Chapter 14 #2
“I was under the impression that you went on dates with girls.”
“I do go on dates with girls sometimes,” says Pirate.
“But this is a boy,” says Britt-Marie.
“This is a boy,” confirms Pirate with a nod, as if they are playing some sort of parlor game, the rules of which have not been explained to him.
“Ha,” says Britt-Marie.
“Do you have to decide on one or the other?”
“I know nothing about that. I don’t have any prejudices about it,” Britt-Marie assures him.
Pirate adjusts his hair, smiles, and asks:
“Do you think he’ll like my hair?”
Britt-Marie doesn’t seem to have heard his question, and instead she says:
“Your friends in the soccer team obviously don’t know that you go on dates with boys. Obviously I won’t mention it.”
Pirate looks surprised.
“Why wouldn’t they know?”
“Have you told them?”
“Why wouldn’t I have told them?”
“What did they say?”
“They said ‘okay.’ ” Then he looks unsure. “What else should they have said?”
“Ha, ha, obviously nothing, obviously,” says Britt-Marie in a way you could describe as not at all defensive, and then adds: “I have no prejudices about this!”
“I know,” says Pirate.
Then he smiles nervously.
“Is my hair looking nice?”
Britt-Marie can’t quite bring herself to answer, so she just nods. She picks off one last hair from his jumper, and awkwardly holds it in her hand. He hugs her. She can’t think why on earth he would get it into his head to do such a thing.
“You shouldn’t be alone. It’s a waste when someone whose hair looks as nice as yours is alone,” he whispers.
He’s almost at the door when Britt-Marie, still holding his hair in her hand, collects herself, clears her throat, and whispers back:
“If he doesn’t say your hair is looking lovely, then he doesn’t deserve you!”
Pirate turns around, runs back through the room, and hugs her again.
She pushes him away, friendly but firm, because one mustn’t forget one’s boundaries.
He asks her if he can borrow her cell phone.
She looks doubtful, and warns him not to run up a large bill.
He dials his own number, lets it ring once, then hangs up.
Then he tries to embrace her again, laughs when she squirms, and runs off. The door closes.
Fifteen minutes later Britt-Marie gets a text message: “He said it! :)”
The recreation center goes quiet around her. She vacuums up all the hair from the floor just to make some noise. Washes and tumble-dries the towels.
Then she dusts all the pictures, taking extra care with the information chart and map, which Somebody hung three feet lower than all the other frames.
She removes the wrapper from a Snickers bar, puts it on a plate, puts the plate on a towel, and leaves it all on the threshold. Opens the front door. Sits for a long time on her stool trying to feel the wind in her hair. At long last she picks up the telephone.
“Hello?” says the girl at the unemployment office.
Britt-Marie inhales deeply.
“It was impolite of me to say that you had a boy’s hairstyle.”
“Britt-Marie?”
Britt-Marie swallows with concentration.
“Obviously I shouldn’t have got involved in that, I mean the sort of hairstyle you have. Or if you go out on dates with boys or girls. Not at all.”
“You didn’t mention anything about . . . that.”
“Ha. Ha. Ha. It’s not beyond the realm of possibility that I just thought it, maybe so. In either case it was impolite of me,” says Britt-Marie irritably.
“What . . . but I mean, what do you mean by . . . what’s wrong with my hairstyle?”
“Nothing at all. That’s what I’m saying,” insists Britt-Marie.
“I’m not . . . I mean, I’m . . . I don’t like . . .” says the girl defensively in a slightly overbearing voice.
“That’s not for me to stick my nose into.”
“I mean, not that . . . you know . . . there’s anything wrong with being that way! Or not,” the girl persists.
“I certainly haven’t said anything of the kind!”
“Nor me!” protests the girl.
“Well, then,” says Britt-Marie.
“Absolutely!” says the girl.
There’s such a long silence between them that at long last the girl says, “Hello?” because she thinks Britt-Marie has hung up. And that’s when Britt-Marie hangs up.
The rat is one hour and six minutes late for dinner.
It rushes in and lunges at the biggest possible piece of Snickers that it could carry, stops for a second and stares at Britt-Marie, then runs back outside into the darkness.
Britt-Marie wraps the rest of the chocolate in plastic wrap and puts it in the fridge.
Washes up the plate. Washes and tumble-dries the towel and hangs it in its place.
Through the window she sees Sven emerging from the pizzeria.
He stops by the police car and looks over at the recreation center.
Britt-Marie hides behind the curtain. He gets in the car and drives off.
For a short moment she was afraid he was going to come over and knock on the door.
Then she got disappointed when he didn’t.
She turns off all the lights except in the bathroom.
The sheen of the lone lightbulb finds its way out from under the door and lights up the exact area of the wall where Somebody hung up the information chart, slightly too low but obviously not too low.
“Welcome to Borg,” Britt-Marie reads, while she sits on a stool in the darkness and looks at the red dot that first made her fall in love with the picture.
The reason for her love of maps. It’s half worn away, the dot, and the red color is bleached.
Yet it’s there, flung down there on the map halfway between the lower left corner and its center, and next to it is written, “You are here.”
Sometimes it’s easier to go on living, not even knowing who you are, when at least you know precisely where you are while you go on not knowing.