Chilly Scenes of Winter by Ann Beattie

disappointed?”
    “Doesn’t act it. I’m not exactly too sensitive to the state of others right now, I guess.”
    “Take aspirin. She’ll bring it to you.”
    “She does.”
    “Well, I’ll see you tonight.”
    Charles hangs up. If Laura isn’t still sick—she can’t still be sick—she’ll be leaving her house in an hour to pick up Rebecca. Lucky Rebecca. If Rebecca grows up to be like Laura she will be a heartbreaker. Maybe he will become like Humbert Humbert and get Rebecca. Because it certainly doesn’t look like he’s going to get Laura.
    A woman from typing comes in to pick up two reports to do for him. The woman has on a blue dress that is unfashionably short and heavy black boots pulled tightly over her heavy legs. But her face is pretty. She was Laura’s friend. He wants to think that she knows all about the two of them, but Laura said that she never told anybody. He wishes she had; then he wouldn’t doubt, as he sometimes does, that it happened at all. He and the woman could exchange secret, knowing glances. Laura, they would both be thinking. She walks out with the piece of paper, and he looks at the big black boots walking across the blue carpet. Laura always dressed beautifully. She had suede boots and several pretty dresses, just a few but very pretty, and she always looked very delicate. Her husband is nicknamed “Ox.” Charles has not gotten back to work, and he has been at his desk for fifteen minutes. He has just cheated the government of five minutes. He cheats it of another two, turning his chair to look out the window, playing a little game and imagining that when he turns around Laura will be there, even though he knows that he would see her reflection in the glass if she were there. Even though she cannot be there, because she is getting ready to go for Rebecca. He wishes he were Rebecca’s father. If he were her father and Laura were her mother they could be a family. They are already a family: Laura, Rebecca, and Ox. He imagines with horror that when he turns around they will all be there, that he will actually have to face that fact. He turns around immediately and looks at the piece of paper on his desk.
    The woman from typing comes back. “There should be another piece attached to this,” she says. He sits up a little higher so that he can look down at the boots. They are menacing. He wonders why she wears them. She couldn’t think they’re pretty. He reaches in the bottom of the basket on the comer of his desk. “Sorry,” he says.
    “First day back,” she says.
    “What do you hear from Laura?” he asks.
    “Oh. I had dinner there last night. She went back to her husband,” the woman says knowingly.
    The A-frame. Ox. Maybe more freshly baked bread. So she’s well.
    “What did you have?” He can’t contain his curiosity.
    “Lobster Newburg. It was wonderful. I’ve been trying to lose weight, but with the holidays and that dinner, I’m never going to make it.”
    “You’re going to think this is terrible, but I don’t think I ever knew your name,” he says.
    “Betty,” she says.
    “That’s right,” he says. “I did know it.”
    He’d had no idea what her name was.
    She stands there, smiling. He wants very much to know if she had the orange thing for dessert.
    “I get into work and I become a robot,” he says. “It’s awful.”
    “I hate it here,” Betty says. “But I’m lucky to have a job. My sister just graduated from Katy Gibbs, and she’s been looking since before Thanksgiving.”
    “It’s rotten,” he says. “It’s nice if you can have perspective on ft and be glad you’ve got a job.”
    “I just am glad today,” she says. “Most days I come in and hate it.”
    “Is your sister looking for work around here?”
    “In New York. But if she doesn’t find something soon she’s going to have to come live with me. My parents kicked her out. They don’t think she’s trying, because they sent her to college and then to Katy Gibbs and