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Johnny drank the coffee standing up and put the cup down on the table with a thud.
"What do you want to eat?" she asked him, looking puzzled.
"I'm not hungry."
"Do you want to tell me what’s wrong with you this morning?" she asked, crossing her arms and standing in front of him.
"Just stuff to do with work."
"Can you tell me about it?"
"I know you won't leave me alone until I do." He scratched the back of his neck. "There’s a project I have to work on, but the best way to do it is to go and see the place in person."
"And where’s the problem?"
He made a sound which was more like a sarcastic chuckle. "Where’s the problem... " he repeated, irritated. "The problem is that the place is in Paris."
"Paris? Don’t tell me you have to leave again!" said Loreley alarmed.
'"It's not certain, but there's a good chance I'll have to go. And I really don't want to make another trip so soon after the last one."
"When will you know for sure?"
"By Wednesday. If it’s like I think, I'll have to leave next weekend."
"How long is it since you came back from California? Not even three weeks... and you're leaving again already!"
"L.A. had nothing to do with work, you know that. I'm already annoyed, so don't you start too!"
Loreley tried to stay calm.
"I’m going to get into a tracksuit and go for a run. I need to let off some steam," he announced, with one foot already outside the kitchen.
"I’ll prepare something to eat in the meantime. I’m hungry, and maybe when you get back from your run you will be too."
Johnny headed to the bedroom and Loreley focused on breakfast. How did you make pancakes? Oh, that’s it: eggs, flour, sugar... and something else. Damn, I can’t remember! Picking up her phone, she did a search on the internet, found the recipe a minute later, read it quickly and immediately set to work.
As she making the toast, she heard her private mobile phone ringing. She turned off the toaster and ran to answer. Recognizing the caller’s voice immediately, she jumped with joy.
"Hello, beautiful. Did you miss me?"
"Hans, how are you? Where are you?" She sat on the stool beside the kitchen counter.
"I'm fine, don’t worry. Esther and I are back home."
"Really? It was about time!"
She imagined him smiling.
"Don't be envious..."
"I'm not. And Esther? Where is she?"
"Right next to me and she says hello."
"Give her my love. I'm glad you're back in town."
"We’re a little less glad, but that's okay. I called to tell you mom would like us to go to her place for lunch tomorrow. She'd love to see us all together again."
"If it’s OK with you, it’s fine with me. I'll tell Johnny and let you know."
"I hope I see you tomorrow."
"I hope so too. Bye!"
With the cell phone still in her hand, Loreley began thinking about how to tell Johnny about the invitation. He liked to go for a ride on his motorbike on Saturdays and watch football games on Sunday. In the two years they’d been living together, you could count the times her parents had seen him on the fingers of one hand, despite living nearby. Only Central Park, on its shortest side, separated their homes. Convincing him to accept the invitation would not be easy.
Confirming what she had imagined, it required all her diplomatic talents and lawyer's tactics to convince Johnny to go with her. She pointed out that Hans and Esther had been disappointed at his absence from their wedding, and that the least he could do to make up for it would be to attend the lunch that her parents had arranged for the newlyweds’ return home.
"Are you wanting me to feel guilty about something that wasn’t my doing?"
"I'm just suggesting what you should do so as not to hurt my family's feelings."
He snorted and got up from the table. "Well, alright! But I'm just doing it for you," he said, pointing his finger at her. "You're lucky the Giants aren’t playing this week."
Loreley went to him and hugged him, then raised her hand behind his shoulders and made a "v" with the index and middle fingers: Hurrah!
"Thank you! Ask me anything you want and I’ll make you happy."
***
The next day at nine o'clock on the dot, Loreley was clinging to Johnny, sitting behind him on a large motorcycle, for a ride around the streets of New York. There was little traffic at that time on a Sunday and outside Manhattan.
"Ask me anything you want and I’ll make you happy," she had told him the day before, and she should have imagined that he would propose a ride on the bike, his second passion after football. Furthermore he knew how much she instead hated the two wheels and she suspected that with that move he had wanted to force her to return the favour.
She hated the full-face helmet because it glued her hair to her head and neck and ruined her hairdo. Sometimes she felt as if she couldn’t breathe properly and this made her so restless that it made the bike sway. Even though Johnny had told her she must accompany the movement of the machine with her body around the curves, and not counter it, she didn’t find it easy.
Almost three hours passed before that torture ended. When Loreley put her feet back on the ground, she felt she was levitating.
It was ten minutes to noon. She ran into the house for a quick shower, and didn’t take the trouble to get dressed up. Instead she slipped on a pair of heavy jeans, a powder blue sweater and a pair of suede boots.
When John came upstairs she was ready. He didn't bother about a shower: they were late enough. He just took off his vest, put on a dressier one, and changed his shoes.
They took Loreley's car and cut through the park to get to the East Side of Manhattan.
Hans opened the door to them.
Loreley hugged him. "Hello, big brother!"
"Hey, I haven’t been away all that long," he commented letting her hug him.
"What’s all this mushy stuff?" grumbled Albert, her father. "You're late and I'm hungry. You know I don’t like having to wait for lunch."
"It's my fault. I took her for a motorcycle ride," John interjected.
"What?" Albert looked furious. "How could you take my little girl on that infernal contraption?" he snapped again. With his imposing stature he towered over the young man, making him look like a twig in comparison.
Loreley rolled her eyes. "Johnny, my dad hates motorcycles more than I do."
"You had to take after someone," he whispered him with a grimace of disappointment. "I was very careful and I didn't go too fast," he said to defend himself.
