Dandelion Girl

by Isa Hansen

  Hans was impatient. “Alex, do you need something?”

  “Just waiting for Celia,” Alex drawled in response.

  “This is a private conversation.”

  “All right then. I’ll wait outside.” Alex sauntered out and closed the door behind him.

  Celia and Hans faced each other. She hugged her books to herself. “Why did you send Petter Blom to meet me at the police station?”

  Hans eyed Celia with a complicated expression. He reclined against his desk. “I would be very careful around Petter if I were you.”

  She glared at him, anger heating her cheeks. “Are you threatening me?”

  He gave a stiff, sordid laugh. “No. I’m not.” His gaze faltered. “But I make sure to keep my distance from Petter. You should do the same.”

  “So what is this?” she said, the heat still in her voice. “You and Petter playing good cop, bad cop? Is that it?”

  Hans raised his eyes.

  “Celia,” he said. “I’m not threatening you. I’m begging you. Whatever you know, whatever you think you know. Leave it, please. Just let it be.”

  Unsatisfied, she continued her glare.

  He shook his head: “I made a huge mistake by talking to you about Liv. I should never have done that. I was an idiot. I just wanted to … oh God, I don’t even know what I wanted.” He buried his head in his hands and began rubbing his temples like he had some massive headache.

  Celia scuffed at a mark on the floor with her shoe. OK. This was awkward.

  After a moment, she broke the silence. “What is it about Petter anyway? Are you scared of him?”

  She was expecting a denial from Hans, but instead he raised his head back up. “The man is ruthless. You don’t ever want to get in his way.”

  “OK, and?” Celia said, trying to gain more insight into his statement.

  “There is no and.” Hans slid off the desk and made for the door. “That is all.” He drew it open and gestured for her to leave.

  Hans was either scared of Petter or wanted her to believe that he was.

  Either way, he was marking it out quite plainly: let this be or you’ll have to deal with both of us, mean old Petter and me.

  She gave him one last brooding glare and left the room.

  Alex was waiting in the hall. As soon as she was out, he marched toward her. “This way,” he said, not slowing his stride. Celia matched his step.

  They stopped a distance away.

  “What was that?” Alex pointed toward the classroom, his eyebrows arched. “That’s not normal. You know that, right?”

  Celia tugged at the arms of her sweater, exhaling. “I know.”

  Alex studied her.

  “Wanna get out of here for the day?”

  “Yeah. Maybe.”

  Not that she was the type to play hooky. Back in the States she wouldn’t even have considered it. But here things were different. You could be absent from a class or three without it affecting you.

  Also, back home she hadn’t been in the habit of trying to solve murders while playing bizarre mind games with her teachers. Life had been a whole different kind of simple back then.

  “Let’s go to Gothenburg,” Alex said. “I don’t have my car, but we’ll take the fast train in. We’ll take a little mini vacation for the rest of the day.”

  “Fine,” she said. “Works for me.”

  ***

  After boarding the express train to Gothenburg, Celia and Alex settled into window seats, facing each other. The train rolled out of the station, leaving the streets of Björkby behind. Then, to the glinting scenery of frost-covered fields, leafless trees, and silver lakes, Celia opened up to Alex and told him about everything that had happened. The mugging, her trip to the police station, Hans and Petter.

  Alex responded in kind with gestures of empathy and a string of “ah, that sucks,” and “I’m sorry.”

  Talking to him, Celia felt a small nudge of something. The sensation came over her that everything Alex said was rehearsed. She couldn’t say why. His responses just seemed orchestrated somehow. But then again, maybe that’s just what Alex was like. He came from a rich family that seemed to put high stakes on saying and doing the right things. Maybe a side effect of that was that responses became a little staged.

  And yet, despite that, it was nice to hang out with Alex again. He’d been kind of reserved lately, and they hadn’t talked much—not like they used to. Celia had chalked it up to them both being preoccupied and busy with their lives.

  Arriving in central Gothenburg, they disembarked the train and blended in with the bustle of the city.

  While not the most ideal time to visit, Gothenburg was still lovely in its November pallor. Under a faint, yellow-streaked sky, they wandered amidst centuries-old architecture: timeworn churches and monuments, orange rooftops, pointy towers, robust stucco and brick buildings hosting a mix of shops and restaurants intermingled with offices and residential apartments.

  “Want culture?” Alex had asked.

  She’d shrugged. Sure, and so they took a tram to the Natural History Museum.

  The catharsis of it did wonders, Celia found: to walk the streets of Gothenburg and then to stray around the museum. To get lost among the visitors and the ancient relics of mammals and amphibians. To be anonymous. To be in a place where people didn’t know her, where they didn’t know Liv. Although it occurred to Celia that Petter was now working in Gothenburg—at least according to what he’d told her. The thought made her wince.

  She was quick to push Petter out of her mind.

  Alex stopped to stare up at a humungous elephant. Celia went to stand next to him.

  “What is it they say about elephants?” she asked, taking in the sight of the huge animal with its tusks that stuck out like mighty swords. “That they do remember or they don’t?”

