Big Swiss(17)

“You all right?” Greta said. “I can bring you hot water with lemon, if that helps.”

He looked insulted, as if she’d offered him apple juice in a sippy cup.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

“Greta,” Greta said.

“I’m Mahk,” he said. “That’s Stacy. Quick question: how long would you say it takes to get to Yosemite? By cah.”

Okay, so they weren’t newly sober, but rather newly arrived New Englanders. Transplants, maybe, like her. Although Greta had been born and raised in Los Angeles, she liked to tell people she was from New Hampshire, because that’s where she went to high school, and also because she was unable to bring herself to say, “It’s all good,” one of the more vapid verbal tics of Californians at the time. She could only ever say, “Well, that’s one good thing, I guess.”

“Five or six hours,” Greta said.

“Okay, Stace?” Mark said. “Too fah. Your cah won’t make it.”

“Yeah it will,” Stacy said. “It’s only got fotty thousand miles on it.”

“Lemme ask you,” Mark said to Greta. “Would you date a guy who drove that cah?” He pointed out the window. “The awful beige one.”

“It’s a Plymouth Volare,” Stacy said quietly. “Nineteen seventy-nine.”

The original owner probably smoked Old Golds or Benson & Hedges 100s. Greta would have killed for an Old Gold. She wondered if her craving felt more ungainly than usual because it was riding on the shoulders of nostalgia. She wasn’t nostalgic for the car so much as the cah. Somehow her hearing had improved since she’d quit smoking, or at any rate sounds she used to find grating were now euphonious. Helicopters, for example, the wild parrots living in the palm trees behind her apartment, mariachi music, Massachusetts accents.

“See?” Mark said, and coughed. “No ansa.”

“Yeah,” Greta said finally. “I’d go out with you.”

Stacy gave her a startled smile.

“She’s just being polite,” Mark said. “You’ll never get laid with that thing, not out here, not even if your cock was as long as my ahm.”

“Sorry,” Stacy murmured to Greta.

“Does it have bench seats?” Greta asked.

“Front and back,” Stacy said.

“Well, that’s one good thing,” Greta said. “Right?”

“The seats are made of foam,” Stacy said, “so you can spill an entire cup of coffee and it just sinks in.”

Mark rolled his eyes.

“Are you guys related?” Greta asked. “You’re cousins, right?”

“We were naybuhs growing up,” Stacy said. “He’s visiting from Boston, but I live around the conna.”

“At Sober Clarity?” Greta asked.

Stacy shook his head. “Blue house, white trim.”

“I was kidding,” Greta said.

“Well, just for the reckid, I’m sobah,” he said.

“She doesn’t care,” Mark said.

“Mahk’s upset I bought this cah for our road trip,” Stacy said. “He was hoping for somethin else.”

“He won’t even make an effit,” Mark said to Greta. “Everyone back home thinks he’s a homo.”

Stacy cleared his throat.

“What can I bring you to drink?” Greta asked.

Stacy ordered coffee as if it were Sunday morning, but it was Monday night, an hour before closing. Mark asked for a Bud.

“We only have Peroni,” Greta said. “The Italian Budweiser.”

“Then bring me a bottle of red,” Mark said.

“He’ll have a glass,” Stacy said quickly. “No bottle.”

“Chianti,” Mark said. “No, wait—rose.”

He pronounced it like the flower.

“Unless—is it like a wine coola?” Mark asked.

“It’s dry,” Greta said. “And chuggable.”

He seemed to appreciate that. She started to walk away but stopped.

“One of you guys have a cig, by any chance?” she asked.

“Pahdon?” Stacy said.

“A cigarette,” Greta said.

“A cansa stick?” Mark said.

“I prefer ‘stick of joy,’?” Greta said.

“Well, but I have cansa,” Mark said. “In my lungs. Stage three.”

“Mahk,” Stacy said. “Don’t staht.”

Mark shrugged. “Just bein honest.”

“Sorry,” Greta mumbled. “I quit last week. Never mind.”

Mortified, she strode past the waitress station and straight into the kitchen, making a beeline for the walk-in. The light had burned out in there, so it was pitch-black and very private. She liked to put her face in front of the fan, which fucked up her bangs, but it was freezing and nearly as restorative as a first drag. Plus, the dessert tray was right there.

Ricardo, the dishwasher, entered the walk-in as she was piping cannoli cream directly into her mouth. He was hungover, as usual, and holding a flashlight. Greta was holding the pastry bag over her face, squeezing it with both hands. Ricardo looked scandalized, as if he’d caught her jacking off a customer.