The New Yorker Stories - Ann Beattie [30]
“I had an uncle who got drunk and danced with a lampshade on his head,” Noel said. “That’s an old joke, but how many people have actually seen a man dance with a lampshade on his head? My uncle did it every New Year’s Eve.”
“What the hell are you smiling about?” David says. “Are you listening to me?”
I nod and start to cry. It will be a long time before I realize that David makes me sad and Noel makes me happy.
Noel sympathizes with me. He tells me that David is a fool; he is better off without Susan, and I will be better off without David. Noel calls or visits me in my new apartment almost every night. Last night he suggested that I get a babysitter for tonight, so he could take me to dinner. He tries very hard to make me happy. He brings expensive wine when we eat in my apartment and offers to buy it in restaurants when we eat out. Beth prefers it when we eat in; that way, she can have both Noel and the toy that Noel inevitably brings. Her favorite toy, so far, is a handsome red tugboat pulling three barges, attached to one another by string. Noel bends over, almost doubled in half, to move them across the rug, whistling and calling orders to the imaginary crew. He does not just bring gifts to Beth and me. He has bought himself a new car, and pretends that this is for Beth and me. (“Comfortable seats?” he asks me. “That’s a nice big window back there to wave out of,” he says to Beth.) It is silly to pretend that he got the car for the three of us. And if he did, why was he too cheap to have a radio installed, when he knows I love music? Not only that but he’s bowlegged. I am ashamed of myself for thinking bad things about Noel. He tries so hard to keep us cheerful. He can’t help the odd angle of his thighs. Feeling sorry for him, I decided that a cheap dinner was good enough for tonight. I said that I wanted to go to a Chinese restaurant.
At the restaurant I eat shrimp in black bean sauce and drink a Heineken’s and think that I’ve never tasted anything so delicious. The waiter brings two fortune cookies. We open them; the fortunes make no sense. Noel summons the waiter for the bill. With it come more fortune cookies—four this time. They are no good, either: talk of travel and money. Noel says, “What bloody rot.” He is wearing a gray vest and a white shirt. I peek around the table without his noticing and see that he’s wearing gray wool slacks. Lately it has been very important for me to be able to see everything. Whenever Noel pulls the boats out of sight, into another room, I move as quickly as Beth to watch what’s going on.
Standing behind Noel at the cash register, I see that it has started to rain—a mixture of rain and snow.
“You know how you can tell a Chinese restaurant from any other?” Noel asks, pushing open the door. “Even when it’s raining, the cats still run for the street.”
I shake my head in disgust.
Noel stretches the skin at the corners of his eyes. “Sorry for honorable joke,” he says.
We run for the car. He grabs the belt of my coat, catches me, and half lifts me with one arm, running along with me dangling at his side, giggling. Our wool coats stink. He opens my car door, runs around, and pulls his open. He’s done it again; he has made me laugh.
We start home.
We are in heavy traffic, and Noel drives very slowly, protecting his new car.
“How old are you?” I ask.
“Thirty-six,” Noel says.
“I’m twenty-seven,” I say.
“So what?” he says. He says it pleasantly.
“I just didn’t know how old you were.”
“Mentally, I’m neck and neck with Beth,” he says.
I’m soaking wet, and I want to get home to put on dry clothes. I look at him inching through traffic, and I remember the way his face looked that night he sat in the living room with David and me.
“Rain always puts you in a bad mood, doesn’t it?” he says. He turns the windshield wipers on high. Rubber squeaks against glass.
“I see myself dead in it,” I say.
“You see yourself dead in it?”
Noel does not read novels. He reads Moneysworth, the Wall Street Journal, Commentary. I reprimand myself; there must be fitting