Distortions Read online

  PRAISE FOR

  Ann Beattie

  “Beattie writes out of a wisdom and maturity that are timeless.”

  —The New York Times Book Review

  “A remarkable talent.”

  —Chicago Tribune

  “Beattie reminds us why she stands out among her many imitators.”

  —Philadelphia Inquirer

  “Beattie evokes her characters with clarity and accuracy and creates a poignancy around them … the kind of powerful, haunting quality that we feel in The Sun Also Rises and The Great Gatsby.”

  —Cleveland Plain Dealer

  “A mesmerizing, exalting, uncannily unsettling talent.”

  —Washington Star

  “Ann Beattie’s stories are the most perceptive since Salinger’s. They are not just good writing, not just true to life; they have wonder in them and vision.”

  —Mary Lee Settle

  “[Beatties] ear is faultless, her eye as ruthless as a hawk’s.”

  —Washington Post Book World

  “A master chronicler of our life and times.”

  —Newsday

  ALSO BY ANN BEATTIE

  Chilly Scenes of Winter

  Secrets and Surprises

  Falling in Place

  The Burning House

  Love Always

  Where You’ll Find Me

  Picturing Will

  Copyright © 1974, 1975, 1976 by Ann Beattie

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and distributed in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published in hardcover by Doubleday & Company, Inc., in 1976.

  All of the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Grateful acknowledgment is made for the use of random lines of lyrics from the following copyrighted material:

  Promopub B. V.: “Angie,” words and music by Mick Jagger and Keith Richard. Copyright © 1973 Promopub B;V. Reprinted by permission. Warner Bros. Music: “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues” by Bob Dylan.

  Copyright © 1965 Warner Bros. Inc. All Rights Reserved.

  Used by permission.

  The following stories appeared originally in The New Yorker: “A Platonic Relationship,” “Fancy Flights,” and “Wolf Dreams,” copyright © 1974 by The New Yorker Magazine, Inc.; “Dwarf House,” “Snakes’ Shoes,” “Vermont,” “Downhill,” and “Wanda’s,” copyright © 1975 by The New Yorker Magzine, Inc.

  Other stories in this book have been published as follows: “Eric Clapton’s Lover,” in The Virginia Quarterly Review; “It’s Just Another Day in Big Bear City, California,” in Transatlantic Review; “Imagined Scenes,” in The Texas Quarterly; “Victor Blue,” in The Atlantic Monthly, copyright © 1973 by The Atlantic Monthly Company; and “Four Stories About Lovers,” in Bitches and Sad Ladies, Edited by Pat Rotter, Published by Harper’s Magazine Press.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Beattie, Ann.

  Distortions/Ann Beattie.—

  p. cm.—(Vintage contemporaries)

  eISBN: 978-0-307-79088-0

  I. Title.

  [PS3552.E177D57 1991]

  813′.54-dc20 90-39020

  v3.1

  To David

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Other Books By This Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Dwarf House

  Snakes’ Shoes

  Fancy Flights

  Imagined Scenes

  Wally Whistles Dixie

  Marshall’s Dog

  Downhill

  Hale Hardy and the Amazing Animal Woman

  Four Stories About Lovers

  A Platonic Relationship

  Eric Clapton’s Lover

  Wolf Dreams

  Wanda’s

  The Parking Lot

  Vermont

  Gaps

  It’s Just Another Day in Big Bear City, California

  Victor Blue

  The Lifeguard

  About the Author

  Dwarf House

  “Are you happy?” MacDonald says. “Because if you’re happy I’ll leave you alone.”

  MacDonald is sitting in a small gray chair, patterned with grayer leaves, talking to his brother, who is standing in a blue chair. MacDonald’s brother is four feet, six and three-quarter inches tall, and when he stands in a chair he can look down on MacDonald. MacDonald is twenty-eight years old. His brother, James, is thirty-eight. There was a brother between them, Clem, who died of a rare disease in Panama. There was a sister also, Amy, who flew to Panama to be with her dying brother. She died in the same hospital, one month later, of the same disease. None of the family went to the funeral. Today MacDonald, at his mother’s request, is visiting James to find out if he is happy. Of course James is not, but standing on the chair helps, and the twenty-dollar bill that MacDonald slipped into his tiny hand helps too.

  “What do you want to live in a dwarf house for?”

  “There’s a giant here.”

  “Well it must just depress the hell out of the giant.”

  “He’s pretty happy.”

  “Are you?”

  “I’m as happy as the giant.”

  “What do you do all day?”

  “Use up the family’s money.”

  “You know I’m not here to accuse you. I’m here to see what I can do.”

  “She sent you again, didn’t she?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is this your lunch hour?”

  “Yes.”

  “Have you eaten? I’ve got some candy bars in my room.”

  “Thank you. I’m not hungry.”

  “Place make you lose your appetite?”

  “I do feel nervous. Do you like living here?”

  “I like it better than the giant does. He’s lost twenty-five pounds. Nobody’s supposed to know about that—the official word is fifteen—but I overheard the doctors talking. He’s lost twenty-five pounds.”

  “Is the food bad?”

