Round Robin

by Joseph Flynn

  Yeah, right.

  She wondered if they’d heard her moving around, or if she could pretend she was still asleep. Robin suddenly felt crowded and wasn’t at all sure she wanted company. The little knock came again, and then she thought she heard Manfred whisper something about schlafen langer or something like that, recognizing the German word for sleep. So maybe she’d had them fooled after all.

  Bianca said something that Robin didn’t understand, but her tone was clear. We tried, she’s not interested, let’s beat it, okay? Out of sheer perversity, Robin went to the door. Of course, that wasn’t what she told herself. No, she’d just decided that she had to check out this new pastry she might soon be serving to her customers.

  She opened the door just as Manfred was bending over to leave the plate of pastry on her doorstep. He looked up, saw her, straightened and gave her his nod.

  “Good morning,” he said.

  He handed the plate to Bianca and gave her a gentle nudge.

  “Gut morgen,” the girl said, handing the plate to Robin, and giving her father a look over her shoulder.

  “Cherry tarts,” Manfred said.

  Robin had known that before she’d opened the door; drawing close the smell had become unmistakable. Now, though, she was more interested in what Manfred had done with the kid. The black leather jacket was gone, as was the gold safety pin from her ear. The holes in the knees of her jeans were neatly stitched and the “Eat Me” t-shirt had been laundered and turned inside out. The kid’s hair was still blue but it had been thoroughly shampooed and combed flat and back with a part on the left side. Just like a boy’s, Robin thought. Manfred must have missed hairdressing school. She noticed that Bianca’s roots, chestnut brown, were starting to grow out.

  Manfred’s index finger was neatly bandaged.

  “Good morning,” Robin said. “Thank you for the tarts.”

  An awkward silence ensued as they all stood there for the next several moments trying to decide who should say what to whom. Then Manfred took Bianca’s hand, gave Robin another nod and started to leave.

  Again, out of perversity, or for some other reason she couldn’t fathom, Robin took the initiative. “Have you had breakfast?”

  “No,” Manfred said, “we are just now —”

  “Come on in,” Robin suggested. “I’ll cook. You’ve done enough for one morning.”

  Bianca didn’t exactly skip inside. But she didn’t complain aloud, either. She was a model prisoner quietly serving her time, giving the warden no excuse to extend her sentence. She sat at the kitchen table between her father’s place and Robin’s and awaited the French toast she’d chosen from the list of possibilities Robin had offered. Manfred preferred scrambled eggs, as many as Robin cared to fix, crisp bacon and a toasted English muffin with raspberry preserves. When he saw that Robin intended only one soft-boiled egg for herself, he told her to eat more if she wanted, he would help her turn her food into healthy muscle.

  It struck her as oddly threatening that a man would tell her to eat as much as she liked. She’d used her size, her obesity, as a barrier against unwanted male attention. Yet, here was a man who brushed aside one of her main lines of defense as if it were a cobweb.

  Still, Robin loved to eat a hearty breakfast and so she seized the opportunity, adding more eggs to the bowl to be scrambled.

  She wasn’t a fancy cook, but with almost two decades in food service, Robin knew how to make what she liked, and prepare it well and efficiently. She had everything on the table in appropriately short order. It looked good, it smelled better, it was all hot and everyone was ready to eat at the same time.

  Except Manfred had something to say.

  “Do you offer thanks?” he asked.

  “For the food?”

  Bianca watched the exchange, interested.

  “Ja.”

  “No.”

  “Would you mind if we did?”

  “You’re religious?”

  He shrugged.

  “I started praying at school meals to annoy the Communists. In prison, I became sincere. Prayer helped me there. I would like my daughter to learn. Even if it means nothing to her now, someday, perhaps, she will become sincere, too.”

  “If that’s what you want,” Robin said, “this is a free country.”

  Manfred took Bianca’s hand and bowed his head. Robin was about to reach for her fork, and dig into her rapidly cooling eggs, when Bianca startled her by taking her hand and joining them all together.

  But the kid wasn’t being pious. There was a smirk on her face.

  The look said: If I’m stuck with this mumbo-jumbo, so are you.

  Manfred was pleased with the food, complimenting Robin, and disappointed that she wouldn’t let him do the dishes as a gesture of gratitude. For a moment, she wondered if this was some kind of elaborate con. She’d never heard of a man offering to do someone else’s dishes. Even her dad didn’t do that.

  While she mulled the issue, Bianca spoke to her father.

  Manfred listened, gave her a strange look and then turned to Robin.

  “May Bianca watch your television? She says while she was being torn from her mother’s embrace, she consoled herself with the thought that at least she’d get to watch American TV.”

  “Sure,” Robin said. “The set is in the living room.”

  “What is a good channel? Nothing with the violence.”

  “Try PBS. Channel 11.”

