Picturing Will by Ann Beattie

an impression she later confirmed over cappuccino at The Cupping Room in SoHo. But that night he had really not planned to meet Gloria again. It was only later, thinking it over, that he realized the obvious: The au pair was his way to Spencer, and Spencer was a person he wanted to know better. How much of Luther, besides his looks, had gotten planted in the child? To his complete surprise, he began to swell with emotion, like the buddy of a soldier killed in action who must go to that person’s hometown and kiss the wife’s cheek, lift the child into his arms. It was surprising because, while Luther was indeed M.I.A., his disappearance was only into le monde chi-chi of Paris. But really, why bother to understand your reasons when you are so strongly drawn to something or someone? Sipping through the foamy milk, Haveabud knew there was something that he wanted, but he did not know exactly what that something was. Only that it involved Spencer, and staying on good enough terms with the bitch to have access to Spencer.
    But that was the past, and right now Haveabud was sipping not cappuccino but a sour-sweet, fashionably silly blue margarita with Mel Anthis, from whom he also wanted something, and Mel Anthis’s ladyfriend, who turned out to be a more impressive photographer than he could have imagined. To get Mel, he might have mounted a show of thumbtacks and string, but this woman, whose name he had forgotten in the haze of remembering that night, several years ago, with the lawyer, and the hairdresser, and Gloria, and the person who had served the dinner, and Stegosaurus, and …
    The waitress asked if he would like his salt rim freshened.
    “What?” he said. The Rolling Stones were singing “Wild Horses” and a group of hyperactive partygoers had just come in and were playing musical chairs around a table too small for them.
    “If you would like your salt rim freshened,” the waitress said, raising her voice slightly.
    “I’ve never heard of that,” Haveabud said.
    She took this for a no and went away. Mel Anthis and Jody—that was her name—were frowning at him, as if he had anything to do with the waitress coming to the table.
    He shrugged, indicating his own puzzlement and surprise. He was also surprised to have heard, just as the waitress interrupted, that Jody was the mother of a small child: a boy, Will, going on six. He was entering her life when she had a son just a little younger than Spencer had been when he had reentered the bitch’s life. How would Will deal with his mother’s becoming a star? She was a very smart, very attractive woman, and her work was stunning; this one was going to be almost too easy. He would call in a favor and get some notice on Page Six. He would ask his former assistant, to whom he had advanced money so that two thugs would not break his legs for nonpayment of a gambling debt, to find some way to borrow a gold evening dress he had just seen in the window of Charivari.
    He tried to get the waitress’s eye, to take her up on her offer. A little salt to cut the sweetness. Another night on the town, during which possibilities arose when you least expected them.

NINE
    S itting under an umbrella at a table outside the Empire Diner, Haveabud took in the passing parade as he waited for Jody. A limousine driver in Ray Bans sat doing a Jack Nicholson imitation, trying hard to look oblivious of passing people and traffic. He could have been shot, stuffed, and put back in the front seat, for all the life his expression betrayed. He was not going to leer at anything, à la Jack. He had joined the ranks of what Haveabud thought of as New York statues. Yes, they moved, but for all intents and purposes they were statues: guards at Bendel’s, doormen, hatcheck girls, out-of-towners waiting fearfully on the curb to cross the street when the lights changed. They were the startled fawns and self-contained spiritual masters, the repositories of peace in our time. Haveabud’s mother, who