by May, Lana N.
Thomas woke up with a major hangover. He searched for an aspirin or something even stronger. Clarissa was coming home tonight. She’s going to freak out if she sees the apartment in shambles, he thought. He chased an Advil with a full glass of water, then filled an ice pack with ice cubes in the shape of little hearts and put it on his forehead. The ice hearts were leftovers from their last party and were intended for cocktails, but Thomas had no desire to drink anything but water in the near future—not after last night. So he decided to sacrifice the little ice hearts for the sake of his headache. He immediately plopped on the couch and fell asleep within ten minutes. He was awakened a few hours later with, “Honey, I’m home,” followed by a hysterical cry of, “What kind of a wreck is this? Really, Thomas, what the hell? I come home and everything is filthy. What is the meaning of this?”
At first, Thomas didn’t know what was happening. His ice pack had melted on his forehead and the headache was better, but the dizziness was worse. Where was he? At first, he thought he was dreaming; then as he woke up, it dawned on him. Clarissa was shaking him to get him up.
“Hey, honey, calm down, please,” he croaked.
“Calm down? Look at this mess! I get home completely exhausted from work, and you’re passed out on the couch! What the hell?” She threw some of his clothes, which were strewn around the room, in the air. “Where were you last night?”
Thomas let her rant and rave. He had no desire to justify himself right now. She would settle down soon. When things didn’t go exactly the way she wanted and she got like this, he didn’t say anything, just looked at her silently. That strategy was enough to make Clarissa disappear into the bedroom, where she unpacked her extra-large pink hard-shell suitcase. After a while, Thomas went to her, took her hand tenderly, kissed her neck, and then laid her on the bed. It was makeup sex, hot makeup sex, and dramatically improved Thomas’s hangover. Sex like this sure beats an aspirin or Advil or anything else, he thought as he lay next to her twenty minutes later.
7
Johanna decided she wanted to find a job. The problem was that she didn’t know what she was looking for, exactly. In the glow of this initial job-hunting excitement, though, she hoped that something appropriate would just fall into her lap.
Johanna took a walk through the park; it was a perfect autumn day. The sun broke through the orange and yellow leaves of the maple trees. The rays gently caressed the by-now pale skin of folks enjoying a walk; the sun’s power was no longer sufficient to tan, but it left a feeling of warmth and happiness in people’s souls as it found them. As if protecting a secret, fluffy cumulous clouds attempted to shroud the sun’s rays.
Johanna contentedly settled down on a bench and watched children play. She thought about Daniel. He had beautiful green eyes. The color reminded her of the Andalusian seaside, where she had vacationed with her parents and her brother. Dreaming of Daniel’s green eyes, she found herself thinking about the carefree holidays she’d spent with her family as a child, and suddenly she started to cry. She missed her parents, and for the first time in a long time, she admitted it to herself. Admitting it felt good. She didn’t feel more vulnerable. No, she could allow herself to miss something worth missing. Johanna knew then that it was time to get therapy, because she wouldn’t be able to heal the old, deep wounds by herself. The loss of her parents had isolated her, both physically and mentally. Johanna shuffled fallen leaves back and forth with her feet. Tears continued to fill her eyes and roll down her cheeks.
Thomas was angry.
“Why couldn’t you do it right the first time?” he raged at one of his employees. “Now we have to do it all over again. This is bullshit!” he yelled. He dropped into his office chair with annoyance. “Please, leave my office! We’ll talk about this later,” he said, trying to calm himself. He had to put on the brakes, otherwise the employee would have left the building crying. He was pissed off that he was already snowed under and had absolutely no time to correct work that was supposed to be finished already. The software interface his employee had submitted was abysmal. It wasn’t user-friendly at all. He’d have to redo the whole project, which meant that he wouldn’t be able to get anything else done for the next few days at least. It also made him realize he’d have to monitor the team better. He called a meeting.
