bahamas. With his mother, no less. So: Tony was the coward, not Marshall. Tony was the one who wasn’t standing up to the sudden changes very well.

“Why did you do it?” she said. “Why did you wait for us at the police station?”

“Because I was concerned about you, what the hell do you think?”

“But you knew he’d be there too, didn’t you?”

“Why am I being cross-examined about a good deed? I didn’t see what else to do; I’d dropped you there, and it seemed only decent to wait to round you up. Yes, I figured he’d be there. I never really encountered him before, except in passing. I didn’t expect to like him. To feel sorry for him. It made me feel guilty. I just told you that.”

“Which way did you really feel, Tony? That you liked him, or that you felt sorry for him?”

“Both. He’s a likeable person. I don’t know why he doesn’t have any friends. You say he doesn’t. McCallum apparently feels he’s his friend, but he tells me, and you tell me, that isn’t so. I don’t have many friends myself. I let people drift away. I didn’t extend myself those times I might have. At the very least, you’ve got to be my friend. I don’t ever want to lose you.”

My God: he was telling her he just wanted to be friends. That was what he was telling her.

“Why are you looking at me that way?” he said. “Have I asked for something so impossible?”

“Let me get this straight,” she said, but this time she was sure she already had it straight. “You’re going to go away from me for a few days, and when you come back, you want us to be friends.”

“Well, I want us to be friends. Good friends. Yes.”