by Calia Read
“Antje, look at your Katja,” she said in Bavarian.
I didn’t get a chance to say a word. Antonia pulled me into her arms and hugged me tight. When she drew back, she gave me a quick kiss on the cheek, then Oma and Opa’s cheek.
Antonia was smiling and laughing like she hadn’t seen us in years, but then I realized that Mathias was probably the reason for her happy mood. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Mathias step into the hallway. Of course I did. I seemed to have a radar for this man.
“Mathias!” Antonia waved him over. “Come, come,” she ordered.
He came and I took him in. When he was in the studio with me, his choice of clothes was always a dress shirt and slacks. And I didn’t object to that. Not at all. There was nothing better than seeing Mathias Sloan with a dress shirt on; the material stretched tight over his shoulders, and the sleeves rolled up to his forearms.
Yet tonight he was dressed casually. Jeans and a black T-shirt. I decided right then and there that Mathias could look amazing in just about anything.
I watched as he kissed my Oma’s cheek, greeting her in Bavarian. And I noticed that it was improving. Florian walked back, with Opa next to him. Opa stopped long enough to greet Mathias.
Then Mathias turned to me. “Katja,” he said, acknowledging me with a blunt nod.
Both of us stared at each other. That awkwardness? That tension? It had followed us from the studio, sticking to us like glue. I wondered if it would ever leave us. Neither one of us made a move to kiss each other’s cheek in greeting. Not even a handshake felt appropriate. If we touched, the air would zing around us, and I’d find myself doing things I’d never done before.
Antonia noticed our distance and so did Oma. Both of their brows were raised with curiosity. They never commented on it though.
The four of us moved to the kitchen, where Florian and Opa were already drinking old German beers. Oma made herself at home. I sat back, leaning against the doorway. Mathias stood next to me.
“Katja,” Antonia said, “What do you want to drink?”
“Anything.”
Wordlessly, she handed Mathias and me beers and hurried off, pointing to dishes of food on the countertop, and talking to Oma in a hushed tone, as if they were going over top-secret information. I smiled at the two of them as I took a sip of the beer and found Mathias frowning at me.
“Should you be…” He looked pointedly at the beer in my hands.
Antonia frowned at Mathias. “Legal age to drink here is sixteen, Mathias.”
“I forgot.”
Antonia tsked as she put on her oven mitts and opened up the oven door. “Then you should come back home more often so you don’t forget.”
“I agree,” Oma chimed in.
“You may live in America,” Antonia continued, “but your home is here.”
Mathias looked visibly uncomfortable, while Antonia stared him down, an unreadable expression on her face.
“How about we go to the living room?” I said out of nowhere.
He glanced at me, a frown on his face. I tried to tell myself that I didn’t come to his rescue. No, I didn’t. I just wanted to take the tension out of the room. That’s all.
Mathias nodded slowly, his gaze never straying from mine. “Come on,” he said slowly. “I’ll show you.”
I walked ahead of him, and when we were in the hallway he spoke up, his voice lower than it normally was. “Do we really need to go to the living room?”
I shrugged. “Why not?”
Mathias didn’t answer right away, making me look over my shoulder. For the first time, he actually looked embarrassed.
I smiled mischievously. “What are you hiding?”
“Nothing. Haven’t you been here before?”
“I have a few times. But we usually go straight to the kitchen and eat.”
“So you haven’t seen ‘the shrine’?”
I frowned as we entered into the living room. “What’s ‘the shrine’?”
Mathias didn’t reply. Just leaned against the wall. The living room was simplistically decorated. Two red couches angled toward the television in the corner. Across from the couches was a set of French doors. But I looked over at the wall behind the couches and I quickly understood where ‘the shrine’ came from.
“There it is,” Mathias announced.
“There it is,” I repeated.
I kneeled on the couch, tilting my head back to look at all the pictures. There was one picture of three little boys, dressed in suits and ties. I could tell Mathias was the one standing up. I assumed the two sitting down were his brothers. One had a blonde hair, a lot like Mathias’; and the other had dark brown, almost coal black.
I smiled at him over my shoulder. He was a lot closer than I realized. His shoulder was almost brushing mine. But he didn’t notice; he was looking at the pictures too. I tapped the suit and tie picture. “Are those your brothers?”
Mathias nodded. “Yep.”
I lifted an eyebrow. “Do they have names?”
Mathias leaned forward and pointed at the blonde boy sitting down. “That’s Thayer.” He pointed to the brunette. “And that’s Macsen.”
“I see.”
I continued to scan all the pictures, smiling the whole time. It was hard to think of Mathias as the uptight, strict instructor of mine when I was seeing the years of his life captured right in front of me. And it didn't hurt that Mathias was still so close to me. Only inches away. I loved when he was this close.
“Oh!” I pointed to a picture of a cute little bald baby. “Look at you!”
“How do you know that’s even me?”
“It’s in the eyes,” I said solemnly. I tapped my finger against the portrait. “Look at them. You were probably judging the photographer.”
Mathias laughed. That single action could morph his entire face. He was attractive before, but when he smiled, his lips split apart and revealed his straight white teeth. Two distinct dimples appeared on his cheeks. He became breathtaking.
