Chilly Scenes of Winter

by Ann Beattie

  “That’s liberal of her,” Sam says.

  “That’s just the way she put it: ‘I don’t think Jeanne’s romance with the Governor is at all scandalous,’ she said. She quit after training just like I did.”

  “What’s it like looking at all that money?” Sam says.

  “After a while you forget it means anything. It was depressing because I’d look at my paycheck I’d worked for and think that it meant nothing,”

  “Must be strange,” Charles says.

  “I thought I’d like the hours, but you always end up staying late.”

  “You know what?” Sam says, looking at Charles. “I forgot to drive you to work so I could have the car.”

  “Tomorrow,” Charles says.

  “Or maybe I could just take it later tonight. Do it tonight. I haven’t done anything all day.”

  “That’s a good idea. After we drop Betty off I can come help you.”

  “You were living in an apartment?” Betty says.

  “Yeah. A real dump.”

  “It’s nice you can stay here,” Betty says. “It is. There’s not a bug in the whole place. How come you don’t have bugs?”

  “I don’t know. It’s not too dirty.”

  “I guess bugs are mostly in apartments. I swear to God, if you left a glass of water out overnight, you’d find something floating in it in the morning.”

  Betty makes a face. “My apartment is pretty clean,” she says.

  “I’d rather have bugs than rats, though,” Sam says.

  “Don’t talk about it before dinner,” Charles says.

  Betty laughs.

  They eat in the dining room with four white candles burning in a wooden candle holder Susan gave him for his birthday. The dinner is good. They concentrate on eating because they have run out of things to say to each other. Ry Cooder’s “Paradise and Lunch” plays. It is not exactly dinner music, but Amy has gone out the window, so what the hell. Ry Cooder is doing a splendid job of “Mexican Divorce.”

  “Have you ever been to Mexico?” Betty asks.

  “I’ve never been anywhere,” Sam says.

  “No,” Charles shakes his head.

  “I went there when I was ten. I bought a stuffed armadillo. At customs they opened it underneath with a jackknife. They sewed it back up, but they did a sloppy job. That was traumatic, to have my toy taken away and sliced open.”

  “Drugs, huh?” Charles says.

  “I guess.”

  “What’s it like in Mexico?” Sam asks.

  “I don’t remember too well because I was so young. I just remember things like what the children looked like, and all the fruit stands.”

  “It would be great to have money to take a vacation,” Sam says. Bermuda.…

  He has forgotten to buy dessert. They go back to the living room, where the dog is sleeping. There is a small puddle on the floor by the lamp. Sam gets a sponge and wipes it up.

  “You’re a nice puppy,” Betty says, patting it.

  “Think of a name for him,” Sam says.

  “I can’t think of anything,” Betty says. She looks proud of herself for not being able to think, the way Marilyn Monroe always smiled in the movies when she was apologetic.

  “Did you two meet in college?” Betty asks.

  “Grade school. A long time ago.”

  “That’s amazing. You’ve known each other that long and you still like each other?”

  “Yeah,” Charles shrugs.

  “I was friends with a girl since we were sixteen, but lately we’re so different that we don’t get along. She married a stockbroker.”

  Sam gets on the floor and plays with the dog.

  “That was a very good dinner,” Betty says. “Thank you.”

  After another half hour of awkward conversation (damn—he should have bought two of those big bottles of Coke) Betty says that she should go home.

  “You don’t mind if I ride along?” Sam says.

  “Of course not,” Betty says.

  On the ride to her apartment Sam sits in the back. Betty wanted to sit back there, and both kept insisting until finally Sam pushed her aside and climbed in. Charles felt sorry for her, trying to act like one of the guys, to act indifferent. He thinks she is starting to like him again. He looks quickly at her legs. They are so fat. She is so plain. They have nothing to talk about. He knew it would be this way.

  “What do you hear from Laura?” he asks, going around the circle. It is the same circle the old man shook his stick in, the circle he rode around with Laura.

  “Oh, that’s right You know Laura. I was over at her apartment a couple of nights ago for spaghetti.”

  “What? What do you mean?”

  “She asked me over for dinner. What’s wrong?”

  “Didn’t you say her apartment?”

  Betty nods.

  “But she lives in a house.”

  “Oh. I told you she was living with her husband, didn’t I? She’s moved out, into an apartment She seems pretty unhappy about it because of the little girl. Did you ever meet her? She brought her to work one day.”

