Wait for Me in Vienna (16 page)

After the concert, they found their way to a hot-dog stand outside the concert hall.

“I cordially invite you to eat some street meat with me,” he said as he smiled mischievously. He held his meal in one hand and pulled his wallet out of his left pocket with his other hand.

“And two white spritzers, please,” he ordered.

The vendor reminded him of Marilyn Monroe. She had the same blonde wavy hair, fixed with hair spray, and bright-red lipstick, conspicuously lit underneath the hot-dog stand’s neon light.

“Mmm, this is good.”

“Yeah. It’s nothing fancy, but very Viennese,” he said, then bit into his cheese dog. “Did you like the concert?”

“Yes, totally! I wasn’t familiar with the band at all before, but they were incredible.” Johanna raved, dropping her cheese dog on the ground in her excitement.

“When you’re near me, I spill or drop everything,” she laughed as she pushed the meat away with her shoe. “Do you go to a lot of concerts?”

“Here and there, when I have a little time. I really like Travis, though. I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to see them . . .What’s your favorite band?”

“Mine?”

“Yes. Who do you like the best? Or do you have more than one favorite?”

“Coldplay. Yes, I definitely like Coldplay. I like the Beatles, too.”

“The Beatles . . .”

“Yes, and Oasis . . .”

“‘Wonderwall!’” they both said simultaneously.

Johanna looked shyly at the cheese dog she’d let fall onto the ground.

“Do you want something else?”

“No, thank you, I’m good.” She swallowed the last drop of her spritzer. “Anyway, it’s late,” she said.

She actually didn’t want to say that, but for some reason, she said it anyway. Maybe because she had read in some dating advice column that a lady should say good night before the man does; but the truth was that she would rather have stayed and spent the whole night with him. She didn’t necessarily want to sleep with him, but she wanted to laugh, dance, eat, drink, talk, and hold hands. Looking at Thomas’s handsome face, she thought of the old cliché,
And they rode off together into the sunset . . .

“You’re right, it’s kind of late. The concert went on for a while, but I’m so pleased that you had fun.” Thomas was crestfallen that she wanted to go home already. He would have loved to have gone somewhere with her to chat and get something more to drink. Maybe she hadn’t really enjoyed herself after all. He tried to read the expression on her face to determine whether she had left something unsaid.

“Yes, thank you again for inviting me! I guess I need to go to the metro station now,” Johanna said as she motioned toward the station on the opposite side of the street.

“I’ll walk you over. Should I ride with you for a ways as your escort?” Thomas had also taken public transportation to the concert; otherwise, he would have driven her home himself so he could enjoy her wonderful company a little while longer.

“No, thank you. It’s all right,” she said.

Thomas insisted on accompanying her at least to the other side of the street. They looked at each other longingly. They both realized that this would have been the perfect moment for a first kiss if it weren’t for the howling sirens of the emergency vehicles, which started as soon as they moved closer together. Then the subway sign lit up: Johanna’s train would be arriving in less than a minute, destroying any chance of a good-night kiss. They jumped back from the tracks as the train pulled in.

“I’ve got to go,” she said hastily, and gave him a quick peck on the cheek.

Thomas was confused; it was fast—way too fast. Just a kiss on the cheek?
On the other hand, maybe I should be relieved
, he thought. He had to have a serious talk with Clarissa soon—not on the telephone, but face-to-face. Doing it any other way wouldn’t be fair to her at all. Thomas looked at Johanna; he couldn’t take his eyes away even when she’d already gotten on the train. He watched as the train pulled out of the station and replayed the evening in his mind.

“Next station . . .” the loudspeaker crackled. Johanna was on autopilot as she stepped out of the train, then she smacked her palm against her forehead. A kiss on the cheek! She’d wanted to give him a really great kiss; she would have loved to have fallen into his arms and kissed him for a least a minute, no, at least an hour. Crap.
Why hadn’t he kissed her? she wondered as she took the last steps toward Martin’s apartment. He smelled so good, too; it was a mixture of cologne and detergent or fabric softener. She should never have left his side. She would have loved to stay with him overnight so they could eat breakfast the next morning and plan a romantic day together. As she opened her door, her cell phone beeped. There was a text message from Thomas.

Thank you for the beautiful evening. I hope we can do something together again soon. Please let me know that you got home safely. Sleep well.

She read the text and sighed loudly as she laid the cell phone on her chest. She read the message two, three, four times and then wrote back.

Hey, Thomas. Thank you for asking. I’m home safe. Thank you, the evening was so much fun. I would love to do something again. Sleep well.

Before she went to sleep, she read his text again because she couldn’t remember whether he wrote, “I hope we can do something together
soon
” or “I hope we can do something again.” Maybe she would dream about him. Of course, she probably would have done that even without getting the text. Her subconscious mind fixated on the words “Thomas,” “heartthrob,” “great evening,” and “longing.”

18

Johanna and Martin headed to their hometown in his old Audi. It seemed like November had come out of nowhere. Johanna had done so much recently that she felt like the whole month of October had just whizzed by. That had never happened to her before; days usually dragged by miserably. In the past, from the moment she woke up in the morning, she’d wish that night would come again quickly.

