Park City

by Ann Beattie

  —

  Now, in the museum gift shop, she flipped through a rack of reproductions of paintings she and Teddy were about to see. The museum wouldn’t open for another ten minutes—in Italian time, perhaps half an hour. She was wondering idly about the nationality of other people who browsed with her. She played little games she often played, spinning suddenly to look at Teddy and trying to imagine what she would think if she were seeing him for the first time, or standing near another couple and trying to see him through their eyes—if they saw him at all. It was amazing how many people did not seem to see him. He was handsome enough, though slight. He looked like a nice man. She decided that was true: he looked benevolent, and his graying sideburns could even seem dashing. His shoes must be meant to be funny, yes? Because he was too old for such shoes, and a man in a cashmere sweater would know they were rather funny-looking.

  There was a woman, a woman five feet ten to six feet tall, her auburn hair clipped back, bending to peer into a glass case. Only, she didn’t care what she saw. She only meant to be standing next to Teddy. She edged him away, a bit, and when he was about to step sideways, she apologized—in English, with a French accent—and drew him back by placing her hand on his wrist. Her long bangs fell free of the clip and scooped forward. “That bookmark,” the woman said. “Do you know what that could be?” And to her complete surprise, Teddy, drawing close, said, “A detail of a painting by Uccello, I should think.”

  Uccello? It was as if the windows had been thrown open and a breeze had blown into the room. It was the experience one had hearing music shift from major to minor. She frowned, wondering how he would know the work of a painter she’d never heard of. She watched them. Then Teddy moved away, flipping through the box of postcards, stepping away from the Frenchwoman’s side. How long will she wait before moving close to him again? she found herself thinking, while a man the same height as the woman came into the shop and put his hand on her upper arm and said something to her, quietly. He was followed in by a towheaded boy of four or five, who ran to the man and butted his head against the back of his knees, hugging his legs from behind. The boy wore glasses. By the way he ran, which was more like loping, you could tell something was wrong. When she looked again, she saw a brace—something like a temporary cast—strapped around the outside of his pants. He was wearing some doctor-rigged contraption on his right leg, and he was hugging his father from behind, embracing him with as much force as he could muster, which in an adult would have brought the man down. Instead, the man carefully lifted him onto his shoulders, and from up above, with the best possible view of the shop, the boy began to survey the scene. How interesting that his eyes, like his mother’s, settled on Teddy.

  Teddy was looking at a framed reproduction of a painting. The original must have been five or six panels, because on closer inspection you could see the seams. It was rosy and gold, about four feet long and five or six inches high. Now at his side, she looked with him. Something terrible was depicted: men breaking down a door as blood flowed from the room. Midway across the painting was a hovering angel, as predictable as a star in the night sky. Golden salvation: a painting with a message. She looked from left to right, trying to read the story. Finally, she said, “Uccello.”

  He looked at her, startled. “Yes,” he said. “How did you know that?”

  She sidestepped the question. “It’s obviously not Mantegna,” she said, shrugging in the direction of a portrait she did know, framed near the corner, “so I figured it might be Uccello.”

  “Yes,” he said. “I remember it from art-history class, all those years ago. The Jews have taken the Host, I think, and the Christians are trying to get it back. I think it’s very strange and wonderful. We must take this home.”

  Whose home went unsaid. At the end of this trip, it was up to her to decide where she was going to live. Her lease in New York would be up October 1. Though she rarely occupied the apartment, she had kept it during the two years she had been with Teddy. Today was September 8. The Virgin Mary’s birthday, as he’d told her at the pensione that morning. Had he found that out from the Herald-Tribune or from his datebook, or had he just known? Her mouth foaming with toothpaste, shivering naked beneath his white-turned-gray bathrobe, she had ducked her head around and asked him. “To tell the truth,” he said, “I know from my school days.” As toothpaste suds swirled down the basin, he said, “Because I always remember Molly Bloom’s birthday. And Joyce had her born on the birthday of the Virgin.”

  She had listened as she dried her mouth on the hem of the robe. Only one small towel had been provided with the room, and they’d dampened that the night before, sloshing water on themselves and making the best of a room without a bath—just the bath down the hall, which had overflowed and couldn’t be entered. On top of that, the proprietor had turned off the lights at 11 p.m. and the two of them, reading in bed, had found themselves in total darkness. Somehow it had seemed very funny, their being reproached for their late-night ways. As had the one little towel, earlier—like trying to dry off with a handkerchief after a rainstorm.

