Cinderella Girl

by Carin Gerhardsen

  Some time later, when Joakim was involved in a discussion with Andreas about a four-year-old girl who had been kidnapped in Portugal, Jennifer got up with a glass in her hand and left the room. People were running in and out of both cabins so Joakim assumed she wanted to mingle a little in the other one. Even though he really wanted to follow her immediately, wherever she was going, he remained sitting out of politeness until the conversation started to run down. Then he slipped over to the other room and scanned Jennifer’s already seriously intoxicated friends. They had been joined by two guys who appeared to be about Joakim’s age; to general amusement they were bellowing Finnish drinking songs. Jennifer was nowhere to be seen. He opened the door to the bathroom, but she wasn’t there either. He went back to the first cabin, but that bathroom was empty too.

  ‘Where’d Jennifer go?’ he called to Malin, who replied with a shrug.

  Fanny didn’t know either, so he went and tried the door to their own cabin, but it was locked and no one answered his knocking.

  Suddenly the fun of sitting and drinking with a gang of inebriated teenage strangers disappeared and he left the party unnoticed to find Jennifer. He searched down long corridors lined with doors, over to one of the stairwells and then up to a level where there was more than just cabins. He went systematically through all the shops, restaurants, bars, dance floors and gambling rooms, but without finding her. A hint of a headache was sneaking up and he gave up searching for the moment and sat with a can of beer at a table near the windows in the upper dance hall.

  * * *

  Suddenly she had just had enough. They were all so childish, especially the boys with their pathetic teenage bellowing. The giggly, shrill girls weren’t much better. Joakim was different of course, although when they saw each other this morning something had changed. Something was wrong; it didn’t feel right any more. He shouldn’t have been there, uninvited, shouldn’t have watched her with that look, although she had actually liked it before. Yearning. Like a dog. Her feelings for him were simply gone; she was tired of him. She just couldn’t think of what to do to end the whole thing, what she should say.

  After aimlessly drifting around for a while, preoccupied by her thoughts, she found herself on the topmost deck. It was half past nine and so far there were few people in the large dance hall, but soon they would be flocking in, once people had finished dinner. There were a few scattered groups in the big hall, mainly at the window tables. Another group was sitting around the long bar.

  She braced one foot against the footrest and heaved herself up on to one of the tall stools closest to the entrance in the half-moon-shaped bar. The bartender was turning glasses further down and did not seem to have noticed her. Syrupy-sweet dance music echoed in the mostly empty space and she was thinking about what to order when an older man sat down on the bar stool next to hers. Automatically she turned towards him, but he took no notice of her, looking instead at the bottles lined up on the shelves behind the bar. He had a somewhat slovenly, almost ravaged appearance: unpressed white shirt, unwashed hair that was too long over his ears, and he didn’t seem to have shaved for several days. Jennifer could see that he was continually tensing his jaw.

  ‘What are you drinking?’ he asked suddenly, still without looking at her.

  He sounded almost unfriendly and a shiver of distaste passed through her.

  ‘Nothing,’ Jennifer answered, preparing to leave.

  ‘What are you doing in the bar then?’ he continued.

  ‘I was going to get a beer, but –’

  ‘Two beers!’ he called to the bartender, who nodded in response.

  ‘But I don’t want –’

  ‘I realize that,’ the man interrupted her again. ‘Things don’t always turn out the way you want, do they?’

  He turned towards her for the first time and openly let his gaze sweep over her body. He hardly seemed interested in her face. His eyes were rather small and he looked harried. She had no desire to talk to this man, but she would probably have to endure it until the beers were finished; a beer was not cheap, after all. Jennifer didn’t know where to direct her gaze, so she started fumbling in her handbag for her mobile phone. She had turned it off when Joakim started calling her and sending text messages, but now she turned it on again to have something to do with her hands. As soon as the phone was on it signalled that she had received several messages. They were all from Joakim, and she couldn’t bear to think about him right now, so she turned the phone off again.

  It struck her that maybe she should make a slight gesture of gratitude towards the man, since he was treating her to a drink, so she rooted out a packet of mints from her bag and extended it to him without saying anything. But he just shook his head with the same forbidding look. The bartender came with the two beer glasses and she took a few substantial gulps from hers at once, while the man paid with a crumpled hundred-kronor bill that he fished out of his back pocket.

