Read an Excerpt
The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells
By Andrew Greer HarperCollins Publishers
Copyright © 2013 Andrew Greer
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-06-221378-5
3
October 30, 1985
The impossible happens once to each of us.
For me, it was near Halloween in 1985, at my home
in Patchin Place. Even New Yorkers find it hard to spot: a little
alley west of Sixth Avenue where the city tilts drunkenly into an
eighteenth- century pattern, allowing for such fanciful moments
as West Fourth crossing West Eighth and Waverly Place crossing
itself. There is West Twelfth and Little West Twelfth. There is
Greenwich Street and Greenwich Avenue, the last of which takes
a diagonal route along the old Indian trail. If any ghosts still walk
there, carrying their corn, no one sees them, or perhaps they are
unrecognizable among the freaks and tourists out at all hours,
drunk and laughing by my doorstep. They say the tourists are
ruining everything. They say they have always said that.
But I will tell you: Stand on West Tenth where it meets Sixth
Avenue, in the turreted shadow of the old Jefferson Market Court-
house with its tall tower. Turn until you see a set of iron gates,
so easy to miss, peer through the bars and there: no more than
The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells
4
half a city block, lined with thin maples, dead- ending half a dozen
doorways down, nothing glamorous, just a little broken alley of
brick three- story apartment buildings, built long ago to house the
Basque waiters at the Brevoort, and there at the end, on the right,
just past the last tree, our door. Scrape your shoes on the old shoe
brush embedded in the concrete. Walk through the green front
door, and you might turn left to knock on my aunt Ruth's apart-
ment, or walk upstairs and knock on mine. And at the turn of the
staircase, you might stop and read the heights of two children,
mine in red grease pencil and, high above in blue, that of my twin
brother, Felix.
Patchin Place. The gates locked and painted black. The houses
crouched in solitude. The ivy growing, torn down, growing again;
the stones cracked and weedy; not even a borough president would
look left on his hurrying way to dinner. Who would ever guess?
Behind the gates, the doors, the ivy. Where only a child would
look. As you know: That is how magic works. It takes the least
likely of us, without foreshadowing, at the hour of its own choos-
ing. It makes a thimblerig of time. And this is exactly how, one
Thursday morning, I woke up in another world.
Let me start nine months before it happened, in January, when
I was out with Felix to walk Alan's dog. We had locked the green
door behind us, and were making our way past the ice- covered gates
of Patchin Place while the dog, Lady, sniffed each barren patch of
dirt. Cold, cold, cold. The wool collars of our coats were pulled up
and we shared Felix's scarf, wound once around each of our necks,
October 30, 1985
5
connecting us, my hand in his pocket and his in mine. He was my
twin, but not my double, so while he shared my flushed cheeks and
bent nose, my red hair and pale complexion, my squinting blue
eyes— “fox faced,” our aunt Ruth called us— he was taller, greater
somehow. I had to steady Felix on the ice, but he insisted on going
out that night without his cane; it was one of his good nights. I still
found him so ridiculous in his new mustache. So thin in his new
overcoat. It was our thirty- first birthday.
I said, “It was such a lovely party.”
Everywhere the shivering hush of a New York winter: the
glimpses of high apartments, the shimmer of the frozen streets,
the muted glow of restaurants late at night, pyramids of snow at
corners hiding trash and coins and keys. The sound of our steps
on the sidewalk.
“I was thinking,” he said. “After I die, I want you to have
a birthday party where everyone comes dressed as me.” Always
thinking of a party. I remember him as bossy and self- righ teously
moral as a child, the kind who assigned himself as “fire captain”
and forced the rest of the family through ridiculous drills. After
our parents' death, however, and especially after he escaped our
shared scrawny adolescence, all that ice melted at once— he be-
came almost a convert to the side of fire itself. He grew restless if a
day had no great event in store; he planned many of them himself,
and would throw anyone a party if it meant drinks and costumes.
Our aunt Ruth approved.
“Oh hush,” I said. “I'm sorry Nathan had to leave early. But
he's been working, you know.”
“Did you hear me?”
The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells
6
I looked at him, his freckled face, that red mustache. Dark
commas beneath his eyes. Thin and scared and quiet, all the fire
burnt away inside him. Instead of answering, I said, “Look at the
ice on all the trees!”
He let Lady sniff at a fence. “You'll make Nathan dress up in
my old Halloween costume.”
“The cowgirl.”
He laughed. “No, Ethel Mermaid. You can sit him in an arm-
chair and feed him drinks. He'll like that.”
“You didn't like our birthday?” I said. “I know it wasn't much.
Could you please teach Alan to bake a cake?”
“Our birthday cheers me up.” We walked along, looking up at
silhouettes in windows. “Don't neglect Nathan.”
The light caught the ice on the trees, electrifying them.
“It's been ten years. Maybe he could use a little neglect,” I
said, holding his arm to steady him.
On the cold winter street, I heard Felix whisper, “Look there's
another one.”
He nodded in the direction of a hair salon that had always
graced the corner. In the window, a sign: closed for business. My
brother stood for a moment
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells by Andrew Greer. Copyright © 2013 Andrew Greer. Excerpted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
