Britt-Marie Was Here Read Online Free Page A

today.”
    The girl smiles.
    “Thanks!”
    Britt-Marie nods.
    “I’m not seeing as much of your forehead today, not like yesterday.”
    The girl scratches her forehead, just under her fringe. Britt-Marie looks down at her plate and tries to resist the instinct to serve up a portion for Kent. The girl says something. Britt-Marie looks up and mumbles: “Pardon me?”
    “It was very nice, this,” says the girl.
    Without Britt-Marie even asking.

4

    A nd then Britt-Marie got herself a job. Which happened to be in a place called Borg. Two days after inviting the girl from the unemployment office to have some salmon, that’s where Britt-Marie heads off to in her car. So we should now say a few words about Borg.
    Borg is a community built along a road. That’s really the kindest possible thing one can say about it. It’s not a place that could be described as one in a million, rather as one of millions of others. It has a closed-down soccer field and a closed-down school and a closed-down chemist’s and a closed-down liquor store and a closed-down health care center and a closed-down supermarket and a closed-down shopping center and a road that bears away in two directions.
    There is a recreation center that admittedly has not been closed down, but only because they haven’t had time to do it yet. It takes time to close down an entire community, obviously, and the recreation center has had to wait its turn. Apart from that, the only two noticeable things in Borg are soccer and the pizzeria, because these tend to be the last things to abandon humanity.
    Britt-Marie’s first contact with the pizzeria and the recreation center are on that day in January when she stops her white carbetween them. Her first contact with soccer is when a soccer ball hits her, very hard, on the head.
    This takes place just after her car has blown up.
    You might sum it up by saying that Borg and Britt-Marie’s first impressions of each other are not wholly positive.
    If one wants to be pedantic about it, the actual explosion happens while Britt-Marie is turning into the parking area. On the passenger side. Britt-Marie is very clear about that, and if she had to describe the sound she’d say it was a bit like a “ka-boom.” Understandably, she’s in a panic, and she abandons both brake and clutch pedals, whereupon the car splutters pathetically. After a few unduly dramatic deviations across the frozen January puddles, it comes to an abrupt stop outside a building with a partially broken sign, the neon lights of which spell the name “PizzRai.” Terrified, Britt-Marie jumps out of the car, expecting it (quite reasonably, under the circumstances) to be engulfed in flames at any moment. This does not happen. Instead, Britt-Marie is left standing on her own in the parking area, surrounded by the sort of silence that only exists in small, remote communities.
    It’s a touch on the annoying side. She adjusts her skirt and grips her handbag firmly.
    A soccer ball rolls in a leisurely manner across the gravel, away from Britt-Marie’s car and towards what Britt-Marie assumes must be the recreation center. After a moment there’s a disconcerting thumping noise. Determined not to be distracted from the tasks at hand, she gets out a list from her handbag. At the top it says, “Drive to Borg.” She ticks that point. The next item on the list is, “Pick up key from post office.”
    She gets out the cell phone that Kent gave her five years ago, and uses it for the first time. “Hello?” says the girl at the unemployment office.
    “Is that how people answer the phone nowadays?” says Britt-Marie. Helpfully, not critically.
    “What?” says the girl, for a few moments still blissfully unaware that Britt-Marie has not necessarily walked out of the girl’s life just because she’s walked out of the unemployment office.
    “I’m here now, in this place, Borg. But something is making an awful racket and my car has blown up. How far is it to the