Big Swiss(24)

“Dead and gone, Pi?on,” Greta said. “Go to bed, baby.”

Pi?on jumped onto the bed and mounted his girlfriend, a stuffed alligator. Greta threw a log on the fire and settled in at her desk. As promised, the audio file was waiting in her inbox. She opened a new document.


OM:?Before we get started, can you state your initials for the transcriber, please?

FEW:?FEW.

OM:?Thank you. How are you feeling today?

FEW:?Yeah, okay, fine. I’ll tell you what happened.

OM:?I didn’t say anything.

FEW:?His name is Keith. He was—

OM:?I’m not pressuring you. We can talk about anything you want.

FEW:?Perhaps you’re not aware of this, but your every thought is written on your face. Not the best quality for a therapist.



“Or anyone,” Greta said. “Except dogs.” Pi?on looked at Greta and smirked.


OM:?I’m more of a coach. I’m not an analyst, nor do I pretend to be.

FEW:?Look, I don’t want to drag this out, because I’d rather focus on other, more pressing—

OM:?But I’m not dragging anything out of you.



“Christ, Om, shut the fuck up,” Greta said.


FEW:?I’ll give you what you can’t seem to admit you want, and maybe you can return the favor by not being mawkish afterward—

OM:?I would never mock you.

FEW:?“Mawkish” as in “maudlin.”

OM:?Oh.



“?‘Gong,’ honey, not ‘dong,’?” Greta said.


FEW:?I’m in the perfect mood for talking about this, now that I think about it.

OM:?How long has it been since you told someone?

FEW:?A few years. I’m twenty-eight now, but I was only twenty when it happened, living in the city and attending college. It was summer. I was working at as a cocktail waitress in Brooklyn, even though hospitality isn’t really my thing, because I’m incapable of small—

OM:?Where were you going to school?

FEW:?The New School.

OM:?Cool.

FEW:?Anyway, Keith. That’s his name. He was a regular at this bar. Attractive, well-dressed, decent tipper. He often asked to sit in my section, but he never talked to me beyond ordering his drink, and he only ever had one drink. He was picky about how the drink was prepared, and would send it back if it wasn’t right—

OM:?What was his drink?



“Fair question,” Greta said.


FEW:?A French martini. It’s a disgusting pink drink from the eighties. I admired him for not being embarrassed about ordering it, and for drinking it out of a martini glass. Usually men like him request a different glass.

OM:?A less gay glass?

FEW:?A rocks glass. I waited on him maybe half a dozen times before he mentioned that he was from upstate originally, which is where I’m from—

OM:?I thought you were from Switzerland.

FEW:?I moved to New York when I was seventeen. Anyway, he said he was trying to sell his house because he wanted to “travel.” That was the first red flag.

OM:?Why is that a red flag?

FEW:?It let me know how out of touch he was. He still seemed to think traveling made you interesting. It was something a teenager might say, and this guy was in his forties or fifties. When I asked him why he wanted to travel so much, he said it was because he’d been in prison for many years, and so he’d missed out on a few things. Like Europe. And then, to my disbelief, he actually said he wanted to “see the Mona Lisa.”

OM:?A much bigger red flag.

FEW:?Right? I honestly couldn’t think of anything lamer.

OM:?I meant prison. Did you believe him?

FEW:?Yes. I figured he must have been locked up a long time, because why else would he think the Mona Lisa would work on me. Or anyone my age. He was reading from a very old, very poorly written script. But he had my attention. I asked him what he was doing with himself as a free man, and he said he was a well-known furniture designer. He’d been doing it all his life, was in very high demand, and he rattled off a list of powerful clients, a list that was completely lost on me, because I never know who anybody is, including Martin Scorsese. Apparently, Martin Scorsese wanted to make a miniseries out of his life story.

OM:?[WHISTLES]

FEW:?I wasn’t impressed. I only wanted to know why he’d been to prison, but I didn’t have the nerve to ask. So, I asked him about furniture instead, and he listed all his favorite designers, showing me pictures on his phone. It was kind of sweet. I told him that I’ve always been attracted to people who work with wood. He responded by suddenly asking me out to dinner, which caught me off guard. I said, “Yeah, sure.” “When?” he asked.

“Someday,” I said.

“But today is Someday,” he said, and smiled. “Didn’t you know that? And I have a reservation at my favorite steak house. It’s right down the street. You should join me. Are you hungry?”

I was, in fact. He could see that I was finishing up my shift. I’d worked the day shift, and had already had my shift drink, and I hadn’t eaten all day. I watched him pull out a business card. On the back, he carefully wrote the name of the restaurant in loopy cursive.



OM:?Did the card look legit?

FEW:?I guess. He said if I met him at the restaurant in one hour, he would buy me a steak and tell me his story, and I wouldn’t be disappointed, he promised.