The Art Student's War by Brad Leithauser

reach a hundred. No matter how hard she concentrated, a poisoned thought infiltrated (an I say no to that , or something far worse), compelling her to start over … Had everything changed that day? Well, Bea couldn’t be sure her memory was trustworthy, but it certainly seemed everything changed on that day when she’d said no to God and, in retribution, an era of bizarre tasks had descended. Or so it might appear while, as now, drifting so near to sleep that nothing could be hauled back to the land of full waking …
    Facts may distort reality, but the next day Ronny offered a particular factual disclosure so startling, it all but took her breath away; it reordered everything. The two of them were walking up Woodward, just south of the Boulevard. The General Motors Building loomed on the left. Bea pointed to the familiar red-and-yellow sign of the drugstore across the street and said, “Funny, it’s the same spelling. As your name.”
    Olsson’s Drugs. They were all over the city.
    Although the two of them were not touching, she could feel Ronny’s body stiffen. He halted. Even in relaxed moments, his green-gold gaze radiated intensity, but this was more than mere intensity. His eyes were aflame.
    He said, “You say it almost like—as if it’s a coincidence.”
    “A coincidence?” Honestly, his eyes had such a feverish look! “What are you trying to—”
    “Bianca, I thought you knew,” Ronny interrupted. “You didn’t know?” He paused. “Really? Truly? I mean, it’s my father’s. You do know, it’s my father’s store.”
    At first Bea couldn’t take it all in. Illogically, she thought Ronny must be referring to this particular store, on Woodward just south of the Boulevard. “You mean he—your father runs this place?”
    “I mean”—and facts may be tedious, but Ronny Olsson’s eyes wereburning more brightly than when he rattled on about any Poussin or Fragonard canvas—“he runs them all. He owns them all.”
    “All? All?”
    Weeks before she’d ever spoken to the newcomer in class, the wildly good-looking Ronald Olsson, Bea had fantasized, just for fun, that he might be a prince in exile. But to be informed, in the bright no-nonsense light of a Monday afternoon on Woodward Avenue, that her walking companion was the son of the man who owned the leading drugstore chain in Detroit—this was a story more fabulous still. Why, there was even an Olsson’s at the end of Inquiry Street; Bea had been living beside Olsson’s her whole life!
    “Forty-seven stores over three states. I don’t know why, but I just thought you knew. Most people just seem to know.”
    “But I didn’t,” Bea said. “He’s—your father—well, he’s Mr. Olsson.” Over the years, she’d seen a number of newspaper photographs of Ronny’s father and mother. Mr. Olsson led various important organizations for the war effort. The Olssons were among the city’s most prominent people.
    “I didn’t know,” Bea repeated, feeling oddly apologetic. But how was she to have known?
    Alongside them, automobiles were gliding up and down Woodward. Across the street, people were walking in and out of Olsson’s. There when you need us there . It was the store’s slogan. Bea stared at Ronny Olsson. Unmistakably, everything between the two of them must now stand on a different footing.
    Yes, everything had changed and Ronny led her to a new luncheonette, called Big Ben’s, and over mugs of watery coffee he regaled her with Olsson family anecdotes. His parents had come together in what was clearly a great love match (though Ronny, in his qualifying way, shrugged off Bea’s term). Ronny’s grandfather, Grandpa Olsson, founder of Olsson’s Drugs, had disapproved of his son’s romance and flatly prohibited marriage. Yet Ronny’s parents went ahead and married anyway. Ronny’s mother was extraordinarily beautiful. (But Bea already knew this, having seen the newspaper photographs.) Mrs. Olsson had grown up in the tiny town