  ‘Thanks,’ said Jennifer, but then couldn’t think of anything else to say, so she sat in silence, gazing down into her beer.

  ‘So you’re drunk again today,’ he said suddenly.

  Who was he? He was seedy, but not enough to be part of her mother’s gang and besides, she knew them all pretty well by now. Jennifer hesitated for a moment before she answered.

  ‘What do you mean, “again”? I don’t get drunk every day exactly.’

  She looked around self-consciously to avoid looking him in the eyes; her gaze fell at last on her own hand, nervously fingering the beer glass. She quickly raised the glass to her lips and took in half the beer at one go. He placed one hand on her shoulder, but not to calm her.

  ‘Yesterday and today,’ was all he said.

  Jennifer tried to pull away from his hand, but couldn’t. She looked around again and made eye contact with a man sitting at a table just behind them. The hand was pinching her shoulder a little harder now, and she turned towards the heavy-handed man and looked him right in the eyes.

  ‘What the hell are you talking about?’ she spat out. ‘I’ll get drunk if I want to.’

  He hissed at her with his mouth twisted in a malicious grin.

  ‘You shouldn’t carry on like that, you little whore!’

  Her shoulder hurt now and she finally managed to twist out of his grasp.

  ‘I’m sitting here peacefully and then you come along and start bothering me. And talking a lot of fucking shit! What the hell do you want from me?’

  Once again she felt a hand on her shoulder, but this one belonged to someone else. She turned around and saw it was the man from the table behind who had come up to them.

  ‘Are you coming any time soon?’ he asked in a friendly voice, but a little urgently, as if she was part of his group and had only gone away for a little while.

  Jennifer quickly let herself down from the tall stool. In passing she grabbed her handbag from the bar.

  ‘Gotta go now. Thanks for the beer,’ she said with a contemptuous smile.

  * * *

  Where could she have gone? If she was with strange people in another cabin, there was no point in searching for her. If she was on one of the upper decks, they must have passed each other in all the stairs and corridors. But what was she really up to? Everything had felt so good before, when she was sitting curled up in his lap, carrying on like all the others. Why had she just left, without giving the least hint of where? She had kissed him, damn it! Besides, she had hinted that they had a long evening ahead of them – together. Once again it felt as if she didn’t want him, that in reality she was looking for something else. But what? She didn’t seem particularly interested in any of the other guys in the group, even if she interested them.

  Joakim had no idea how Jennifer functioned. They really didn’t know each other. They saw each other now and then, but not as often as he would like. He knew nothing about what life was like for her at home, about her family. That was the kind of thing she didn’t talk about. He had no idea what she did during the w
eek either. Sure, she went to school, that much she had told him, but that didn’t seem to keep her from seeing him in the middle of the day if she wanted to. Did she have interests, did she play sport, what did she do when she wasn’t in school and wasn’t with him?

  As he sat there thinking about their relationship – or whatever you wanted to call it – she was like a blank sheet of paper. He knew nothing about who she was or how she viewed things. On the other hand, she didn’t know much about him either.

  They had met only about a month earlier, in August, when it was still summer and warm outside. They met on Götgatan, in front of the building at Ringen where she lived. Jennifer had been to the shop to redeem bottles and do some shopping. She told him that she put the groceries in the paper bag she’d brought the empty bottles in. Just as they were passing one another on the pavement, the bottom dropped out of the bag. He helped her gather up the groceries then ran to the 7-Eleven on the other side of the street to buy a new bag for her.

  Completely unperturbed by people looking at them, she’d directed all of her attention at Joakim. He noticed that she had a way of laughing with her whole face, not just with her mouth, and her eyes sparkled at him until he was completely weak at the knees.

  A few days later they ran into each other at McDonald’s, where they were sitting at separate tables. Jennifer caught sight of him and came up and asked if she could sit down at his table. She had been in a rowdy mood then, interested and talkative, and when they had finished eating she asked if he wanted to have a beer at one of the outdoor cafés on Medborgarplatsen. Taken by surprise by her direct manner, he agreed. They got drunk, and although he was much older, she was the one who took the initiative. Joakim felt free and a little wild in her company; she didn’t ask annoying questions and didn’t demand anything. She bubbled away and seemed to appreciate him as he was. Jennifer dragged him around to various places and after they had been snogging for a while in the bar at the Green Hunter she’d pulled him into the toilet.

