Ann Beattie - The New Yorker Stories

“What?”

It wasn’t the time to play with her, she was in a bad way—she didn’t realize that he was trying to tease her into examining her assumptions. He said, “No, because I couldn’t prove it. But I more or less told his best friend, the one he wanted to impress, that I’d realized what was going on.”

He put his hands on his knees, getting ready to stand. She shifted her weight onto her hip, following him with her eyes. “Do you know what I should do?” she asked, as he stood. “I don’t have a lot of time.”

He thought about it. “I’d think you’d want to talk this over with Sheldon, as soon as he shows up.”

“Nothing tells you that he won’t show up?”

He smiled. He’d impressed her too easily, when usually he understood very little. Common sense told him that his son—his lazy, spoiled son—would return to the family home, if only because there was nowhere else for him to go. Even now, he could sense Sheldon watching, the way ducks circled decoys, waiting for some instinctive sense that everything looked right, that it was safe to move in; fooled by the sentry heads (that would be Bern, sitting in her chair with her embroidery, her head cocked in semi-disbelief at the way her life was turning out). The mallards would look harmonious, feeding as they bobbed on the water, much the way lawyers struck a pose to suggest how effortlessly they kept themselves afloat. Then the eye would travel to the oddly lovely egret, who just happened to have landed in his bed, having drifted in after a long flight. Francis smiled at his own conjecturing: who was really the writer in the family, he wondered. His son would keep himself apart a bit longer, making his calculations: Things in place? Feeding time? The most ordinary of things going on? The egret would verify the ordinary by interjecting something different. But then—to extend the metaphor—his son would be wrong, and he would fall into a trap, though not a deadly one: nothing worse than domesticity, nothing he couldn’t escape. Francis thought that he, himself, might have left long before, when he first realized that he’d married a good woman, but not a woman he would die for, and that their only child was deeply flawed. Did he regret having stayed? No. He had never believed in the idea of perfection. Nor did he believe that he was owed a reward for staying: Jim’s mallard would merely represent the receipt of something he had paid for.

It did not ever arrive, with or without its white towel, with or without its burnished coffin, and he did not pursue it. In two days’ time, though, his son returned home.

About the Author

Ann Beattie has been included in four O. Henry Award collections and in John Updike’s Best American Short Stories of the Century . In 2000, she received the PEN/Malamud Award for achievement in the short story form. In 2005, she received the Rea Award for the Short Story. She and her husband, Lincoln Perry, live in Key West, Florida, and Charlottesville, Virginia, where she is Edgar Allan Poe Professor of Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Virginia.

