The New Yorker Stories - Ann Beattie [58]
“Bag of toys,” Bea says. She has on a satin robe that reminds Robert of a fighter’s robe, stuffed between her legs as she sits on the floor.
“And laying a finger aside of my nose . . .” Matthew says. “No, I wouldn’t have done that, Bea. I would have given the finger to you.” Matthew raises his middle finger and smiles at Bea. “But I speak figuratively, of course. I will give you neither my finger nor my dog.”
“I got the dog from the animal shelter, Matthew,” Bea says. “Why do you call him your dog?”
Matthew stumbles off to bed, almost stepping on Penelope’s plate, calling over his shoulder, “Bea, my lovely, please make sure that our guests finish that bottle of Scotch.”
Bea blows out the candle and they all go to bed, with a quarter inch of Scotch still in the bottle.
“Why are they getting divorced?” Robert whispers to Penelope in bed.
They are in a twin bed, narrower than he remembers twin beds being, lying under a brown-and-white quilt.
“I’m not really sure,” she says. “She said that he was getting crazier.”
“They both seem crazy.”
“Bea told me that he gave some of their savings to a Japanese woman who lives with a man he works with, so she can open a gift shop.”
“Oh,” he says.
“I wish we had another cigarette.”
“Is that all he did?” he asks. “Gave money away?”
“He drinks a lot,” Penelope says.
“So does she. She drinks straight from the bottle.” Before dinner Bea had tipped the bottle to her lips too quickly and the liquor ran down her chin. Matthew called her disgusting.
“I think he’s nastier than she is,” Penelope says.
“Move over a little,” he says. “This bed must be narrower than a twin bed.”
“I am moved over,” she says.
He unbends his knees, lies straight in the bed. He is too uncomfortable to sleep. His ears are still ringing from so many hours on the road.
“Here we are in Colorado,” he says. “Tomorrow we’ll have to drive around and see it before it’s all under snow.”
The next afternoon he borrows a tablet and walks around outside, looking for something to draw. There are bare patches in the snow—patches of brown grass. Bea and Matthew’s house is modern, with a sundeck across the back and glass doors across the front. For some reason the house seems out of place; it looks Eastern. There are no other houses nearby. Very little land has been cleared; the lawn is narrow, and the woods come close. It is cold, and there is a wind in the trees. Through the woods, in front of the house, distant snow-covered mountains are visible. The air is very clear, and the colors are too bright, like a Maxfield Parrish painting. No one would believe the colors if he painted them. Instead he begins to draw some old fence posts, partially rotted away. But then he stops. Leave it to Andrew Wyeth. He dusts away a light layer of snow and sits on the hood of his car. He takes the pencil out of his pocket again and writes in the sketchbook: “We are at Bea and Matthew’s. They sit all day. Penelope sits. She seems to be waiting. This is happening in Colorado. I want to see the state, but Bea and Matthew have already seen it, and Penelope says that she cannot face one more minute in the car. The car needs new spark plugs. I will never be a painter. I am not a writer.”
Zero wanders up behind him, and he tears off the piece of sketch paper and crumples it into a ball, throws it in the air. Zero’s eyes light up. They play ball with the piece of paper—he throws it high, and Zero waits for it and jumps. Finally the paper gets too soggy to handle. Zero walks away, then sits and scratches.
Behind the house is a ruined birdhouse, and some strings hang from a branch, with bits of suet tied on. The strings stir in the wind. “Push me in the swing,” he remembers Penelope saying. Johnny was lying in the grass, talking to himself.