At the end of the evening, I—of all people—caught the bridal bouquet. Catching it was purely a reflex. I’d deliberately placed myself several feet away from Helen’s friends with their waving, outstretched hands. I had no intention of provoking fate. But when my newly minted sister-in-law tossed her gorgeous bouquet of white-and-pink roses in a high arc behind her head, it took an unexpected swerve and would have hit the ground in front of my feet. I automatically stuck out my hand to stop it from falling—and immediately heard from all sides that it was high time I looked for a potential mate.
My big sister, who was two years married, stood by me. “Now leave Laura alone. When I was her age, I didn’t have a man to marry. And besides, she can pick up all the guys she wants in Munich. There’s a huge selection.”
Anna meant well, but I was not the type to go out on regular manhunts. I was happy to be left in peace. If I noticed someone showing interest in me, I reacted with reserve and caution. It seemed like it was always the wrong ones. I didn’t like go-getters, so I mercilessly cut off those guys who thought they were the center of the universe and that every female should grovel at their feet. But shy men who couldn’t open their mouths were just as unattractive to me. I knew exactly what I didn’t want but couldn’t, at that moment, describe my dreamboat. For the most part, I thought I was better off without a boyfriend or a husband.
I’d moved to a Munich suburb after two years’ training as a business-management assistant in a bank, and now I worked in the city and lived alone, as happy as a clam. Although I definitely wanted to have a family someday, I was in no rush to meet a man or get married. I knew from watching my sister and my married friends that marriage meant negotiating a lot of compromises. Once the kids came, it was even more difficult to find time for yourself.
For the time being, I was enjoying my freedom and autonomy, which I’d never had during my childhood and teens. Our parents had been adamant about the three of us finishing school and graduating with honors. Time outside of school was all about doing our homework and pitching in with the housework and in the stables and fields. There was always something to be done, and so I could rarely indulge myself in my hobby—reading all kinds of books. It was only during long work breaks on the john or secretly under the bedcovers by flashlight that I devoured classics like Wuthering Heights, Doctor Zhivago, and Gone with the Wind with the same passion as most girls consumed modern romances. I loved any book as long as it had a lot of drama and stirring emotions. The problem was, Anna and I shared a room, and, to my chagrin, she needed absolute darkness to be able to sleep.
So now I enjoyed all the more my freedom and the fact that I didn’t have to share my own small garret apartment with anybody. I hardly ever went out with friends. Instead, after work and on the weekends, I rode my bike, listened to music, and read for hours. I relished sinking into other worlds, feverishly taking part as a secret observer in the love, passion, and sorrow of the protagonists—and I could turn out my reading light whenever I wanted. And thanks to my knack for speculating in the stock market, I also had a nice nest egg of stocks and was making good money. Who needed a husband? As far as I was concerned, my viewpoint was completely normal for a twenty-six-year-old woman.
I finally breathed easily when I saw a small pond glimmering through the trees. I knew that in just a few more minutes I’d reach the well-paved highway. I stepped on the gas.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw shadowy movement to the left of my car. I jammed on the brakes and gripped the steering wheel to keep my car in its lane. I came to a stop near the right side of the road. A deer stood in my headlights, rigid with fear. Its narrow head and big, staring eyes were turned in my direction. I killed the motor and wondered why in the world the animal didn’t keep going to the right and into the fir thicket, where it had obviously been headed. Then it dawned on me that my headlights had probably blinded it, so I turned them off. As soon as I did, the doe’s white rump disappeared into the underbrush in two huge leaps.
It was only then that I realized I’d damn well come within a whisker of hitting a deer—and on a relatively cool May night at 1:30 a.m., in a pitch-black, eerie forest, with no cell phone reception and nobody on the road besides me.
I shuddered at the idea of lying there injured or struggling through the dark on foot if I’d escaped from a crash unscathed but the car was immobilized. My heart beat as rapidly as if I were rushing through the woods. I tried to prevent my hands and feet from trembling and rolled down my window to get some air. A few deep breaths settled me down.
