Two hours later Faye was standing in front of the meat counter in the ICA supermarket at Karlaplan, looking for something nice for lunch. Everything was the same as usual. The inflated prices. The yelling children and endless rumbling of the chiller units’ fans. The smell of expensive jackets and real fur coats, no politically correct synthetics. The only synthetic things anyone around here might consent to wear would be something by Stella McCartney. If it was expensive enough.

Faye picked up a pack of duck breasts and headed toward the registers. She picked the one where Max was working. He usually worked Sundays.

She looked at Max’s muscular arms as he scanned the shopping of the people ahead of her in the line. He must have felt her staring at him, because he suddenly turned and smiled at her.

When it was Faye’s turn his smile grew broader. His eyes sparkled.

“And how’s the most beautiful woman in Stockholm today?”

Faye’s cheeks flushed. She understood that he said the same thing to most of his female customers, but still. He saw her.

She walked out of the shop with a lighter step.

When she got home she quickly put the food away. It was never a good idea to leave it out for long.

“Did you go out like that?”

Faye turned. Jack was standing in the doorway. He was frowning.

“What do you mean?”

Jack gestured toward her clothes.

“You can’t go out shopping in the clothes you wear at home. What if you ran into someone we know?”

Faye shut the fridge door.

“Max at the checkout seemed to like it. He said I was the most beautiful woman in Stockholm.”

Jack’s jaw tensed. Faye realized she’d made a mistake. She ought to know she shouldn’t joke with Jack about that sort of thing.

“You flirt with people working as cash registers?”

“No, I don’t flirt. I love you, Jack, you know that, but I can hardly help it if someone gives me a compliment.”

Jack snorted.

Faye watched as he walked stiffly in the direction of his study. Despite the knot in her stomach, she felt oddly pleased at his outburst. He cares, she thought. He really does care.

—

Julienne was asleep. Faye and Jack were lying in bed. He had his laptop on his stomach and she was watching a repeat on Channel 5.

“Do you want me to turn it down?”

Jack adjusted his glasses and tilted the screen so he could see the television.

“No, don’t bother,” he said distractedly.

The female presenter was introducing one of her guests, her hands full of prompt cards.

“Is that Lisa Jakobsson?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“She used to be pretty. She’s got old. And fat.”

Jack raised the screen of his laptop again.

After he had fallen asleep Faye cupped her hand around the screen of her iPhone and went onto Wikipedia. Lisa Jakobsson was two years younger than her.

STOCKHOLM, AUGUST 2001

THE INITIATION RITUAL at the School of Economics was a secret, no one was allowed to tell any of the staff how the first-years were humiliated and loaded with drink. Participation was voluntary, but there wasn’t any choice for me. I had made up my mind to do whatever it took to be accepted as one of the gang, to belong. And now that I was a blank slate, I finally had the chance to do that.

There were fifteen of us, all girls, gathered on a small meadow beside the water in Haga Park. Roughly the same number of second-years had made their way there. All of them boys. They had several large IKEA bags with them, full of props. They lined us up and inspected each of us thoroughly. Told us to take off everything except our underwear and gave us black garbage bags with arm and neck holes in to pull over our heads. Then we had to drink two shots of vodka. Beside me stood a tall, curvy girl with freckles and unbrushed red hair.

“Down on your knees!” called the unofficial leader of the second-years, Mikael, son of a famous property magnate.

He had a blond bob, piggy eyes, and seemed accustomed to being obeyed. We hurried to do as he said.

“Good,” he said. He held up a brown egg. “The egg yolk is to be passed from mouth to mouth, along the line, then back again. And when it gets back to the first person, she has to swallow it. That’s you. What’s your name?”

Everyone in the line turned to see who had drawn the short straw.

“Chris,” the girl next to me said.

