The Big Dream Read Online Free PDF Page B

he stopped speaking. She flicked the skirt up, down, up. Finally, with the whisper of a smile on her chapstick lips, she said, “More or less.”
    Theo let the silence slide on. The children had laid themselves down on the grass, side by side, either sleeping or pretending to sleep, probably not dead. He didn’t know how Jake had wrestled Marley out of the stroller, got her lying supine in the grass, high blades nearly covering her pink arms and legs. Jake himself was facedown in the green, apparently taking no questions.

    It was nearly seven o’clock by the thin silver hands of his watch.
    â€œDolly . . .”
    Colleen smiled more broadly in answer, a half nod.
    Theo turned his head to the west, where his wife would come from, and to the pink hot beams of the setting sun. He wondered what she would see if she came walking down the street right now. Or whenever she finally did.

    To: All onsite employees; all temporary employees;
all telecommute staff
CC: Belinda Martin
From: Human Resources Administration
Re: Personnel change
    Tuesday 3:06 p.m.
    Â 
    Â 
    This is to inform all staff that Mai-Nam Stephens has left
the Technical Support team to pursue other endeavours;
we wish her all the best. Please be assured that all calls
to the support team or emails to [email protected] will
continue to receive a quick and helpful response.
    Â 
    Please feel free to contact anyone in Human Resources if you have any questions or concerns.

COMPLIMENTARY YOGA
    THE BIRTHDAY COFFEE BREAK for Suyin is awful – Grig jams the coffee maker, forgets the English words to “Happy Birthday,” and no one eats anything. All the customer service reps show up because she’s supervisor, but they leave almost right away. Suyin just says, “Ah, thank you so much, guys” and goes back to her office. Grig was so happy to pull Suyin in the birthday-duties draw – he needs to make up for his shitty performance evaluation, plus she’s got such a hot little ass – and now it’s just a wasted forty dollars on Cinnabon. He ends up giving them all to Wayne, the big black guy who sits in the call-station beside his.
    â€œWhy people don’t like Cinnabons, Wayne?”
    â€œ Every one likes Cinnabons. But most CSRs are single chicks, dude, and they’re not gonna risk getting fat with this shit.” Wayne carefully sharpies WAYNE on each box.
    â€œI hate fat chicks.” Grig thinks for a moment. “Suyin has no boyfriend?”
    Wayne shoves the boxes into the crowded staff fridge and tries to smash it shut. A magnet shaped like a sushi roll falls on the floor. “Someone fuck a tightass like that? Not likely.” The fridge finally seals, but they hear something thump, then crash, within.

    At home, Grig bothers Mariska like her younger brother, which people sometimes mistake him for. Usually people think they’re
at least from the same country. But they aren’t, and they speak only English at home because Mariska says a good Ukrainian doesn’t speak Russian even though she totally can. If he even starts a conversation with zdrastvuite, she talks all day about what a putz Yushchenko is.
    â€œDo you worry about being fatso?” he asks her from the open bathroom doorway.
    â€œNo!” She is wringing water out of her pink sweater, her long pink nails delicately splayed. “You tell me I should?”
    â€œNo!” Grig looks at her ass, feels her glare, looks away. “Canadian girls worry.”
    Mariska hangs her sweater on the clothesline between their faces. “Canadian girls are fat – they should worry.”
    â€œSome girls are not fat and still they worry to keep the fat away . . . .” Grig knows he said something a Canadian would laugh at, but Mariska’s English is even worse than his.
    Mariska squeezes a pink lace thong until the whole thing disappears in her palm, then flips it over the line. “Grig, you think I am