The New Yorker Stories - Ann Beattie [130]
I stare at him.
“I’m getting lunch,” he says. He is holding the door open with his foot. He moves his foot and goes into the house. The door slams behind him.
“Hey!” he calls out. “Want iced tea or something?”
The phone begins to ring.
“Want me to get it?” he says.
“No. Let it ring.”
“Let it ring?” he hollers.
The cardinal flies out of the peach tree and onto the sweeping branch of a tall fir tree that borders the lawn—so many trees so close together that you can’t see the house on the other side. The bird becomes a speck of red and disappears.
“Hey, pretty lady!” Ray calls. “Where’s your mutt?”
Over the noise of the telephone, I can hear him knocking around in the kitchen. The stuck drawer opening.
“You honestly want me not to answer the phone?” he calls.
I look back at the house. Ray, balancing a tray, opens the door with one hand, and Hugo is beside him—not rushing out, the way he usually does to get through the door, but padding slowly, shaking himself out of sleep. He comes over and lies down next to me, blinking because his eyes are not yet accustomed to the sunlight.
Ray sits down with his plate of crackers and cheese and a beer. He looks at the tears streaming down my cheeks and shoves over close to me. He takes a big drink and puts the beer on the grass. He pushes the tray next to the beer can.
“Hey,” Ray says. “Everything’s cool, O.K.? No right and no wrong. People do what they do. A neutral observer, and friend to all. Same easy advice from Ray all around. Our discretion assured.” He pushes my hair gently off my wet cheeks. “It’s O.K.,” he says softly, turning and cupping his hands over my forehead. “Just tell me what you’ve done.”
Greenwich Time
“I’m thinking about frogs,” Tom said to his secretary on the phone. “Tell them I’ll be in when I’ve come up with a serious approach to frogs.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said.
“Doesn’t matter. I’m the idea man, you’re the message taker. Lucky you.”
“Lucky you,” his secretary said. “I’ve got to have two wisdom teeth pulled this afternoon.”
“That’s awful,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry enough to go with me?”
“I’ve got to think about frogs,” he said. “Tell Metcalf I’m taking the day off to think about them, if he asks.”
“The health plan here doesn’t cover dental work,” she said.
Tom worked at an ad agency on Madison Avenue. This week, he was trying to think of a way to market soap shaped like frogs—soap imported from France. He had other things on his mind. He hung up and turned to the man who was waiting behind him to use the phone.
“Did you hear that?” Tom said.
“Do what?” the man said.
“Christ,” Tom said. “Frog soap.”
He walked away and went out to sit across the street from his favorite pizza restaurant. He read his horoscope in the paper (neutral), looked out the window of the coffee shop, and waited for the restaurant to open. At eleven-forty-five he crossed the street and ordered a slice of Sicilian pizza, with everything. He must have had a funny look on his face when he talked to the man behind the counter, because the man laughed and said, “You sure? Everything? You even look surprised yourself.”
“I started out for work this morning and never made it there,” Tom said. “After I wolf down a pizza I’m going to ask my ex-wife if my son can come back to live with me.”
The man averted his eyes and pulled a tray out from under the counter. When Tom realized that he was making the man nervous, he sat down. When the pizza was ready, he went to the counter and got it, and ordered a large glass of milk. He caught the man behind the counter looking at him one more time—unfortunately, just as he gulped his milk too fast and it was running down his chin. He wiped his chin with a napkin, but even as he did so he was preoccupied, thinking about the rest of his day. He was heading for Amanda’s, in Greenwich, and, as usual, he felt a mixture of relief (she had married another man, but she had given him