  He has pulled over. He is shaking his head back and forth.

  “What’s wrong?” Betty says.

  “She can’t have moved. Where did she move to?”

  “A place not far from where I’m living. I forget the name of the street”

  “You’re kidding me. You have to be kidding me.”

  “I didn’t know you knew her so well.”

  “Yeah. I do know her well.”

  Sam sighs loudly in the back seat.

  “Sam,” Charles says. “Laura left him. And she didn’t call.”

  “She’ll call,” Sam says mechanically.

  Betty turns around and looks at Sam. She looks at Charles.

  “Did I say something wrong?” she says.

  “No, you … I had no idea she wasn’t still with him. What happened?”

  “We didn’t talk much about it I didn’t want to press her. She was just there in this apartment, and she said she’d left him.”

  “Was she all right?”

  “Sure. She was all right” Betty gives him a funny look. His foot has gone dead, and he doesn’t think he can drive. He tries the gas pedal. The car starts off.

  “Is there a phone? Do you have her number?”

  “It’s unlisted,” Betty says. “I’ve got it somewhere.”

  “Can you get it? Can you give it to me right now?”

  Of course she can’t give it to him right then. They are driving down a street. Very fast, as a matter of fact He checks in the rearview mirror for cops, sees Sam shaking his head.

  “Oh my God. She’s left him and I didn’t even know. She didn’t even tell me.”

  Betty looks very uncomfortable. She looks out the window.

  “That next street is mine. No—past the stop sign.”

  He turns.

  “Which building?” he says. “The last one on the right”

  “Betty, don’t forget to find that number.”

  “I’ll look for it,” she says.

  “You can find it, can’t you?”

  “I’ll give it to you tomorrow,” she says.

  He wants it that second.

  “Thank you,” he says. “Please find it.”

  “I will,” she says. “Good night.”

  Betty doesn’t look at him. She gets out and runs toward her apartment, and he sits there, in a daze, knowing he should have escorted her, but his legs are feeling too funny to walk on them. What’s the matter with Betty?

  “Sam? What’s the matter with her?”

  “What do you think?” Sam says.

  “I wasn’t rude, was I? Did I say something rude?”

  “You made it plain who you liked, let’s say that.”

  Oh no. Poor Betty.

  “What am I going to do? I can’t just let her run off like that”

  He wants to let her run off. He wants never to see her again. Or anybody but Laur
a. Anybody else is a waste of time.

  “I think it’s pretty obvious what you can do,” he says.

  “Okay. I’m going to get out of the car for a minute.”

  He walks slowly toward the building. His car idling sounds very loud. He doesn’t feel well. He pulls the door handle. The doors are locked. He pulls harder. They are locked. There is a list of names outside underneath glass, but they’re only last names. What is Betty’s last name? He never did know her last name. He has to get Betty so … so what? So he can apologize. It wouldn’t do any good to apologize. She would be polite. If she isn’t up there crying. Why did she run? How did she get away so fast? Did she even say what floor she lived on? He leans against the building, looks through the darkness back to the street where his car is. Sam is getting pretty tired of all this. He is likely to lose his only friend. He will have to get himself together and go over to Sam’s and help him pack books and move clothes. He straightens up and begins to walk. The trees to either side of him might as well be a firing squad.

