Big Swiss(22)

Greta just stood there, frozen.

“Chop-chop,” Deb said.

“Where do you live again?” Greta said.

“The ‘Live Free or Die’ state,” Deb said.

“Hawaii?” Greta asked hopefully.

“New Hampshire!” Deb said. “Hurry up, our flight leaves in five hours.”

While she packed, Greta listened to Deb argue with Petra and Derek in the living room.

“I told you two not to pull this shit,” Deb said.

“She was lost,” Petra said.

“She’s just a kid. Her mother’s dead. We were all there to clean up the mess. Where were you? You couldn’t even pick up the phone.”

Petra mumbled something about a miscarriage. Deb said she liked Petra better before, when she rode a motorcycle and smoked weed.

“New Hampsha,” Stacy interrupted at last. “I had a feelin you’d lived in New England. Did you fit in or were you a weido?”

“It was an adjustment,” Greta said.

In New Hampshire, Deb treated Greta like a refugee from a war-torn state. Greta had fled her homeland with only a suitcase, and now she was straddling two cultures. It seemed important to Deb that Greta completely abandon her old life.

“What the hell are you reading?” Deb asked one day.

“Um, the Bible?”

“That’s not the Bible,” Deb said, shaking her head.

“It’s the Jesus parts,” Greta explained. “That’s why it’s called The Word.”

Deb threw the book in the garbage. “I’ve got some words for you: wake up!” She clapped her hands in Greta’s face. “You were brainwashed by dipshits, Greta. It wasn’t your fault, but you need to wake up now. Are you awake?”

Greta shrugged. “I guess.”

One Sunday, when Greta asked Deb to take her to church, Deb dropped her off at the recessed entrance of one of the oldest buildings in town, a giant stone structure with a bunch of stained glass windows and a huge cylindrical tower.

“I’m not Catholic,” Greta said.

“Go check it out,” Deb said. “I’ll be back in two hours.”

It was Greta’s first time inside a public library. This one had been built in 1860, apparently, and contained four hundred thousand books, which seemed excessive. On the main floor, Greta avoided the reading room and headed for the stacks, located in the tower. She selected three novels and carried them to the front desk, where they asked for her library card. When she admitted that she didn’t have one, they gave her a form to fill out. Greta went back to the tower, tossed the books out the window, and watched them land safely in the bushes. Then she descended the stairs, retrieved the books, and waited for Deb on a patch of lawn.

“I continued stealing books for a whole year,” Greta told Stacy. “I hid them in my closet, under my bed, and eventually in the attic. My room essentially became another branch of the library. When Deb finally figured out what I was up to, she made me return the books and go to therapy.”

“For how long?” Stacy asked.

“Four years,” Greta said.

“You seem cured,” Stacy said. “In fact, I hope you don’t mind me saying, but I’m surprised you’re not married.”

She told him about her last boyfriend. He’d had money, a new experience for Greta, but zero upper-body strength. He could barely hold himself on top of her, and when he did, she felt like she was being made love to by a large, trembling finger. They were together two years.

“Was he in a nursing home?” Stacy asked.

“He was my age,” Greta said.

“Who ended it?”

“I did,” Greta said. “He decided he wanted a family.”

“Gross,” Stacy said.

“I’m guessing you never had children,” Greta said.

“No, I have two,” Stacy said. “I only see them once a year.”

Dad??? Greta thought hysterically.

Stacy laughed. “I’m kidding—no kids for me, not eva, I hope you’re okay with that.”

Music to her ears.



* * *



SIX WEEKS LATER, they were living together in Stacy’s blue-and-white house. Since Stacy was the caretaking type, Greta experienced a second childhood. Or, in her case, a first childhood. Stacy fed her compliments and saucy things from the slow cooker. He took care of the bills, put her through two years of college, helped repair her terrible credit. He guided and protected her. He got her out of the restaurant, eventually, and into the pharmacy, but encouraged her creativity above all. She’d never felt so cherished, nourished, pacified, and… sleepy. In fact, she felt distinctly as though she were sleepwalking, or in a perpetual state of daydreaming, and yet they managed to do things like have sex and travel abroad. Stacy took cooking classes; Greta attended meditation retreats. Stacy made Korean food; Greta took long, even breaths through her nose. Mouth-breathing was only for emergencies, she’d learned, but there were never any emergencies with Stacy because he took care of everything.

“Ever hear of RealDolls?” Stacy asked over dinner one night. “The realistic sex dolls made of silicone?”

Fuck, Greta thought. He’s been lulling me into a trance for a year, and now the terrible truth is about to come out.