Chilly Scenes of Winter Read Online Free PDF Page A

five minutes.”
    “Why don’t you come at … two. You’ll see my car there. I’ll leave it open.”
    “All right,” he says.
    “I hope your mother’s all right. Is she going to have to go back to that place?”
    “No,” Charles says. “I don’t think so.”
    “It would be kinder to tie her to the bed,” Laura says.
    Jim’s first wife is in a mental hospital. Laura has told him about visiting her—how they save all her letters, which are mostly about food, and how they stop on the way and get McDonald’s Filet o’ Fish, Kentucky Fried Chicken, macaroni salad, Heath Bars and Cott ginger ale, and how she does nothing but eat when they are there, everything together, a sip of ginger ale, some of the candy bar, the macaroni. It makes Laura sick. She gets dizzy, can’t eat for a week.
    “My sister’s home from college,” Charles says. “I’ve got the week off.”
    “That’s nice. You two can do some things.”
    “We can’t think of anything to do. Yesterday we went to a skin flick.”
    “That’s horrible,” Laura says.
    “I thought of you.”
    “I’ll see you tomorrow,” Laura says. “I’ve got to go.”
    “Where are you going?”
    “What’s the use in telling you? You never believe me. I have bread in the oven.”
    “How domestic,” he says.
    “If you feel so bitter, maybe it would be better not to come tomorrow.”
    “I love you,” Charles says. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
    He hangs up. A woman in a corner chair looks back at her knitting. A young man on an orange plastic sofa is asleep with his head on his overcoat, which is rolled up on the arm of the sofa. The young man has on a blue suit and shiny black shoes. The toes are too pointed. His tie, dangling from the sofa arm, is too thin. He makes gurgling noises in his sleep. Charles is always afraid of falling asleep in public places. He thinks that he will scream. He doesn’t even close his eyes on buses any more. In fact he has started driving to work instead of taking the bus so he won’t be tempted to fall asleep. Charles looks at himself in the mirror. It is an oblong mirror with a picture of the hospital painted at the top. Charles sees that he has circles under his eyes. His skin is pasty. In five days he will be twenty-seven. His eyes meet the woman’s in the mirror. She looks down at her knitting again. He walks away from the minor, puts the magazine on a table, tries to rub the creases out, gives up, thinks about going to his mother’s room to join Susan and Pete, cannot, sits down.
    “Is your wife having a baby?” the woman says.
    “No,” Charles says.
    “My daughter is,” the woman says.
    “That’s nice,” Charles says. He and Laura were always worried that she would get pregnant. He frowns. The woman smiles.
    “What are you hoping for?” Charles says.
    “Health,” the woman says. “Good health. That’s what’s important.”
    Predictable. Everything is predictable.
    “She has three boys, so she’s hoping for a girl,” the woman says.
    “That’s nice,” Charles says. He gets up and leaves the sun room. He walks slowly down the corridor to his mother’s room. He sees the back of Pete’s coat and turns around. He goes back to the telephone and dials his number. He is going to tell Sam to go to his place with Elise—it’s depressing him. The phone rings twice. Sam answers it.
    “Sam. It’s been a rotten day and I’m tired, so I want you and Elise out of my bed when I get back there. I hope you don’t take offense, but I don’t want to sleep on the sofa again tonight.”
    “She’s gone,” Sam says. “She had me drive her to the train.”
    “Gone? Where did she go?”
    “Home. She said that by now her mother wouldn’t be drunk. Her mother always sobers up about this time so she won’t have to make it a New Year’s resolution.”
    “Oh,” Charles says. “What are you doing there?”
    “I just got back from the train. I was eating the leftover chili.”
    “I forgot to ask you