  TWELVE

  Laura’s number is waiting for him when he gets back from lunch. He went to work over an hour early, thinking that for some reason Betty might get there early, too, and he would have Laura’s phone number sooner. Betty did not show up early, or at all. When he saw the memo (it did not have his name on it, and there was no explanation—only the number and Betty’s name) he was relieved that Betty was feeling well enough to come to work, and in a burst of sympathy before he called Laura (and to give himself a little more time to think) he walked down to the typing pool. Three women were there, but Betty was still not at her desk. He asked one of the women. She said that Betty had called in sick, but there had been a message for him. She asked the woman typing at the next desk if she hadn’t taken the message. Yes, and left it on his desk. “Thank you,” he said. He was bothering them. “Do any of you know Betty’s number?” The same woman who took the message knew Betty’s number. She opened her bottom desk drawer and took out a huge purse, a lavender purse, and found a little book inside with Betty’s number. “Thank you,” he said again, and went back to his office. He dialed Betty. There was no answer. He hung up and tried again. Still nothing. He put on the earphones and listened to a song. He went out for a drink. He came back to the desk and ran his hand over the pile of reports. It is just not the right moment to call Laura. He is worried about Betty, and he is sore from lifting cartons of books, and his lunch was horrible, and he’s sure that when she picks up the phone he will blurt that he loves her and plead with her to let him run over immediately. He has already told Sam he won’t be home for dinner. He opens a box of Steel City paper clips and examines one (“Doctor Dan wants to know who shot that paper clip. Come on … which one of you?”). How could she have moved without telling him? He picks up the phone again, then puts it down. No sense in calling and sounding annoyed. Best to treat it casually: “I hear you moved.” Shit. Why didn’t she call him; what’s that supposed to mean? He picks up one of the reports and begins making notations. He finishes the report and leans back in the chair. It is an orange chair with upholstery that looks and feels like burlap. He is reluctant to say that it is burlap, however, because he doesn’t want to think that he is sitting on burlap. That’s what they bag potatoes in. He puts his head back and stares at the sun, mid-point in the window. He is tired; last night after cleaning out Sam’s apartment he tried to sleep, but he kept thinking that the next day he’d get Laura’s number and he couldn’t sleep. Then the dog started walking around, jingling its collar. Sam finally got up to take the collar off, and the dog thought that it was a game and ducked its head (Charles eventually got up to help) and sprinted from the room. Then he was wide awake, and worrying about the way he had treated Betty and wondering if it was true that Pamela Smith left with her brother. What if some maniac had a knife on her and made her write it? He should have looked to see if there was a hidden message. How could she just leave like that? How could Laura? Why isn’t he calling?

  What is your favorite meal? he asks himself.

  Lasagna.

  What is your favorite day?

  Friday.

  What is your favorite sport?

  Skiing. (He chuckles.)

  He begins again, trying to be honest, no tricks, just honesty. It is a game Susan taught him years ago that she said would help him fall asleep. She did not use the word “game,” but that’s what it is.

  What is your favorite meal?

  Lasagna, Chili.

  Just one.

  Lasagna.

  Who is your best friend? Sam.

  What is your favorite country? America.

  Who was your favorite President? Kennedy.

  Whom do you idolize? Nobody.

  What was the best year of your life?

  The year I met Laura.

  What was the happiest month of your life?

  Same.

  Hour?

  Same.

  Then why aren’t you calling?

  Fear.

  Why are you fearful? Don’t know.

  You do know.

  Too many reasons to go into.

  Go into one of them.

  Afraid I’ll be overcome and will sound too desperate, blow the whole thing.

  What if you blow the whole thing?

  Don’t know.

  You do know.

  The end.

  Sam would ask the same questions, prodding him. He would give the same answers. The game is not relaxing him at all; it’s not divorced from life, it is life. He closes his eyes and tries to count sheep. What do sheep look like? (“And now she says the picture on the piano is her husband.…”) Sheep have curly hair and little ears. In a pasture. Green grass. They bleat. He can’t see them, though.

  What do you see?

  A fruit stand.

  That makes no sense.

  I know.

  What kind of fruit?

  Apples, pears, bananas, peaches, grapes, and lettuce. No, not lettuce. Melon.

  Do you want to eat the fruit?

  No.

  Want to buy it?

  No.

  Explain. Can’t.

  Can.

  Can’t.

  He is feeling very uncertain. If he doesn’t call now, he will be in a worse state of mind when he does call. The phone rings. It is his boss. He has found his pen. It was on the windowsill, behind the Venetian blind. Charles tells him that it is wonderful that the pen has been found. “I’ll be having a small get-together soon, and will let you and your wife know.” His boss says that that is splendid. Why did he say that to his boss? Because he is making nervous conversation, hoping his boss does not sense that he’s goofing off. He congratulates his boss again. His voice is so insincere that it cracks. His boss chuckles. Spirits are high.

  This is just not the right phone to call from. There is nothing pleasant about the phone or the surroundings. He puts on his coat and walks down the corridor to the elevator. He rides to the ground floor, walks past the blind man’s stand, out the doors. He runs across the highway to the shopping center. He goes into the Safeway and gets a brown bag and fills it with fruit He checks his wallet. Fruit could not possibly cost more than thirty-eight dollars. He throws in another pear, a bunch of grapes.

