Free The New Yorker Stories by Ann Beattie Page B

watched her go. She had on a lacy beige dress. Her shoes sparkled. She was very pretty. He wished she would not marry his brother, who had been kicked around all his life—first by their mother, then by the Air Force (“Think of me as you fly into the blue,” their mother had written Richard once. Christ!)—and now would be watched over by a wife.
    The summer Richard and Alice married, they invited Sam to spend his vacation with them. It was nice that Alice didn’t hold grudges. She also didn’t hold a grudge against her husband, who burned a hole in an armchair and who tore the mainsail on their sailboat beyond repair by going out on the lake in a storm. She was a very patient woman. Sam found that he liked her. He liked the way she worried about Richard out in a boat in the middle of the storm. After that, Sam spent part of every summer vacation with them, and went to their house every Thanksgiving. Two years ago, just when Sam was convinced that everything was perfect, Richard told him that they were getting divorced. The next day, when Sam was alone with Alice after breakfast, he asked why.
    “He burns up all the furniture,” she said. “He acts like a madman with that boat. He’s swamped her three times this year. I’ve been seeing someone else.”
    “Who have you been seeing?”
    “No one you know.”
    “I’m curious, Alice. I just want to know his name.”
    “Hans.”
    “Hans. Is he a German?”
    “Yes.”
    “Are you in love with this German?”
    “I’m not going to talk about it. Why are you talking to me? Why don’t you go sympathize with your brother?”
    “He knows about this German?”
    “His name is Hans.”
    “That’s a German name,” Sam said, and he went outside to find Richard and sympathize with him.
    Richard was crouching beside his daughter’s flower garden. His daughter was sitting on the grass across from him, talking to her flowers.
    “You haven’t been bothering Alice, have you?” Richard said.
    “Richard, she’s seeing a God-damned German,” Sam said.
    “What does that have to do with anything?”
    “What are you talking about?” the little girl asked.
    That silenced both of them. They stared at the bright-orange flowers.
    “Do you still love her?” Sam asked after his second drink.
    They were in a bar, off a boardwalk. After their conversation about the German, Richard had asked Sam to go for a drive. They had driven thirty or forty miles to this bar, which neither of them had seen before and neither of them liked, although Sam was fascinated by a conversation now taking place between two blond transvestites on the bar stools to his right. He wondered if Richard knew that they weren’t really women, but he hadn’t been able to think of a way to work it into the conversation, and he started talking about Alice instead.
    “I don’t know,” Richard said. “I think you were right. The Air Force, Mother, marriage—”
    “They’re not real women,” Sam said.
    “What?”
    Sam thought that Richard had been staring at the two people he had been watching. A mistake on his part; Richard had just been glancing around the bar.
    “Those two blondes on the bar stools. They’re men.”
    Richard studied them. “Are you sure?” he said.
    “Of course I’m sure. I live in N.Y.C., you know.”
    “Maybe I’ll come live with you. Can I do that?”
    “You always said you’d rather die than live in New York.”
    “Well, are you telling me to kill myself, or is it O.K. if I move in with you?”
    “If you want to,” Sam said. He shrugged. “There’s only one bedroom, you know.”
    “I’ve been to your apartment, Sam.”
    “I just wanted to remind you. You don’t seem to be thinking too clearly.”
    “You’re right,” Richard said. “A God-damned German.”
    The barmaid picked up their empty glasses and looked at them.
    “This gentleman’s wife is in love with another man,” Sam said to her.
    “I overheard,” she said.
    “What do you think of that?”