Had they been strangers, Greta would have left them alone to wait for Sabine, but they were as familiar as characters from a novel, an overwrought five-hundred-pager that went nowhere but which Greta nevertheless looked forward to reading on the toilet. She was more than happy to suffer these fools and felt genuine affection for them. Was Ryan an entitled crybaby with pretend problems? Sure. Especially next to Big Swiss. Greta wondered if Big Swiss, with her refreshing absence of victimhood, along with her real, actual obstacles—not a single orgasm, not even by her own hand—had ruined Greta for anyone else.
She searched Ryan’s face for fresh bruises. All she saw were two neck tattoos: the Latin phrase “Ne plus ultra” and a crudely drawn gravestone carved with the words “Died of thirst.” Nicole was tall and tan and young and lovely and covered in cute doodle tattoos of couples fucking. Greta recognized her overly texturized hair as the work of Alexis, of Neptune Hair Design, the hairdresser responsible for every mullet, shag, and bowl cut in Hudson. Alexis considered herself an empath as well as a stylist and possessed a paranormal ability to apprehend the true wishes and desires of your hair, and even went so far as to communicate with your hair’s inner child, which was bizarre given that she wore a glove with small blades attached to three of the fingers. Greta recalled her own experience in Alexis’s chair. Apparently, the inner child of Greta’s hair desperately wanted micro bangs, a desire Greta had been totally unaware of but willing to grant her, just for the hell of it, having no idea how radically unlike herself she would end up looking. The actual haircut had felt like waking up during surgery, unable to speak or move, while Freddy Krueger filleted your scalp. Three and a half months later, Greta’s bangs were only halfway to her eyebrows.
“Would either of you care for prosecco?” Greta asked warmly.
Ryan declined, of course, because he was in recovery, but Nicole said yeah, sure, she would have a little.
Greta fetched the bottle and a glass from the other side of the house. On the way back, she checked on Pi?on. Still in bed, he lifted his head off the pillow and winked at her.
“We have guests,” Greta said. “If you feel like flirting.”
He seemed to consider it but didn’t get up.
“I’ll leave the door open,” Greta said.
In the living room Greta passed the prosecco to Nicole and took a seat in the armchair. She watched Nicole look around the room with interest. Greta wondered if she’d try to walk out with something, though there wasn’t much to lift, as Sabine didn’t believe in knickknacks. The room’s only clutter was a giant cobweb in the corner.
“I heard a bunch of bees live in this house,” Ryan said. “Is that true?”
“Fifty or sixty thousand,” Greta said, “but they’re all dying.”
“What happened?” Nicole asked.
“We have a few theories, but no real answers.”
They nodded, waiting for her to share said theories, but Greta’s mind went blank. For someone who transcribed dialogue seven hours at a stretch, day in and day out, she seemed to have no idea how to make or maintain conversation. Or polite conversation, anyway. Sabine, on the other hand, could talk to a hole in the wall, and often did. Where the fuck was she?
“How old is this house?” Ryan asked.
“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.