Ann Beattie - Another You

“Yeah, sweetie. Thanks,” he said. He put his arm around Marshall’s shoulder. “Very good to see you here, man,” he said. This time he sounded more enthusiastic. “Hey, quite the transformation, don’t you think?” he said.

“He never saw it before,” Beth said.

“Oh, right. Right. We were out on Duck Key when you and Sonja came down a few years back. Right,” Gordon said. “Well, nothing would do for Beth but to be a townie, hey, hon?”

“I didn’t want to live my life driving in from Duck Key,” she said.

“She doesn’t appreciate the fact I have to work for a living,” Gordon said. “She wants us to live like it’s our twilight years right now, today. Maybe I can hunch myself over and limp over there near the kitchen and get me a beer for my twilight years. Toast them the way we bring New Year’s in.”

“People retire in the United States before they’re old,” Beth said. “What’s so wrong with having money and deciding how you want to spend your days? Some of us, rich or not, prefer to spend them kicking along parallel to the ocean floor. I guess I understand that by now.”

“Don’t give me that shit. You see me plenty. Plenty more than you want to sometimes. He’d shown up last night, I could get more of a report on what a party girl you are than you might provide me with yourself.”

“I have never flirted with a human being since the day we tied the knot,” Beth said. She had opened three beers and put the bottles on the kitchen counter. She opened a jar of peanuts.

“Vacuum-packed,” Gordon said, taking the jar from her. “Close as she gets to a vacuum.” Gordon laughed.

“This place is fantastic,” Marshall said.

“You got yourself a new house, didn’t you?” Gordon said.

“No. We’ve been in the same place since we moved to New Hampshire.”

“Is that right? I thought you’d gotten yourself another place.”

“No,” Marshall said.

“I guess you’d know,” Gordon said.

“Honey, did you get any food?” she said, unloading the string bag.

“All the way down,” he said.

She pulled out a package wrapped in white wax paper. “Oh, snapper,” she said. “Good. Do you like snapper, Marshall?”

“Very much,” he said.

“You look just great. Come on outside and we’ll drink these beers,” Gordon said. “Outside, by Mount Vesuvius.”

“He calls the hot tub Mount Vesuvius,” Beth said, rolling her eyes. She pushed two of the beer bottles toward them. Gordon, like Beth, was thin — thinner than Marshall had last seen him, and slightly wobbly on his feet. His hair was combed strangely, a crooked part dumping long bangs over half his face. His nose was red: drink, or sunburn? His brother was in constant motion: wiping his hands on each side of his jeans, passing the bottle of Corona from one hand to the other as he dried his hands; tucking the long flap of hair behind his ears, freeing it; scratching his chest, adjusting his shirt.

“She tell you how she got that hot tub?” Gordon said.

“He loves this story,” Beth said.

“She had it delivered, never mentioned the first thing about it,” Gordon said. “Her girlfriend came down with meningitis. What happens but Beth starts waitressing for her. Don’t outguess me here: she does not make the money in tips. She makes the money — this is gonna kill you — a guy comes into the Hyatt, sitting at the bar, he’s got a cold. Miss Health-Conscious gives the guy her jar of vitamin C out of her bag, tells him when he gets back to his room to take the vitamins, then put a hot washcloth on top of his head, and sit in a chair for ten minutes, thinking positive thoughts about the disappearance of the cold. You know what happens? This’ll make you laugh, but the first time Beth tells you this, I swear by it: it works. She presses the vitamin C on him—”

“One thousand milligrams a pop,” Beth said. “You have to have a high concentration to make it work.”

“Yeah, babe, but you say that’s also not good for your kidneys,” Gordon said, pushing the screen door farther back, walking out on the deck. Marshall followed.

“Here’s what happened,” Gordon said. “She goes into work the next day and the guy has left an envelope for her, doesn’t even know her name, just writes on the outside it’s for the blond-haired waitress with the flower earrings who was on the previous night at ten p.m. The bartender takes it, writes ‘Beth’ on it. She gets there and opens it: four thousand dollars — a buck for every milligram of vitamin C. The guy thinks he’s found a miracle worker, someone who’s got the cure for the common cold. Says so, in his note. It used to be hung on the refrigerator with one of those refrigerator magnets: a pink cow holding a nice, handwritten note that accompanied four thousand dollars cash. You know what Beth did? Went to Tropical Tubs right after her shift ended, picked out what she wanted looking through the gate, next morning in she walks with her money, and here it is.”

Beth shrugged. “It works more times than not,” she said.

“Hey, listen,” Gordon said, turning his attention to Marshall as if he’d just walked through the door. “How the hell are you? How’ve you been?”

“How have I been?” Marshall echoed. “This has been a very confusing year. I haven’t been all that well.”

“You haven’t?” Gordon said. Marshall could hear the trepidation in his voice. He drained his beer, his eyes darting to a lizard heading for one of the bougainvillea pots.

“I’m fine,” Marshall said halfheartedly. “I had a friend along on part of the ride. He was having health problems.”

“He try the Corona cure?” Beth said.

“No,” Marshall said. “As far as I know, he didn’t try that.”

“Hey, babe, how far ahead should I light those coals?” Gordon said.

“Better dump them in the barbecue first,” she said.

“Notice that I married a wise ass?” Gordon said. “I love her, though. Babe, tell him how we got the ceiling fans in the house.”

“No,” she said. “It’ll sound like bragging.”

Gordon shrugged. The bird shrieked again.

“Get away, you fucking asshole!” Beth yelled at the cat, racing toward the fence. She bypassed the beer bottles, stepped over Gordon’s discarded T-shirt, Marshall’s kicked-off shoes. “And stay away!” she hollered.

“Pretty boy!” the bird shrieked. “Pretty boy. Pretty boy.”

“Oh, my long-suffering ass you’re pretty,” Gordon said, picking up his empty bottle and throwing it into the yard.

“Gordon!” Beth said.

“Yeah?” he said.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

“Is it my fault if our friends the Rastafarians have a problem with picking up after themselves when they’ve been drinking beer?”

“Don’t do that again,” she said.

“Pretty boy, pretty boy,” Gordon said, puffing out his chest. He smiled at Beth. “How is it you think that bird lives through every night? You’re not awake all night long to protect it, unless that book you were reading on astral projection finally took.”

“All I know is I’ve stopped that cat from getting it approximately one million times.”

“She sends protective thoughts to it during the night,” Gordon said.

“I say a prayer for it. That’s all I do,” she said, handing Marshall a dish filled with nuts. The dish was in the shape of a flamingo’s head, nuts filling the shallow pocket of its beak. A bright blue eye stared up at Marshall as he reached for the dish. Gordon’s fingers dipped in. Some of the nuts scattered to the deck; others made it into his mouth.

“Here comes the part where he objects that I’m mystical, as he calls it,” Beth said. “I meditate before dinner. Watch him make fun of me once I turn my back.”