Just as I was about to start my motor, I heard a deep, full roar that sounded faraway at first before it quickly grew louder. Headlights appeared in my rearview mirror, lighting up the car’s interior. I instantly realized that I was blocking part of the right-hand lane with no lights. Quick as a flash, I turned on the parking lights and heard the revving of a sports car’s engine as the driver saw my car, presumably at the last minute, swerved, and shot by me on the left. The streamlined fire-engine-red vehicle was traveling much too fast and started to fishtail. Its thin brake lights were on, but the driver couldn’t gain control. The taillights danced madly back and forth until the car snaked around the next sharp curve. After a dull bang, the obnoxious engine noise stopped, and it became disturbingly quiet.
“Oh, my God!” I muttered, and started my compact car. I drove slowly and carefully around the bend, my mind racing with crazy, mixed-up thoughts. I had caused an accident and maybe injured people. I didn’t want to think the worst. Right after the long curve—where the forest ended and transitioned to field and meadow—the road straightened out. My headlights caught the red sports car. To my horror, it was lying on its roof in the ditch, its rear end pointing toward me. I recognized the American make by its stylized logo. I parked on the shoulder some distance away, and this time I had the presence of mind to turn on my hazard lights. I ran to the scene of the accident, filled with fear at what to expect inside the overturned car.
Meanwhile, the clouds covering the night sky had moved on. The pale moonlight created a ghostly atmosphere. When I was several feet away from the car, a phantom hand pushed open the driver’s side door. I stayed still, shocked, and watched a man crawl out. He stood up and stretched himself to his full height, and then stared at the car. “What a fucking piece of shit!” he said, and then turned toward me. I was relieved. Apparently, nothing had happened to him, and judging by his actions, no one else was in the car.
My common sense warned me not to get any nearer. I figured that from his point of view I was the reason his expensive, high-horsepower toy had shot off the road, turned a somersault, and was lying upside down in the ditch. I was afraid his anger and frustration would concentrate on me, and he’d lash out. I figured anyone who could afford a car like that must not have the sense to know he was going too fast.
It occurred to me then that it was extremely reckless and a bit stupid of me, a lone woman in the Upper Bavarian wilds in the middle of the night, to leave the relative safety of my car. Given how he drove, the guy could be wasted and could become violent. And even if he were lying in the car, badly injured and unconscious, what could I have done, given my complete absence of medical knowledge? It would have been smarter to drive for a few more miles until I had cell phone reception and then call the police. I cursed the lifelong helper syndrome that had put me in this precarious predicament.
But it was too late for any of that. The injured sports-car driver jumped up onto the shoulder and walked toward me with long, energetic strides. I noted his clothes with some relief: jeans, a white shirt, and a light-colored jacket. He looked normal enough, not like a criminal or crazed ax-murderer. Of course, it’s illogical to judge a person by appearances. Take Ted Bundy, the American serial killer who raped and murdered about thirty women. According to all sources, he was an extremely good-looking, well-dressed, and charming man.
I was worried that my intact physical con
dition was hanging by a thread because the rather nice-looking man in front of me looked absolutely furious. All I could hope was that he had some self-control and that his mother had drilled into him that under no circumstances was he to hit a woman.
He stopped right in front of me, too close for my liking, and looked down accusingly—I was a good head shorter than him. I estimated he was in his late twenties. The aroma of his cinnamon-and-cedar-scented aftershave was the only pleasant thing about him at that moment. His angry eyes blazed, his lips formed a thin line, and I could tell by the way he clenched and unclenched his fists that he was absolutely beside himself. He stared at me as though I were a cockroach. Good lord! The guy looked like he was in great shape. He could knock me out with one swing if he wanted to. I was seized with the courage of desperation. Following the maxim that “offense is the best defense,” I snapped at him—sounding far spunkier than I felt—at the very moment he started to open his mouth.
“Don’t you take your anger out on me! You can thank your stupid driving for this accident. Why are you speeding around like a crazy person? This is not the Nürnburgring Grand Prix! You’re damn lucky that only your car’s damaged and not you.”
