Read The Big Dream for Free Online

fatso!!”
    â€œNo! I think you are skinny girl. How do you do that, is what I want to know?”
    Mariska’s nearly invisible eyebrows twist and scrunch.
    â€œWhat you eat? To be so . . .” He makes the hourglass gesture. She has a bra in her hand now, tightly squeezing. Grig puts his hands down. “. . . beautiful.”
    â€œI eat normal food, but not like cow. You see me, I don’t hide nowhere – breakfast is the yoghurt and the Corn Pops. Lunch – ” she pronounces it lunk; Grig wonders if he does this, too “ – at work is sometime chicken, sometime shrimp. At home, maybe potato in coat – in jacket? I like potatoes anyhow . . . .”
    Grig realizes that this is one of the things Mariska could talk about for hours, and he’s not actually learning what he wanted to know.
    â€œSo you eat normal food like everybodies . . . .”

    â€œLike you, Grig. I eat what you eat, don’t I? We have same fridge, same stove.”
    â€œI – ” Grig throws his hands down across his small soft body. “I do not look like you. So what you do – exercises?”
    Mariska laughs, rough and breathy, with her mouth wide and tongue peeking, reminding him that he once found her hot. That feeling is gone now. He knows her too well, knows the ease with which he could have her, since she’s had everyone. That makes her unfuckable.
    â€œGrig, we not all have the perfect English for the cushion desk jobs! Some of us have to run fast with heavy trays so the managers don’t yell and the customers don’t pinch asses. Jack Astor’s is exercise gym, all right.”
    â€œOh.” Grig nods. Marishka knows nothing that applies to Suyin, it seems.
    â€œBut the womens who come to the restaurant . . .” she walks into the hall, not looking back to see if he follows “. . . they worry about skinny. They don’t eat bread, don’t eat croutons, talk talk talk about the yoga. They put their mats under the table to trip me.”
    â€œMats?” he asks, trailing her to the front door.
    Mariska rolls her eyes; she was like a sister he couldn’t yell at or shove. “Skinny rich bitches are lazy, but still they must exercise, so they do exercises lying down. Is like exercise nap, to get stretchy. For princesses, for rich girls.”
    â€œStretchy?”
    â€œYah. If you using my computer to Google, take your shoes off in my room.”

    What he wants happens in the worst way possible. Suyin sends him an email – no mass-mail, addressed only to him – but it’s “feedback.” His call logs are bad. He’s had lot of hang-ups, lot of
escalations, lots of confusion. “I be right back in the queue-up” is listed as off-script dialogue that the subscribers to Dream Parent couldn’t comprehend.
    He has to go see her. Just the two of them in her tiny office that is glass on two sides, so all the CSRs know Grig and Suyin are alone together. Suyin sits facing the glass corner and motions for Grig to sit on the opposite side of a table so narrow they could kiss across it without standing up. But the table is scattered with goldenrod complaint forms, Suyin’s face is red, and it’s clear there will be no kiss. Maybe not clear through the window though – maybe everyone thinks they’ve got something hot going on.
    â€œI think you know . . . probably know . . . why I . . . Don’t you?” She sounds nervous – that he is so close?
    The thing to do is be cool. “I have a few problems, I know, Suyin.” He has practiced pronouncing her name, gets it perfect: soo-YIN. “I must do better.”
    â€œYes, exactly.” She brightens and finally looks at him. “We need to go over some things.”
    He says nothing, because she has spoken too fast and he was looking at her chest. She is wearing a soft minty sweater with a tiny V-neck – too small to even show a hint of