The New Yorker Stories - Ann Beattie [21]
“Yeah. He’s a dwarf.”
“What?”
“I mean that I think of him primarily as a dwarf. I’ve had to take care of him all my life.”
“Your mother took care of him until he moved out of the house.”
“Yeah, well, it looks like he found a replacement for her. But you might need a drink before I tell you about it.”
“Oh, tell me.”
“He’s got a little sweetie. He’s in love with a woman who lives in the dwarf house. He introduced me. She’s three feet eleven. She stood there smiling at my knees.”
“That’s wonderful that he has a friend.”
“Not a friend—a fiancée. He claims that as soon as he’s got enough money saved up he’s going to marry this other dwarf.”
“He is?”
“Isn’t there some liquor store that delivers? I’ve seen liquor trucks in this neighborhood, I think.”
His mother lives in a high-ceilinged old house on Newfield Street, in a neighborhood that is gradually being taken over by Puerto Ricans. Her phone has been busy for almost two hours, and MacDonald fears that she, too, may have been taken over by Puerto Ricans. He drives to his mother’s house and knocks on the door. It is opened by a Puerto Rican woman, Mrs. Esposito.
“Is my mother all right?” he asks.
“Yes. She’s okay.”
“May I come in?”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
She steps aside—not that it does much good, because she’s so wide that there’s still not much room for passage. Mrs. Esposito is wearing a dress that looks like a jungle: tall streaks of green grass going every which way, brown stumps near the hem, flashes of red around her breasts.
“Who were you talking to?” he asks his mother.
“Carlotta was on the phone with her brother, seeing if he’ll take her in. Her husband put her out again.”
Mrs. Esposito, hearing her husband spoken of, rubs her hands in anguish.
“It took two hours?” MacDonald says good-naturedly, feeling sorry for her. “What was the verdict?”
“He won’t,” Mrs. Esposito answers.
“I told her she could stay here, but when she told him she was going to do that he went wild and said he didn’t want her living just two doors down.”
“I don’t think he meant it,” MacDonald says. “He was probably just drinking again.”
“He had joined Alcoholics Anonymous,” Mrs. Esposito says. “He didn’t drink for two weeks, and he went to every meeting, and one night he came home and said he wanted me out.”
MacDonald sits down, nodding nervously. The chair he sits in has a child’s chair facing it, which is used as a footstool. When James lived with his mother it was his chair. His mother still keeps his furniture around—a tiny child’s glider, a mirror in the hall that is knee-high.
“Did you see James?” his mother asks.
“Yes. He said that he’s very happy.”
“I know he didn’t say that. If I can’t rely on you I’ll have to go myself, and you know how I cry for days after I see him.”
“He said he was pretty happy. He said he didn’t think you were.”
“Of course I’m not happy. He never calls.”
“He likes the place he lives in. He’s got other people to talk to now.”
“Dwarfs, not people,” his mother says. “He’s hiding from the real world.”
“He didn’t have anybody but you to talk to when he lived at home. He’s got a new part-time job that he likes better, too, working in a billing department.”
“Sending unhappiness to people in the mail,” his mother says.
“How are you doing?” he asks.
“As James says, I’m not happy.”
“What can I do?” MacDonald asks.
“Go to see him tomorrow and tell him to come home.”
“He won’t leave. He’s in love with somebody there.”
“Who? Who does he say he’s in love with? Not another social worker?”
“Some woman. I met her. She seems very nice.”
“What’s her name?”
“I don’t remember.”
“How tall is she?”
“She’s a little shorter than James.”
“Shorter than James?”
“Yes. A little shorter.”
“What does she want with him?”
“He said they were in love.”
“I heard you. I’m asking what she wants with him.”
“I don’t know. I really don’t know. Is that sherry in that bottle? Do you mind . . .”
“I’ll get it for you,” Mrs. Esposito says.
“Well, who knows what anybody wants from anybody,” his mother says. “Real love comes to naught. I loved your father and we had