Big Swiss(79)

“On your head,” GMT said.

So they were.

“Sorry,” Greta said again.

Just kill yourself, Greta thought. Big Swiss was still watching, waiting, looking pleased with herself. As Greta reached the blanket and was about to sit down, she felt someone coming up behind her. She spun around and ducked slightly, expecting GMT, perhaps, or flying rocks, food, or trash, but it was one of the sunbathers, a girl wearing a bikini top, bike shorts, and a bunch of doodle tattoos.

“Greta,” the girl said. “I thought that was you.”

“Hey,” Greta said uncertainly.

“It’s Nicole,” the girl said. “I was at your house recently.”

Nicole, a.k.a. NEM, a.k.a. Jason Bateman. Blood rushed to Greta’s face.

“Oh, hey. Hi.”

“It’s Greta, right?”

“Or Rebekah,” Greta said, and resisted the urge to wink. “Either one.”

Nicole was doing very well, Greta knew, having broken up with Ryan and gotten on meds, and was looking for new friends.

“There’s a Smithy party tonight,” Nicole said. “Wanna come?”

Smithy, whose real name was Billy, was from Baltimore. He was a former record producer and owned an abandoned factory and a French houseboat from the 1930s. Since arriving in Hudson, he’d cultivated a new persona. He freight hopped, whittled wood, collected guns, said “ain’t.” His parties were usually rustic, ritualistic, and shrouded in secrecy. Invitations were hand-delivered in manila envelopes stamped CONFIDENTIAL and contained ten-page dossiers about what to expect. You might be blindfolded, helped into a canoe, deposited on the shore of a boggy island in the middle of the Hudson, and then expected to participate in a ritual or two.

“Okay if I bring a friend?” Greta asked.

“Sure,” Nicole said.

While Greta gave Nicole her number, she watched Nicole notice Big Swiss. Watching women notice Big Swiss had become one of Greta’s favorite pastimes. Greta likened it to standing in line at a crowded bakery, focusing intensely on the pastries in the display case, feeling pressured to hurry up and decide because the line was so long, absentmindedly ordering from the faceless counterperson, meeting that person at the register, fumbling with your wallet, dealing with the debit card, and then realizing you’re being rung up by Charlize Theron, who’s making deliberate eye contact with you.

“Hi,” Nicole said shyly.

“This is Big—Flavia,” Greta said. “Flavia, this is Nicole.”

Nicole slow-blinked à la Jason Bateman, Big Swiss smiled à la Charlize Theron, and Greta felt like the unseemly childhood friend of celebrities.



* * *



AFTER MIDNIGHT, alone in the antechamber, Greta broke down and wrote a letter, her first in months:


Dear Mom,

Maybe you remember this: After Robbie dumped me in high school, I went to Florida with your sister Deb. We stayed in a crappy condo somewhere along the Intracoastal Waterway, and I was heartbroken and miserable. On the last night, after Deb went to bed, I swallowed a few of her Ativan, drank most of a bottle of wine, and waded, fully clothed, into the Banana River, which the locals called the Frozen Banana River because it was brown and looked like shit, and which turned out not to be a river at all but a lagoon, and only eight feet deep. I swam toward what I thought was the ocean, but I got turned around. I remember feeling your presence next to me. It was you who pushed me back to shore. I slept on the muddy bank, got mauled by mosquitoes, and was discovered by a geezer fisherman, who returned me to the condo, no questions asked. I was too embarrassed to ever tell anyone, because, well, you were a dolphin.

Anyway, Big Swiss and I went to a party on a houseboat tonight. It was crawling with modern pagans, old ravers, adult Pippi Longstockings, and a bunch of people wearing Victorian evening wear. There was a brass band. Someone played a piano covered in burning candles. Everyone seemed to be carrying a parasol. Big Swiss was getting hit on right and left, but the music was good, the setting romantic, the moon bright and full, and at one point she held my hand and asked what I was thinking, and I told her that you had once been a dolphin in the Banana River, that you had saved me from drowning, that it had felt too Disney to ever say out loud but that I wanted her to know me, I wanted to tell her more, to blow it wide open, and I nearly told her my real name, but I was too startled by her face, her faint smile, the way she nodded her head. I could tell she thought I was crazy, or making shit up, and I suppose I don’t blame her. I stared at the deep, dark, dolphin-free Hudson, a real river with a swift current, and thought about trying again.





15


Two days later, Greta received an email from Om:


Greta,

Please transcribe the attached file—your last.

Meet me at my office today @ 5 pm sharp.



“Oh well,” Greta said as she opened a new document. She’d been repeating that a lot lately and remembered chanting it to herself as a child. Her first and only mantra. “Oh well, oh well, oh well.”


OM:?Can you state your initials, please?

FEW:?FEW.

OM:?You okay? You seem frazzled.

FEW:?I realize that affairs are unavoidably messy, but I’ve been dealing with an alarming amount of jealousy and paranoia. Like, really alarming.