  Manfred went with Bianca to introduce her to the joys of television. Robin started rinsing off the breakfast dishes. The three of them hadn’t exchanged more than a dozen words during the meal. Manfred’s focus on eating was, if anything, more absolute than his concentration on weightlifting. The kid had really dug in, too, eaten all the French toast and started to lick the syrup off the plate before her father had given her a frown. Then she’d checked Robin out to see if she’d been laughing at her. When she’d found Robin’s face suitably neutral she’d asked if she could have orange juice, like she was asking for gold, and had been astounded that Robin actually had a carton, and had swallowed the whole eight-ounce glass in three gulps. Then she’d used the back of her hand as a napkin, which had drawn another frown but not a word of reproach.

  Robin was halfway through rinsing the dishes when Manfred returned.

  “You are sure I cannot help?”

  “Okay, okay,” Robin relented. “I’ll rinse, you stack things in the dishwasher.”

  She pulled open the front of the machine. Manfred took a second to study the arrangement of the racks and quickly transferred the contents of the dish-drain into the washer. He caught up with Robin so she could hand the remaining plates, pans, glasses and flatware directly to him.

  Robin was impressed at how adept he was. She had the feeling he’d never seen a dishwasher before. But he loaded the racks as quickly and neatly as she could have done. The natural hand-eye coordination of a world-class athlete, she guessed.

  He knew he was doing it right, too. He gave her a smile and waggled his eyebrows when he neatly tucked the fry pan into a tight spot. Robin laughed at his clowning.

  Then a chill passed through her. This scene was the height of domesticity. Disposing of the Sunday morning dishes while the kiddy watched cartoons in the other room. Who was this man who’d penetrated her armor so completely in such a short time? She started to look ahead, worrying and wondering where this madness might lead, when she slammed on the brakes. Told herself to get a grip. Washing dishes was about as mundane an activity as any in which a human being could engage, even if there was someone helping out — even if that someone was still smiling at her and would probably make her laugh again any second now.

  It was no big deal.

  Manfred said, “May I ask you a favor?”

  And just like that her paranoia roared back to life.

  What?

  What did he want?

  What would he ask?

  “Bianca needs new clothes. Proper clothes for a young girl
. I know more about the dark side of the moon than such things. Please. Will you help me?”

  Not please, you will help me. The way he’d probably have said it before.

  He was making the effort to learn better manners. Or better grammar, anyway. Prompted by what? She didn’t want to think about it.

  But she said okay.

  She’d go shopping with him and the kid.

  They stood at the door, ready to go, and Robin asked Manfred what kind of clothes he wanted for the kid.

  “First class,” he said.

  “Okay,” she said, “you want to be Daddy Warbucks, it’s your bank account.”

  “Daddy who?” Manfred asked, puzzled.

  “Never mind,” Robin said. “I just meant that first class in this town costs a lot of money.”

  Manfred pulled a wad of bills out of his jacket pocket appropriate to his size and line of work; you’d have to be a weight lifter to pick it up. Bianca spotted the roll immediately, gawking with great interest at the money. Robin noticed the avarice in the kid’s eyes. Maybe life with Daddy won’t be so bad after all, huh kid, she thought.

  So, they piled into Manfred’s old Mercedes and Robin led them to North Michigan Avenue, the Magnificent Mile.

  Robin decided that this was what brought people to America as she saw her two immigrants hit one of the country’s most glittering retail streets: They came to shop. The ambitious ones stayed so they could keep on shopping.

  Robin had intended simply to take them to Water Tower Place, a gilded vertical mall, where any normal person could satisfy any consumer need that wouldn’t draw the attention of the police. But that plan soon went out the window. Just as soon, in fact, as father and daughter saw the endless shops lining both sides of the street.

  Taking in the sights, Manfred craned his neck to look up at the one hundred stories of the John Hancock Center.

  “Wunderbar,” he opined.

  The guy probably didn’t know from architecture, but Robin could see how someone who pumped iron for a living would like a building that was all black steel, giant X-shaped braces and soared halfway to the moon.

  “Yeah, it great,” Robin said. “There’s an observation deck on the 95th floor, too. Best of all, it’s right next door to where we’re going to shop.”

  That was her best shot at heading off the shopping safari, but it was doomed to fail. The kid yammered something in German and they were off. Up one side of the street to the river and back down the other. If there was a thing that the kid asked for and didn’t get, Robin didn’t see it. And not just clothes: toys, games, stuffed animals and electronics. By the time they got up to the 95th floor of the Hancock, even Manfred had trouble carrying everything, and Robin had sore feet.

  Robin sat down at a table and sipped a ginger ale, the only thing she’d allowed Manfred to buy for her. She looked at the big man with his tiny daughter. He was looking out a window with her and pointing at the lake. Robin tracked the gesture but all she saw was water, not even a boat or ship in sight.

  Manfred joined her at the table and ordered a beer when the waiter came over.

  “Bianca asked which direction she should look to see Germany. I told her, but explained she wouldn’t be able to see it. She is trying anyway; she said we are high enough. She wants to see her mother.”

  Manfred shrugged.

  Robin did, too. She was under the distinct impression that the kid’s affection for her old man had grown with each passing purchase.

  “I have another problem,” Manfred said.

  “Don’t we all?” Robin responded, rubbing one of her aching feet.

  “Tomorrow I must work.”

  “Me, too.”

  “But I must have someone to care for Bianca. I cannot leave her alone.”

