Falling

by Simona Ahrnstedt

  More red streaks had appeared on her throat. Her skin was almost translucent, white like silk or cream, dotted with golden freckles.

  “So the reason you’re here now, yelling at me—”

  “I’m not yelling,” she interrupted.

  “The reason for this conversation is, you said something mean, I got offended, cut off the donations to your life-saving organization, and thus caused mass mortality among children in Africa?” he summarized.

  “Not Africa. Chad.”

  “Is that where you were headed when we ran into each other at the airport?”

  “Yes.”

  “You said Africa then,” he pointed out.

  “I didn’t think you would know where Chad was,” she replied sullenly.

  “Hmm.”

  Most of what she was saying sounded completely unfamiliar, but what did he know? He’d been drunk pretty much 24/7 for a long time. Many things from the past six months were hazy.

  “Medpax does such incredibly important work in Chad. But we’re a small organization, and that means we’re vulnerable. I’m really sorry if I offended you. I’d love to show you the work we do.” She started pulling more files from her canvas bag, and Alexander held up his hand to stop her.

  “Please,” he groaned. “No more papers.”

  She stopped what she was doing and gave him a stiff smile.

  “Will you at least think about what I said?”

  “Absolutely.”

  She gave him a distrustful look. “It’s really important.”

  “I said I would,” he snapped.

  Maybe it was because he had spent the morning being held in contempt by four men whose families he probably bankrolled. Maybe it was just that he wasn’t used to women like Isobel. But his head was spinning, and he was starting to get sick of all this hostility.

  He hadn’t come back to Stockholm to be insulted by people he hadn’t mistreated. At least not intentionally, anyway.

  “Medpax has started a number of vaccination programs. We’re doing incredibly important work—with malaria, with undernourishment. We’ve—”

  “Isobel, I will,” he interrupted. If he had to listen to another word about dying children and heroic doctors, he was going to explode.

  “Because this isn’t just some little hobby project. Our doctors make a real difference. You have to realize that . . .”

  Alexander straightened in his seat. He laid a hand on the table and looked at Isobel. “The thing is, I don’t have to do anything.”

  He still wasn’t quite sure what all this was about. He was still drunk, for Christ’s sake, but he understood enough to know that this artificially polite doctor probably wanted a shitload of money from him. “I’ll look into it, as I’ve already said several times.” He wanted to add something about how fund-raisers generally didn’t show such clear contempt for people they were trying to get money from, but he didn’t have the energy.

  “All the same, I think that—” she started.

  “Enough,” he said curtly, getting to his feet and blinking with dizziness. He probably should eat something. “I’ll call you,” he told her as firmly as he could.

  She looked as if she wanted to say something else, but she started to gather her papers together instead. She put them into her faded bag and got up.

  “Thanks for your time,” she said, holding out her hand again.

  Alexander took it and gave it a firm shake, but then had the most bizarre impulse to pull her hand to his mouth and kiss it. He made do just looking down at their joined hands. She had long fingers, trimmed nails, no jewelry. Competent doctor’s hands.

  “I’ll call you,” he repeated.

  She withdrew and headed for the door with the threadbare bag slung over her shoulder. Her Windbreaker rustled faintly.

  He hurried over to open the door for her.

  She gave him a long look, and even though she said nothing, he could tell from her gray eyes, the same color as a sunless November day, that her already low impression of him had sunk even further after their meeting. For some reason, this bothered him.

  “Bye, Isobel,” he said softly.

  She disappeared without a word, and his gaze lingered on the door for a long while.

  Chapter 4

  As Isobel met with patients and wrote up case histories the next day, she couldn’t shake the feeling that she had completely mishandled the meeting with Alexander De la Grip. No matter how hard she worked, she couldn’t escape the fact she had blown it with the foundation. Big time.

