Oh-Oh City

"Because she told me to. I'm a good Putzfrau . Don't you remember the chapter in my book where the girl cleans houses in the summer for extra money? Don't worry, Professor, your place will look nice when I'm done." With that, she took off her coat, threw it on a chair, turned on the vacuum cleaner, and went right to work. I stood there feeling like a fool. She didn't look at me again.

What was going on? There was nothing to do but retreat to my study and try again to call Beenie at home. The phone there rang and rang. She had to have done this for some reason, but what? She must have known I'd have a million questions. Why wasn't she here to answer them? How could she drop this girl in my lap and walk away? Where the hell was she?

Luckily, there was a small television in my room. I switched it on to fill up some mental airspace. What was A

The person on television was talking about Gorgonzola cheese. I had once lived in the same universe as Gorgonzola cheese. Now I lived in one where dead students vacuumed my house and God wouldn't answer Her phone.

I sat at my desk and pretended to work by pushing pencils and papers around, looking for nothing in an address book, reading a bank statement twice because even the numbers had no meaning.

I tiptoed to my door and put an ear to it. Only the 'hoooosh' of the machine. Was she really here only to clean? Both the expression on her face and the tone of her voice had been so haughty and dismissive. She knew she held all the best cards, and I could do nothing till she made a first play. All because of a badly written, sophomoric, heavy-breathing and pale copy of – There was a knock at the door. I forced myself not to run and open it. Count to five, rise slowly, turn the doorknob slowly. "Yes?"

"Sorry to interrupt, but I didn't know if you wanted this or not?' It was the same relic finding that Beenie had done each time she cleaned. Had she instructed A

"I'll take it. Thank you."

"You're welcome." She handed it to me and started to leave. "A

Her face was only i

"Cleaning's not important. Wouldn't you rather talk about your –"

"No. She just told me to bring you things to see if you want them." She left.

I didn't know what to do. Follow her, grab her arm, sit her down and say, "Listen, dead person, you and I have to have it out. We have to talk about your bad novel." No, that wouldn't do.

I went back to my desk with the school notebook and, for want of anything better to do, opened it. "Hey, Turd Bird!"

I whipped my head aside to see who had said it, but a hand went over my mouth. Scared, I looked at whose hand. I didn't know the boy. I realized only then that we were face-to-face, very close. And I felt him. I felt him inside me down there.

"Quiet, ssh; he'll go away."

I looked at this boy. Who was he? There were three small pimples on his chin. What was he talking about? What was I doing here? We were inside a toilet stall. I was sitting on his lap. He was on the toilet seat. His pants lay below his knees.

"Hey man, come on, hurry up with her, willya?"

My lover started gri

I was my daughter Freya. Quiet, dull Freya, who covered her bedroom walls with pictures of kittens and read seven-hundred-page books with titles like Love's Flame and Fury. She received average grades in school and let her sister do most of the talking and arguing. She liked to take care of Gerald. She baked him cakes and fed them to him in slow forkfuls.

She was having sex on a high school toilet with a boy who was hurrying to finish so he could sneak back to class with his friend who waited on the other side of the stall door.

I was her. I could feel the boy, smell his heat and ugly cologne. The zipper on his pants cut into me.

"O.K., O.K., O.K!" Coming, he flung his head back too hard and banged it against the wall. "Damn! Oh, yeah, 'nice. Damn that hurt! Thanks, Freebie; that was good." Rubbing his head with one hand, he pushed me off gently with the other. I hovered above him on bended, quivering knees. I wanted him to say something else. Hadn't I come out here with him in the middle of my favorite class? Something nice I could hold to me when he was gone. But he was too busy pulling himself together.

"Come on, Dipwad! Five minutes left to class!"

"Right!'" He zipped up quickly and reached behind me to open the door. "Seeya, Freebie. Thanks for the Freebie."

His friend outside tipped his head around the door, checked me out, and said in a loud, long falsetto, "FREEEEEEEEBIE!' The two of them snickered and were gone. I knew I should return to class, too, but, with five minutes left, what was the point? I'd use paper towels to clean off my legs, check my makeup in the mirror, and be looking O.K. again before the bell rang and anyone might see me walking out of the men's room.

I did that once when I was in high school. But the guy didn't come. We were both too scared."

Because my eyes were closed, I only heard A

"Hey, don't worry, be happy! That's all you get. You can open your eyes – you're back home."

She was squatting down in front of me, close by. Unsmiling, but I could tell she was pleased.

"Was that really Freya? Did she do that?"

"Frequently. Touch this notebook again, and you'll see many things she did. She had two nicknames in high school. 'Freebie,' as in, it's free for anyone who wants it. And 'Tu

"I don't want it! Go away!"

"Oh no, you have to have it, Perlesser. There's the rules. You told me the truth; now I tell you. Why do you think she brought me back? I'm your Medusa! I tell you nothin' but the truth, and the whole truth about your life. Remember how Beenie started finding things here? I found more."

"Beenie's not evil!"

"This isn't evil; this is the facts. I'm showing you your truth. What others thought of you, what really happened when you weren't looking …. You like telling it to other people. Here's some for you. Remember what Norah said: "You don't have to approve of me, Dad."

"You don't know Norah!"

"No, but I know the truth. Here's treasure number two, Dad. Remember this? He loved these."

She held something out, but I was so confused that I didn't realize what it was at first.

"It's a bagel! Don't you remember how Gerald loved them? Used to walk around the house with one in his mouth? In the good old days, that is. Before you so thoughtfully shipped him away to the loony bin."

When I didn't take it, she tossed it into my lap. I didn't want it. It felt heavy. A piece of bread.

The moment it touched me, I saw the world through his eyes. Through the eyes of Gerald/child/man/madman/animal. Colors roared and whispered. They had voices. Loud – everything was screamingly louder. Chairs weren't chairs anymore, because I didn't understand what they were. Smells – the smallest nothing smell was an explosion a hundred times what I knew, good and bad. Chemicals, flowers, the bugs in the ground, breakfast dishes stewing in the sink. Things. I smelled them all.