I jerked my head over toward his wrecked vehicle. A fire-engine-red Corvette didn’t look so spectacular lying on its roof, although I held my tongue about that. My surprise-attack strategy seemed to achieve the desired effect and I breathed a sigh of relief when the angry furrows on his forehead gave way to an incredulous but more composed expression. He was still mad but appeared to have gotten hold of himself enough for the threat of violence to disappear, although that didn’t keep him from getting very loud.
“Only my car’s damaged? Do you have any idea what kind of a car that is? I’d never have wound up in the ditch without your ‘assistance’! It was you and your crappy four-banger blocking the road that made me swerve. Why the hell were you standing around in the woods in the middle of the night anyway? Were you waiting for somebody to run into your clunker so you could collect the insurance? Or maybe you were waiting for customers?”
For a young man, his voice was astonishingly deep and booming. But I didn’t like the sarcastic tone or his insolent implication that I had dishonorable intentions. Now I was enraged. Was he really trying to pin the blame for his spectacular somersault on me? I interrupted him using my loudest voice.
“My car is not a clunker but an almost-new Mini Cooper! And I was on the road because I had to brake hard to miss a deer a few seconds before. Not because I’m looking for johns, or whatever it is you’re insinuating! You were going way too fast and couldn’t control your piece of crap, and that’s the only reason the thing’s lying upside down in the mud over there!”
Infuriated by his lack of guilt, I completely forgot that a few minutes ago I’d felt responsible for his accident. I continued:
“I don’t know who you are, but politeness as a virtue seems foreign to you. You’d have been better off spending your money on a few lessons in etiquette instead of a Stingray.”
Amazingly, he seemed to have calmed down. The angry spark in his eyes was gone. During my tirade he’d looked at me in disbelief and then with astonishment—and now he regarded me with interest.
He studied me the same way my father looked over a cow he was buying at the livestock fair: from my head right down to my shoeless feet. I involuntarily stretched myself up to my full five feet and five and three-quarter inches, and was glad I was wearing my elegant turquoise silk dress. I was sorry I’d left the matching high heels in my car. I slipped them off to drive, but right now I would have appreciated the extra inches. I stared him in the face defiantly.
“Are you finished checking me out? Can we figure out how to proceed so I can finally get home to bed?”
As soon as the words left my lips, I cursed myself. Why did I mention my bed in the presence of a guy who was looking me up and down like that? But he didn’t seem to notice.
“You know something?” he said, ignoring my diatribe. “You’re the first attractive woman I’ve met who can tell a Corvette from a Ferrari or a Porsche even when it’s lying on its roof.”
His expression was like a little boy’s: thrilled, enthusiastic, and happy to find an adult who understood his passion for his favorite toy. It took me a moment to understand what he was saying, but then I had to laugh. My uneasiness toward him vanished. Admittedly, I was flattered by the word attractive. I would call myself that only on the rarest of days; when I looked in a mirror, it was the negative things that struck me first. But mainly it was that once the Corvette fan was no longer snarling at me, I realized how good-looking he was. He had attractive laugh lines around his eyes; a straight, almost aristocratic nose; a casual three-day beard; and nicely curved lips. He ran his hand through his short, neatly cut dark-blond hair. He looked embarrassed.
“I’ve got to call a tow truck or something. I’ll never get out of this ditch on my own. And you’re right—I definitely was going too fast. I didn’t think anybody would be out here in the sticks. I’m heading home to Munich from a party at the Prien Yacht Club. I’m dog-tired and just wanted to get home quick. I missed the sign for the autobahn and wound up in this godforsaken place, and I wanted to escape as fast as possible. That’s why I gave my car the gun. It was really dumb of me. I never even thought about a deer crossing.” He cleared his throat. “You may have saved me from having a worse accident.”