  “What about school? Didn’t the CIA wire that for you, too?”

  “There are always things that you don’t think about. To be honest, I dared not get my hopes so high as to think about school. And I think Bianca needs to adjust to me, to America.”

  “Then what you need is a daycare center.”

  When she saw his puzzled look Robin explained what she meant.

  “I would prefer personal care for Bianca,” he said.

  “You mean a nanny?”

  “Ja. Someone good and kind and experienced.” Manfred turned to glance at his daughter for a moment. “Someone firm.”

  Robin was about to crack that he didn’t want too much, did he, when an idea hit her. An idea that made her smile.

  “I’ve got just who you want,” she said.

  “Nancy,” Robin said into the phone. “You’ve got to try some of Manfred’s cherry tarts ... Better than the strudel ... You’ll be right over? ... Good.”

  Robin put her phone down. The shoppers had returned home.

  “Who is Nancy?” Manfred asked.

  “My sister.”

  “She has children of her own?”

  “Two grown boys.”

  Manfred looked at Bianca who sat playing among her new possessions like a kid at Christmas.

  “She is firm, your sister?”

  “Oh, yeah. She works at it every day. You’ll like her.”

  Manfred did like Nancy. She seemed to take to him, too. And she had a hard time not swooning after her first bite of cherry tart. Which damn near made Manfred blush with pleasure. It was almost too much for Robin to take.

  The only thing that cheered her was the kid’s reaction. She sat like some little miser amidst her pile of gold, worried that someone might filch a small coin from her. That someone being Nancy. Robin was eager to see how her ever-competent sister would handle this one.

  Robin explained the kind of help Manfred needed.

  “Hey, I go to work everyday, too, you know,” Nancy said.

  “Yeah, but you’re the boss at your place,” Robin said.

  “Office manager,” Nancy replied.

  “Okay, you don’t own the place, but who runs it?”

  Nancy looked at Robin, then Manfred, then Bianca.

  The kid was staring intently back at the adults.

  “I do.”

  “And there isn’t something you could work out?”

  “I will pay, of course,” Manfred said.

  Nancy didn’t need the money. With Charlie’s business income, she worked because she enjoyed it. She liked to bring order to things. If she could have put up with all the handshaking and backslapping, she would have run for mayor.

  “I will bake for you, too,” Manfred added, when he saw that the money angle wasn’t playing.

  That was tempting ... but Nancy didn’t know what she’d do with the kid around the office all morning. There was no way that she’d give up her job to become a nursemaid.

  “Let me talk to the kid.”

  The three adults advanced upon the child who protectively gathered up as many of her purchases in her arms as she could. Bianca looked at Nancy and said something in German.

  Manfred frowned, big time.

  “What’d she say?” Nancy asked.

  Manfred looked for a way to phrase his response; Robin filled the gap.

  “The kid said I was fat and hideous,” Robin told Nancy.

  “So what did she say about me?” Nancy repeated.

  Manfred shrugged in resignation and told her.

  “She said you looked like a prostitute ... one of the women in the brothel where she lived.”

  Nancy gave Bianca a look that would have made Dracula whimper.

  Bianca quickly directed a flurry of words to her father. Not exactly a cry for help, but a hurried explanation. Manfred provided simultaneous translation as the child continued.

  “This woman — the one Bianca says you resemble — she says that she is the highest priced prostitute in the house ... the prettiest one.”

  Manfred stopped, clearly embarrassed, shocked by his daughter.

  Bianca repeated herself.

  “What? What was that last part?” Nancy asked.
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  Through his deepest frown yet and clenched teeth, Manfred said, “The most skilled in the bedroom.”

  Bianca looked at Nancy, hopeful that she’d appeased her.

  Robin had a hard time keeping a straight face.

  Manfred sighed, let his face drop and said, “I am sorry my daughter has insulted you. Please forgive her. Her circumstances have not been the best. I will look for someone else to watch over her.”

  Nancy shook her head, a tight smile on her face that a drill instructor would have envied.

  “No, no,” she said. “This little girl and I are going to get along just fine.”

  Manfred was surprised.

  Robin wasn’t, not really.

  “You are sure?” Manfred asked.

  “Oh, yeah. First, we’ll have to teach her English, and —”

  “I speak English,” Bianca said. She looked at her father and Robin, whose mouth hung open. “When I want to.”

  Her accent wasn’t half as thick as Manfred’s.

  “Good,” Nancy said. “Then tomorrow you can come to work with me and start learning real estate.”

  Chapter 17

  The next morning, Robin was awakened by someone banging on her door. Not just knocking, banging. Loud, hard, and fast. It scared her silly. She looked at the clock and saw it was five a.m. The banging continued unabated. Robin ran to the door in her pajamas, wondering what the emergency could be. It had to be an emergency. What other explanation could there be? Was her house on fire? Had her father had another heart attack? Had—

  She flung the door open heedless of who might be on the other side.

  It was Manfred.

  “What?” she gasped. “What’s wrong? Is it you? The kid? What?”

  “It is five a.m.,” he said blandly. “Time for your workout. Please dress and meet me in the garage in five minutes.”