THENEWYORKER,NOVEMBER16, 2020 51
G
retyl wakes at 6 a.m., as usual,
but her stomach feels crampy.
These are not what her mother
calls the “normal” cramps, which gnash
her abdomen for four days each month.
These fissures poke her midsection with
acidic fingers as she dresses. She hunches
while she brushes her teeth, unloads the
dishwasher, and mops the kitchen. She
walks down to the cellar, carries up stacks
of logs, and feeds the woodstove. She
toasts bread, but finds she’s not hungry,
so puts it in her heavy schoolbag.
She doesn’t ask to stay home. Her
mother’s warned her that she knows the
girl feigns illness because she’s unpopu-
lar—a loser!—because she’s lazy and un-
likable. The girl knows better than to
whine about a stomach ache.
As Gretyl leaves, her mother turns
in bed upstairs, groans and snorts. A
scrawny calico slinks out from an over-
grown shrub. Gretyl retrieves a fistful of
kibble from her pocket, whispers to the
cat, and tosses it into the bowl hidden
under the shrub. Gretyl hunches as she
strides, through cold October wind, down
the mountain road. She passes her grand-
parents’ chalet. A sleek fox lopes through
the meadow that abuts the road. The
sky is pale and crisp.
Today again, at the bottom of the hill,
sits the dented yellow Chevy. The man
in the bone-colored leather coat leans
against it. He towers over the car and is
skinnier than a praying mantis. He has
tilted black-brown eyes, olive skin, a large
nose, and a bearlike black beard. He’s
about thirty years old. Under the coat,
he wears brown jeans and boots. Beside
him, a huge, muscular brown dog pants.
A bear-dog, the man has explained. His
partner, Charon. The dog lunges toward
the girl. Its ruby tongue lolls. The man
grips the leash.
Good morning. Cold today. Are you
warm enough? He smiles bemusedly. I’m
sorry to bother you. Almost bus time.
We must hurry.
Two weeks ago, the man’s carbure-
tor malfunctioned, and he asked Gre-
tyl to lend him her scrunchie to jerry-
rig it. That night, her mother smacked
her for losing it. Last week, the man’s
fan belt snapped; he asked Gretyl for a
paper clip to hold it together. Gretyl
gave him the clip that bound her his-
tory report, and her teacher changed its
grade from an A to a B-minus because
Gretyl hadn’t fastened the pages. Now
the man says, in his soft growl, The
front wheel’s stuck in mud.
He’d be grateful, he says, if she’d steer
the wheel and pump the accelerator while
he pushes.
Gretyl hesitates. Rifles fill the back
seat. If she gets in the car, he could ab-
duct her. He looks Arab. His Chevy’s
parked on her father’s land. Her parents
would order her to alert the sheriff, not
help him. But she likes his face. And has
four minutes.
She steers and pumps the accelerator
while the man pushes.
The car slides out of the mud.
The man thanks her.
No prob, she says.
Why does she hold her stomach? he
asks. Is she ill?
No, she says. Just a tummy ache.
Maybe she’d like a doctor? He indi-
cates the Chevy. He’ll take her, he says.
Her head jerks down. Nah.
He opens the car door, grabs a rect-
angular object, and pushes it toward her.
Maybe you want a BlackBerry?
She stares.
It’s a phone with a computer inside,
he explains. With it, she can contact any-
one. He works for a company, has doz-
ens. Someday, he says, everyone will own
a BlackBerry.
No, Gretyl whispers. My parents have
a phone.
Then take this. He presses something
hard into her hands. A plastic orange
whistle.
The huge dog licks her gloves.
Sorry, the man says. It’s Charon’s
storm whistle. He hears it from across
the continent.
He grins. He has a fantastically wide
smile. If you need help, he says, blow it.
Maybe we’ll come.
She mumbles thanks and hurries to
the bus stop. When she looks back, she
sees them jump the fence that lines her
dad’s woods. The man raises a glove. On
the bus, she clutches her schoolbag to
her stomach.
G
retyl’s fourteen, but by the hunter’s
moon she’ll be fifteen. She’s five-
nine, slender. She has long white-blond
hair, a sweet oval face, a Roman nose, and
violet eyes. Because kids teased her, she
plucked her thick eyebrows, so that they
no longer meet above her nose. In her
room, on a shelf, are a hundred quartz
figurines. Counting them makes her feel
safe. She bought them with money she
earned busing tables at a restaurant in
Markleeville, to which she rides her bike.
She enjoys solving problems, helping
people, reading, doing math, playing
Dungeons & Dragons, and talking with
friends—about the Iraq War, capitalism,
the Y2K apocalypse. Gretyl wants to grow
bigger, so she can leave this small North-
ern California town to study something
useful, so she can do something useful.
She lives with her father, a pilot, and
her mother, a homemaker, in an A-frame
on the mountain. Around them are mead-
ows of mule’s ears and purple lupine,
sagebrush fields, and thick forests that
dip to a river, then surge up the peak.
Deer wander the forest—also wild tur-
keys, coyotes, bears, and elk. The father
has posted “No Hunting” signs.
Though Gretyl’s older sisters’ college
tuitions were paid long ago, the fami-
ly’s strapped. They live in an eternal “not
enough.” The mother, Grethilda, treks
to the local goldsmith’s shop and peers
for hours at his wares. But, once the
ruby bracelet hangs on her wrist, she
desires with unquenchable longing the
emerald earrings.
Grethilda spends too much on gro-
ceries, her husband, Hans, contends. She
doesn’t need to buy ten-gallon tubs of
ice cream and overpriced chicken fingers
from the Schwan Man. She doesn’t need
organic butter and jumbo shrimp. He
eats canned tuna happily. Why can’t she?
I do like canned tuna, Grethilda re-
plies. I also like jumbo shrimp. I also like
lobster. I want to dine out more, at nicer
restaurants. And I want to take a tropi-
cal vacation, without the girl.
Grethilda, Hans yells, we’re broke!
Grethilda points out that Hans has
a yacht. When home, he’s always fix-
ing his Jaguars or sailing his yacht. You
have your things, Grethilda explains.
My things are jewelry and tropical va-
cations. Hans groans. He doesn’t know
how they’ll survive.
Grethilda wants Gretyl to go to board-
ing school. The girl makes life difficult,
she says. She’s thankless and rude. She’d
thrive at private school! And you and I,
she adds, would have adult time.
Hans grimaces. He doesn’t want adult
time with his wife. He doesn’t want to
banish his daughter. She’s overtall, but