  “Elephants have impeccable memory,” Alex said, his gaze upon the animal. “That’s part of how they defend themselves and survive.”

  Celia turned her back to the elephant and took in the collection of artifacts. All around them, stuffed life-sized animals were displayed in lit-up glass cages. Lions, bears, elk, and deer were standing, lying, or prowling—frozen in a moment of time.

  Alex and Celia continued to meander among the taxidermies. Some of them were so well preserved that they looked alive. Others wore goofy expressions that gave them both a good laugh.

  After they’d left the museum and were walking back toward central Gothenburg, Alex brought up the topic of Liv. They were strolling through Haga, a neighborhood full of quaint whimsy. Wood-sided chic cafés and trendy restaurants trailed the stone lanes. “It doesn’t seem like all of this Liv stuff is good for you,” he said. “Maybe it’s time for you to let it rest. You’re young. You have your whole life ahead of you. Just have fun instead.”

  “Maybe,” she said, not wanting to commit to anything and not really wanting to talk about it either. Although she did admit to him: “I have been feeling pretty wound up.” She also had to admit how nice it had been to take the afternoon away from it all.

  “Well, there you go, that’s reason enough to quit,” he encouraged.

  She shrugged an end to the subject, and they continued their promenade through Kungsparken, over a city bridge and back into the more traffic dense part of town.

  “We’re here,” Alex then brightly announced.

  ‘Here’ was Ölhallen 7:an, a pub in central Gothenburg. “Thought we might grab a drink,” he said. “It’s a pretty cool bar. They haven’t changed their interior since they opened 112 years ago.”

  Upon entering the place, Celia believed it.

  The floor was a hexagon subway tile in brownish red and white. Dark panels of wood stretched up toward the ceiling. The walls were filled with paintings of fishermen and boats out at sea.

  It was another one of those things that took Celia by surprise in regard to Alex. She would have expected him to take her to some uppity place with a high age limit so he could im
press with his contacts and ability to get into exclusive places. Instead he brought her to this little joint where the current clientele was a combination of young hipsters and rugged locals.

  Well, if there was one thing she knew about Alex by now was that he wasn’t exactly predictable, and—if she was going to be really honest—sort of all over the map.

  At the bar they ordered a couple of Smithwick’s, then found a table and sat casually chatting.

  After a while, Celia excused herself to go find the restroom. She left her bag slung over her chair. After standing in a bathroom line that didn’t seem to want to budge, she decided to go back and try again later.

  Heading back to the table, she was about to say something to Alex but stopped herself. He was sitting and tapping on a phone, scrolling through its contents. At a very first glance, she’d assumed it was his phone, but getting closer she noted that it wasn’t.

  She saw the aqua blue case: not his phone, her phone.

  Alex was going through her phone.

  CHAPTER 24

  The sight of Alex with her phone sent a memory sparking through her mind.

  It was when she’d been with Alex at his house for the first time. She’d gone to use the bathroom, just like now, and when she returned, her phone wasn’t where she thought she left it. At the time she’d filed it away as nothing. But now the memory came back as a warning signal and it was flashing strong.

  She hoofed up to the table and gave him a furrowed stare.

  Alex’s face was neutral. He set down her phone on the table. “Your friend Oskar just called,” he said calmly, as if that somehow explained why he was invading her privacy.

  “And you answered?” she said sharply.

  “I just thought I should, in case he was wondering where you were. Didn’t want your friend to get worried about you.”

  She reached over and snapped up her phone. “Why would he be worried?”

  “Just everything you’ve been going through lately,” Alex said. He was being nonchalantly chill about the whole thing.

  She checked to see if she had any texts from Oskar, but then saw the time on her screen. “Oh crap, I need to get to work.”

  It had completely escaped her that she was working that evening. She’d lost track of everything while she was in Gothenburg. “I’ll be late unless there’s an express train leaving soon.”

  She hurriedly gathered her things.

  “I’ll check the time table on the way to the station,” Alex said.

  She didn’t look at him or respond. She threw her phone into her bag and flapped into her coat. She couldn’t get over what he’d just done.

  As it turned out, there was an express train that would get her to work on time.

  On the way to the station, they passed a McDonald’s.

  Alex slowed by the entrance. “You’ll need to eat something before your shift.”

  She snapped out a curt: “I’ll be fine.” Although she was kind of hungry, she begrudgingly realized.

  “I’ll get us food,” Alex said. “There should be just enough time for it. You really need to eat if you’re working all evening.”

  Celia stared at him. So first he completely disrespected her by invading her privacy and now he was worried about her caloric intake?

  Still, she followed him in through the doors.

  The inside of McDonald’s was a blur of long lines, bad lighting, and screaming children.

  “There’s no way. We’re never going to make it,” she started to say, but Alex was already sidelining the queue and moving up to the counter.

  Oh my gosh, he’s not going to—

  Celia followed his motions.

  Oh yes, he was.

  Alex had found his target: a girl, a year or two younger than them, with acne across her cheeks and an insecure stoop to the shoulders. He signaled for her to come over with just the perfect amount of confidence wrapped in a little bit of coy.

