The New Yorker Stories - Ann Beattie [242]
There was a shriek of sirens. They sounded far, far away, yet distinct: background music that portended trouble. Dale was so stunned that, instead of hanging up, she stood with the phone in her hand, imagining she’d hung up. She had seen Janet two days before. Three? They had talked about squash. The squash Janet would appreciate Dale’s buying for her at the Farmers’ Market. “This is her neighbor, Dale,” she said, in what she thought was an answer to the question the woman was asking, faintly, on the opposite end of the phone. Why didn’t the woman ask about Janet? “We saw a car,” she heard herself say, though her mouth was not near enough for the 911 operator to hear.
That was the moment when Tyrone burst out from underneath the two-seat sofa, charging so quickly he overshot Dale and knocked Brenda down. She screamed with fear long after she might have realized it was only a dog. Tyrone was as afraid as they were; everything was made worse by Brenda’s high-pitched scream.
“Oh, God, I’m so sorry,” Brenda said, apologizing to the cowering dog, its back legs shaking so pathetically, Dale could not see how he remained upright. “Oh, God, here,” Brenda said, inching closer, reaching in the jacket pocket with trembling hands for a doughnut hole and holding it out to the dog, who did not approach but stood shakily leaning into Dale’s leg. No one looked at Janet’s body. Wind rattled the glass, but the louder sound was that of sirens. Dale saw Brenda cock her head and turn, as if she could see the sound. Brenda turned back and threw the doughnut hole to the dog, missing by a mile.
“It’s okay,” Dale said, moving her leg astride the dog and edging the doughnut hole toward him with the toe of her boot. It was a powdered-sugar doughnut hole that left a streak of white on the floorboards. By Janet’s hand had been a streak—no: a puddle, not a streak—of blood. Dale did not look in that direction; she was so afraid Janet might have stopped breathing.
Dale looked across the room at Brenda. Brenda, dejectedly, was about to throw another doughnut hole. Dale watched as she tossed it slowly, repeating Dale’s words: “It’s okay.” Then she took a step forward and said to Dale: “Make him forgive me. Make him like me again.”
Dale was stroking Tyrone’s head. Tyrone had become her dog. Brenda and Jerome’s child, she thought, would become Brenda’s child. All of Jerome’s women had wanted babies, and he had bitterly resented every one: the son born to the married woman in France, whose husband believed the child to be his; the daughter born as his marriage to his second wife was disintegrating. Nelson had been the only one he wanted. Well—if you had what you already considered the perfect child, maybe that made sense. Nelson was intellectually curious, smart, obedient, favoring his stepfather over his mother, a loyal child.
Nelson and Jerome would be at the table, finishing dinner, Nelson having found a way to excuse Jerome, Jerome’s passive aggression subsiding into agreeableness—as if, by the two women’s disappearing, any problem automatically disappeared, too. Without them, Nelson and Jerome could move on to the salad course. Drink the entire bottle of Opus One. Nelson would probably have brought down the photograph of Didi, her face deeply lined by years of having kept up with Jerome in his drinking, as well as other bad decisions she had made, and of course from the years at Saint-Tropez, enjoying too much sun.
Too much sun. Too much son. Jerome would like to play with that.
Though what Jerome was talking about, having already told Nelson he was seriously considering separating from Brenda, was the story of Baron Philippe de Rothschild: the Baron, being a clever businessman, and, more important, a visionary, realized that much might be gained by joining forces with the California winegrower,