Free What Was Mine: & Other Stories by Ann Beattie Page B

host for somebody, right?”
    I pour myself a bourbon and take a few ice cubes out of the ice bucket with my fingers and drop them in the glass.
    “Do you want to talk about it?” the caterer says.
    “I don’t know what to say,” I say. I move the ice around in my glass with one finger.
    “I came here from Colorado,” she says. “This place seems odd to me. Uptight, or something.” She clears her throat. “Maybe it’s not,” she says. “I mean, obviously you never know—”
    “What’s really going on with other people,” I say, finishing the sentence for her. “Case in point,” I say, raising my glass.
    “Will she come back?” the caterer asks.
    “I don’t know,” I say. “We’ve quarreled before, certainly.” I take a sip of bourbon. “Of course, this wasn’t a quarrel. It was sort of a prank on her part, I guess you’d say.”
    “It is sort of funny,” the caterer says. “She told you all those people were invited and—”
    I nod, cutting her off.
    “Funny if it’s not you, I mean,” she says.
    I take another sip of my drink. I look at the caterer. She is a thin young woman. It doesn’t seem she could have any particular interest in food herself. She is actually quite pretty, in a plain way.
    We sit in silence for a while. I can hear squeals from next door, and am sure she hears them too. From where I sit, I can see out the window. The lightning bugs make brief pinpoints of light. From where she sits, the caterer can only see me. She looks at me, at her drink, and back at me.
    “I don’t mean that this should matter very much to you,” she says, “but I think it’s good for me to see that things aren’t necessarily what they seem. I mean, maybe this town is an okay place to be. I mean, as complicated as any other town. Maybe I just have it unfairly stereotyped.” She takes another drink. “I didn’t really want to leave Colorado,” she says, “I was a ski instructor there. The man I live with—he’s not really my husband—he and I were going to start a restaurant here, but it fell through. He’s got a lot of friends in this area, and his son, so here we are. His son lives here with his mother—my friend’s ex. I hardly know anybody.”
    I get the bottle and pour her another glass of wine. I take a last sip of my drink, rattle the ice cubes, and fill my own glass with wine. I put the bottle on the floor.
    “I’m sorry I stumbled in on this. My being here must embarrass you,” she says.
    “Not true,” I say, half meaning it. “I’m glad to see somebody.”
    She turns and looks over her shoulder. “Do you think your wife is going to come back?” she says.
    “Can’t say,” I say.
    She nods. “It’s funny to be in a situation where you know something about somebody and they don’t know anything about you, isn’t it?”
    “What do you mean? You just told me about Colorado, and the restaurant you were going to open.”
    “Yeah,” she says, “but that’s nothing personal. You know what I mean.”
    “Then go ahead and tell me something personal.”
    She blushes. “Oh, I didn’t mean that.”
    “Why not?” I say. “This is a strange enough night already, isn’t it? What if you tell me something personal?”
    She gnaws at her cuticle. She might be younger than I thought. She has long, shiny hair. I try to picture her in a nylon jacket, on a ski slope. That makes the night seem hotter suddenly. It makes me realize that in a few months, though, we will be wearing down-filled jackets. Last November there was a big snow.
    “The guy I live with is an illustrator,” she says. “You’ve probably seen some of his stuff. He doesn’t need money, he just wants to have it all. To draw. To have a restaurant. He’s grabby. He usually figures it out to have what he wants, though.” She takes a drink. “I feel funny saying this,” she says. “I don’t know why I started to tell you about us.” Then she stops talking, smiling apologetically.
    Instead of