“Listen,” Sabine interrupted. “Small confession—her voice stopped me in my tracks. It’s like a knife at your throat. I hid in the bushes for a good ten minutes, listening to your conversation. I couldn’t bring myself to interrupt. Someone told me they saw you with her the other day, and I didn’t believe them. But this is who you’ve been sleeping with, Greta? Jesus. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I’ve been trying, believe me,” Greta said. “I didn’t realize you… knew her.”
“Well, yeah. She’s Swedish. Married. Does something medical.”
“Swiss,” Greta said.
“She was almost killed years ago, and I met her parents once when they were visiting from Sweden.”
“Switzerland,” Greta said.
“What’s her name again?”
As usual, Greta had to think for a second. It had never been on the tip of her tongue. Not like “Pi?on,” which felt like one of Greta’s first words.
“Flavia,” Greta said.
“Right. Her husband comes from money. Great house—I’ve seen pictures. Anyway, I don’t know her personally. But I know her type. She acts all cold and imperious, and she’s obviously fastidious about her appearance—that outfit, my god—but inside she’s a mess.”
“What kind of mess?”
“You know—vulnerable.”
“Well, if you couldn’t tell, I think it’s over between us,” Greta said. “I lied to her about my name and… some other things. There’s been a lot of drama. The sex is way too long—that’s my theory. But even after all this, there’s still this tension. It makes me feel insane. And it feels mutual—”
Sabine held up her hand. “Look, if she cheated on her husband with you, her feelings are anything but casual. In fact, I bet she doesn’t have a casual bone in her body. Not one.” Sabine belched and blew hair out of her face. “Help me with these berries.”
They got on their knees and crawled around. Greta picked up each strawberry gingerly and brushed it off with her fingers, but Sabine grabbed three at a time and tossed them into the basket.
“She reminds me of my mother,” Sabine went on. “Occasionally, she lets down her guard and you see how delicate she is. Just a glimpse. It’s often so subtle you miss it. But your subconscious picks up on it, and it keeps you… engaged. Like those commercials with the subliminal messages. You’re being shown a picture of someone who seems bulletproof, right, but just below the threshold of conscious awareness, there’s an entirely different message.”
“Is it… satanic?”
“Extremely fragile. That’s the message. Handle with care.”
Sabine was talking about herself, of course, which was fine and good. Greta thought back to the beginning, when she was just getting to know Big Swiss. Greta once commented on the way Big Swiss sometimes drooled while they were making out, how exciting and endearing it was. The next time they’d seen each other, Greta had caught Big Swiss blotting her tongue with her sleeve when she thought Greta wasn’t looking.
“You want a Valium?” Sabine asked suddenly. “Let’s both have one.”
She plucked two linty pills from the front pocket of her overalls and passed one to Greta. They moved Pi?on to Greta’s bed. He woke up briefly, and Greta gave him water and comforted him until he passed out again. Greta said she was ready to pass out, too.
“Was Him shot on my property?” Sabine asked.
“We didn’t see it happen. We found him on the edge of the field. The firemen said it was probably a hunter, but I think it was Keith.” Greta sighed. “It’s a long story, but Keith is the man who tried to kill—”
“I know who Keith is, silly,” Sabine said. “Get under the covers and I’ll sit with you until you fall asleep.”
She dragged an armchair to Greta’s bedside and lit a cigarette. Greta pulled the comforter to her chin and closed her eyes. Her mind crawled toward the edge of oblivion. Just as she was about to fall off, Sabine started talking.
“Keith comes from a family of twelve called the Hickeys. They’ve been around forever. They’re clannish, high on themselves, high on each other, very us-against-the-world, except they all suck. But Keith—he got away. He grew up refinishing furniture for one of the antique dealers in town and then suddenly he was calling himself a designer and making tables for rich people. Someone married him—blond, leggy, out of his league—and they moved to the city. He had clients in the Hamptons and on Nantucket. Famous people, supposedly. He’d come back to Hudson every so often to brag and show off. Like all the Hickeys, he’s really hard to listen to. You just want to walk away. I’m guessing he was making decent money but at the end of the day, he was still a Hickey, so I wasn’t surprised when I heard he beat up his wife. And then, when his wife left him for a woman, he went off the deep end. He’s been in and out of prison ever since. You’d think he’d leave, or move out of state, but he’s a Hickey, so he’s here to stay. And then there’s Vera, one of the younger sisters, who was obsessed with Keith, visiting him in prison every week, telling people he’d been framed. I’m always suspicious of people who openly worship their families. Protecting your family—fine. But blatant reverence? Seems like a cover-up, or maybe it’s just a sign of stupidity…”
Eyes closed, Greta felt like she was eavesdropping on a conversation Sabine was having with herself. It poured out in an unfiltered stream, and she knew that she would miss this aspect of working for Om, the inherent surprise of receiving information she hadn’t asked for, or hadn’t known she’d been seeking.
She drifted off and immediately started dreaming of feet, an old motif. A man’s bare feet climbing over rocks, crossing a creek. The same feet, paler, slightly magnified, floating underwater. Whose feet were these? They were resting in her lap now, cold, heavy, covered in hickeys left by leeches, and she thought they must belong to Keith.
17
Now that she was officially single and unemployed, no longer in thrall to Big Swiss or a confidentiality agreement, she was free to explore, go wherever she wanted, talk to whomever she pleased, and so why was she standing here, of all places, in a narrow alley between two buildings?
To her right stood Cousin’s, one of the oldest and least celebrated bars in town. The outside reminded her of the long ash on Grandma’s cigarette: gray walls, dirty white trim, red neon sign in the window. She had the feeling she might get burned if she stepped inside, that her presence would be unwelcome, that she would be knocking over the ashtray, so to speak, which, as she could see through the dark glass, was overflowing with crushed butts, or at any rate a bunch of gray geriatrics sitting on stools made of marbled beige pleather. She imagined herself sitting among them, sipping a vodka soda and smoldering, wondering if she should finally extinguish herself.
On the other side of the alley, Cousin’s antithesis: Lil’ Deb’s Oasis, a queer restaurant and destination, welcoming and inclusive, the warmest lap in town but also as wet and alive as a jungle. Their wine descriptions were the best poetry in town, and the place was overflowing with pastels, pineapples, plantains, and performers, and here and there a pop of pink neon. She got the feeling she might drown in gender fluids if she stepped inside, or that her own gender, not all that solid to begin with, might deliquesce like fungi and stain the pink counter stool, but that it might be good for her, just what she needed. She stared at the bright fruit painted on the side of the building and wondered if she should cut her bangs.