Wait for Me in Vienna (17 page)

20

Johanna practiced with a variety of salsa DVDs she had ordered overnight from Amazon. Slowly but surely, she mastered each dance-step combination—well, maybe not mastered, but at least she had some idea what to do. Her dancing style wasn’t as elegant and relaxed as she would have liked, and it would be impossible for her to be a champion dancer by Wednesday. She was satisfied with what she’d learned so far. “Salsa is a modern couple’s dance, but it can also be done as a group dance,” she read on the Internet, after scouring Google for videos and photos of professionals dancing and posing with their partners.

Martin wrinkled his brow as he labored over the guest list for his birthday party. He really didn’t want to have a big party, but a too-small party could end up being boring. He wanted a cozy gathering with friends; he already had fifteen on his coffee-splattered list.

“Are you really going to bake a cake?” he asked Johanna, looking at her expectantly.

“Yes, of course, I told you I would.”

“And you’ll help me with the buffet?”

“Yes, I already told you that, too. We just have to figure out what you’d like to have. I have plenty of time right now. My work hours aren’t increasing until next month.”

Martin’s puppy-dog look disappeared. “That is so sweet of you, but you know that you don’t have to do this, right?”

“Except for one, the location options are all pretty decent, I would say,” Thomas said.

He looked up from the report to face his uncle, who had bent over to get a closer look. Thomas felt it was a little too close, but Lehmann leaned even closer.

“Which one do you not like?”

“This one here.” Thomas pointed at the location near Newark. He took a step back to escape the fog of his uncle’s breath, which reeked of coffee and cigarettes.

“Interesting. And why don’t you like that location?”

“Because of their infrastructure. Look,” Thomas explained, and quoted some passages from the report. They studied the report and the site analysis intensively for the next two hours.

“In my opinion, Brooklyn is the most suitable location,” Thomas declared, handing the report to his uncle. “Look it over again at your leisure. That’s my opinion; you might come to a different conclusion.”

His uncle took the documents and tucked them away in his brown briefcase, which had to be at least as old as he was, with its scuffed and frayed leather. Instead of using the expense account to purchase a new Armani or Hugo Boss briefcase, Mr. Lehmann walked around with an off-brand relic, which didn’t reflect the man’s status as a successful executive at a major corporation.

“Well, let me think about it for a little while. Thank you, Thomas, for your hard work on this.”

As the plans for the company’s branch office became more and more concrete, Thomas found himself increasingly tempted by the idea of building something new in New York. It had been a long time since he’d really been pushed out of his comfort zone. He sat down at his desk to go over some sales figures, but the question of whether he could actually live in New York for a while, without his parents and their regular family meals, proved to be a real distraction. His mother would definitely miss him terribly. He wouldn’t be able to jog or play video games with Martin. He’d have to take his runs in Central Park by himself, without the organic vanilla caramel nougat ice cream he liked to buy on Schweden Street as a postrun treat. Instead, he’d casually eat frozen yogurt or Häägen-Dazs like a real New Yorker. He’d be working with new colleagues who might be too cool to go for a beer with him after work, who might not want to eat lunch with him at the office, who’d make fun of the cafeteria food. Just recently, Herbert, the marketing manager, had taken cafeteria complaining to a new level when he whined, “Oh no, not meatloaf again!” Thomas laughed to himself as he recalled Herbert’s remark. Then he became quiet and contemplative as he thought about living in a foreign city—and without Johanna. He didn’t like that idea at all; he’d been thinking a lot about her lately.

21

“Linda, you have to help me!”

It was nine o’clock in the morning when Johanna flew into Linda’s boutique, panting and barely able to catch her breath.

“I need an outfit for salsa dancing. What kind of clothes do people wear for that?”

“Salsa?” Linda asked as she pondered, tapping her finger on her lower lip. “When are you going? And who are you going with?”

“Tonight, with a friend.”

“A friend? Somebody special, or a friend like Paolo?”

“No, not like Paolo. Do you have anything I could try on?” Johanna pleaded as she looked frantically through racks of clothes.

“I think so.” Linda pointed to a lovely black dress in the window display. It was perfect: sexy, but not overly sexy, with a wicked ruffle right above the knees.

“That dress will follow your every moment, every turn,” Linda raved as she took the dress out of the window display. “Even if you lose the beat.”

“That’s exactly right for me then,” Johanna said as she tore the dress from Linda’s hand and ran to the fitting room.

“Do you have matching shoes?” Linda asked.