  How was that even possible, she asked herself as she took blood pressures and wrote out prescriptions for stomach ulcers. She, who was known for her adaptability and her cool-headedness. She, the doctor whom the most hysterical and demanding patients were sent to. The one who calmed down agitated nurses and frantic field workers. Who gave lectures on the importance of social skills to medical students. She had marched up to Alexander De la Grip and acted like an overwrought teenager. In his office. In the exclusive headquarters of the foundation Medpax relied on for its survival.

  What was the word she was looking for?

  Right. Stupid.

  But she had become unexpectedly nervous. Alexander was so striking it was virtually impossible to take in. No man had the right to look that good; it was verging on unnatural. Despite the messy blond hair, scruffy stubble, and crumpled clothes, he had been so attractive that she’d had trouble looking at him without blushing. In addition to that, Alexander De la Grip was both aristocratic and rich. And not just ordinary rich, but rich rich. Not that she had ever believed life was fair, but come on. How could it be that unfair? The final straw had been his bloodshot eyes and the fact that he reeked of alcohol. He’d had the nerve to stand there in his office, people swarming around him, and look as though he hadn’t done anything but party this past week—all while she was fighting for Medpax’s survival. It was just too much. And so she had allowed herself to be affected by things she shouldn’t have cared about, let petty feelings shape her reaction, and it had been a disaster. Isobel closed the door, picked up the phone, and called Leila.

  “Has Alexander De la Grip called you?” she asked when Leila answered.

  “No. Should he have?”

  Isobel leaned back and put her feet up on the desk. She had at least eight, maybe more, patients still to see, but she decided she had time for one quick call. “I had a go at him yesterday. I probably insulted him. Again. So no, I don’t think so.”

  “I see. How are you today, then?”

  “I’m a nutcase. What’s wrong with me? Feel free to analyze me.”

  Leila snorted. “I don’t need to analyze you, because it’s not hard to figure you out. You were probably an overachiever while you were still in the womb. You’re always worried about being a fake. Everyone you meet admires you, but you don’t realize that yourself because you’re constantly trying to work out how to get your self-centered mother and dead father to be proud of you. Did I forget anything?”

  Isobel closed her eyes, unsure of whether it had been a really good or a really bad idea to call Leila. “Nope, that was pretty . . . exhaustive,” she replied meekly.

  “You’re the one everyone wants on their team, Isobel.” Leila’s voice was kind.

  “But I made a fool of myself.”

  “Yes. Welcome to the real world, where people sometimes make fools of themselves. Let it go.”

  “What kind of psychobabble is that? It’s not that freaking easy to just let it go.”

  “No, but you don’t want things to be easy. There you go, that one’s on me.”

  * * *

  Isobel brought in her next patient, a PR consultant she saw regularly for insomnia and a slipped disk. She refrained from telling him that he might sleep better if he stopped cheating on his wife, just gave him a prescription for painkillers and a follow-up appointment as far in the future as she could. After that, she listened to a stressed journalist who complained about a “kinda sore t
hroat,” but who also had a sky-high temperature. Isobel knew it was scarlet fever even before the lab results came back and confirmed it. When she finally looked up at the clock, it was already three, and she decided to skip the staff coffee break and shut herself in her room instead. She ate crackers with orange marmalade in front of her computer, Googling “Alexander De la Grip + images.” He had seemed more muscular now than when she had last seen him, this past summer, and he had been big even then. Tall, much taller than she, and she was used to looking down at most men she met; during her youth, she always had to fight the urge to stoop.

  “Stand up straight, Isobel.”

  “You’re so tall. Do you play basketball?”

  “Why are your pants always too short, Isobel?”

  What did it matter if he was tall? But it mattered. Big, tall men were attractive. She was used to judging a person’s measurements without asking any direct questions; with a glance she could determine what they weighed and how tall they were. Alexander had to be at least six foot five and weigh somewhere between two hundred thirty and two hundred forty pounds—wide shoulders, a muscular neck, tight abs. She scrolled through the pictures, spotted the famous one in which he was half-naked and covered in oil, with two naked women at his feet, and compared it with the most recent one she could find, as well as with her own memory. He must have done something. Joined a gym, maybe? She brushed the crumbs into the trash basket, closed the browser, and called her next patient in.