  “Weigh this, please,” he says to the teen-age boy standing at the produce scales. The boy’s face falls. He spills it all out, separates the different kinds and puts them on the table the scale sits on. One falls. He picks it up, face red. He writes 89 on the bag and drops the apples in. He weighs the bunch of bananas; 72 appears under the 89. He weighs the single grapefruit. “Wait, these are ten for ninety-nine,” he says. He writes 10 on the bag. The oranges cost 49 and the single pear 16. He adds it up, circles it in red. Charles almost runs to the checkout counter, where he has a long wait. A woman in front of him, her cart full of boxes of disposable diapers, stands reading Family Circle. She has a pug nose and bangs. Her clothes are all different colors. Charles rechecks and find
s that he has only thirty-five dollars. Still—the fruit costs so little. Thirty-five. He recounts and sees that he’s right. Finally he gets to the cashier. She has on a pink smock. She is pregnant. She rings up the amount on the cash register. He gives her a ten dollar bill and starts to leave without his change.

  “Sir,” she calls.

  He doesn’t want the change; he wants to get on with it. But wouldn’t they go after him if he ran? Sweating, he turns back. She counts it out loudly. A woman in line stares at him.

  He goes back to the office and walks through the lobby. The blind man is asleep (looks it, at least) in a chair in the comer. Charles takes out one piece of fruit—the pear—and puts it on the blind man’s counter. He walks quietly away. The blind man does not move. Someone will pick up the pear on their way home and the blind man will say, “What have you got?” and they will answer, “A pear,” and the blind man will be completely mystified. He sells no fruit. He will have no idea where it came from. Charles chuckles. He goes to his office and sits in the chair. Reports. He has reports to do. The bag tips over on his desk, the bananas stick out. An apple hits the floor. He retrieves it, sits down and dials Betty’s number. No answer. But at least he knows her last name now. It is Betty Dowell. He will know what buzzer to ring.

  But Laura, Laura … he really went out to find a suitable place to call Laura. He has taken care of Betty now—he will drive to her apartment after work and give her the fruit and apologize—and he should just pick up the phone and dial Laura, not make a big thing of it. He does. The phone rings exactly fifteen times.

  Charles does as much work as he can between then and five-thirty, then leaves the building and goes to his car in the parking lot. He gets in and puts the key in the ignition. He leans back and closes his eyes. Laura. He sits forward and turns on the ignition. He begins to drive, through the heavy rush-hour traffic, to Betty Dowell’s apartment. It’s oldies time on the radio. “The Name Game” plays. “Laura, Laura, bo bora banana fana fo fora, fee fi mo mora, Laura,” he sings. He takes a banana out—he has a bit of trouble tearing it off the stalk with one hand—and peels it. He bites into it. He went to the store and he forgot to buy food for dinner. Damn! Why don’t housewives all go mad, go completely crazy, run naked down the streets, stampeding, screaming? How could he be right in the grocery store and forget? Wait. How could he be going to call Laura, how could he be going to go over to Laura’s and still eat at home? Oh, shit. He is terribly confused. He finishes the banana and throws the skin out the window. He double parks in front of Betty’s apartment. A driver rolls down his window and curses him. “Think you own this lane, you bastard?” A couple is walking into the apartment building. The woman holds the door open for him. Just like that! He won’t have to stand on the street shouting that he is there. He will surprise her; she will have to let him in, have to accept the fruit. Maybe he should have sent a fruit basket with a big bow. Maybe this looks tacky. But wouldn’t the other have seemed too presumptuous? Muzak plays in the elevator. A note above the controls: “I found a brown glove. Also have cat to give away. Apt. 416.” He has forgotten to look and see what floor Betty lives on. When the elevator stops at three for the couple, he pushes “lobby.” He goes out the door, holding it open with his foot, and peers at the list of tenants in the corner. Dowell, Dowell … 512. He goes back to the elevator and rides to five. He stands in front of apartment 512. He knocks. There is no noise inside. He knocks again. He reaches in his coat pocket for a pen, writes “For Betty from Charles” on the bag of fruit and leaves it leaning against her door. He goes back to the elevator and rides to the lobby, walks across the blue patterned carpet to the door, walks out the door to his car. He drives home. Everything is fine now. She will get the fruit, she will forgive him; he will call Laura, she will forgive him. But what has he done to Laura? What did he ever do that she wouldn’t call him? He has got to find out He drives faster.