The New Yorker Stories - Ann Beattie [239]
Nelson looked at Dale, with an expression somewhere between perplexity and pleading. It was just a bottle of wine. She had no reason to think the doctor or her husband were wine connoisseurs. There was the bottle of Saint-Émilion, but it would have seemed churlish to mention it now. “Absolutely,” Dale said. She pushed her chair back and went to the cupboard and took out their own stemmed glasses with a wide bowl which they had brought with them, along with her duvet and the collection of cooking magazines.
Dale put a glass at everyone’s place. Jerome was smiling. “We can only hope,” he said.
Brenda was looking at Dale, but Dale did not meet her eyes. She was determined to let them all see that she was unconcerned. Jerome was usually so polite.
“Tell me,” he said, wine bottle clamped between his legs, turning the corkscrew. “Surely you aren’t going to decline one small glass of this, Dale?”
“I can’t drink,” she said.
“Then what is that glass for?” he said.
“Perrier,” she said, pronouncing the word very distinctly.
Jerome looked attentively at the bottle as he slowly withdrew the cork. He picked up the bottle slowly and sniffed. Then he put his white linen napkin over his finger and worked it around the top, inside the bottle. That was the first time it became clear to her that he was doing what he was doing out of anger. She picked up her fork and speared a piece of eggplant.
“You’ve fallen quiet, Dale,” he said. “Is everything all right?”
“Yes,” she said, trying to sound mildly surprised.
“It’s just that you’re so quiet,” he persisted.
Brenda seemed about to speak, but said nothing. Dale managed a shrug. “I hope there are enough spices on the vegetables,” she said. “I roasted them without salt. Would anyone like salt?”
Of course, since they had all now turned their attention to Dale, whatever she said sounded false and shallow.
“I appreciate your laying in Mâcon-Lugny for me,” Jerome went on. “In most cases, white would go well with pork roast. But an ’85 Opus One—that, of course, is completely divine.” Jerome sniffed the bottle. It might have been snuff, he inhaled so deeply. Then he sat the bottle on the table, near the sundial. “Let it breathe for a moment,” he said. He turned his chair at an angle, feigning closeness with Dale.
Dale picked up a piece of carrot with her fingers and bit into it. She said nothing.
“You had Didi to dinner last month with some friends of yours, I hear,” he said.
Who had told him, since he and Didi didn’t speak? Nelson, obviously. Why?
“Yes,” Dale said.
Jerome took a bite of meat and a bite of vegetable. He reached for the applesauce and ladled some on his plate. He said nothing about the food.
“I understand you’ve made a portrait of her,” he said.
Brenda was chewing slowly. She knew, and Dale knew, that Jerome was warming up to something. In fact, Dale herself didn’t much like Didi—in part because they seemed to have little in common. On top of that, Didi condescended by acting as if Dale was the sophisticate, and she—the world traveler—just a poor old lady. Dale had thought that photographing her—in spite of the momentary imbalance of power—might ultimately get the two of them on a more even footing.
Jerome said: “I’d be curious to see it.”
“No,” Dale said.
“No? Why ever not?” Jerome said.
“You don’t like your ex-wife,” she said. “There’s no reason to look at a picture of her.”
“Listen to her!” Jerome said, jutting his chin in Nelson’s direction.
“Jerome—what’s wrong?” Nelson said quietly.
“What’s wrong? There’s something wrong about my request to see a photograph? I have a curiosity about what Didi looks like. We were married for years, you’ll remember.”
“I don’t want to see it,” Brenda said.
“You don’t have to. If you don’t want any of the wine, you don’t have to have that, either.” Jerome twirled the bottle. As the label revolved in front of him, he picked up the bottle and poured. A thin stream of wine went into the glass.
“I don’t quite see how not wanting to look at a photograph of your ex means I don’t want wine,” Brenda said.