“You smiled,” I said.
Mathias’ face instantly became solemn again. He looked at me warily and I couldn’t help but lean forward. He stayed perfectly still but his Adam’s apple bobbed, showing his discomfort.
“It’s okay to smile. I promise not to tell anyone.”
His gaze remained steady on mine, but soon they veered to my lips and stayed. It’d been months since we’d kissed, but my lips started to tingle as though it was only yesterday. I quickly looked back at the pictures before I attacked him like a starving animal.
There was a picture of a massive basketball player. His jersey had the number 50. He was near the basket, arms above his head, gripping the basketball between his hands and about three other basketball players were trying to grab the ball from him.
“And that’s Thayer?”
“Correct. That was him in college.”
“How tall is he?”
“Fucking tall,” Mathias muttered.
“Clearly,” I replied. “Are all the Sloan brothers tall?”
“Every single one of us.”
I looked at the pictures nailed across the wall. A multitude of pictures of Mathias and his brothers. But here and there were black and white photos. One was a younger version of Antonia and Florian. Maybe their wedding picture? Both of them solemnly staring at the camera. A few more pictures of people I didn’t recognize. On the very bottom, to the left, was a picture of a little girl. She was sitting on a swing, wearing a white dress, white socks, and black Mary-Janes.
“Is that your mom?”
Mathias stiffened imperceptibly, yet he never looked away from the photo. “That’s Laurena all right.”
“You call your mom by her first name?”
“You wouldn’t be looking at me like that if you knew her.”
“But … she’s your mom.”
To me, the idea of not being close to my mother was unfathomable. I liked to think that if she was still alive, we’d be closer than ever.
“He’s right, Katja,” Antonia said, breezing into the room. She stood next to us, staring up at the pictures. Her face was unreadable. “Laurena, my daughter, she’s … selfish.”
Mathias’ lips thinned. Antonia kept staring at the pictures. I glanced at Oma, but she kept her eyes rooted ahead. Obviously, I was missing something important and no one was willing to tell me what it was.
“Yvonne and Laurena were friends growing up,” Oma finally said.
At the mention of my mom, I perked up. “Really?”
“Yes! Yes!” Antonia chimed, happy to talk about something positive about her daughter. “Yvonne and Laurena ... very close friends as children. Always running around together, getting into trouble.”
I smiled, anxious to hear more, yet no one said anything else. So I scanned the pictures. On the bottom right there was a black and white picture of a young Mathias, similar to the one I saw online. He was sitting behind a piano, staring at the keys with devoted concentration. I thought this was my favorite picture. I saw passion in the way he stared at those keys, like they held all the answers to his problems. It was the same way I looked at the keys.
I couldn’t stop myself from pointing the picture out. “I like this one.”
“Of course you would, Katja,” Antonia laughed. “You and Mathias are a lot alike! He loved the piano more than he loved anything else.”
A tense silence swarmed around us. I watched Mathias. His eyes were glued to the picture. A faraway look in his eyes. I wanted to slip into his brain, search deep within his memories, and see what he was thinking.
Florian hollered from the kitchen that the food was ready. His timing couldn’t have been better.
“Well … let’s eat,” Antonia said with false enthusiasm.
Mathias was the first one out of the room.
Connected to the kitchen was the dining nook table in the corner, set for six. Opa and Florian were already sitting down, talking loudly.
Antonia touched my shoulder. “You don’t mind sitting in the middle, do you?”
“Not at all.”
“Danke.” Antonia pulled on a pair of oven mitts and looked at Mathias out of the corner of her eye. “Sit beside her. You two have young bones. If we sat in there we might never get out.”
Mathias’ lips thinned. His eyes bounced between the table and me.
He said okay, but when he slid in next to me, he kept looking at me as if I had a bomb strapped to my chest and it was seconds away from detonating.
Opa sat to my left. Florian sat across from me on the long bench. And to my right was Mathias, scooting closer and closer, as my Oma told him to keep scooting to make room for her. By the time everyone was comfortable, I was practically on top of Mathias’ lap. I wasn’t opposed to being this close to him, but surrounded by people I had known my whole life, it was awkward.
Antonia placed zwetschgenknödel, plum dumplings, in the middle of the table. Everyone dug in. For a few minutes, there was nothing but the sound of forks clinking against the plates. Conversation soon started, though. I tried my hardest to pay attention to everything being said, but I was failing. Every time Mathias took a drink or lifted his fork, his forearm brushed against my breast. And every time my body reacted. Nipples tightened. Pulse thundered against my wrists. Mathias froze, stumbling over his answer, but he didn’t move his arm away. I nodded my head, pretending to pay attention and to ignore the energy that hummed around us.
I knew that Mathias felt it too. He was as stiff as a board, eating his food like he was starving and never looking my way once.
I found myself looking at his hands. They weren’t pianist hands. They were rough and calloused. Wrist bones and knuckles were big and prominent. Bluish veins traveled underneath his skin. I wanted to find physical proof of his injury. Was it his left hand or right? Or maybe both? I peered this way and that but saw no scars.
