Paper Love

by Jae

  “That was the big, bad wolf?” Miri asked as soon as Anja closed the door. She used the flyer that the Indian restaurant had stuck into one of the bags to fan herself. “Damn, girl! How can you work with her without being constantly distracted?”

  Anja took the flyer from her and used it to give her friend a playful slap to the shoulder. “I manage just fine. You’re the one who can’t resist a beautiful woman, even if she’s a total ass.”

  “But that’s the thing—she’s not. An ass, I mean. She seems nice to me. A little reserved maybe, but she thawed out pretty fast.”

  Yeah, Anja had to admit that Susanne hadn’t been so bad, at least not with Miri there to draw her out. She had even agreed to finally switch to a first-name basis. But would it be like this at Paperworld next weekend—or at work on Monday, for that matter? She doubted it.

  “Thanks a lot for embarrassing me with that movie theater story, by the way,” she grumbled as she went in search of snacks for their Netflix night.

  “Oh, come on. It wasn’t that bad. We all have a first-kiss story like that.”

  “Yeah, but neither of you shared yours. Plus she’s my boss. Kind of.”

  Miri plopped down onto the sofa bed. “Hey, you were the one who insisted that she’s not there to take over, so she isn’t really your boss.”

  “Still.” Anja tossed a bag of sweet chili chips onto Miri’s lap, settled down next to her, and grabbed the remote control before her friend could. “Just for that embarrassing story, I get to pick what we’re watching.”

  Still thinking about her unplanned dinner with Anja and her friend, Susanne entered her apartment and kicked off her shoes. Even in socks, her steps echoed through the hall. God, her bare apartment had all the charm of an impersonal hotel room. Maybe she should get some more furniture, even if it was just for a few months.

  She plopped down into the recliner, opened the browser on her laptop, and typed in stationery business trends to start doing some research.

  Her finger hovered over the enter key, but she couldn’t bring herself to press it. Oh, come on. Working on weekends was the norm for her, so why this sudden reluctance? Maybe it was all the Indian food she’d devoured or the thought of Anja and Miriam watching a TV show at this very moment. She eyed the Netflix icon in her favorites bar. Should she…?

  A soft tap on the glass of the French door interrupted her before she could decide.

  When she looked up, she wasn’t surprised to see the cat on the other side of the glass door. This tap-and-meow game had been a nightly occurrence since she had moved in a week ago, even though Susanne hadn’t done anything to encourage it.

  Okay, hardly anything. Putting a bowl of milk outside every now and then wasn’t an invitation, was it?

  “Meeeeeoooowwww!”

  This time the nightly concert sounded especially desperate.

  Tap-tap-tap-tap.

  Susanne took a closer look. “Oh boy.”

  Apparently, the cat had been caught in the downpour. His white-and-brown fur was plastered flat against his slender body, making him appear thinner. Water dribbled from his drooping whiskers.

  Could cats catch a cold?

  Susanne had no idea, but he looked miserable.

  Another plaintive cry and a tap-tap-tap came from outside.

  Well, she had already rescued one unfortunate creature from the rain today, so rescuing another wasn’t a big deal, right? She put the laptop aside, stood, and crossed the room.

  Muesli’s wet tail raised up high in the air when he saw her stride toward him.

  She opened the door, and he shot inside as soon as the gap was wide enough for him to squeeze through. “Just this once.” She pointed a warning finger at him. “And just until you’re dry, understood?”

  “Meow.”

  “Good.”

  The phone rang, and Susanne stepped into the hall to answer. She expected it to be her mother, who called almost every day to see how things were going with the store, but instead, Franzi’s name flashed across the screen. “Hey, Sis. How’s the drilling business?”

  Franzi chuckled. “Can’t complain. How’s it going down there in the deep south? Mama says Uncle Nobby is pretty down. Do things really look that bad?”

  “Not very promising, to tell you the truth.”

