We sit inside and eat. Natascha stirs her soup and she looks up.
�I think I�m going to put myself in a hospital.�
I�m thinking what does she need what can I say oh come on I need to figure out how I can say something that will not sound lame and pointless.
�If you want, my mom has mad connections at Columbia Pres. Best doctors in the world.� It comes out sounding lame anyway.
�Yeah, I think that�s where�I can�t remember. I told Jamie to go there and it�s either there or another place, I think it was, Columbia, where she beat the cancer and they you know they fixed it and it all of a sudden came back and
She gets up, walks over to the garbage, throws out her soup carton with the soup still gurgling inside without pausing.
�killed her, I think it was Columbia Pres where she could have beat it again and the doctors told her that she couldn�t, that she should just die.�
There�s a terrible silence.
We see annoying vegan Jason who doesn�t steal, who doesn�t seem to serve any purpose at all, his arms full of soy ice cream. He waves over the barrier of checkout lanes.
She stands there in front of the booth looking like a barefooted grief-ridden eight-year-old. I never noticed until I did laundry with her how tiny Natascha is. She�s a size zero beyond zero; she�s three or four inches shorter than me. Less than a hundred pounds, probably. When she moved into our house she tried to give me all her clothes, but none of them fit.
�I mean, how do you tell a person that? How do you tell that to an eighteen-year-old girl?�
�I have to make a phone call.�
She walks outside, stands in front of the glass windows facing the retarded White Plains traffic. It�s dark outside and the orange streetlights make her look like one of my pictures, one of my orange-colored no-flash �art photos�, she�s pacing on the phone with a blurred face.
We don�t talk for a while and then we start again. We eat and play around and I steal shotgun and we wait for Natascha to be done. We move the car to a new space. Steve toys with the ticket for parking with the Whole Foods stamp on it that makes your parking free.
Paul Levine, from the back of the car, �Hey is that Natascha?�
She looks different, hidden in headlights. She walks completely differently. She turns around and looks at us when we yell and climbs into the backseat.
We drive to Croton, talking about nothing. The car moves of its own accord. Jason Hunt puts on terrible eighties music and we sing along.
Natascha dials her phone.
�Hullo Aunt Gigi?�
Gigi is pronounced Zhee-zhee.
�Hi, is my mom there?�
We can�t hear what Gigi�s saying, the windows down and whipping around us.
�Is my mom there? Can you put my mom on?�
�Aunt Zheezhee, I appreciate it but I need to talk to my mom right now. Is my mom there?�
�What?� I can hear, faintly.
�Aunt Zheezhee I really need to talk to my mom.�
�Can you put my mom on?�
Some of it is because of reception, I think. Some of the repetition.
She loses service when her mother gets on.
�Agh, ahh, ah, I need to call Zach but I can�t call Zach because I don�t get service here and I should.�
�Text him,� Jason suggests. �He answered my text before.�
He keeps talking while Natascha hits the keys with her thumb.
�I don�t even know why anyone bothers to do anything else but texting. I hate talking on the phone, I just text people. God, people are idiots. I hate talking to people.� Jason Hunt laughs in a big, annoying, vegan way.
Natascha finishes. We drive to Jason Hunt�s house and she jokes about buying a razor blade and killing herself. She jokes about buying a kilo of cocaine and killing herself. Jason Hunt plays �Take On Me� and she sings along. When the song ends he gets out of the car and I joke nervously with Paul about getting shotgun.
Natascha asks us to pull over and drop her off. Her phone doesn�t get service so she borrows mine.
�Hullo, Zach?�
�I�m walking to your house right now. I�m coming over.�
Steve says, �Natascha, we�ll drive you. You don�t have to walk.�
She says, �No I�m not walking, I didn�t want to inconvenience some people but they�re dropping me off.�
We drive to Zach�s and she doesn�t get out of the car.
I�m sitting next to her almost asleep and she says:
�The person saved under Mom in my phone is my grandmother.�
She is getting out of the car as it dials. After the beep she says.
�Hullo Grandma, this is Natascha. I�m just calling to pay my condolences and say that I�m very sorry��
We drive away.