The State We're In: Maine Stories by Ann Beattie Page A

hit the curb with the back wheels, hard. “For Christ’s sake,” she said. “They build curbs now like they’re soapboxes in Trafalgar Square, like we’re supposed to stand there and rant about something. Just like my trip to England, which I suppose I’ll never see again, it’s so impossible to travel because they have to body-search everyone.”
    Oh, please let me live through this summer, Jocelyn thought, as she followed Bettina into the building. This was the eye doctor’s? Why were they there? She sank into a chair and picked up People magazine, while Bettina charmed the receptionist, thanking her profusely for working her in, her sickly sweet smile at odds with her bizarre body language. The vest she was wearing made her look like she’d gotten tangled in a parachute. And she was sweating like she’d been doing Zumba. She stared at the magazine as her aunt took the clipboard from the receptionist and sat in a chair beside her to fill it out. She skimmed an article about Jennifer Aniston and her new fiancé. Good looking, in a conventional way. It would be so great to be Jen, with totally perfect hair and a flawless complexion and no Aunt Bettina in her life. So what if she’d lost Brad Pitt?
    A man sitting in the waiting room got up and went to the watercooler, pulled a paper cup from the dispenser, and filled it quaveringly with cold water. He sipped. Jocelyn thought that he was aware that her aunt was in a state, he so deliberately avoided looking in their direction.
    “Do you have allergies to medicine?” Bettina asked.
    “Not that I know of,” she muttered.
    “What’s your birthday?”
    “Aunt Bettina, it’s the same day as yours. We’ve had, like, ten joint birthday celebrations.”
    “Show some respect when you speak to me,” Bettina said. At this, the man shot Jocelyn a sympathetic look. He picked up a copy of Garden & Gun, leaned back in the orange plastic chair, opened the magazine to the middle, and crossed his legs.
    “Jocelyn?” the receptionist said. “And Dr. Miller? Sir, you’ll be in the first room on the right, and Jocelyn, I’m happy to meet you, I’m Jenny, if you’ll follow me.”
    Jocelyn stood and followed the receptionist and the other man through the door. In her peripheral vision, she saw her aunt draw a large X through an entire section of the form. She drew in a deep breath, then exhaled. “Jenny,” she said. “My aunt’s acting really strange. You’ve got to trust me on this. I’ve got to call my mother. Or no, I should call my uncle. I’ve got to call my uncle.”
    “Really?” Jenny said.
    “Really. She was raving about Girl Scouts on the way over here. She was driving, like, crazy.”
    The toes of Jenny’s black patent leather clogs touched each other. “She did seem a little upset when she called,” she said. “What do you want me to do?”
    “I don’t want to intrude,” Dr. Miller said, coming into the room, “but your mother is in a sweat and seems in some distress.” Where did he come from? He thought Aunt Bettina was her mother ? She was totally not. Jenny seemed as surprised as Jocelyn that he’d simply walked into their room.
    “What’s the problem out there?” said a man in a white coat—though not the White Rabbit—coming into the room, frowning deeply.
    “We should call an ambulance, I think,” Dr. Miller said.
    “That’s what I thought,” the tall man said. “How do you do,” he said, suddenly, turning to Jocelyn. “I’m Dr. Baird. Are things not so good with your aunt?”
    “I texted him from the waiting room,” Dr. Miller said to Jocelyn. All of this was amazing. Somebody was going to do something. She couldn’t believe her good luck.
    “I’ve never seen her before today,” Jenny said to no one in particular.
    “Ambulance on the way,” Dr. Baird said, dropping his iPhone back into his coat pocket. “And you are Ms.—”
    “Jocelyn,” Jocelyn said.
    “Ms. Jocelyn,” Dr. Baird said. “May I ask how old