  “If he needs money, I can—”

  “No.” Her sister’s generosity was touching, but she didn’t want her to risk her money when it might not help their uncle anyway. “If that were the solution, I would have given him some money and been back in Berlin by now. But any money you give him would only be a temporary fix. What he needs is some serious restructuring. Otherwise, we’re just sticking a Band-Aid on a gushing wound.”

  “So how do we stop the bleeding?” Franzi asked.

  “I have a few ideas, but I need to do more research before I recommend anything. The stationery business is more complex than I thought.” Susanne strolled back into the living room, the phone pressed to her ear. “But we’re going to Paperworld next—” She paused in the doorway at the sight that greeted her.

  The cat had gotten comfortable in her recliner and was now grooming himself.

  “Oh, no, no, no. Shoo! That was not part of the agreement! Get your furry little ass off my recliner!”

  Muesli glanced her way and then continued to lick his paw.

  “Pardon me?”

  Susanne burst out laughing. “Not you. I’m talking to the cat.”

  “You got a cat? You? Are you working up to getting a girlfriend?”

  “Hahahaha.” Susanne lifted the cat off the recliner, ignoring his protest, dried off the wet leather with a tissue from the coffee table, and sat before he could jump back up. “I don’t have a cat, and I don’t want a girlfriend right now.”

  “So it’s an imaginary cat you’re talking to?”

  “No. It’s real. It’s just not mine. It belongs to a neighbor, but it’s always trying to hang out here.”

  Franzi chuckled. “You’ve got a feline stalker! And you thought your life in Freiburg would be boring. I was thinking of coming down next weekend to entertain you, but apparently, that’s not necessary.”

  “I’d love that! Wait… Next weekend? Damn, that’s not going to work.”

  “Hot date?” Franzi asked.

  “I just told you. I’m not looking for a girlfriend or a date, especially not while I’m here. We’re going to be in Frankfurt on Saturday. There’s a trade show that’ll give me a better idea of where the stationery industry is going.”

  “We?”

  Her sister never missed much. “Anja and me.”

  “Ah, the famous Anja,” Franzi said before Susanne could explain who she was.

  “You’ve met her, of course.” Susanne kept forgetting that her sister had spent more time in Freiburg than she had.

  “Not yet. I visit Uncle Nobby mostly on the weekends, when Anja isn’t there, and the one time I was in Freiburg for a week, she was out sick. But Uncle Nobby talks about her all the time. Don’t you ever call him?”

  “Of course I do. On his birthday.”

  While her sister lectured her on not keeping in touch with the family often enough, Susanne’s mind drifted. Should she ask Franzi what Uncle Norbert had told her about Anja?

  And that would be important why? You’re here to keep an eye on the store, not its employees.

  The cat chose that moment to jump up on her lap, probably adding more muddy paw prints to her already stained slacks.

  “Hey, I’m not your cuddle buddy! Get off my lap!”

  Muesli started purring and ran his raspy tongue over her hand.

  “Cut it out. No licking!”

  Franzi laughed. “Clearly, the cat is not a practice run for a girlfriend, or you wouldn’t have said that.”

  “You’d better keep drilling holes into teeth, Sis. You’d never make it as a comedian.”

  Once Franzi had stopped laughing, they made tentative plans for her sister to visit sometime in
February, then said goodbye and hung up.

  Susanne put the phone on the coffee table and stared at the cat on her lap. “Don’t think I’ll let you stay the night just because you’re getting all touchy-feely. I’ll have you know I’m not that kind of woman.”

  A few raindrops were still falling from the dark sky, but she hardened her resolve. She’d watch one episode of Orange Is the New Black, then she’d kick the cat out. It wasn’t as if he had nowhere to go, and if she let him stay, she would only make him think he’d found a new home…and then snatch it away when she left.

  The cat cuddled up against her belly, settled his chin on her arm, and closed his eyes with a contented sigh.

  Okay, maybe two episodes.

  Chapter 8

  At nine o’clock on Monday morning, Susanne slowed the BMW to a near crawl as it bumped over the cobblestoned street toward the parking garage near Paper Love.

  A woman on a bicycle leaned forward over the handlebars as she pedaled in the same direction.