  He smiled at her all wide and dazzling, and she gave him a timid smile back—a mix of joy and confusion over someone like him paying attention to someone like her.

  He leaned forward and spoke into her ear, and she disappeared.

  A few minutes later, Alex was paying the girl. Celia heard him say: “Here’s a napkin. Don’t throw it away, if you know what I mean.”

  Then he beelined for the door.

  Celia was on his heels.

  “O. M. G.,” she said once they were outside. “I can’t believe you bribed that girl.”

  Alex shrugged. “I did her a favor, I gave her a 500 bill as a tip. Plus, I told her she has a nice smile. Which she does. Maybe that’ll give her the confidence to fix her skin and get a better job.”

  Celia cursed under her breath, shaking her head. “You’re boundaryless, you know that?”

  Alex didn’t respond to that. “Eat up, princess,” he said, shoving a paper bag into her hands. “I got fish for you, just in case you’re pescatarian.”

  ***

  The train was much busier in the afternoon. There were no two seats together, so Celia and Alex sat separately.

  She was glad for the distance.

  She kept thinking: what was that? What was going on with the dude?

  At the station in Björkby, Celia hastily said goodbye to Alex and headed in the direction of the Willow Warbler. She entered the nursing home somewhat out of breath from the quick uphill walk.

  The first person she saw in the hall when she entered was Yvonne.

  Ugh. Apparently there was no end to the tediousness of the day.

  Yvonne was Sten’s wife. She was the woman who had berated her during her first visit to the Warbler as if Celia were a staff member who was responsible for her husband’s violent outbursts.

  Her first instinct was to turn around and pretend she hadn’t seen Yvonne. But it was too late. The woman was already strutting toward her.

  Yvonne wasn’t as bad as her husband—that would have been nearly impossible—but she was endlessly uptight and condescending. When Celia started working at the nursing home, she tried to get on Yvonne’s good side. She searched for the semblance of a smile in the woman’s face only to conclude there was none to be found. After that, she avoided her whenever possible. She was glad that Yvonne usually only came in once a week to see Sten. Celia was surprised that she bothered to come in and see him at all.

  “Celia. How are you doing today?” Yvonne asked brusquely. At least she was polite.

  “I’m all right,” Celia said. “How are you?”

  “Just fine,” Yvonne replied and continued down the hall toward the exit. Although before leaving, she turned back: “Sten is sleeping. Please don’t disturb him.”

  “Will do,” Celia muttered.

  She was more than happy to let the nasty old man sleep.

  The evening meal happened without any major disruptions. Celia helped pass out the dishes to the residents. The evening was relaxed in general; after dinner Celia played Fia med Knuff with her grandmother, Herbert, and the mild-mannered Lidia.

  When they’d finished—with Lidia victorious—Celia put the board together and put it back in the closet where it lived with the other board games and decks of cards.

  A few minutes before her shift was over, one of the nursing assistants approached her. Henrik, who was one of the few male employees at the home, had his arms full of bedding. “Before you leave, could you pick up Sten’s medication and his file and bring them in to me? They’re both on his bedside table.” Henrik added, aware of Celia’s aversion to the man. “Don’t worry about any interaction with him. He’s sleeping again, must be the meds.”

  Celia gave him a nod and made her way to Sten’s room.

  She paused in the doorway.

  Sten was lumped in the middle of his bed. She might have mistaken him for dead if it weren’t for the steady rise and lull of his chest.

  She watched him for a moment.

  Some people looked more peaceful, more kind when they were asleep. T
his wasn’t the case with Sten. Even in his sleep, he didn’t look like a nice person, his mouth and jawline molded into a perpetual scowl.

  On his bedside stand she found the medication container and folder as expected. She took care to step quietly to the table. The last thing she wanted to do was to wake the sleeping bear. Soundlessly she swept up his things.

  She eyed the folder on her way back to Henrik.

  She’d always held a natural interest in the people at the home and often wondered what their lives were like when they were younger. Whenever she had the chance, she’d sit and listen to their charming anecdotes. Sometimes the other employees would fill her in on what they knew about the residents.

  Herbert, for example, remained a bachelor throughout his life. He often spoke of his childhood on the family farm but offered few details of his life after that. He kept a black and white photograph on his bedside table. Featured in it was a young cap-wearing lad with a gentle, asymmetrical smile. When Celia asked who the boy was, Herbert’s expression had softened. “That was a friend: someone who has always been very near to my heart.”

  Meanwhile, Lidia was born the same year that women were granted the right to vote. Lidia’s mother had taken on a pivotal role in the Swedish women’s suffrage movement, helping to ensure that the baby she carried would have lifelong voting rights. Lidia herself became active in social movements at a young age.

  Then there was Sigrid. Her father had been a sea captain who had sailed far and wide throughout his career. As such, Sigrid had spent much of her life on boats.

  But Sten.

  He never shared stories, of course, so Celia was left to her own imagination to think up the narrative of his life.

  Who had Sten Lagerkvist been?

  She figured he’d been a lawyer or something like that. Someone who took on skewed cases and fought for the wrong reasons.

  When Celia handed off the items to Henrik, she asked, “What did Sten used to do for a living?”