  * * *

  Once Isobel had dealt with the last of her patients, she put on her helmet and cycled home. A group of field workers were meeting for a beer in Södermalm that evening, but she had mixed feelings about going. She should probably join them. It wasn’t good for her to isolate herself, she knew that. Tomorrow, she told herself. I’ll deal with things tomorrow.

  She ate a microwaved meal in front of the TV, read an article on malaria in a medical journal, and drank red tea.

  Tomorrow, she thought again as she lay in bed, exhausted but still sleepless. Tomorrow I’ll fix it all, become a better person. She closed her eyes, but it was no use. Sleep would not come, no matter how tired she felt. She stared into the darkness. That small, hungry face came to her again, as it so often did. Marius. She missed him. A street urchin who had no one. A starving, lonely child, trying to survive on his own in one of the poorest countries in the world. When he had arrived at the hospital last fall he had been lifeless. Hovering between life and death for a week. Weighing too little, coughing too much. Was he still alive? Well?

  Ah, but this dithering was madness; she knew what she should do. What she wanted. She glanced at the clock, picked up her cell, and sent a message to Leila.

  Made up my mind. Going to Chad.

  The psychologist didn’t reply.

  Probably because she had a life.

  Isobel lay on her side, looking out the window. Several hours passed before she fell into a restless sleep.

  Chapter 5

  Gina Adan tied a white apron around her waist as she silently counted the glasses on the silver tray—tall, crystal flutes filled with champagne on top of solid antique silver. It would be heavy. She was strong but knew she couldn’t take too many at once.

  She glanced out the window. Spring sunshine was beaming down on Gyllgarn Castle. The daffodils were in full bloom along its yellow walls, and the lawn was covered with small groups of guests here for the christening—men in suits and women in high heels and silky dresses. Inside the castle, vases and pots were filled with flowers, and every surface had been cleaned and polished. Gina smoothed the apron. She loved this castle and its ancient history, its furniture, knickknacks, and not least its paintings of stern noblemen and velvet-clad women from the past three hundred years, peering down at her wherever she went. It was Swedish, exotic, and as far from where she had grown up as you could get. There were very few castles in Somalia.

  Gina had worked jobs like this since she was sixteen. That meant that for the past six years, she had worked on the fringes of the Swedish upper class, serving them at christenings, graduations, and weddings, cleaning their enormous villas in posh Djursholm and their grand apartments in even posher Östermalm in the city. She didn’t mind. For the most part, they paid well, and she liked the flexible hours. Sure, men sometimes accosted her, made slimy propositions or comments about her skin color, and some of the women could be really nasty, but that was her life, and it wasn’t any worse among the elite than anywhere else.

  Gina rubbed at a mark on the silver and then picked up the tray. But she had seriously misjudged the weight, and when one of the filled glasses started to slide, her heart leaped into her throat. The crystal glasses were heirlooms and the champagne was very expensive.

  She cursed, picturing the entire tray falling to the floor before her, but a pair of strong hands reached out and saved her at the last moment.

  “Thanks,” she said, relieved. A lazy smile met her gaze, and it was as though the sun had just started to shine straight into the kitchen.

  “Hi there,” said Alexander De la Grip. He held the heavy tray steady for her. “That was about to end badly. Lucky I turned up.”

  “Hi,” Gina said, returning the smile because it was impossible to do anything else when Alexander beamed at you.

  “It’s been a while,” she continued, taking the tray back from him. She hadn’t seen Alexander since the summer before. He looked well. Though he always did.

  “No, I haven’t been in Sweden since last fall.”

  His words were distinct and his appearance immaculate, but she couldn’t help noting that he already looked quite inebriated.