  Hey, isn’t that Anja? She knew that bike helmet. Okay, and maybe that nice ass was familiar by now too. Susanne shook her head at herself. Since that disastrous relationship with a colleague as a consulting newbie, she had made it a point to ignore the physical attributes of the people she worked with, and now wasn’t the time to change that.

  When she stepped out of the parking garage a minute later, the woman was bending over a nearby bike rack, chaining her bicycle to it. It was indeed Anja.

  “Good morning, Frau L—um, Anja,” Susanne called from several steps away so she wouldn’t startle her.

  Anja straightened and took her messenger bag from the basket on the back of her bike. “Oh. Good morning.”

  They walked the few steps to the store together.

  Susanne found herself unusually tongue-tied. Normally, she never had a problem making small talk or talking business with co-workers, but their dinner on Friday hadn’t been a business meeting. Should she just ignore it and pretend they hadn’t shared Indian food? Or try for a more friendly tone, ask what Netflix show they had decided on, or maybe thank her again for dinner?

  But she didn’t want to invite too much familiarity.

  Anja seemed to be equally unsure of what to say, so neither of them spoke until they reached Paper Love.

  Susanne was glad to see her uncle already inside, going over some order lists behind the counter.

  “Morning, Nobby.” Anja walked past her to give him a hug.

  Watching them greet each other so warmly was a little weird. No way would she have ever greeted her former boss this way. Susanne couldn’t put her finger on what exactly she was feeling. Part of it might have been envy because she didn’t have that kind of close relationship with her uncle. She remembered what Anja had told her on Friday evening about having a family tree the size of a bonsai. Maybe she didn’t have any uncles, and that was why she and Uncle Norbert were so close.

  She walked past them to the back to hang her coat. When she turned, she came face-to-face with Anja, who had her own coat in hand but made no move to hang it.

  “Listen,” Anja said quietly, as if not wanting Uncle Norbert to hear. “I know Miriam kind of steamrolled you into agreeing for us to be on a first-name basis. If you’d rather we go back to addressing each other by our last names, that would be fine.”

  Did she want to do that? Susanne took the coat from Anja and hung it for her so she’d have a moment to think about it. Her first impulse was to jump at the chance to get back some professional distance, but she had a feeling it was too late for that. She had already seen Anja’s home, had met her best friend, and had found out bits and pieces about how she’d grown up—including that story about kissing a person of unknown gender in the movie theater.

  “Hey, you two,” Uncle Norbert called when they didn’t immediately return from the back. “Get a room.”

  What the hell? Had he really just said what she thought he’d said? Susanne squeezed past Anja and strode toward the counter. “What did you just say?”

  “You two should get a room,” he repeated. “A hotel room. For the fair in Frankfurt.”

  “Oh.”

  “What did you think I was talking about?” His baby blue eyes looked at her with the most innocent expression, and Susanne couldn’t tell whether it was real or fake.

  It occurred to her that she barely knew her uncle. You preferred it that way, remember? She cleared her throat. “Oh, nothing. I was just… Forget it.”

  Anja joined them. Was it just Susanne’s imagination, or were her cheeks a little flushed? “I don’t think we’ll find a hotel room this late. At least not one that won’t cost us an arm and a leg. The hotels in Frankfurt are always upping their prices during the big fairs. We can just go there for the day and travel back in the evening.”

  “Yes,” Susanne said. “I think that’s more reasonable. I looked it up on Google Maps. We can be home in about two and a half hours if there’s no traffic jam on the A5.”

  “Or we could take the train,” Anja said. “That would actually be faster.”

  The train? Susanne hadn’t even considered it, but maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea. She could imagine that finding a parking spot at a trade fair with more than thirty thousand visitors would be a nightmare.

  “She’s right.” Her uncle nodded decisively. “You should take the train. That way, you can just relax and spend the time talking and getting to know each other.”

  Uh… That wasn’t on her agenda for Saturday. They would talk about the trade fair and Paper Love, not about their families or teenage kisses in the movie theater. Determined, she pulled out her phone and started looking for the best train connection.

