The New Yorker Stories - Ann Beattie [65]
“It’s too bad it’s so dark,” I say. “That woman down there in the black dress looks just like somebody in an Edward Hopper painting. You’d recognize her.”
“Nah,” Banks says, head swaying. “Everything’s basically different. I get so tired of examining things and finding out they’re different. This crappy nature poem isn’t at all like that crappy nature poem. That’s what I mean,” Banks says.
“Do you remember your accident?” he says.
“No,” I say.
“Excuse me,” Banks says.
“I remember thinking of Jules and Jim.”
“Where she drove off the cliff ?” Banks says, very excited.
“Umm.”
“When did you think that?”
“As it was happening.”
“Wow,” Banks says. “I wonder if anybody else flashed on that before you?”
“I couldn’t say.”
Banks sips his iced gin. “What do you think of me as an artist?” he says.
“You’re very good, Banks.”
It begins to get cooler. A breeze blows the curtains toward us.
“I had a dream that I was a raccoon,” Banks says. “I kept trying to look over my back to count the rings of my tail, but my back was too high, and I couldn’t count past the first two.”
Banks finishes his drink.
“Would you like me to get you another drink?” I ask.
“That’s an awful imposition,” Banks says, extending his glass.
I take the glass and go downstairs. A copy of The Hobbit is lying on the rose brocade sofa. Mrs. Bates is sitting at the kitchen table, reading People.
“Thank you very much for the cookies,” I say.
“It’s nothing,” she says. Her earrings are on the table. Her feet are on a chair.
“Tell them we ran out of gin if they want more,” I say. “I need this bottle.”
“Okay,” she says. “I think there’s another bottle, anyway.”
I take the bottle upstairs in my armpit, carrying a glass with fresh ice in it in my hand.
“You know,” Banks says, “they say that if you face things—if you just get them through your head—you can accept them. They say you can accept anything if you can once get it through your head.”
“What’s this about?” I say.
“Your arm,” Banks says.
“I realize that I don’t have an arm,” I say.
“I don’t mean to offend you,” Banks says, drinking.
“I know you don’t.”
“If you ever want me to yell at you about it, just say the word. That might help—help it sink in.”
“I already realize it, Banks,” I say.
“You’re a swell guy,” Banks says. “What kind of music do you listen to?”
“Do you want to hear music?”
“No. I just want to know what you listen to.”
“Schoenberg,” I say. I have not listened to Schoenberg for years.
“Ahh,” Banks says.
He offers me his glass. I take a drink and hand it back.
“You know how they always have cars—car ads—you ever notice . . . I’m all screwed up,” Banks says.
“Go on,” I say.
“They always put the car on the beach?”
“Yeah.”
“I was thinking about doing a thing with a great big car in the background and a little beach up front.” Banks chuckles.
Outside, the candles have been lit. A torch flames from a metal holder—one of the silliest things I have ever seen—and blue lanterns have been lit in the trees. Someone has turned on a radio, and Elizabeth and some man, not recognizable, dance to “Heartbreak Hotel.”
“There’s Schoenberg,” Banks says.
“Banks,” I say, “I want you to take this the right way. I like you, and I’m glad you came over. Why did you come over?”
“I wanted you to praise my paintings.” Banks plays church and steeple with his hands. “But also, I just wanted to talk.”
“Was there anything particularly—”
“I thought you might want to talk to me.”
“Why don’t you talk to me, instead?”
“I’ve got to be a great painter,” Banks says. “I paint and then at