“No, definitely not.”

“Hmm . . . And I don’t have anything in the shop that would work. What size do you wear?”

“Seven and a half.”

“You’re in luck! I’ve got the perfect shoes in your size at home. But I want them back after.”

“Oh, Linda, you’re the best!” Johanna squealed, running out of the dressing room to hug Linda so tight that she had to wriggle away.

“The guy must be something special if you’re going to these lengths to impress him. But it’s not Daniel?”

“No. It’s somebody truly amazing.”

“Well then, I’ll tell Martin to stop by my apartment after work and pick up the shoes for you. You only need them for this evening, right?”

Johanna nodded with gratitude as Linda picked up her cell phone and called Martin.

Thomas put on a chic white shirt with short sleeves and black pants. Then he dabbed on a new men’s cologne by Hugo Boss he’d just purchased. The lady at the fragrance counter assured him that it was the perfect scent for him, a standard sales pitch she would probably use on the next customer, too—male or female, it didn’t matter. It was simple yet effective. The prim, talented saleswoman convinced him that he should take advantage of their special: buy the large bottle, get a free shower gel. Thomas took her advice and took the larger bottle, putting the €94.05 on his credit card.

The plain white fitted shirt fulfilled several functions. Most importantly, his upper body looked damn good in it; plus, it was short-sleeved, and he knew from experience that salsa dancing was athletically challenging; sweating profusely was an inevitable side effect. He also wore the fitted black pants that made his butt look good enough to eat. He wasn’t aware of just how many women noticed how well they fit when he went out, but he had some idea; Clarissa was always tapping him on the butt when he wore them.

Johanna tried to use dark-blue eyeliner on her eyelids. First, she dotted along the base of her eyelashes, then joined the points together, but then she had to wipe it off and start all over again. After four attempts, it worked, but the skin around her eyes got red. She’d been too rough with the makeup remover. After concealing the redness with powder, she applied a touch of pink gloss on her lips. She covered up some fledgling pimples with a concealer that she’d found in the bathroom cabinet. She looked perfect; her makeup was flawless, a feast for the eyes. She could have been a professional makeup artist; amazingly, she had learned how to do everything in the last few weeks by studying women’s magazines and watching dozens of YouTube videos.

She’d subscribed to various YouTube channels recently, not just makeup tutorials. She watched music videos, meditation videos, cooking classes, films, and dance classes. She wondered how she’d gotten along all these years without this ingenious technology. The Internet was making her life so much easier. She didn’t have to struggle with thick dictionaries when she could just look up words online. You didn’t even have to go the library anymore; it was so easy to just use Martin’s tablet to read the latest romance novels, get seasonal recipes e-mailed automatically, or enroll in an online language course. It was simple to use Google to get advice for health issues; take care of banking transactions with the help of Susi, an online personal assistant with a pleasant voice; and much more. Yes, Johanna decided, the World Wide Web was simply brilliant.

Linda’s shoes fit like a glove, and although the heels were pretty high, they weren’t too uncomfortable. Johanna got the hang of them pretty quickly. She spent a harrowing hour practicing walking around the apartment; she wanted to be sure that she wouldn’t fall over or be too conspicuous. The poor downstairs neighbors tried to drown the click-clack of her heels with eardrum-piercing heavy-metal music, which in turn upset the rest of the building’s inhabitants. Hopefully, the shoes could withstand vigorous salsa dancing, and she hoped she could withstand the pain from the blister emerging on her lower right ankle.

Thomas waited at the entrance; he was a few minutes early. He never assumed that public transportation would be punctual, and he didn’t want to make Johanna wait.

She saw him from afar, hoping that he wouldn’t hear the thunderous beating of her heart. Didn’t her heart belong to her, and couldn’t it understand when she asked it politely to be little quieter? She’d never figured out how to communicate with her heart, otherwise she would have had more success at age fourteen when she ordered it not to break when her first boyfriend left her for her fat friend Sabine. She’d thought she would never be able to love another boy like Matthias.

“Wow,” she muttered under her breath as she approached Thomas. “He looks so handsome!” She took slow, elegant steps as she straightened her spine. Last Thursday evening, she’d watched a modeling show on TV; she learned that the contestants were supposed to keep their shoulders back in order to move more gracefully.