As he spoke, my unconscious mind stuck on hearing him say “yacht club.” This, along with the thought of his sports car, immediately created a picture in my brain: rich snot-nose. Still, maybe he was a nice snot-nose. I explained he would have trouble finding somebody to get his car to a garage tonight. I suggested taking him to Munich so he could recover his car the next day in daylight.
“Provided, of course, that it’s not beneath your dignity to be chauffeured in my pathetic four-banger,” I said.
“My apologies for that, too.” He put out his hand and actually had the decency to look contrite. “By the way, I’m Nick and I normally behave considerably better—pretty much anytime my car isn’t on its back.”
“Laura,” I said, noting that he’d taken us straight to a first-name basis. I reciprocated his firm handshake and accepted his apology.
After he crawled back into the Corvette to turn off the headlights and remove the ignition key, we were finally on the way home. He suggested I just drop him off where I lived, in Haar near Munich. He’d take a taxi the rest of the way into the Inner City. He didn’t tell me where he lived, and I didn’t ask because I didn’t want to appear curious. It was none of my business anyway.
He was interested in where I got my profound knowledge of sports cars, so I told him about my school buddy Moritz, whose father had a large auto-repair business between Chieming and Grabenstatt, where he repaired and restored antique and high-end American cars. His business was known only to insiders and his clientele from all around Munich, and it ran like clockwork. Moritz and I often used to bike there after school. The shop fascinated me. I loved the smell of oil and rubber, and I enjoyed looking at the wheels and other parts around the shop. Moritz taught me all the makes and their features. Nowadays, Moritz ran the shop with his father and made a mint.
Although I didn’t provide my passenger with this part of the story, the full truth was that Moritz had wanted to marry me after we left school. In hindsight, I suppose it was mainly because of my weakness for the shop. After graduating, however, my enthusiasm for exotic cars slacked off, and Moritz, with his thickset figure, coarse face, and stubbly reddish-blond hair, did not match my ideal image of a future husband, despite his nice, uncomplicated manner.
That’s why I gently refused his beery proposal at the graduation dance (“Laura, think you ’n’ me, the two of us, make good team, wanna marry me? Ya can drive one o’ them Ami-wheels now ’n’ then.”) Fortunately, Moritz kept his heartache over my rejection in check. At t
he class reunion the year before, I’d heard he was still a bachelor and changed girlfriends constantly.
I gave Nick the name and address of Moritz’s shop and assured him in all good conscience that his Corvette would be in great hands there. He seemed enthusiastic about the tip, and the longer he sat beside me, the more agreeable I found him. For a guy, he was a surprisingly good listener. I had the sense he was actually interested in what I had to say. His earlier anger had yielded to an irresistible charm. He had the sort of presence that few people possess. I imagined that when he entered a room, everyone’s eyes went to him. From the passenger seat, he looked at me steadily, smiling and laughing a lot. At the same time, he didn’t monopolize the conversation, but asked me countless questions and seemed to inhale my answers. Before I could catch myself, he knew nearly everything about my childhood on the farm, my parents and siblings, and my brother’s wedding. He’d spontaneously switched to the personal form of address, and since we seemed to be only a few years apart in age, it seemed the natural thing to do.
“I envy you your large family, Laura. I’ve no brothers or sisters, and I’ve always been very sad about it. When you’re an only child, your parents are constantly watching you. I always had the feeling I couldn’t disappoint them. I suppose that’s why I’m so ambitious. I always want to be the best at everything.”
“And the fastest, judging by your car and driving style.” I couldn’t resist the dig, which produced another slightly embarrassed smile.
“I’ve only had the car for six months. A childhood dream, ever since Dad gave me a red Matchbox Corvette for my fifth birthday. Now I’ve bought myself the real thing.”
I was just able to suppress a smug grin. Bought—I’m sure! I would bet money the adult version of the little-boy’s toy was also sponsored by Daddy. Nick didn’t give the impression he was a member of the working populace. It would have been the perfect time to quiz him, to find out more about him, but before I had the chance we’d reached the roadside sign for Haar, where the taxi Nick had ordered on his cell was waiting. I pulled over and Nick got out.
November Sky Page 2