Johanna looked at want ads in the newspaper and started circling suitable jobs with a pencil. The first two columns went unmarked, as did the third, but on the fourth, she spotted something interesting: “Temp wanted in the recreational kitchen! We are looking for a young person with a passion for cooking. Culinary training not required, but cooking ambition definitely is. Hobby cooks welcome.” Johanna read it a second time, excited by the idea of working in a kitchen. She knew that she wasn’t a professional cook, and the term “hobby cook” didn’t really apply to someone who’d barely had the desire to boil water for herself for years, but she took a liking to the idea and decided to give it a shot. The only contact information in the ad was a phone number. She didn’t own a smartphone, so she got on her brother’s computer to Google the kitchen. There wasn’t much information available, and it took all her courage—and she didn’t have much to begin with—to dial the number in the ad.
“Cooking school, Geyer speaking,” volunteered a lady with a deep, smoky voice.
“Good day, Johanna Stern here.”
“Hello, Ms. Stern, what can I do for you?”
“I . . . I read your ad and would like to apply for the job as a kitchen temp.”
“Do you have experience in the kitchen?”
“Actually, yes.” Her answer was wide open to interpretation.
“Okay, come tomorrow afternoon at three. Thank you!” said the lady with the smoky voice, who then hung up.
It had all happened so quickly that it made Johanna’s head spin. She was slightly puzzled as she put her phone away. Wham, bam, thank you, ma’am, she thought, and wrote a note—three o’clock, October 15—as if she’d be able to forget her only appointment.
Everyone made it out of the team meeting relatively unscathed. Thomas had calmed down from his initial tantrum and approached the problem calmly and objectively. The solution was simple, if somewhat unpleasant for all involved. There was a lot of work to be done, and that would mean late hours for the entire team, but no one dared to complain.
Thomas went back into his office and closed his laptop. He wanted to get outside; he needed fresh air and wanted to cool off. He called Clarissa and made plans to meet for lunch.
“You can’t imagine what’s going down at the agency,” Clarissa said as she tried to peel the shells off her shrimp. “First, he promised the job to Trudy, then it went to Stefanie, and now he wants me to take it. I mean, it would be a great opportunity, but it means I would hardly be home with you for the next few weeks, sweetheart,” she said excitedly as she weighed Thomas’s reaction to her last few words. She noticed that he wasn’t paying attention to her at all. “Thomas, I’m talking to you! Where are you?” she asked as she rolled her big beautiful eyes and gesticulated wildly with her fork.
“Sorry, honey. The office today is a total disaster because—” Thomas began, but Clarissa interrupted him and went on with her ever-so-important once-in-a-lifetime-modeling-opportunity story. He knew it was impossible to get a word in edgewise when she was like this, even if the building were on fire.
“Well, if I get the assignment, I’ll definitely do it,” she said as she stabbed the shrimp with gusto. “Damn it, my noodles aren’t al dente,” Clarissa fumed, then offered her fork to Thomas so he could enjoy them.
Thomas declined politely and continued to eat his lasagna. It was delicious.
“We have our cooking class soon,” he said.
“Oh, yeah, right . . . ,” sighed Clarissa. “You really want to go?”
“Of course, Clarissa. Those evenings are a lot of fun, and we already paid for them. We hardly do anything
together!”
“That’s not true. We do a lot of stuff together,” Clarissa purred as she threw Thomas a furtive glance, then reached under the table and stroked his thigh seductively.
Thomas nodded as he pushed her hand away, observing that Clarissa had a very different idea of togetherness. He wanted to share interests with her. Usually, it was the woman who tried to establish a common hobby with her man. But Thomas was different than most men. He knew common interests and hobbies were crucial ingredients for a happy long-term relationship. In the beginning, their relationship had been considerably happier; they did things together, they laughed, they lived life to the fullest. But since Clarissa’s career had taken off, everything had changed. Now, Clarissa spent what little time they had together these days bragging endlessly about her modeling ability as Thomas listened patiently and sometimes absentmindedly.