Thomas saw Johanna as if for the first time. She floated toward him like an angel. Her eyes reflected not just her youthful, natural beauty, but her soul’s radiance. This unique moment, in which they both stood and looked at each other ecstatically, felt as though it could last an eternity. But it was quickly replaced by a rush of anxiety, and neither one knew, once again, how to greet the other appropriately. It seemed like the only solution was a little kiss on the right cheek, then one on the left, a sometimes tricky maneuver they somehow managed. They would have liked to kiss each other on the lips, but neither dared, waiting for the right moment. Actually, the right moment had already presented itself, but neither was brave enough to seize it. Thomas paid the admission fee and checked their coats.

“It got so much colder today,” he noted as he accepted the coat-check ticket.
What a boring thing to say
, he thought, like asking her if she wanted a cup of tea.

Johanna responded, though, making small talk about the weather. She was nervous about dancing. The evening could end in any number of unpredictable ways: with love, romance, laughter, cruelty.

“I love the way you did your hair tonight,” said Thomas as he ordered her a glass of wine, Muscat. He’d paid attention to every detail of what she’d said, and some things she’d left unsaid, during their first date at the café. He ordered a beer for himself.

“Thank you,” she said as she tossed her braid over her shoulder.

She’d seen a salsa dancer with a braid in one of the one of the professional videos and loved it immediately. The length and texture of her hair accommodated almost any hairstyle—a bun, pinned up neatly, or even Pippi Longstocking braids. Johanna noticed that her hands were trembling slightly and that Thomas’s hands were, too.

“You don’t have to be nervous,” he said. “I’ll lead.”

“Yeah, I am kind of nervous. I have no idea how to salsa.”

“Then you’re in luck, because I lived in Colombia for ten years.”

Johanna’s eyes opened wide in disbelief.

“Yes,” he laughed. “As a salsa teacher and drug kingpin.”

She laughed as she imagined him as a salsa-dancing narco boss.

Thomas gently took her hand. He liked it when she laughed. It was so liberating, so honest and open. Johanna enjoyed his warm touch; he wasn’t sweating, so his hands were dry, not rough but smooth and pleasant. She had the urge to kiss him. He had the same thought and stepped closer to her, but then the music started and the DJ began to entice people onto the dance floor.

“So, people . . . it’s time to get this party started. Let’s do this!”

“Come on, let’s dance.” Thomas pulled her closer to him, her hand firmly in his grasp.

The salsa music was immediately captivating. Even if you weren’t normally a passionate dancer, the rhythm just took over. Thomas moved Johanna skillfully, exuding an enthusiasm that affected everyone around him. All eyes focused on them. Thomas pushed Johanna lightly away from him as she tried to keep pace with his steps—right, left, right, left, move the hips. Thomas’s innate sense of rhythm spilled over onto his dance partner. Like magic, she found she was able to follow his movements and keep up with his pace. He gazed at her intensely with a mixture of fascination and love. The music got louder, their dance more intimate. This did not escape the notice of the ladies, who watched the two enviously. A partner with such natural talent and ability to move his body without inhibition couldn’t help but attract attention. Their eyes fixed on him immediately and stayed there, relishing his every move.
Almost too much
, Johanna noted. He led her perfectly, so that with each succeeding song, the rhythm and steps cut deeper to her rhythmic core. Thomas seemed focused, but at the same time loose and relaxed, as if he were taking a test that he knew he would easily pass, or as if he effortlessly and brilliantly danced every day before breakfast.

“You’re doing great,” he said as he spun Johanna around.

She let herself go, then he pulled her back in, closer to him this time. She felt his broad chest next to hers, felt his breath like a light summer breeze on her face. It smelled minty, like a Tic Tac. He pulled her closer again, and then he kissed her tenderly and carefully, then passionately, ravenously. It felt as natural as rain falling from the heavens and turning suddenly wild as it splashed onto the earth. If he hadn’t been holding Johanna so tight, she would have fallen; his kiss was intoxicating. She’d never experienced something so explosive and, at the same time, so tender. He grinned and led her through the next song lightly and loosely. He had every right to grin; he had passed the test.

“Let’s take a break,” he proposed when he noticed sweat on his shirt.

He guided her onto the wooden deck outside, where dozens of people—singles, couples, and friends—stood together flirting, laughing, and talking about everything under the sun, moon, and stars. Some were moving their hips casually to the music. A couple practiced some of their steps; they laughed and seemed quite relaxed. Others sipped colorful, creamy cocktails. Thomas squeezed through the crowd and ordered two gin and tonics at the bar. He was glad he had finally kissed her. He, too, had found it quite intoxicating.