Perfect Recall
A Story by Anne Beattie
Chapter Two
The Big-Breasted Pilgrim
Our house in the Florida Keys is down a narrow road, half a mile from a
convenience store with a green neon sign that advertises "Bait and Basics."
Lowell's sister, Kathryn, called to get us to arrange for a car to drive her
from Miami. She considers everywhere Lowell has ever lived to be Siberia,
including Saratoga, New York, which she saw only once, during a blizzard.
TriBeCa, circa 1977, was Siberia. Ditto Ashland, Oregon. In all those places,
Lowell had what he now calls "The Siberian Brides": his first and second wives,
who gradually became as incomprehensible to him as foreigners: Tish, who lived
with us in Saratoga and later in TriBeCa; Leigh Anne Leighton — a name so
melodic he always speaks of her that way, even though it seems inordinately
formal — who lived with us for a month in Ashland before flying to Los Angeles
for her grandfather's funeral, from which she never returned. This was no case
of riding forever 'neath the streets of Boston, however: she got a Mexi ... read full excerpt from A Perfect Recall: A Short Story ebook
