“Grab your dog,” Greta repeated.
Gringo frowned. “Jelly!” he yelled. “Off! Off!”
Jelly didn’t budge. Pi?on’s paws were twitching like they did when he was dreaming.
“Jelly, drop it!”
“Does she know English?” Greta asked.
Gringo gave her a haughty look, as if she’d said something racist. Jelly was making a disturbing guttural noise.
“Get your dog off my dog,” Greta snapped. “Right now.”
He whacked the top of Jelly’s head with an open hand. “Jelly! Let go! Leave it!”
“Are you joking? Punch her in the nose. Hurry the fuck up.”
“She’s not a shark,” Gringo said, exasperated.
“You want me to do it?” Greta said. “He can’t breathe.”
A woman appeared, seemingly out of nowhere; grabbed Jelly by her hind legs; and lifted her completely off the ground. Greta had never seen anything like it. Pi?on rolled to his feet and coughed. Then they all just stood there, staring at the woman, who continued holding Jelly upside down until Jelly stopped struggling and seemed to relax, which took about three seconds, and then the woman very gingerly placed Jelly’s back feet on the ground and gave her a pat on the ass.
“Sit,” the woman said.
Jelly sat. The woman removed a treat from her pocket and showed it to Jelly, who immediately lunged for it.
“Wait,” the woman said sharply.
Jelly waited, staring directly into the woman’s eyes, as if she’d known this woman all her life and was tuned into her every wish. When the woman finally tossed the treat, Jelly swallowed it without chewing and gazed at the woman adoringly.
“Jeez,” GILF said. “I wish my dog looked at me that way.”
“You guys rehearsed that, right?” Greta said. “You’ve been coming here for weeks, I bet, and practicing.”
The woman shrugged and said nothing. She was long, lean, very pale, and reminded Greta of white asparagus. Except white asparagus is known for its delicate flavor, and there was nothing delicate about this woman. She had a casual, improvised look that had likely taken years to refine, and wore a loose wool dress, a men’s hunting cap, and no makeup. On her feet, the exact pair of ankle boots Greta had been coveting for years: soft, slouchy, dark green leather, made in Germany, $600 plus shipping.
Gringo leashed Jelly Roll and reluctantly pulled her away from the woman. “I’m so sorry,” he said to everyone. “I swear she’s never done that before. She’s been to obedience school and everything.”
“It might be my dog’s fault,” Greta confessed. “He can be kind of a dick. He thinks he’s a wolf.”
“Maybe you should change his name to Dick Wolf,” GILF said. “Or Executive Producer.”
“Look,” Greta said, and pointed. “He’s running a victory lap even though he lost.”
“What’s his name?” Gringo asked.
“Pi?on.” Greta felt all the heat in her body transfer to her ears. This was pure pleasure at saying Pi?on’s name, even after all these years.
“He’s Mexican, right?” Gringo asked.
“Not at all,” Greta said.
Greta felt bad for Jelly Roll. She probably missed her old life, her village, her pups, her real name, which was probably Spanish like Pi?on’s and had nothing to do with raspberry jam, blues music, or pussy. She probably missed her freedom, too, and fighting, and fucking in the streets.
“You should check your dog’s neck,” Gringo advised. “Make sure he’s all right.”
Greta called Pi?on, who approached them jauntily, as if he hadn’t nearly died a few minutes ago. His breathing was slightly ragged. His neck was bright pink but the skin was unbroken.
“He’s fine,” Greta said.
“Where did you learn to do that?” Gringo asked White Asparagus. “You were like a loan shark dangling a degenerate gambler off a rooftop. My dog weighs sixty pounds. You must be incredibly strong.”
“Yeah,” Greta said. “Do you work out?”
“I grew up on a farm,” the woman said.
Her eyes were some in-between color, sort of like a newborn’s, and kept looking Greta up and down, seemingly in search of something. They landed on Greta’s clogs, traveled up and down her legs, blinked twice at her crotch, skipped up to her face, dropped back to her thighs, face again, back and forth between her boobs, and then they left Greta’s body entirely. Greta felt strangely abandoned. Rejected.
“I wouldn’t recommend that maneuver unless it’s an emergency,” the woman said. “It could backfire pretty easily.”
“Hoist with his own petard,” GILF inexplicably said.
“Pardon?” the woman said.
“It’s from Hamlet,” explained GILF. “It means the bomb-maker is blown up by his own bomb. You know, like poetic justice.”
“Right, well, if it had been two pit bulls, I wouldn’t have done it,” the woman said. “The other pit may have attacked me, or—” She turned to the guy. “What’s your dog’s name again?”
“Big Swiss,” Greta blurted.
“Jelly Roll,” the guy said, and gave Greta a perplexed look.
Greta felt feverish. Why hadn’t she recognized the voice right away? She’d been too distracted by Big Swiss’s staring problem. And her face! It was even more beautiful than Greta had initially imagined, before she convinced herself that it was disfigured, except her cheekbones were higher, her nose bonier, her brows darker, her hair longer, wispier, blonder, nearly platinum.
Of course, having listened to Big Swiss’s voice for so many hours, Greta felt an immediate intimacy, in the same way her favorite podcast hosts sometimes felt like friends, insofar as she’d gone through divorces with podcasters, the death of parents and beloved pets, and so she couldn’t help but feel a little starstruck. Here was Big Swiss, in the flesh! Talking to Greta, a nobody!
“Where’s your dog?” Gringo asked. “Or are you here alone?”
“He’s wandering those woods over there,” Big Swiss said. “He’s not really into wide-open spaces. I don’t know why I brought him here.”
“Dog parks are for people,” Greta blurted. “Not dogs.”
They all looked at Greta, waiting for her to elaborate. Greta shrugged. Thankfully, GILF’s phone rang and she stepped away to answer it, and then Big Swiss began walking toward the woods. Greta resisted the urge to follow her.
“Si!” Big Swiss suddenly yelled at the trees. “Si!”
Gringo made a big show of looking at his vintage pocket watch. “Well, I’m off to work,” he said, and took one last long look at Big Swiss. “You ladies should come sit at my bar this weekend. I’ll buy you a drink.”
By “ladies” he meant Big Swiss, obviously. Greta suspected he tended bar at one of the newer places in town, that he’d moved to Hudson specifically for this job, that the job required a uniform, that waistcoats, suspenders, or vests were part of that uniform, that he made a lot of rye old fashioneds for douchebags visiting from Brooklyn and loved every minute of it.