“Is there anybody you want to visit?” Martin asked, peering at Johanna while keeping one eye on the road. She gazed out the window.

“No, not really. Maybe after we go to the cemetery, we can take a walk around the old neighborhood. What do you think?”

“That’s a good idea. We could go eat at the Hotel Kirchenwirt. Would you like that?”

“Why not,” Johanna said as she continued to look pensively out the window.

It would be two-and-a-half hours before they headed back “home” to Vienna. They parked in front of the cemetery; Johanna had bought a large arrangement at the local flower shop. She’d paid a pretty penny, but it was well worth it; they hadn’t visited the family grave in a long time. There was a vendor selling roasted chestnuts, and children cavorted around his cart, their parents looking on contentedly. This awakened memories for Johanna, and for Martin, who seemed pensive, too. Johanna asked herself often how Martin had coped so well with the tragedy, but she’d never actually talked to him about it.

“How was it for you when Mama and Papa died?” she asked him suddenly, as they walked to the graves. Martin was taken aback somewhat by this question, but he was glad she’d finally asked him after all these years.

“Well, it was the end of the world for me, too. I mean, I was older than you were, and I’d just left home to go to college, but it was anything but easy. Sometimes I miss them so much, but I show it in a different way, or maybe it doesn’t look like I feel that way at all. I know I shouldn’t have left you alone, but I wouldn’t have been able to survive if I’d stayed at home. While I was recovering, you were getting worse; that’s what Oma told me. She said I should come back, because she didn’t know what to do. But I couldn’t; I just stayed in Vienna,” Martin confessed.

He seemed very sad suddenly, like a father who’d abandoned his daughter. They sat down on a park bench.

“Johanna, I’m so sorry that I wasn’t there for you.”

Slowly, she began to understand. She’d always thought that he didn’t miss their parents, that she and Oma didn’t matter to him, but apparently he’d suffered as much as she had. Back then, she couldn’t even imagine leaving town; her depression was paralyzing. Plus, she was worried about her grandmother, because she was the only one—besides her brother—still left in her family. She was afraid that Oma couldn’t manage without her. Her grandmother couldn’t just pick up and move; she was too old, and her roots ran deep in the small town.

“It’s all right,” Johanna said as she sat down on the bench next to her brother and took his hand. “You’re here now.”

Johanna and Martin shared a beautiful day together, beautiful because they finally got the chance to talk about everything in their hearts. Martin was relieved because he’d finally said what he’d been burning to say for far too long.

They drove back to Vienna that evening. The city lay before them, a sea of lights. It looked almost like a megacity, like Istanbul, with its over fourteen million residents; Vienna had less than two million residents, so it was a bit less unwieldy.

“I have a PlayStation game I need to drop off at a friend’s,” said Martin as he turned onto Thomas’s street. “Do you want to come up?”

Johanna wasn’t in the mood to meet any new people today; it simply didn’t fit after everything they’d shared, so she stayed in the car. Martin came running back just a few minutes later.

“Lightning fast, huh?” he noted, and started up the Audi.

After Martin dropped off the game, Thomas talked on the phone with Clarissa, waiting impatiently for the conversation to end. It seemed hypocritical to chat with Clarissa about their respective days. Things were totally one-sided. Clarissa kept asserting how much she missed him, but Thomas remained mute. Didn’t she notice that he hadn’t once said, “I love you,” or “I miss you,” or “When are you coming home?” Clarissa sent him numerous photos from her latest swimwear shoot, and Thomas commented on every single picture. She said she wanted to hear his opinion, but he knew she wouldn’t be receptive to any sort of criticism, not that Thomas had any, because after inspecting each photo on his computer, he had to admit that Clarissa looked stunning in each one. Men probably envied him, but he just wasn’t convinced that she was the right woman for him. Getting off the phone after thirty minutes, Thomas thought about whether he should write Johanna a text or call her. Or would it be better if he waited? He thought about it long and hard, but then let it be. He didn’t want to look desperate.

19

Johanna stared at her cell phone. Thomas hadn’t called. Maybe he had changed his mind, or maybe she should contact him. Was it her turn? Who the hell made these stupid dating rules? You always read that women should make themselves unavailable to stir up the male hunting instinct or some crap. How could that even be considered valid in this day and age? The Stone Age was millions of years ago, and in the meantime, humanity had acquired the German language instead of grunting—at least in their small corner of the globe. Of course, English was the number-one language in the world, statistically. But whatever. Language was language, and it sounded a heck of a lot more eloquent than the grunting or howling of some Stone Age ancestor. And maybe, precisely because of this new and improved way of communicating, the hunting instinct thing had changed, too. Johanna’s head felt like it was going to burst.

“Thinking can be so exhausting,” she sighed, and let herself fall onto the middle of the floral cotton blanket covering her bed.