  She turned to Teddy, who was still staring at the painting. In her peripheral vision, she could see the man and the little boy leaving the shop, the woman staring studiously, as if registering sudden changes beneath a microscope instead of viewing objects in a glass case. Suddenly, the Frenchwoman began speaking Italian, asking to see something. Then, much to her surprise, Teddy went to the woman’s side and said, “Excuse me. You speak Italian as well as English. Could you ask for me if they have the Uccello, you know, rolled up? Not laminated and framed?”

  Teddy hadn’t been wrong: The woman behind the counter only stared at him, puzzled. So the Frenchwoman nodded and asked his question. She watched while the woman gestured. Then the woman behind the counter shook her head no. The Frenchwoman said to Teddy, “She doesn’t. So if you want to be able to pack your things flat, maybe you should settle for one of the lovely bookmarks.”

  “But I want to hang the Uccello above a doorway, you see,” Teddy said. “And I’m not a character in Alice in Wonderland; I’m a poor sod who lives near Hampstead Heath, where everything has to be its real size. Or at the very least, the size someone else has decided on for a reproduction, and certainly nothing so small as a bookmark.”

  As he finished his sentence, she had an insight: most things could be reduced to a joke with Teddy; he could be self-deprecating and call himself a “sod,” though he had far more money than she did; he could approach strangers with ease because he had such faith in his own charm. People who approached others the way Teddy approached the Frenchwoman were recognizable: safe, part of a club. All those jokes about people picking up other people in fern bars in New York—what was the difference between that much-joked-about courting ritual and what Teddy was doing now? This going-with-your-sometimes-girlfriend to beautiful Italia for a romantic rendezvous in the fall and flirting with whoever got your attention in a shop that sold reproductions of the old masters?

  —

  He settled for the laminated, framed reproduction. Which doorway did he mean to adorn? In Teddy’s house, the molding extended, in graduated layers, from the high ceilings to within a few inches of the door tops. He had such interest in getting the painting back to London, but what about the fact that he’d refused, utterly refused, to carry back on the plane any plates or bowls? “Any wine you want, darling, but we must drink it in Italy. And buy Italian pottery in London. No breakables.” He had said that, a week or so before, kissing her forehead, as they walked through a tantalizing wine shop that stocked extra-virgin olive oil in breathtakingly beautiful bottles—bottles closed with gold twine and sealing wax, the labels illustrated by artists who could render a single grape as luminous as a rainbow. This way, not that way, darling. At the end of it we fly home. Your home as well as mine, unless you’re crazy and don’t think there’s enough cashmere to warm you through English winters, unless you don’t trust me to be a magician who can provide anything you w
ant.

  She envisioned Teddy, the night before, holding out the wrung-out towel as if it had mysteriously dried at his fingertips. This was something he was adept at, something he knew about: if you made yourself the subject of the joke, the other person, by default, would become your audience. And those times you were serious about something, it was best to let the other person know, subtly but quickly, that you were entitled to whatever you might want; to make mention, say, of what a proper neighborhood you lived in.

  —

  In Italy, they usually let you carry your packages into the museums. She had been amazed to see women carrying little dogs in their arms, or people sipping from a cup of coffee. Teddy carried the Uccello, wrapped in brown paper, under his arm. The museum was filled with small rooms that they went into, one after another. From time to time, the Frenchwoman and her family would come into the room where they stood, though she and her husband seemed to take things in quickly and leave. Finally, the French couple preceded them by several rooms, so it was only toward the end of the corridor that they caught up with them. She could overhear snippets of conversation, see them walk arm in arm to the window, where they looked down into the courtyard, their child always letting go of his parents’ hands, intent upon being where his parents were not. As she and Teddy passed them, moving toward the end of the hallway, Teddy slipped his arm around her waist, and she thought how strange it was: if she and Teddy had been taller, and if Nigel had been with them, they might be a mirror image of the French family.

  At the roped-off staircase to the second floor, a guard was posted, sitting on a fold-down stool. About a dozen people congregated around him, waiting for the clock to click through the last few minutes so that they might ascend. The guard did not make eye contact with anyone, and he did not slip the hook at the tip of the velvet rope from its eye until the hands of the clock moved to exactly 2 p.m. Then, as if sleepwalking, he stood slowly and unhooked the rope, eyes cast down as people rushed around him.

