Мариам Петросян - The Gray House

So after classes I take stock of my belongings. Of everything stuffed into the bags and boxes. Can't find anything worthwhile. That's what comes from not swapping for so long. When you're away from that business for a while you lose the nose for it. I am scraping the bottom, turning over the deepest piles, and come across the long-forgotten flashlight with the naked lady. That is, the handle has this form, so you're supposedly holding her at the waist. Ghastly thing. Very slightly dented. I’ll take it. But this abomination immediately makes me feel ashamed, so I pick out three strings of bead necklaces. Walnut shells, date pits, and coffee beans. It's a bit painful to part with those, but I can always make more. I have the technology. All of this fits into one bundle, a very small one.

I dive into the record stacks, the back rows. Yngwie Malmsteen. Exactly the kind of thing that's just begging to be swapped. Lary's going to go bananas, but I'm certainly a better judge of what is or isn't useful to have around. Besides, it is quite likely that I won't find anything to swap it for, and then I’ll just put it back. In fact, I'm almost certain that this is how it’ll be. I put the record into a plastic bag, so it's less conspicuous. Time to drive.

The din hits me on the landing, and all I can see when I look down are figures rushing to and fro. More people than usual. Many more, come to think of it. I can't quite grasp why, but once I'm down there I notice that half of the swappers are girls, and then I’m surprised at my own surprise. It's not as if they wouldn't have anything worth swapping. I keep forgetting about the new Law. This makes me slightly uneasy. I'm really introverted by nature, and I don't like being ambushed. Yes, the Law, that's all nice and good, but not when you haven't been expecting it to jump out at you. Which I wasn’t. But I've already wheeled down here in front of everyone, it wouldn't do to just turn back.

I drive slowly past them—sitting and standing, hawking this and that. I try to look the way I always look. Like they have always been loitering here, nothing special about it. It's not too hard to look unruffled in the throng of primped-up Rats and Hounds. You’re almost invisible in it. Takes an effort to muscle through, even.

Owl's already in his favorite corner with cigarettes, Monkey's camped out with the stickers behind the drinks machine, but most everyone else is lost in the sea of girls. Nobody has their wares out. You're supposed to ask, and I hate that. Looks like I came all the way down here for nothing. Who needs my gaudy flashlight and homemade necklaces? People are here for the opportunities to hook up, and all that changey business is just a pretext. Still, I make it to the other end, so that I can return with my head held high.

“Whaddya have?” Gnome asks.

His spots make him look like a fly agaric. He's looking over my head and doesn't give a crap about what I have. He's asking just because. Next to him, sullen Gaby is holding a huge poster of Marilyn and yawning like a crocodile.

I drive by quickly. There's a short line in the records corner, four Hounds and two bespectacled girls. Before them an empty space, and before that a single girl, all alone. Suddenly I'm stuck near her. Had to stop to catch the record that chose this moment to try to slide off Mustang and slither out of the sleeve at the same time. And then ...

I see it. It's on her knees, the vest of many colors. Decorated with glass beads. Shiny and flashy. A small sun. It's impossible, of course, that a thing like this could have been brought just to be swapped, but I'm still mesmerized. It has this effect on me. She looks up. Green eyes, a shade darker than Sphinx's. And hair so long she seems to have tucked the ends under her, like it's a mat.

“Hey,” she says. “Like it?”

Like it? What kind of question is that? I need to go back and find something valuable. The boombox could get me killed, but there are always Noble's shirts. And my lucky amulets.

“I don't have anything in exchange,” I say. “Only useless trinkets. I have to go now.”

She stands up. What's her nick? Mermaid, isn't it? She's tiny. didn't she used to be a wheeler, though? Or maybe I'm mistaking her for someone else.

“Try it. It's a small size. Might be too tight.”

Malmsteen slips down again.

“No, no need,” I say, trying to yank the guy back. “I was just coming through.”

My ears start burning for some reason. Burning and getting in the way.

“But you liked it. Try it on,” she says, pushing the vest at me. “Come on. I need to know how it looks on someone.”

I take off the two I'm wearing and put on this one. Do the buttons. It's totally mine. In all possible respects.

“Cool,” Mermaid says, circling the wheelchair. “Perfect fit. Almost like I made it with you in mind.”

I start to undo it.

“Oh no.” She shakes her head. “It's yours. A gift.”

“No way.” I pull off the vest and hand it to her. “That's not how it's done.”

Well, all right. I had this unsavory habit once. Coming down to the first on a Swap Tuesday with nothing, choosing something I fancied, and then asking the owner, “Mind just giving this away?” And they did. What choice did they have? Then they started running away at the sight of me, or hiding their stuff. That's when I quit wheedling gifts. Got tired of it myself. But I never would have taken something like this for free. I still have my pride, after all. So I keep shaking this marvelous vest at her, begging her to take it back.

“I brought it so I could give it away,” she keeps explaining. “But only to someone who would get it. You get it, so it's yours now. Take it, don't make me angry.”

Hair the color of milky coffee, falling below the knees. Green shirt, pairs well with her eyes. She'd be perfect for my bead necklaces. So I untie the bundle. And the first thing to fall out is the tawdry flashlight. Horribly embarrassing. But she's only seeing the necklaces. It's obvious, just by the way she looks at them, that she knows her stuff.

“Beautiful,” she says. “Did you make them yourself?”

“Take them,” I say. “All of this isn't worth one single pocket on your vest.”

“This one.”

She picks up the date pits and puts them around her neck. There aren't many girls in the world who would look good in that. She's one.

“These, too. don't make me angry,” I say, shoving the rest at her.

I've got to rush, because I spy with my little eye that Lary is trying to force his way through the mass of swappers, and he looks loaded for bear.

“Bye! Thanks for the present!”

Driving away swiftly. Lary is almost there, except he happens to step on someone's cigarette stash and is consequently waylaid for an important discussion. So I have a momentary reprieve that I intend to use fully.

“Hey! Who's up for giving me a lift to the Fourth? Cash on delivery!”

Three solicitous Rats jump in to volunteer. Microbe and Sumac I reject. Not enough brawn. So Viking gets the job. He hoists me on his shoulders, and we're off to the races. I am positively dashing in my new vest, and he makes a handsome mount.

“Hold it, bastard!” Lary squeals somewhere behind us. “Stop!”

Naturally, we don't stop. It's a chase, the thing I like more than anything in the world. Viking's legs are pumping, white boots flashing. Jostling me rather hard.

“Yoo-hoo,” I shout. “Step on it!”

Viking flies up the steps. The yellow bangs keep falling over his eyes, so I tuck it away. Wouldn't do for him to stumble. Then I dig his earbuds from under his collar and stuff them in my ears. The cords are barely long enough, so it's not very comfortable, but now we have music along for the run.