Table of Contents

The Lawn Party

A Platonic Relationship ♦ April 8, 1974

Fancy Flights ♦ October 21, 1974

Wolf Dreams ♦ November 11, 1974

Dwarf House ♦ January 20, 1975

Snakes’ Shoes ♦ March 3, 1975

Vermont ♦ April 21, 1975

Downhill ♦ August 18, 1975

Wanda’s ♦ October 6, 1975

Colorado ♦ March 15, 1976

The Lawn Party ♦ July 5, 1976

Secrets and Surprises ♦ October 26, 1976

Weekend ♦ November 15, 1976

Tuesday Night ♦ January 3, 1977

Shifting ♦ February 21, 1977

Distant Music ♦ July 4, 1977

A Vintage Thunderbird ♦ February 27, 1978

The Cinderella Waltz ♦ January 29, 1979

The Burning House ♦ June 11, 1979

Waiting ♦ June 20, 1979

Greenwich Time ♦ October 29, 1979

Gravity ♦ June 2, 1980

Running Dreams ♦ February 16, 1981

Afloat ♦ September 21, 1981

Girl Talk ♦ December 7, 1981

Like Glass ♦ February 22, 1982

Desire ♦ June 14, 1982

Moving Water ♦ November 8, 1982

Coney Island ♦ January 24, 1983

Television ♦ March 28, 1983

Lofty ♦ August 8, 1983

One Day ♦ August 29, 1983

Heaven on a Summer Night ♦ November 28, 1983

Times ♦ December 26, 1983

In the White Night ♦ June 4, 1984

Summer People ♦ September 24, 1984

Janus ♦ May 27, 1985

Skeletons ♦ February 3, 1986

Where You’ll Find Me ♦ March 3, 1986

Home to Marie ♦ December 15, 1986

Horatio’s Trick ♦ December 28, 1987

Second Question ♦ June 10, 1991

Zalla ♦ October 19, 1992

The Women of This World ♦ November 20, 2000

That Last Odd Day in L.A. ♦ April 15, 2001

Find and Replace ♦ November 5, 2001

The Rabbit Hole as Likely Explanation ♦ April 12, 2004

Coping Stones ♦ September 12, 2005

The Confidence Decoy ♦ November 27, 2006

Table of Contents

A Platonic Relationship ♦ April 8, 1974

Fancy Flights ♦ October 21, 1974

Wolf Dreams ♦ November 11, 1974

Dwarf House ♦ January 20, 1975

Snakes’ Shoes ♦ March 3, 1975

Vermont ♦ April 21, 1975

Downhill ♦ August 18, 1975

Wanda’s ♦ October 6, 1975

Colorado ♦ March 15, 1976

The Lawn Party ♦ July 5, 1976

Secrets and Surprises ♦ October 26, 1976

Weekend ♦ November 15, 1976

Tuesday Night ♦ January 3, 1977

Shifting ♦ February 21, 1977

Distant Music ♦ July 4, 1977

A Vintage Thunderbird ♦ February 27, 1978

The Cinderella Waltz ♦ January 29, 1979

The Burning House ♦ June 11, 1979

Waiting ♦ June 20, 1979

Greenwich Time ♦ October 29, 1979

Gravity ♦ June 2, 1980

Running Dreams ♦ February 16, 1981

Afloat ♦ September 21, 1981

Girl Talk ♦ December 7, 1981

Like Glass ♦ February 22, 1982

Desire ♦ June 14, 1982

Moving Water ♦ November 8, 1982

Coney Island ♦ January 24, 1983

Television ♦ March 28, 1983

Lofty ♦ August 8, 1983

One Day ♦ August 29, 1983

Heaven on a Summer Night ♦ November 28, 1983

Times ♦ December 26, 1983

In the White Night ♦ June 4, 1984

Summer People ♦ September 24, 1984

Janus ♦ May 27, 1985

Skeletons ♦ February 3, 1986

Where You’ll Find Me ♦ March 3, 1986

Home to Marie ♦ December 15, 1986

Horatio’s Trick ♦ December 28, 1987

Second Question ♦ June 10, 1991

Zalla ♦ October 19, 1992

The Women of This World ♦ November 20, 2000

That Last Odd Day in L.A. ♦ April 15, 2001

Find and Replace ♦ November 5, 2001

The Rabbit Hole as Likely Explanation ♦ April 12, 2004

Coping Stones ♦ September 12, 2005

The Confidence Decoy ♦ November 27, 2006

Table of Contents

A Platonic Relationship ♦ April 8, 1974

Fancy Flights ♦ October 21, 1974

Wolf Dreams ♦ November 11, 1974

Dwarf House ♦ January 20, 1975

Snakes’ Shoes ♦ March 3, 1975

Vermont ♦ April 21, 1975

Downhill ♦ August 18, 1975

Wanda’s ♦ October 6, 1975

Colorado ♦ March 15, 1976

The Lawn Party ♦ July 5, 1976

Secrets and Surprises ♦ October 26, 1976

Weekend ♦ November 15, 1976

Tuesday Night ♦ January 3, 1977

Shifting ♦ February 21, 1977

Distant Music ♦ July 4, 1977

A Vintage Thunderbird ♦ February 27, 1978