  Her eyes, too, were downcast; in avoiding looking at the Frenchwoman, she had seen, as if the marble floor were a crystal ball, a vision not of the future but of the recent past: Teddy, standing in the museum shop, all but being asked whether he wasn’t a tourist—the woman had talked about “packing things flat”—and then Teddy, letting her know by his answer where he lived. Where she might find him. As they’d passed her in the corridor, the woman had repositioned her hair clip, her loosened hair the sign that something had transpired between them. Well, then: Teddy must have taken her on this trip to Italy not so much to show her a wonderful time and persuade her to join him and Nigel in London forever after; he must have wanted, instead, to persuade himself that he loved her so much that no one else could be a distraction—that no other woman could come between them.

  She climbed the stairs slowly, the Frenchwoman’s husband in the lead; his wife, with her lovely, flowing hair and her deeply kick-pleated skirt, walking behind; they were followed by several other couples and then by Teddy, who had reached behind and taken her hand to try to hurry her along. At the landing, the man bent down to hoist his son atop his shoulders again. Then the two of them sprinted ahead, the boy leaning forward, craning his neck toward whatever mysterious realm would next be explored.

  As the people ascended, the guard, from below, threw a switch, sending up a loud buzzing noise, as if a swarm of mosquitoes had flown into electric coils. And there it was: the Uccello, lit spottily and much too brightly, so that some of the paint glowed firelike while other areas were cast in shadow. With an abrupt click, the lights went off. For further viewing, it was necessary to deposit two hundred lire. Annoyed, Teddy plunged his hand in his pocket, but the Frenchwoman, who knew the way things worked and who must have already been holding the coins, got to the box to deposit the money first. The Uccello lit up again, under its weird illumination. As the woman turned to receive the appreciation of the crowd, Teddy took one small step forward, smiling.

  THE SIAMESE TWINS GO SNORKELING

  Harry DeKroll, house-sitting for Ames and Alice Albright, began enacting the daily rituals: today, seeing which of the plants needed watering; double-checking to make sure the refrigerator was spotless inside; checking the answering machine, which was programmed to give an outgoing message saying that the Albrights could be reached in New York at the following number, and that messages should not be left for them on the Key West machine. (When did that ever stop some enthusiastic, drunken friend or business acquaintance from leaving a piña colada–inspired message about meeting for drinks on the Sunset Deck, or how about dinner at blah blah?)

  Nine blossoms and three buds on the Streptocarpus X hybridus—a plant with flowers as purple as Liz Taylor’s eye shadow in the sixties. Pinkie into the soil to test for wetness—a wiggle that suggested solidarity with mothers everywhere, testing infants’ diapers. (Indeed: moderately wet.) The refrigerator: a small smudge of applesauce on the bottom shelf. Mopped up, with a sponge dunked under hot tap water and wrung out so that just enough moisture remained to allow for a careful cleanup. God help him if Alice ever again found the refrigerator anything less than pristine. Then the machine: sure enough, somebody named Buzz, calling from Islamorada, “just on the chance you two might be there, but I guess you’re back in the city. Okay, try you again tonight.” Information about Buzz’s rented LeBaron convertible (preferable to Buzz’s wife’s Jeep in terms of fun; not as smooth as Buzz’s BMW). “Hey, if you get this message, Alice, call Betsy about whether that benefit for the kids’ hospital is in March or April, will you?”

  Harry’s friend Nance had given him, for his birthday, a telephone that, with the push of a button, allowed for many options in disguising your voice. One made him sound like a baritone; another made him sound very fey (useful for reserving good tables in certain restaurants; not that he ate at them, but when the Albrights came into town, they asked him to call ahead to reserve); another provided a credible imitation of a young girl. If there had been a phone number left by Buzz, in Islamorada, he would have selected that one to leave a return message, saying that the Albrights should be called directly, in New York. Alice had asked him, recently, why people assumed they weren’t really talking to their house sitter. Several people had commented that it sounded like a child had returned their call, or…He’d assured her the people were either imagining things, or perhaps—how would he know? sounded fine on his end—there was something strange about the connection. He stashed the machine under his bed, in the downstairs guest bedroom he had come to prefer. It was still painted a muted green, untouched by the interior decorator’s sponge-and-glaze frenzy upstairs. It was a testament to how much he liked the machine that he so often got down on his knees to drag it out and plug it in, then shove it back under. Alice had been known, on rare occasions, to appear at the Ashe Street house like Mary Poppins, plop, right out of the sky. Brought by USAir, but unannounced. And oh: the time she found the Spanish champagne, forgotten, become a dripping fountain in the freezer, the yellowish spillover spoiling the purity of the white, white shelf.