Ellen Lehmann came to her husband’s side. "You're the usual grumpy old man," she reproached him in a tone that barely hid her irritation. "Come and eat, come on, everything's ready," she added, smiling at the guests.
"Loreley, I’m so happy to see you again," her sister-in-law Esther said, hugging her. "Come and sit next to me."
Once the initial annoyance had passed, the conversation among the young people was happy and serene, but between their two hosts it seemed limited to a few polite words.
Loreley looked from her mother to her father occasionally and the sensation of tension that she could feel between them took away her appetite. Johnny, on the other hand, ate as if there were no tomorrow, just like he did at home. She always tried to keep up with him and ended up feeling as if she had a large stone in her stomach; this time, however, she just picked at her food and refused the dessert.
Her stomach was bothering her. A few hours earlier she had also felt some nausea. Maybe it was the motorcycle ride.
When they had finished eating, they raised their glasses to toast the return of the newlyweds.
"I'm so happy for you," Loreley said to her sister-in-law as they stepped out onto the glass-enclosed terrace, full of evergreen plants that went all the way to the ceiling. The men were sitting on the sofa in the living room refuelling themselves with spirits.
"I’m happy too. The right time will arrive for you soon too, wait and see."
"I’m not waiting for it with any trepidation, I can assure you. And he has no intention of remarrying anyway, not in the short term, at least!"
"And who said anything about John? I was referring to a hypothetical unknown man."
"Esther, please!"
"Come on, I'm kidding! But it's true. You might find someone more willing to get involved than he is."
"I'm not thinking about taking the big step for now."
"When you find yourself in front of the right man, you’ll want to do exactly what I did."
"That’s what you think! I have to dedicate my time to my job now, because I’m still a rookie." The thought of having to start a family complete with children before her career got off the ground gave her a sensation of anxiety.
"By the way, how's it going with that guy you're defending? I read the papers... "
"Well, we're coming up with a line of defence that could reduce the years of any conviction. The facts point to him, so it looks like he'll end up in jail, but I have to find a pretext so he’s inside for as little time as possible."
"A plea bargain would be enough to achieve that," commented the other. "Am I wrong? I've seen it happen in some movies."
Loreley smiled. "He doesn't want to know about it. Peter Wallace still can't believe that his Lindsay is dead. He claims that he only slapped her and that when he left she was still alive and well. But the evidence contradicts him. I’ve only spoken to him once, to try to find out more, but it was like banging against a wall of silence and reticence."
"It won’t be easy for you to know the truth if he is not willing to cooperate."
"Do you mind if we change the subject? I'd like to avoid thinking about work tonight."
"I don't mind at all."
Esther looked up at the sliver of sky that could be seen above the tall buildings in front of them.
There were a few moments of silence, as Loreley looked at her sister-in-law's beautiful profile, her long brown hair hanging loose on her shoulders, her gaze lost up there, thinking about who knows what. Not knowing what else to say, Lorely jumped at the first topic that came to mind. "Do you miss your city?" she asked her.
Esther sighed. "No... that is, I can't say. Sometimes I have images, scenes that make me remember it, but I don't feel nostalgia, not enough to want to go back there at all costs. On the other hand, I miss my brother so much, even though I remember so little about him." She paused briefly, rolling a long strand of hair around her index finger. "I would love to see him again, but I don't know where he is, or what happened to him."
"There's must be a clue somewhere."
"Just the note he left for Hans before he disappeared, saying that he wanted to entrust me to him."
Jack had written a note for Hans? she asked herself puzzled.
Hans had never mentioned it to her. She had never been able to understand what had driven Jack to leave so quickly, and it had been over a year now since it had happened.
"Let's do something fun, and go and annoy our men there in the living room," she suggested to Esther.
***
Coming out of the warmth of the office, the cold air of late October shook her from the sensation of dullness that she had been experiencing for several hours. She had got up that morning with a nausea that had forced her to skip lunch. Most likely she was getting something, maybe it was that malaise that precedes the actual flu.
She looked up. Threatening clouds hid the evening sky and the bare trees seemed gaunt extensions of the ground pointing upwards. The strong wind forced her to close her jacket and knot her silk scarf more tightly around her neck. She didn't like winter, apart from Christmas and some time to enjoy ice skating.
A taxi was dropping off a customer a little further along, so she hurried to it and had it take her home. The smell of food hit her as she opened the door. She took off her coat and put it on the sofa with her bag, then looked into the kitchen. Mira, in her usual blue dress and a large white apron, was setting the table.
"Are you hungry?" the maid asked, and turned to look at her, the small blue eyes smiling.
"Not much really. Is Johnny home?"
"He’s closed in the study. Dinner's almost ready."
"I’ll go and tell him."
It took quite a while to get him away from the drawing board, but then Johnny devoured a large grilled steak and as many vegetables as she would eat in two meals.
Loreley pushed her plate aside with a grimace of disappointment: she didn’t understand why seeing Johnny eating a lot that evening bothered her so much.
Apologizing, she headed to the bathroom to take a shower. The warmth of the water relaxed her, leaving no room for thoughts, and she put up no opposition. Her thoughts wandered far into the past, to her university days, to David, to the time she met Johnny and her future with him. A long-term future... Becoming a real family.
But what the hell was she thinking?!
Johnny had never told her he wanted to make a family with her. He had already had a wife and had run away after a few years. During the marriage he had also had a daughter, about whom he spoke very little, unlike many fathers who...
She interrupted that sequence of thoughts with a shiver, opened her mouth and let the water run into her throat. Spluttering she turned off the faucet. Many seconds passed before she could breathe properly again.
