Distortions by Ann Beattie Page A

tried to foul up the toy every which way. I even tried making it ski on sandpaper, and it still worked. I tacked the sandpaper to a board, and down it went. The friend had bought it in Switzerland, where he and his wife were vacationing. So said the note in the package that was addressed to Jon, which I tore open because of the unfamiliar handwriting, thinking it might be evidence.
    *
    Why do I think Jon is unfaithful? Because it would be logical for him to be unfaithful. Some days I don’t even comb my hair. He must leave the house and see women with their hair clean and brushed back from their faces, and he must desire them and then tell them. It is only logical that if he admires the beauty of all the women with neatly arranged hair, one of them will want him to mess it up. It is only logical that she will invite him home. That smile, that suggestion from a woman would lure him as surely as aspring rain makes the earthworms twist out of the ground. It is even hard to blame him; he has a lawyer’s logical mind. He remembers things. He would not forget to comb his hair. He would certainly not hack his hair off with manicuring scissors. If he cut his own hair, he would do it neatly, with the correct scissors.
    “What have you done?” Jon whispered. Illogical, too, for me to have cut it in the living room—to leave the clumps of curls fallen on the rug. “What have you done?” His hands on my head, feeling my bones, the bones in my skull, looking into my eyes. “You’ve cut off your hair,” he said. He will be such a good lawyer. He understands everything.
    *
    The dog enjoys a fire. I cook beef bones for him, and when he is tired of pawing and chewing I light a fire, throwing in several gift pinecones that send off green and blue and orange sparks, and I brush him with Jon’s French hairbrush until his coat glows in the firelight. The first few nights I lit the fire and brushed him, I washed the brush afterward, so Jon wouldn’t find out. The doctors would tell me that was unreasonable: Jon said he would be gone a week. A logical woman, I no longer bother with washing the brush.
    *
    I have a scotch-and-milk before bed. The fire is still roaring, so I bring my pillow to the hearth and stretch out on the bricks. My eyelids get very warm and damp—the way they always did when I cried all the time, which I don’t do any more. After all, this is the fifth night. As the doctors say, one must be adaptable. The dog tires of all the attention and chooses to sleep under the desk in the study. I have to call him twice—the second time firmly—before he comes back to settle in the living room. And when my eyes have been closed for five minutes he walks quietly away, back to the kneehole in the desk. At one time, Jon decided the desk was not big enough. He bought a door and two filing cabinets and made a new desk. The dog, a lover of small, cramped spaces, wandered unhappily from corner to corner, no longer able to settle anywhere. Jon brought the old desk back. A very kind man.
    *
    Like Columbus’ crew, I begin to panic. It has been so long since I’ve seen Jon. Without him to check on me, I could wander alone in the house and then disappear forever—just vanish while rounding a corner, or by slipping down, down into the bathwater or up into the draft the fire creates. Couldn’t that pull me with it—couldn’t I go, with the cold air, up the chimney, arms outstretched, with my cupped hands making a parasol? Or while sitting in Jon’s chair I might become smaller—become a speck, an ash. The dog would sniff and sniff, and then jump into the chair and settle down upon me and close his eyes.
    To calm myself, I make tea. Earl Grey, an imported tea. Imported means coming to; exported means going away. I feel in my bones (my shinbones) that Jon will not come home. But perhaps I am just cold, since the fire is not yet lit. I sip the Earl Grey tea—results will be conclusive.
    *
    He said he was going to his brother’s