  “Aah!” Anja fisted her hair with both hands and stared back and forth between her open closet and her sofa bed, which was covered with slacks, skirts, and tops. How on earth was it possible that her entire closet was full of stuff, yet she had nothing to wear for Paperworld?

  She couldn’t very well show up in jeans. What did you wear to a stationery fair, especially if going with your extremely well-dressed temporary-kind-of-boss? She glanced at her wristwatch. Almost eleven. Was it too late to call Miri?

  She reached for her phone and tapped on the first name in her contact list. “Please tell me what to wear,” she burst out as soon as Miri picked up.

  “Ooh! You’ve got a date?” Her friend sounded delighted. “Finally!”

  “No! I’m going to Paperworld tomorrow, remember?”

  “Oh, that. Yeah.” Miri’s tone sobered.

  Anja pulled a wool sweater from the top compartment of the closet, then discarded it. The halls of the fair apparently became pretty hot with all the people milling about, so if she wore a sweater, she’d feel like a lobster being cooked alive. “So what do I wear?”

  “Why are you obsessing over this?” Miri asked. “That’s not like you at all. Usually, you just throw something on and are done with it.”

  “I’m not obsessing. I just… My job might depend on this.”

  “Your job might depend on what you wear to a stationery fair?”

  Okay, that sounded ridiculous. “No, that’s not what I meant. But the fair could give us ideas that could save the store, and I want to dress in a way that says that I’m taking this seriously.”

  “All right. What are Nobby and Felix wearing?” Miri asked.

  Anja pushed a pair of corduroy pants off the corner of the sofa and plopped down. “They’re not going. Someone has to cover the store. I’m going with Susanne.”

  “Aha!”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “That’s why you’re obsessing over what to wear! You want to impress your hot boss!”

  “She’s not my boss, and she’s not—” Anja snapped her mouth shut as an image of Susanne’s high cheekbones, glossy chestnut hair, and tall, slim body popped into her mind. Okay, Susanne was pretty hot…objectively speaking, of course. “I’m not trying to impress her.” She eyed the pil
es of clothes to her right. Was she?

  Miri chuckled. “Right. So what will she be wearing?”

  “I have no idea. Probably something—”

  “Hot,” Miri said.

  “Yes. I mean, no.” She roughly shook her head, even though Miri couldn’t see it. “I meant to say something that costs more than my entire wardrobe put together.” She stood and rummaged through her closet again. “Do you think the gray pin-striped slacks would work?”

  “You still have them?”

  Anja frowned. “Why not? It’s not like they’re going out of style, are they?”

  “No, but they are kind of boring.” Miri was silent for a few seconds. “I’ve got it! Wear a skirt. Show off those sexy legs of yours. I bet Susanne would like that.”

  Anja let out a growl. “I told you I’m not trying to impress her.” She pulled out the gray pants and started to shove the other stuff back into the closet. “That’s it. I’m wearing the slacks.”

  “Fine. Be boring.”

  The closet doors clicked shut. “Thanks for that brilliant piece of advice.”

  Silence filtered through the line.

  “Anja? You’re not really upset with me, are you? I didn’t mean to—”

  “No.” Anja sighed. “I’m not upset, just… I don’t know. Nervous, I guess.”

  “I know Paper Love means the world to you. I can’t even imagine you in any other job.”

  Anja flopped down onto the couch. “Me neither.”

  “You’ll find a way to keep the store open,” Miri said firmly. “I just know it.”

  “Thanks. I hope so.” She extended her legs and pushed the TV stand back with her toes, as if that would help with that closing-in feeling. “I’ll let you go now. Sorry for calling you so late.”

  “Any time. You know that. Sleep well and good luck tomorrow. Oh, and Anja?”

  “Hmm?”

  “You know those boots that you bought last fall? They would go really well with a skirt.” Miri ended the call before Anja could answer.

  “I’m not wearing a skirt,” Anja said into the quiet room. “Absolutely not.”