“Katja, do you want dessert?”
“I’m fine.” Dessert meant I would have to sit next to Mathias even longer and that was the last thing I wanted.
“You sure?” She held the pan in front of me, as if that would change my mind.
“No, no. I can’t,” I said adamantly. “I’m stuffed.”
Opa got up to go to the restroom. I took it as my window of opportunity and quickly slid out of my seat.
“I’m going outside,” I announced.
Antonia waved a hand. “Okay, dear.”
I didn’t stop to see if Mathias was getting up or even looking my way. I just needed a breather—a moment to gather my wits. I stepped out onto the balcony. It was nothing special. Two patio chairs to my left. Wind chimes hanging above me. There was no need for landscaping. Not when you lived in a town tucked between mountains. The sun had set, but the sky was a purple hue. A chilly breeze swept through and made me hug my arms to my chest.
Would that crazy, erratic feeling always be there when Mathias was around? If so, I had no idea how to combat that feeling. And to me, trying to pretend that nothing had happened, seemed to make the matter worse.
“That in love with the view?”
Mathias came up beside me, his arm brushing against my own. And for once, he didn’t jerk away from me.
I gestured to our surroundings. “Who wouldn’t be in love?”
He leaned against the railing and looked at the view. “I’ve forgotten how beautiful Garmisch is.”
“Your Oma’s right then. You need to come home more.”
“I need to hear this from you too?” He smirked.
My heart dropped down at that smirk. I shrugged and tried to look indifferent. This was a different side of Mathias. Playful. Relaxed. I found myself loving these new revelations.
“What do I know? I’m just the student.”
Mathias gave me a wary look as he pulled out a packet of cigarettes from his back pocket. Smoking shouldn’t be sexy. But Mathias made it look sexy. Every so often he took breaks during the day to go smoke. I never followed him outside, so I took this chance to really watch him. He took a drag, his eyes slightly scrunched at the sides, cheeks sucked in. I remembered those lips on mine, and how when he kissed me it felt like he was trying to kiss every part of my body.
As if he could sense my thoughts, Mathias’ head whipped in my direction. Light escaped from inside, coating his face in yellow light, making his stubble golden.
“I think we’ve gotten off to a … rough start.”
“That’s an understatement,” I murmured.
Mathias grinned. As much as I adored this relaxed side of him, I was also on edge, waiting for the serious teacher side of him to come out. “I know you think I’m hard on you on purpose.”
“Aren’t you?”
“No! Well … maybe a little. But it’s only because I see so much potential in you. If I didn’t think you had what it took, I would let you play whatever you want, whenever you wanted.” He looked me straight in the eyes. “I think you really could be extraordinary.”
His words did something to me. A riot of emotions sparked in me. I stared out into backyard.
“Danke,” I whispered.
Seconds of silence slipped by. Mathias finished his cigarette and lit another. His hands slightly shook. He was acting almost nervous. He blew a line of smoke into the crisp air and glanced at me.
“How about we start over?”
“Start over?”
“Yeah. Push aside everything that’s … happened so far and start fresh.”
His words made sense, but I couldn’t start over. As much as I wanted to, it wasn’t an option. Our time together was seared into my mind.
Mathias held his free hand out to me and quietly watched me.
I shook his hand.
Mathias was the first to break contact. He gestured toward the patio doors. “They’re going to be in there for a while, aren’t they?”
I turned my body and faced the house. My elbows were braced on the railing behind me. Our grandparents were still sitting at the table
. Somehow they looked years younger. They would laugh and re-tell stories. It made their eyes shine, and for a second, I was allowed to see what they looked like when they were my age. Mathias’ age.
I tilted my head to the side, opened my mouth, ready to tell Mathias just that. But I stopped short. I’d been so wrapped up in my thoughts that I didn’t realize how close he was standing to me. He towered over me and I loved it. He made me feel safe.
“They’ve always been like that. Whenever they get together, I’m prepared for a long night. As a kid I was always relieved when Antonia and Florian came over. I could escape to my room right after dinner.”
He chuckled lightly and then he turned to me, his eyes alight and so alive. “You make me laugh, Katinka.”
For a minute I was stunned speechless. He used my nickname, and not even that, he took a nickname that only close friends and family used for me and turned it into something private. Like he and only he could ever use it and get away with it.
“What are you thinking?” He arched a single brow and I exhaled my breath. I figured, since he’d been honest with me, I would return the favor.
“I’m thinking that I like when you call me that,” I confessed.
“Call you what?”
“Katinka,” I whispered and leaned in close. “I like when you say that.”
Look at me. I was already breaking our ‘start fresh’ agreement.
Mathias didn’t comment or pull away. He dipped his head down. There were still inches between us, but this was the closest I’d been to him in so long. Forget the energy humming around us at dinner. It was nothing compared to right now.
I absorbed everything about him. And the fleck of brown in his eyes.
The wind chimes moved in the wind, making a pretty tune. So pretty that my body started to feel like mush. They kept moving and so did Mathias. Closer, closer, closer until his breath started to mingle with mine. His pupils dilated. My breath was stuck in my throat.