Ann Beattie - The New Yorker Stories

Also by Ann Beattie

Distortions

Chilly Scenes of Winter

Secrets and Surprises

Falling in Place

The Burning House

Love Always

Where You’ll Find Me

Picturing Will

What Was Mine

Another You

My Life, Starring Dara Falcon

Park City

Perfect Recall

The Doctor’s House

Follies

Walks with Men

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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are

products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to

actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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Manufactured in the United States of America

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

Library of Congress Control Number: 2010032933

ISBN 978-1-4391-6874-5

ISBN 978-1-4391-6876-9 (ebook)

“Zalla,” “Second Question,” from Park City: New and Selected Stories by Ann Beattie, copyright © 1998 by Irony and Pity, Inc. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc.

“A Vintage Thunderbird,” “Colorado,” “The Lawn Party,” “Distant Music,” “Secrets and Surprises,” “Weekend,” “Tuesday Night,” “Shifting,” from Secrets and Surprises by Ann Beattie, copyright © 1976, 1977, 1978 by Ann Beattie. Used by permission of Random House, Inc.

“Home to Marie,” “Television,” “Horatio’s Trick,” from What Was Mine by Ann Beattie, copyright © 1991 by Irony and Pity, Inc. Used by permission of Random House, Inc.

“Coney Island,” “Lofty,” “Times,” “Heaven on a Summer Night,” “In the White Night,” “Janus,”

“Summer People,” “Skeletons,” and “Where You’ll Find Me,” reprinted with the permission of Scribner, a Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc., from Where You’ll Find Me and Other Stories by Ann Beattie. Copyright © 1986 by Irony and Pity, Inc. All rights reserved.

“The Women of This World” reprinted with the permission of Scribner, a Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc., from Perfect Recall by Ann Beattie. Copyright © 2001 by Irony and Pity, Inc. All rights reserved.

“Find and Replace,” “The Rabbit Hole as Likely Explanation,” and “That Last Odd Day in L.A.,” reprinted with the permission of Scribner, a Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc., from Follies by Ann Beattie. Copyright © 2005 by Irony and Pity, Inc. All rights reserved.

The following stories appear courtesy of Ann Beattie: from Distortions (1976), “A Platonic Relationship,” “Fancy Flights,” “Wolf Dreams,” “Dwarf House,” “Snakes’ Shoes,” “Vermont,” “Downhill,” and “Wanda’s”; from The Burning House (1982), “The Cinderella Waltz,” “The Burning House,” “Waiting,” “Greenwich Time,” “Gravity,” “Running Dreams,” “Afloat,” “Girl Talk,” “Like Glass,” and “Desire”; previously uncollected, “Moving Water,” “One Day,” “Coping Stones,” and “The Confidence Decoy.”

For Lincoln

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

THE

NEW

YORKER

STORIES

A Platonic Relationship

When Ellen was told that she would be hired as a music teacher at the high school, she decided that it did not mean that she would have to look like the other people on the faculty. She would tuck her hair neatly behind her ears, instead of letting it fall free, schoolgirlishly. She had met some of the teachers when she went for her interview, and they all seemed to look like what she was trying to get away from—suburbanites at a shopping center. Casual and airy, the fashion magazines would call it. At least, that’s what they would have called it back when she still read them, when she lived in Chevy Chase and wore her hair long, falling free, the way it had fallen in her high-school graduation picture. “Your lovely face,” her mother used to say, “and all covered by hair.” Her graduation picture was still on display in her parents’ house, next to a picture of her on her first birthday.