Big Swiss(32)

“The room we’re sitting in was built in 1737,” Greta said.

“Wow,” Ryan said. “So, it’s closer in age to the Black Plague than it is to, say, AIDS.”

“True!” Greta said, with too much enthusiasm.

Nicole smiled, not at Greta but at something behind her. Greta looked over her shoulder, expecting to see Sabine, but it was Pi?on, carrying his new rope toy, which he tossed into the air and caught in his mouth a few times before dropping it at Nicole’s feet. He looked at the toy, Nicole’s face, the toy, Nicole’s face, the toy, Nicole’s face, Greta’s face.

“He wants you to throw it,” Greta said.

“Is he a circus dog?” Nicole asked seriously.

“Only in his mind,” Greta said. “He has a rich inner life.”

Nicole finally picked up the toy but waited too long to throw it. Pi?on snatched it out of her hands and did his whirling dervish routine while making a murderous noise at the back of his throat. Then he threw the toy against the wall and left the room.

“Mic drop,” Greta said.

“I have a German shepherd,” Nicole said.

Greta could take or leave German shepherds, but Pi?on despised them with his entire being and often growled at them simply for looking in his direction.

“You go to the dog park?” Greta asked.

“On weekends,” Nicole said. “You?”

“Here and there,” Greta said.

Jesus, this was exhausting. She’d never realized how difficult it would be to interact with Om’s clients, to pretend to be meeting for the first time when she knew nearly everything about them. She and Nicole had much in common. They could’ve been bonding over any number of things. Greta rarely paid for lip balm or bottled water, and that was just for starters. “I too have conflicting emotions about anal,” she could’ve added. “More significantly, we’ve both been raped, and both of our mothers are dead.”

Instead, Greta excused herself and pretended to pee in the bathroom. Thankfully, Sabine’s car pulled into the driveway just as she was pretending to wipe herself. Greta flushed and waited for Sabine to enter the house and start blabbing. Sabine’s blabbing put people either at ease or on edge, with very little in between, and it was always entertaining to see which effect she was having. The effect she had on Greta? The feeling of being driven somewhere while sleeping in the back seat. Sabine herself rarely noticed or cared; she simply kept driving. Just now she sat on the hearth and blew cigarette smoke into the open woodstove. Two small twigs were caught in her hair and mulch clung to the arms of her wool sweater. Her eyes looked bluer than usual.

“I don’t know if you guys know the psychic seamstress? She has a little shop that she runs out of her house. There are clothes hanging all over the living room, a sewing machine in the corner, but you’re not supposed to acknowledge that you’re there to get a reading. You just bring her a garment you want altered. If she’s feeling something, she might say, ‘Your grandmother wants to speak to you.’ If you want to hear more, you follow her into her bedroom and she sits you on her bed and tells you whatever the hell Grandma’s saying. So today I brought this dress I never wear and asked her to take it in at the waist. I stood there, pretending to be invested in the alteration, and she abruptly asked me if I had a friend who ‘died of drugs many years ago.’ So, I tell her yeah, my ex-boyfriend Dave overdosed in ’93, and his father refused to tell anyone where he was buried, and so I never got to say goodbye. She nods and asks me if I’m having trouble sleeping. I say yes. She holds open a Bible with an expectant look on her face, and I understand I’m supposed to put money in between the pages. So I put fifty bucks in there and she tells me I’m not sleeping because he’s under my bed.”

“Who?” Greta said.

“Dave,” Sabine said, and shrugged.

“But you said this house wasn’t haunted,” Greta said.

“It’s not,” Sabine said. “He just wants to hang out and watch movies. He doesn’t know he’s dead. To get rid of him, I’m supposed to say, ‘Dave, go away,’ three times.”

Ryan laughed.

“Is anyone under your bed, Greta?” Nicole asked.

“Only the smell of honey,” Greta said. “Which is its own sort of ghost, I guess.”

“Anyway, you guys want edibles?” said Sabine. “I have peppermint patties, peanut butter balls, pixie sticks, gummy worms, and mints.”

They wanted a tin of mints and a package of gummies. Sabine made the mistake of asking what Ryan did for work. Well, he was grain-scholar-in-residence at blah blah. His recipe for poppy seed coffee cake was blah blah unheard-of, because something something croissant dough plus frosting, and some hot-shit food critic said his peasant bread had an old, tortured soul, and so basically Ryan was a really big deal.

“You remind me a little of Jason Bateman,” Greta blurted to Nicole.

Exhilaration. Immediate, totally unexpected, joyful. Like she’d broken something you weren’t supposed to break—a TV screen, a windshield, a geode, the fourth wall.

The confidentiality agreement. Fuck.

“Forget I said that,” Greta said quickly.

“Are you high?” Sabine asked. “She looks nothing like Jason Bateman.”