Secrets & Surprises by Ann Beattie Page B

Louise, ran to the car.
    They went to the Museum of Fine Arts, and kept getting lost as they searched for the modern paintings. He said that Monet’s haystacks were his favorites. He knew so much more than she about all the paintings, but had she not commented or occasionally asked a question, she was sure he would have said nothing. She asked how he knew so much, forgetting, momentarily, who his father was, and he told her that instead of bedtime stories, he had heard about the lives of the painters.
    “And my father read me Blake’s poetry to put me to sleep,” she said. “When I was very young, the Songs of Innocence and Experience . When I was a little older—six, maybe—he jumped right into The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. ”
    “Yeah,” he said. “That’s hardly a normal childhood.”
    She was a little startled by how quickly he answered, cutting her off, because from the fond way she spoke about Blake she thought that Griffin understood that those memories were pleasant.
    “He used to roller-skate with me,” she said—wondering herself at the non sequitur , saying it only to let Griffin know how pleasant and interesting a relationship she had had with her father.
    “My father used to compensate like mad, too. He’d go on tirades against Kandinsky, actually standing over my shoulder and pointing to tiny spots of color with a pencil, when he knew I didn’t give a damn. Then the next minute he’d be pulling a baseball cap on my head and throwing me my catcher’s mitt, wanting us to go off to the game. My mother thought that was so wonderful, but I knew he didn’t care about baseball, and that he was suspicious because I liked it so much.”
    They wandered into another room of paintings, and she went up to a piece of sculpture she had not noticed the other time she came to the museum: a statue by Degas, of a young dancer, foot delicately extended, head held high, tilted back.
    “Snob,” he said.
    “No she isn’t. She’s fourteen years old and she can dance, and she’s proud.”
    He started to walk away.
    “Not proud, I guess, but she feels regal. She can do something and she’s poised for a moment before she moves.”
    “Are you kidding?” Griffin said.
    “No. I’m serious.”
    “You really like that?”
    “I like it a lot.”
    “Well, don’t sound challenging. Is it an important issue?”
    “You don’t like it?” she said.
    “No. I don’t like it much.”
    They moved away, went to one of the seats in the room and sat down, looking at the large dark painting in front of them.
    “I don’t know why I spend so much time at museums,” he said. “I thought that the minute I got away from home I’d never look at a painting if it wasn’t in a book, but I end up here all the time.”
    She said nothing, wanting to look at the ballerina again, but not wanting to shut him out, either.
    “That was quite a scene back in Rye, New York: my father always pretending to be happy when the Yankees had home games, my mother always pretending excitement about the different shows at the galleries in Manhattan, the dog probably pretending she enjoyed playing tug of war with the stick.”
    She said nothing. She was wondering if she could have been wrong—if he might have not liked roller-skating.
    “It’s freaky,” he said. “That I’d end up taking a dive into the table of Horace Cragen’s daughter.”
    She hated being spoken of as Horace Cragen’s child. Her image of her father, which was always in the back of her mind when she was not actually thinking of him, dimmed a little. She moved her head to get the picture back: her father, in his baggy slacks and cardigan, smiling down at her, poised on the edge of her bed with his large hands turning the pages of a book as delicately as if the paper were feathers.
    Her eyes came to rest on the sculpture.
    “You like it,” he said, looking at her looking at it, “because you were an aspiring ballerina when you were little. Right?”
    “No,”