  “Sure. Why else would he lose twenty-five pounds?”

  “Do you mind … if we don’t talk about the giant right now? I’d like to take back some reassurance to Mother.”

  “Tell her I’m as happy as she is.”

  “You know she’s not happy.”

  “She knows I’m not, too. Why does she keep sending you?”

  “She’s concerned about you. She’d like you to live at home. She’d come herself …”

  “I know. But she gets nervous around freaks.”

  “I was going to say that she hasn’t been going out much. She sent me, though, to see if you wouldn’t reconsider.”

  “I’m not coming home, MacDonald.”

  “Well, is there anything you’d like from home?”

  “They let you have pets here. I’d like a parakeet.”

  “A bird? Seriously?”

  “Yeah. A green parakeet.”

  “I’ve never seen a green one.”

  “Pet stores will dye them any color you ask for.”

  “Isn’t that harmful to them?”

  “You want to please the parakeet or me?”

  *

  “How did it go?” MacDonald’s wife asks.

  “That place is a zoo. Well, it’s worse than a zoo—it’s what it is: a dwarf house.”

  “Is he happy?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t really get an answer out of him. There’s a giant there who’s starving to death, and he says he’s happier than the giant. Or maybe he said he was as happy. I can’t remember. Have
we run out of vermouth?”

  “Yes. I forgot to go to the liquor store. I’m sorry.”

  “That’s all right. I don’t think a drink would have much effect anyway.”

  “It might. If I had remembered to go to the liquor store.”

  “I’m just going to call Mother and get it over with.”

  “What’s that in your pocket?”

  “Candy bars. James gave them to me. He felt sorry for me because I’d given up my lunch hour to visit him.”

  “Your brother is really a very nice person.”

  “Yeah. He’s a dwarf.”

  “What?”

  “I mean that I think of him primarily as a dwarf. I’ve had to take care of him all my life.”

  “Your mother took care of him until he moved out of the house.”

  “Yeah, well it looks like he found a replacement for her. But you might need a drink before I tell you about it.”

  “Oh, tell me.”

  “He’s got a little sweetie. He’s in love with a woman who lives in the dwarf house. He introduced me. She’s three feet eleven. She stood there smiling at my knees.”

  “That’s wonderful that he has a friend.”

  “Not a friend—a fiancée. He claims that as soon as he’s got enough money saved up he’s going to marry this other dwarf.”

  “He is?”

  “Isn’t there some liquor store that delivers? I’ve seen liquor trucks in this neighborhood, I think.”

  *

  His mother lives in a high-ceilinged old house on Newfield Street, in a neighborhood that is gradually being taken over by Puerto Ricans. Her phone has been busy for almost two hours, and MacDonald fears that she, too, may have been taken over by Puerto Ricans. He drives to his mother’s house and knocks on the door. It is opened by a Puerto Rican woman, Mrs. Esposito.

  “Is my mother all right?” he asks.

  “Yes. She’s okay.”

  “May I come in?”

  “Oh, I’m sorry.”

  She steps aside—not that it does much good, because she’s so wide that there’s still not much room for passage. Mrs. Esposito is wearing a dress that looks like a jungle: tall streaks of green grass going every which way, brown stumps near the hem, flashes of red around her breasts.

  “Who were you talking to?” he asks his mother.

  “Carlotta was on the phone with her brother, seeing if he’ll take her in. Her husband put her out again.”

  Mrs. Esposito, hearing her husband spoken of, rubs her hands in anguish.

  “It took two hours?” MacDonald says good-naturedly, feeling sorry for her. “What was the verdict?”

  “He won’t,” Mrs. Esposito answers.

  “I told her she could stay here, but when she told him she was going to do that he went wild and said he didn’t want her living just two doors down.”

  “I don’t think he meant it,” MacDonald says. “He was probably just drinking again.”

  “He had joined Alcoholics Anonymous,” Mrs. Esposito says. “He didn’t drink for two weeks, and he went to every meeting, and one night he came home and said he wanted me out.”

  MacDonald sits down, nodding nervously. The chair he sits in has a child’s chair facing it, which is used as a footstool. When James lived with his mother it was his chair. His mother still keeps his furniture around—a tiny child’s glider, a mirror in the hall that is knee-high.

  “Did you see James?” his mother asks.

  “Yes. He said that he’s very happy.”

  “I know he didn’t say that. If I can’t rely on you I’ll have to go myself, and you know how I cry for days after I see him.”

  “He said he was pretty happy. He said he didn’t think you were.”

  “Of course I’m not happy. He never calls.”

  “He likes the place he lives in. He’s got other people to talk to now.”

  “Dwarfs, not people,” his mother says. “He’s hiding from the real world.”

  “He didn’t have anybody but you to talk to when he lived at home. He’s got a new part-time job that he likes better, too, working in a billing department.”

  “Sending unhappiness to people in the mail,” his mother says.

  “How are you doing?” he asks.

  “As James says, I’m not happy.”

  “What can I do?” MacDonald asks.

  “Go to see him tomorrow and tell him to come home.”

  “He won’t leave. He’s in love with somebody there.”