After spewing some more mindless drivel, mostly about herself, Clarissa said good-bye and rushed off to get to her manicure appointment, though Thomas would have really liked to talk to her about his miserable day. As Clarissa left, he looked at her shapely butt. She’s right, the sex is really good, he thought, and then forgot about everything else.
Johanna couldn’t sleep, unable to stop the thoughts whirling through her mind. The ideas came out of nowhere, and she alternated between being joyful and worried. Sometimes, her thoughts were dim and vague, other times, they were perfectly clear. The upcoming interview worried her. Then thoughts of Daniel crept into her brain. He had beautiful green eyes and dimples when he laughed. What if she wasn’t right for the job? What if the other candidates were better? What if Daniel never called her? What if she was sent away due to her lack of experience? What if the lady from the cooking school was mean? Johanna’s brain sped down the proverbial neural superhighway, her thoughts crashing and burning, her heart pounding crazily.
She got up and went into the kitchen to fix herself some warm milk with honey, the soothing secret recipe that she’d gotten from her grandmother, one to which she remained ever faithful. You can always count on warm milk and honey, Johanna thought, recalling her grandmother’s advice.
“Things will be better in the morning,” she said to herself as she put the cup in the microwave. Suddenly, Martin stood in the doorway, wide-awake; he’d heard his sister rummaging around in the kitchen.
“Hey, what’s going on?” he asked.
As Johanna paced up and down the kitchen floor, she told him about her job interview. Martin smiled.
“Hey, it’s just an interview, not the end of the world. And it won’t be the last interview that you’ll have.”
Martin was so sensible. What’s more, he was right. Why was she making such a big deal out of it? She was well prepared, having researched the cooking school to find out how many employees Ms. Geyer had, when the school was first established, which products they preferred, and what public relations and marketing firms they used. Yes, she’d been extremely thorough. She probably knew more about the place than the staff did. Reassured, she went back to bed. After her thoughts finally settled, she fell asleep around two o’clock.
8
It got light out around seven. Low, gray clouds hung over the city, and the leaves were falling, covering the ground with color. Office workers frantically stumbled down the street, and streetcars rattled over their tracks. City buses tried to stay on schedule, despite rush-hour traffic jams. Thomas drank his morning coffee—a caffe latte—as he stood and looked out the window. After breakfast, he mostly drank espresso—or actually, multiple espressos—but first thing in the morning, he had to drink a lighter, less bitter coffee. He had worked late into the night, so he made himself a second latte, stretched a little, and did some sit-ups—238, to be exact. Then he put on his running shoes.
Even though Thomas often ran during breaks at work, he especially loved to run in the morning. He liked to rise at dawn so he could see the city wake up. Paradoxical as it may sound, watching his fair city rousing itself for a busy day helped him relax. He ran easily through the streets, listening to his favorite music as he considered the city’s feverish pace. Then he headed home along the quiet riverbanks, a stark contrast to downtown’s hustle and bustle.
Lunchtime was precisely at noon—no sooner, no later. Johanna loved order and schedules; they helped to calm her, especially since she was rather nervous now. At one o’clock, she was even more nervous; at two, she began to pace the floor of her brother’s apartment again. She tried on, and took off, five different pairs of pants; she changed her top seven times. In just a few minutes, she tried on her entire wardrobe. Thanks to Linda, her tiny closet was better stocked than ever before, but it was still less than half full. She finally chose brown velvet trousers and a white silk blouse. She looked very sleek, slightly older, and competent, but unfortunately, her outfit wasn’t very kitchen friendly, a fact she failed to notice. She made her way to the cooking school.
“Hello, my name is Ms. Stern, and I have an appointment for an interview today,” she said, attempting to appear confident as she greeted the receptionist.
“Hello, Ms. Stern. Come on in,” the receptionist said, her accent immediately revealing that she was from Germany. Just as Johanna recognized her nationality, the German receptionist scrutinized Johanna’s pristine brown velvet pants and white silk blouse.