  “Too busy partying?” She tried to remember how many newspapers she had seen him in over the past six months but gave up at ten.

  “It’s a hard job, but someone’s gotta be the black sheep of the family,” he said, holding the door open for her. When she looked closer, there was a haunted look on his beautiful face, a familiar sight at family gatherings, even if he mostly managed to hide it.

  “And how is Sweden’s most beautiful champagne waitress?” he asked, the haunted look gone and in its stead another million-dollar smile.

  “I’m pretty good.”

  “Let me know if there’s anything else I can help with,” he said. “Hold open more doors, catch more trays.” He winked. “I have endless suggestions.”

  “Mmm,” she said with a suspicious look. Alexander always flirted with her. But he did the same with everyone, which was actually quite egalitarian.

  She snuck past him and went out to work, leaving him to his own devices.

  The thirsty guests quickly cleared the tray, and Gina began to pick up empty glasses while she took quick peeks at the glamorous party-goers before heading back to the kitchen to swap the used glasses for fresh ones, pour out more champagne, and restart the service.

  When she stepped outside again, Alexander’s older brother, Count Peter De la Grip, approached alone across the grass. Gina hesitated. She didn’t like Peter and would have preferred to avoid him altogether, but since he was headed straight toward her, she forced herself to hold out the tray and give him a polite smile.

  “Hello,” he said as he took a glass. He thanked her and then stood silently beside her. Gina didn’t know what to do; it felt impolite to just leave. But to her, Peter De la Grip was the archetypal aristocrat: arrogant, convinced of his own superiority and others’ inferiority. She glanced at him, standing next to her with a glass in his hand and his gaze fixed in the air. None of the other guests came over to him. He looked different, she realized. He had lost weight since she’d last seen him, which must have been that morning last year, the morning of the infamous shareholders’ meeting where the De la Grips lost their controlling ownership of Investum, the family firm. That had been surreal, even for her, and she wasn’t affected personally. Peter probably hadn’t had an easy time of it this past year, she would give him that. And this castle, she suddenly realized, it had been his. Peter
and his nasty wife had lived here at Gyllgarn like a king and queen. But then he had lost it in the same takeover, his wife had filed for a divorce, and now . . . Gina realized that she had no idea what Peter De la Grip did these days. He had completely disappeared from her radar. She stood silently next to him, her weight on one foot, and wondered whether he would notice if she snuck away.

  Peter sighed loudly and turned to her. He looked tired. He put the glass back on the tray.

  “Thanks,” he said. “That was good.” As he walked away across the grass, it seemed as though people averted their eyes and turned their backs. Gina glanced at the flute he had set back on the tray. It was still full.

  * * *

  Alexander studied Gina’s progress from the corner of his eye as he talked to a countess with whom he had attended boarding school. The countess was pretty, but Gina was incredibly beautiful. Long, slim limbs. Cheekbones any model would kill for. If Gina didn’t work for his family, then . . . Automatically he flashed the countess a bedroom smile and continued to let his thoughts wander. Gina had been talking to Peter, and that troubled him. It was one thing to flirt with Gina himself, because he would never actually cross the line with someone in a dependent position. But with Peter you never knew. Alexander exhaled only after Peter left Gina’s side.

  The countess looked puzzled, and Alexander gave her an apologetic look. He hadn’t realized how ready he was to throw himself at his big brother if he set a foot even slightly wrong. They hadn’t seen one another since the board meeting when Peter unexpectedly—no, shockingly—had voted against their father and sealed the deal on the De la Grip family finally losing control of Investum. They hadn’t spoken since, which suited Alexander fine. There were a lot of people he disliked or despised, but Peter had his own special position in the People I Despise category. The countess moved on, and Alexander watched as Peter was swallowed up by the crowd. With a bit of luck, he could avoid his big brother today, and ideally for the rest of his life.

  “Alexander!”