Secrets & Surprises by Ann Beattie Read Free Book Online

it was an amusing episode—another “you can’t always get what you want” sort of thing—and she could imagine Jack in California, not knowing what had happened to Sam, and, always the one to appreciate little jokes in songs, smiling.

A
Reasonable
Man
     
     

 
S
    he is waiting for the telephone to ring. It has not rung for at least six days, which is most unusual. Usually there would be a wrong number, or some sort of salesman trying to sell something she has never considered buying or that she did not know existed. In fact, it might be more than six days. At first she may not have been conscious that the phone was not ringing. You don’t notice something being absent for a day or two: a mislaid pen, clouds. It may well not have rung for quite some time.
    She tells the man this at dinner, remarking on how unusual it is. The man likes to know exactly why she mentions things because he often cannot follow her. So she is in the habit, now, of mentioning something and commenting on it, explaining why she mentioned it at all. Of course, this is often more trouble than it’s worth, so their dinners are sometimes silent from beginning to end. They are good dinners. She is competent in that area. A home economics major, she fixes dinners that are not only good to eat, but balanced and nutritious. They rarely have colds. They have never had a major illness. Tonight they eat cream of asparagus soup, a salad of beans and pears on chopped lettuce, broiled chicken with mushrooms, a glass of white wine and baked custard.
    “For heaven’s sake,” the man says. “It might have rung when you were out getting groceries. If you had been downstairs, it might have rung and you wouldn’t have heard it.” He raises a single green bean to his lips. She smiles at him. He chews swallows and smiles. Everything he says is logical. She follows perfectly. She does not believe that the phone rang when she was out buying groceries, and anyway, she bought groceries three days ago. She was not downstairs today, or yesterday. She frowns. Did she go down there yesterday? He lifts another piece of food to his mouth. He notices that she is frowning. “You see that, don’t you?” he says. Of course. She understands everything the man says.
    The phone has not rung for seven days—assuming that it will not ring tonight. In a novel she is very fond of the main character tries to bring on her period by sleeping in white, on fresh bed sheets. She tries to think what she could do to make the phone ring. Perhaps make love to the man. That may be a little difficult, though, because he is still at a meeting and will be tired and hungry when he comes home. She will feed him and then seduce him. Another thing she might try, if this doesn’t work, is showering.
    The man comes home. He looks as though he has been in a windstorm. He confirms that it is very windy out. “Look,” he says, pointing her toward the kitchen window. Leaves that they did not rake up during the winter blow across the yard. She is so glad! Usually her procrastination results in nothing good, but there are the leaves, blowing through the air and across the grass, which is already turning green.
    “Didn’t you go out today?” the man asks.
    “No. I didn’t go anywhere. I didn’t have anywhere to go.”
    “But you went out yesterday, I presume.”
    “Yesterday?” (She is not a good liar.)
    He nods again.
    “I don’t think I went out yesterday. No.”
    He sighs heavily. Seducing him will not be easy.
    He brightens a bit at the table when she serves him marinated herring. He likes fish very much. The main course is beef stew, which he also seems to enjoy. They have oranges for dessert, coffee with milk.
    “Tomorrow I guess you’ll be going out to do some errands,” he says. “Would you take my gray suit to the cleaners, please?”
    “Certainly,” she says. She will tell him that she forgot. That will work for one day. But the day after tomorrow she will have to go to