  A little Leonard Cohen from the CD player. Cohen nouveau—a treat that arrived with the springtime, exported par avion by his friend Goldman, to be enjoyed quickly. Much better than Leonard Cohen’s old shit. The Future: Cohen’s voice rattling along like tires riding over singing gravel. That, for a little morning cheer, plus an English, the crumbs from which would later be dumped into the garbage disposal. An English, with no-sugar-added grape jelly. Glass of Citrucel, big heaping tablespoon, fill the Flipper glass half full with water, stir madly, add a few ice cubes, a dollop of guava nectar, from the Cubano grocery. Then out for a morning stroll, a con leche, maybe the paper if the headlines suggested any real mayhem among warring Conchs and tourists, or further irreversible destruction of the Keys.

  And so, to the morning. Roll up blue plastic pool cover to allow for weekly cleaning by pool service. Not that they wouldn’t do it—just a friendly thing to do, a little Save-John-the-Poolman-Three-Mi
nutes gesture. Lock the gate. Give the street the once-over: tourists consulting a map; Mrs. Lolliso’s blue parrot out in its cage on the front porch—once it gets used to a person, no more trying to please with a “good morning,” all hope of a cracker abandoned. Silence from the Man in Blue. Walk on by, as the song goes. Black Pig (tanned Conch) riding a Harley. Kittens still hanging out around the back tires of the tarped Ford—someone put out dishes of food. One bold kitten coming out to mew, standing in close proximity to empty dish. Con leche grande: Sí, un azúcar. Just another day in paradise.

  —

  Key West had been more fun in the old days, when the reef was still more alive than dead, when drugs were plentiful and everybody was young enough to still enjoy them, before people with money started moving into the houses and fixing them up, putting pools in the backyards, shooing out the roosters. He and Alice would go snorkeling off Billy G’s catamaran, float by the hour in their wet-suit vests, studying the parrot fish and the blue tangs and the triggerfish and the barracudas. They drank a lot of Mount Gay and agreed with each other that this was the great escape: no shoveling snow; no heavy winter clothes; you could take your dog right into most restaurants.

  He had first gotten to Key West in the late seventies, just a few months before Ron, Alice’s first husband, sniffed out the Southernmost Point as being ripe for making money. Ron was a builder, a master renovator, and he had connections up the wazoo from West Palm. Harry had been bartending at Tropics back then, an exile from Amesbury, Massachusetts, himself, and when Ron ordered a Corona and asked about recommendations of good carpenters, Harry had reconsidered his long-held position that he was out of the building biz and made tentative noises about perhaps, just maybe, volunteering his own services on the days he wasn’t working—which in those days meant four days a week. Midway through job number 1, Ron had shown up with a tall, thin woman with flaxen hair, wearing black wraparounds and a hard hat: an artist, no less, and he was married to her, it turned out, and what she did with her days was sketch people in motion and then make what she had sketched abstract, enlarging the sketches on enormous sheets of paper six or seven feet high, which she reportedly sold for large amounts of money to interior decorators, who framed them in Plexiglas and put them in stairwells, or some such thing. To this day, he couldn’t remember how it had been explained to him, except that all his life he thought you were supposed to look at an abstraction and see in it various things—that it looked like two people hugging, or something—but what Alice would do was sketch two people hugging and manage to make them look very lifelike, and then she’d do another version that would look like a brick wall half demolished, or people transformed into enormous palm fronds. Anyway: Alice came with the territory. She had a folding stool and her big sketch pad and her box of stuff, and every day she’d sit out of the way and sketch Ron and Harry and the Black Pig, who worked harder than two other people, plus his sidekick, Lazy, who worked about half as much as most guys, though he was a teetotaler and extremely dependable. Lazy didn’t even take off on his birthday and would have been happy to work on Christmas. The only time he took off—this was pre-VCR—was to watch the Jerry Lewis Telethon, which he told you he was going to do the minute you started interviewing him, so most people thought they’d be getting a major nutcase, and usually found other reasons not to hire him. Once, for Lazy’s birthday, Harry had made him a foldout birthday card, folding a piece of paper the way his grandmother had taught him years before, folding and folding and cutting just so until presto! Four people holding hands stretched out. Harry penciled in pinwheel eyes and Jaws teeth and wavy horizontal lines to indicate deep wrinkles and wrote HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO LAZY across their chests. He had been showing off for Alice—showing off and perhaps putting her down a bit, too, in making the paper dolls. Years ago, all of that, and just think: Lazy, whose greatest pleasures in life seemed to be doing work in slow motion, drinking Cokes, and watching Jerry Lewis go batshit, and he was found in the early eighties with his throat slit ear to ear, washed up on the shore of Big Coppitt, no idea who did it, no idea why.