  “Who? Who does he say he’s in love with? Not another social worker?”

  “Some woman. I met her. She seems very nice.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “How tall is she?”

  “She’s a little shorter than James.”

  “Shorter than James?”

  “Yes. A little shorter.”

  “What does she want with him?”

  “He said they were in love.”

  “I heard you. I’m asking what she wants with him.”

  “I don’t know. I really don’t know. Is that sherry in that bottle? Do you mind …”

  “I’ll get it for you,” Mrs. Esposito says.

  “Well, who knows what anybody wants from anybody,” his mother says. “Real love comes to naught. I loved your father and we had a dwarf.”

  “You shouldn’t blame yourself,” MacDonald says. He takes the glass of sherry from Mrs. Esposito.

  “I shouldn’t? I have to raise a dwarf and take care of him for thirty-eight years and then in my old age he leaves me. Who should I blame for that?”

  “James,” MacDonald says. “But he didn’t mean to offend you.”

  “I should blame your father,” his mother says, as if he hasn’t spoken. “But he’s dead. Who should I blame for his early death? God?”

  His mother does not believe in God. She has not believed in God for thirty-eight years.

  “I had to have a dwarf. I wanted grandchildren, and I know you won’t give me any because you’re afraid you’ll produce a dwarf. Clem is dead, and Amy is dead. Bring me some of that sherry, too, Carlotta.”

  *

  At five o’clock MacDonald calls his wife. “Honey,” he says, “I’m going to be tied up in this meeting until seven. I should have called you before.”

  “That’s all right,” she says. “Have you eaten?”

  “No. I’m in a meeting.”

  “We can eat when you come home.”

  “I think I’ll grab a sandwich, though. Okay?”

  “Okay. I got the parakeet.”

  “Good. Thank you.”

  “It’s awful. I’ll be glad to have it out of here.”

  “What’s so awful about a parakeet?”

  “I don’t know. The man at the pet store gave me a ferris wheel with it, and a bell on a chain of seeds.”

  “Oh yeah? Free?”

  “Of course. You don’t think I’d buy junk like that, do you?”

  “I wonder why he gave it to you.”

  “Oh, who knows. I got gin and vermouth today.”

  “Good,” he says. “Fine. Talk to you later.”

  MacDonald takes off his tie and puts it in his pocket. At least once a week he goes to a run-down bar across town, telling his wife that he’s in a meeting, putting his tie in his pocket. And once a week his wife remarks that she doesn’t understand how he can get his tie wrinkled. He takes off his shoes and puts on sneakers, and takes an old brown corduroy jacket off a coat hook behind his desk. His secretary is still in her office. Usually she leaves before five, but whenever he leaves looking like a slob she seems to be there to say good-night to him.

  “You wonder what’s going on, don’t you?” MacDonald says to his secretary.

  She smiles. Her name is Betty, and she must be in her early thirties. All he really knows about his secretary is that she smiles a lot and that her name is Betty.

  “Want to come along for some excitement?” he says
.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I knew you were curious,” he says.

  Betty smiles.

  “Want to come?” he says. “Like to see a little low life?”

  “Sure,” she says.

  They go out to his car, a red Toyota. He hangs his jacket in the back and puts his shoes on the back seat.

  “We’re going to see a Japanese woman who beats people with figurines,” he says.

  Betty smiles. “Where are we really going?” she asks.

  “You must know that businessmen are basically depraved,” MacDonald says. “Don’t you assume that I commit bizarre acts after hours?”

  “No,” Betty says.

  “How old are you?” he asks.

  “Thirty,” she says.

  “You’re thirty years old and you’re not a cynic yet?”

  “How old are you?” she asks.

  “Twenty-eight,” MacDonald says.

  “When you’re thirty you’ll be an optimist all the time,” Betty says.

  “What makes you optimistic?” he asks.

  “I was just kidding. Actually, if I didn’t take two kinds of pills, I couldn’t smile every morning and evening for you. Remember the day I fell asleep at my desk? The day before I had had an abortion.”

  MacDonald’s stomach feels strange—he wouldn’t mind having a couple kinds of pills himself, to get rid of the strange feeling. Betty lights a cigarette, and the smoke doesn’t help his stomach. But he had the strange feeling all day, even before Betty spoke. Maybe he has stomach cancer. Maybe he doesn’t want to face James again. In the glove compartment there is a jar that Mrs. Esposito gave his mother and that his mother gave him to take to James. One of Mrs. Esposito’s relatives sent it to her, at her request. It was made by a doctor in Puerto Rico. Supposedly, it can increase your height if rubbed regularly on the soles of the feet. He feels nervous, knowing that it’s in the glove compartment. The way his wife must feel having the parakeet and the ferris wheel sitting around the house. The house. His wife. Betty.

  They park in front of a bar with a blue neon sign in the window that says IDEAL CAFÉ. There is a larger neon sign above that that says SCHLITZ. He and Betty sit in a back booth. He orders a pitcher of beer and a double order of spiced shrimp. Tammy Wynette is singing “D-I-V-O-R-C-E” on the jukebox.