Chilly Scenes of Winter by Ann Beattie Read Free Book Online

two grapefruit at a fruit stand, and the next time he looked at her the grapefruit were under her sweater. It looked very nice. She was very nice. He opens his eyes, convinced that he will fall asleep and scream, that she will walk up to his car and he will be screaming inside. The city is full of diplomats. He has been hit twice by them. Both diplomats were crazy. He gets depressed, sometimes, thinking that everybody is crazy. Except Sam. And then he gets worried that he feels that way about Sam.
    He checks his watch. It is a gold watch that belonged to his grandfather. On the day his grandfather killed himself, he also shot two grouse. He went out in the morning for the birds, and in the afternoon for himself. They heard the story over and over when they were growing up about how their grandmother cleaned and cooked the grouse anyway. He studies the face of the watch, wondering whether his grandfather looked at it before he killed himself. She will be here in twenty-four minutes, he says out loud. He doesn’t see her car, but she must already be inside the school. She is a devoted stepmother. She is devoted to everybody but him. He envies Rebecca. He has one of Rebecca’s pictures that Laura left in his car by mistake. It is a crayoned picture of a flying red bird that looks like a flying pig. He takes it out and looks at it. He closes the glove compartment. Glove compartment. When people wore gloves. Years ago. His grandfather. There is a picture of his grandfather on a table in his mother’s house. He was a plain-looking man, with white hair and puckered cheeks and a cravat. He built his own house. Charles got his house from his grandmother, when she died. It was not the same house his grandfather built. With the insurance money she had bought a newer one. His grandmother thought he was the only worthwhile member of the family. In elementary school, Charles had sung in the choir. His grandmother loved music. She left him her house.
    Laura should be here. What is he going to say to her? He wants, somehow, to convey to her that her husband is a dull man. Since he is also dull, he wants to point out that she wouldn’t be getting into anything unexpected; she would just be swapping a dull person who doesn’t care much about her for one who does. That sounds awful. He will have to think harder. He puts his watch away. It is heavy in his pocket. He pushes it far into the pocket, not wanting to lose it. What would his old puckered-cheeked grandfather think of his rendezvousing with a woman at an elementary school?
    She doesn’t come. She’s five minutes late, then ten. He turns on the radio, hoping to find out that his watch is inaccurate. There is a special report about a child’s oven that blows up. Judy Collins. A financial report. He looks up and sees Laura’s car, a black Volvo. Laura pulls up alongside his car, on the other side of the street. “I’m sick,” she hollers. “I just came to tell you. I called, but you had left.”
    “What’s the matter with you?” he says. Wind blows in his face.
    “The flu,” she says. “I’m really sick. I’ve got to go back to bed.”
    He looks at her stupidly. She looks very sick. Her hair is dirty. No question that it is more brown than blond. He stares into her eyes. They are bright. She has a fever. A car honks in back of her and she drives on. He thinks she is gone and can’t bring himself to start the ignition. Her car pulls up alongside his.
    “Hi,” he says.
    “I’m sorry I’m sick,” she says, leaning across the seat. “I’ll see you another time.”
    “Isn’t there anything I can do for you?”
    “No. I just want to go back to bed.” She shakes her head. She looks awful.
    “You shouldn’t have come out.”
    “I thought of you sitting here. I knew you wouldn’t believe I was sick.”
    “I would have believed you,” he says, as indignant as she was when she said her husband didn’t open her mail. But he probably wouldn’t have. Even the