Mikael cracked the egg on his knee, tipped the white onto the grass and held the shell containing the yolk out to Chris. She took it, tipped the yolk into her mouth without hesitation and leaned toward me. Our lips met and the boys cheered. The yolk was transferred and I tried to stop myself gagging. I turned to my left and repeated the procedure with the next girl.

“Are you really going to swallow it?” I asked Chris.

She shrugged.

“I’m from Sollentuna. I’ve swallowed worse.”

I giggled. Her face remained impassive.

“Are you going to the party?”

“Yes. Despite the fact I can’t stand these power-crazed, spoiled little boys. They’re just making the most of their opportunity to exploit nervous, impressionable girls. These geniuses are the dregs of the school. That’s why this initiation’s taking place so early in the term, before we have time to see what losers they are. Two weeks from now none of these girls will even look at them.”

“So why are you here?”

“I want to sort the wheat from the chaff, so I know who they are and can avoid them,” she said bluntly. “You’ve got nice lips, by the way. If I get drunk later and can’t find anyone to make out with, I’ll come and find you.”

I found myself hoping she would.

The rest of the afternoon passed in a variety of alcohol-fueled activities that all seemed designed to get the guys horny. They tipped fermented herring juice on our hair so we had to go into the water in our underwear. They drew big zeroes on the foreheads of girls who lost games, and the drunkest girls were given the honor of having the boys autograph their breasts, lower back and buttocks. More and more of us stumbled off to throw up, but they kept plying us with drinks.

We only stopped when it got dark. We took one last dip, and our clothes were given back. They’d got hold of an old bus to drive us to the actual party, it was already half full of first-years who’d refused to take part in the initiation.

When we got on they held their noses. We stank of vomit, seawater, and fermented herring. And alcohol. Two of the girls had to be carried on board and were laid out on the floor in the aisle. One girl’s bra had slipped down, revealing a chalk-white breast and dark nipple. The boys laughed and pointed. One of them leaped out of his seat, clutching a digital camera. Chris reacted like lightning. She shot her arm out, blocking his path, then stood up to stop him.

“And where do you think you’re going, little fellow?”

“She won’t care,” he slurred. “She’s asleep. Get out of the way.”

Chris folded her arms and snorted. I noticed that she had seaweed in her hair, but she had an air of obvious authority. She stood there as solid as a tree even though the bus was lurching and bouncing. As if her feet had grown into the floor of the bus. The guy, who was a head taller than her, started to look uncertain.

“Don’t be such a bore, it’s only a fucking joke. What are you, some sort of feminist?” he said, spitting the word feminist like it was an obscenity and grinning at her.

Chris didn’t move. Everyone was staring at them now.

“Fine, I won’t bother.”

He laughed and tried to pretend he hadn’t just gone one round against a girl and lost.

“Where are you going?” Chris called after him as he started to lumber back down the bus.

I held my breath. Wasn’t she finished with him yet?

“To sit down,” he said uncertainly.

“Forget it. Come back here.”

He turned and took a few unwilling steps toward her.

“Take your top off,” Chris said.

“What?” The guy’s eyes opened wide. “I’m not going to do that.”

He looked around for support, but everyone was too busy enjoying the confrontation.

“Take your ugly little top off—polo shirts are so 1990—and give it to me. Hurry up, can’t you see she’s freezing?”

He gave up and did as she asked, then shook his head and went back to his seat. His pink polo shirt had been hiding a pale, pudgy torso and a pair of man boobs, and he didn’t look at all comfortable.

Chris woke the girl, pulled her arms up, and carefully put the top on her.

“Give me that,” she said when she sat back down next to me. She drank several gulps of beer.

“Good work,” I whispered, tucking the bottle between my legs.

“Thanks. But it was practically an assault to make the poor thing wear such a hideous top,” she muttered.

After she dropped Julienne off at preschool, Faye wandered aimlessly around ?stermalm. No more spending the day sitting at home. She would make sure she kept moving. Burning fat and getting thin. The decay had to be stopped at all costs.