“You’ll have to cook something today,” the receptionist said, her look telegraphing that Johanna would never get the job in what she was wearing. The two would not become the best of friends; of that, Johanna was quite sure.
She followed the receptionist into the large kitchen. Seven other women and men were already there, all dressed in street clothes, but none as elegantly attired as Johanna. She looked pretty—too pretty for cooking. The applicants gathered in the kitchen; one of them looked confusingly similar to Jamie Oliver. At that, Johanna saw her chances dwindle to zero. She would have preferred to turn around and run away, knowing that she really had no cooking skills to speak of; she could cook about as well as she could build a bomb, and she had no doubt she would fail Bomb Building for Dummies. What was she doing here? Her resume showed little in terms of actual cooking; she wasn’t even a passionate eater.
Suddenly, the door opened. A robust-looking older woman burst in like a whirlwind, glided across the room, and greeted everyone warmly. She was obviously proud of “my cooking school.” Johanna recognized the voice from the telephone. She must be the head chef.
“I’m quite pleased that you all have come to apply for the job. First, we’ll test your cooking skills, then we’ll choose two finalists in order to get to know you better. My assistant will now explain exactly what the job entails.”
Applicants were divided into two teams. Each team stood in front of their respective prep tables, on which ingredients were laid out. Johanna looked desperately at the kitchen counters. Before her were ingredients that didn’t go together at all. How was she supposed to create something tasty from all this? Less than two minutes later, everyone was assigned a partner. Johanna’s co-cook was a young man named Jörg, a biology student.
“Well, if I’d known that we had to cook, I would have stayed home. I’m not into this at all,” Jörg sulked.
He gazed wistfully at the door like a homeless dog. Well, great, now Johanna had to work with this jerk. The job clearly wasn’t very important to him, and it was obvious he would have preferred to stay in bed. The biology student chattered like he was in a fast-talking contest. He was—how to say it politely?—an idiot. There wasn’t a less insulting word for him.
Everyone got a chef’s jacket and then had to disinfect their hands. The pairs were given ninety minutes to concoct the tastiest dish of their lives, one that wouldn’t immediately attract the attention of the European Food Safety Authority. Johanna wanted to hide behind the dishwasher. Jörg, however, picked up an egg and regaled his cooking partner with ten negative facts about factory-farmed eggs
and the impact that these unfortunate hens had on the human psyche, explaining that vegans are much better off but, of course, he couldn’t be a vegan because he loved his fat aunt’s Wiener schnitzel more than anything else in the world, and if he could, he wouldn’t eat anything at all so that he could save countless animals from suffering and save money. Jörg also said that there were people who lived on sunshine alone; he saw a report on it on the local television station’s evening news, but of course, this was yet to be proven scientifically. As a student, he was as poor as a church mouse. He capped his long-winded remarks by setting the egg down on the kitchen counter top again.
Johanna didn’t know what to do with him. She would have liked to grab that egg and stuff it in his big fat mouth, but she was too timid—plus, she was supposed to be conjuring up a brilliant culinary creation. She waited for enlightenment; her subconscious couldn’t cough up even one decent idea. It seemed her creativity was taking a little afternoon nap today. The chef and her assistant circled the teams, making notes. As Jörg continued to philosophize about humanity being on the brink of extinction and his longing for the end of the cold, corrupt world, Johanna began to throw together some ingredients. She had no precise plan but knew she needed to do something.
“You, uh, what’s your name again?” Jörg wanted to know.
“Johanna,” she said as she grabbed the baking dish.
“Johanna, what we’re doing here has nothing to do with us; we should dedicate ourselves to our ideologies,” said the biology student as he popped a peanut into his mouth.
She looked at him irritably. The ingredients she had grabbed didn’t fit together at all, but the colorful combination looked nice in the baking dish.
“Um, nobody’s going to be able to eat that mess,” Jörg said as he scrunched up his face. “Well, at least you came up with something!”