As Johanna mixed up the batter for a coconut Nutella cake, she tried to think of something to text Thomas or something fun they could do together. Whatever she texted had to be awesome: funny, nice, friendly, succinct, with no spelling errors or typos, and somewhat reserved but not too reserved. The text had to be open and honest, but not too forthcoming. Above all, she wanted to keep it short and sweet. Johanna fretted as she whipped the batter around the bowl. Writing a text message that met all those requirements was impossible. She should just suggest a date activity; a few possibilities came to mind. They could go out to eat, but that seemed awfully unimaginative; bungee jumping was too hard; visiting a museum was too boring. She wondered if he liked biking.

“Hey, what are you doing to that poor batter?” Paolo called out in horror. He snatched the bowl away from her. “You’re off your game today. What’s going on?”

It was unfortunate that she’d messed up the batter, but it was even worse that Johanna couldn’t tell him why her heart wasn’t in her work today. They had become good friends lately, and she had given him the impression that they could talk about anything.

“I’m so sorry. Can it be salvaged?”

Paolo scrutinized the batter carefully. “Yes, we’re in luck,” he said as he poured it into the cake pan. “Have you talked to Chef Geyer yet?”

“Just briefly. She said she’s going to calculate the exact number of work hours and make me an offer.”

“Good,” said Paolo, and turned up the oven. “So we’ll bake it for an hour.”

“Say, Paulo, can you help me with something?”

“Sure, unless you need a million dollars, because I haven’t saved up that much money yet, but otherwise, yes, anything.”

“My brother, Martin, has a birthday next week, so I’m throwing him a party next weekend. I would love to bake him a cake, but I’ve never made one before.”

“Oh, sweetheart, you’ve never baked a cake? What are you even doing here?”

Johanna looked shocked.

“It’s just a joke, honey. I’ll definitely help you, no problem whatsoever. We’re going to bake him the best, sexiest cake ever. Tell me which kind he likes, and we’ll surprise him with it.”

“Chocolate cake is pretty easy, right? Anything with chocolate in it.”

Paolo nodded and started to brainstorm. The Top Ten Best Cakes for Johanna’s Brother emerged in his mind. They were all delicious, all different: chocolate cake with vanilla cream icing, chocolate cake with two different layers, marble cake, chocolate walnut, death by chocolate, dark chocolate rhubarb, a totally fierce chocolate cake with three different kinds of buttercream, a chocolate bomb cake, a banana chocolate cake, and the classic but ever-popular Viennese chocolate sponge cake.

Thomas couldn’t wait any longer, and he didn’t even want to. He gave up the unspoken test of who could hold out the longest and texted her succinctly:
Dear Johanna, do you like to salsa? Then let’s meet Wednesday evening at seven at the Salsaria.
He couldn’t wait to see her again. Would a kiss on the cheek be appropriate, or should he give her a proper kiss right on the lips?

As Johanna read the text, a wave of joy came over her. She squealed in delight, dropped onto the bed, and flailed her legs in the air. Then she panicked a little. She didn’t answer Thomas immediately; she ran out into the kitchen where Martin was preparing some toast.

“Please, you have to help me. Show me how to salsa dance!” she asked as she tucked her cell phone away.

“Salsa? I don’t know how,” Martin declared with amusement as he put his bread in the oven because he didn’t own a toaster. “My best friend really loves to go salsa dancing, which most men can’t or won’t do, at least most Austrian men I know. He’s an unusual guy.” He smiled and shook his head in disbelief.

Martin wasn’t a dancer. He stayed as far as possible from all the clubs in town, much to Linda’s chagrin, so she went with her friends to the worst and, at the same time, most fashionable clubs in Vienna.

Johanna was visibly agitated; she couldn’t even manage a basic slow dance. How could she become a hot salsa dancer, or even a marginally acceptable one? How was she supposed to impress Thomas? She ran into her room again, as frantic as if she had only a couple of minutes to defuse a bomb. Out of sheer terror, she watched a couple of YouTube videos and tried—in vain—to follow the steps. She had some serious coordination problems. Once she’d enrolled in an aerobics class and then gone exactly one time. She had neither the right athletic clothes nor a sexy athletic physique. However, the deciding factor was her inability to keep up with the pace. While others jumped around gracefully, casually, and effortlessly because they knew the steps, she felt as clumsy as an ox.

She practiced and practiced in front of the mirror and, after three hours, managed to get the hang of a few salsa steps, at least somewhat. She went from impossibly clumsy to wooden, but at least she was learning some steps—that was something!

Thomas didn’t get an answer from Johanna—at least not yet. Instead, he got a call from Clarissa. She was going to make it back for Martin’s birthday party. She was excited to come home because she had missed Thomas so much; that’s what she said, at least. Well, fine, then he would tell her that weekend that he wanted to break up with her. He should probably wait until after the party, though, or he wouldn’t be able to go to. His plan was to tell her on Sunday, the day after the party, that his feelings for her had changed.

Just as he was formulating what he was going to say to Clarissa, he got a text.

Hi Thomas! You don’t know what kind of trouble you’re getting yourself into, but I’d love to go. Best wishes, J.

Thomas was as happy as a little boy going on a fishing trip. However, he wasn’t so crazy about her closing, “Best wishes.”