  It had been a magical evening and there had been a few more like that, before her interest in him seemed to subside. It was now almost two weeks since they’d had such a good time together. She blamed it first on one thing, then another, and sometimes – like yesterday – was simply unavailable or didn’t show up when they made a date.

  Joakim was at a loss about what to do, but he thought the whole situation was unpleasant. He knocked back the last drops of beer and pushed the glass away. Just as he was getting up to leave he caught sight of her. Far away, in the other part of the dance hall and half hidden by the long, semicircular bar he saw her from behind. Slouched in an armchair and with a reddish drink in her hand, she sat talking to two middle-aged men in suits.

  Joakim froze mid-movement. He turned completely cold inside when he saw how she gestured and laughed with the two strangers. Why was she acting like that? He was the one she was here with; who were those men? They both seemed to move a little closer to her. One placed his hand on her thigh; the other stroked her cheek. She didn’t pull away and didn’t seem the least bit bothered. On the contrary, she laughed again and again – he could see that from the way she moved her shoulders. She held out her glass and toasted them and they brought their glasses next to hers. Dance music was playing through the loudspeakers and Joakim was sitting too far away to hear the clinking glasses or their voices. But he’d had enough. He felt his worry turn to rage and knew inside that it was all over now. Definitely over.

  * * *

  Jennifer tried to tell herself that she was only looking for excitement. But she knew there was something else besides – attention, not just from Joakim, not just from the usual losers who filled her world. Right now this felt right. And it would tomorrow too. The thought of poor Joakim flitted through her mind, but to hell with him, he was an adult; he could take her as she was or not at all. She was the smith of her own happiness; that was enough. She wasn’t prepared to be the smith of Joakim’s too.

  She felt pleasantly tipsy; now if she could just keep this perfect level of intoxication going. Not get more drunk, not get sober.

  ‘Are you here alone?’ asked the darker and thinner of the two men.

  They both spoke with that wonderful Finnish accent, and even though they sounded like Moomintrolls she thought the dialect only reinforced their manliness.

  ‘No, I’m here with a few friends. I just got a little tired of them,’ Jennifer replied apologetically. ‘They’re so … immature.’

  ‘That’s not good. We’ll have to cheer you up a little. We’re very mature,’ laughed the other one. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Jennifer.’

  ‘I’m Erik,’ said the huskier one, ‘and this is Henrik. We’ve been on a business trip to Stockholm. What are you drinking?’

  ‘Tequila Sunrise,’ she answered, thinking it sounded glamorous.

  ‘What the hell. That is mature,’ the one named Erik grinned, getting up and going over to the bar.

  Jennifer felt herself blushing a little, and glanced at the clock over by the bar as if to divert their attention.

  ‘So, how old are you?’ asked Henrik, placing his hand on her shoulder.

  ‘Almost seventeen. How old are you?’

  ‘What do you think?’ he countered. ‘We’re two men in our prime.’

  ‘Forty-three,’ she guessed, and Henrik nodded appreciatively.

  ‘Not bad, not bad at all. At our age, you know, you don’t really like talking about your age. Do you have a boyfriend?’

  He gathered up the papers they had been looking at before they rescued her from that disgusting man, and placed them in a briefcase on the couch beside him.

  ‘Well, what should I say? Sometimes, sometimes not.’

  Henrik was not content with that, and persisted.

  ‘Okay, but right now?’

  After quick deliberation she answered with a half-truth.

  ‘No, I can’t really say that. Maybe he thinks so, but I’m not involved with him any more.’

  Well, that was that. There was something about the situation with Joakim that made her uneasy, but now it was over. Once she’d formulated them and the words were spoken, it became the truth. But Henrik didn’t give up.

  ‘So is he here on the boat, the poor guy?’

  And now Jennifer lied; she didn’t want to think about it any more, much less talk about it.

  ‘Hell, no!’ she said. ‘Do you think I’d take him along on a trip like this?’

  Erik came back. He set two large beers and a reddish-yellow drink, decorated with orange slices and a piece of kiwi neatly arranged on a toothpick, in the middle of the table. Henrik handed out the glasses and extended his own towards Jennifer.

  ‘Cheers to freedom then,’ he said, winking at her.

  Erik did the same and Jennifer responded with a smile. The drink was not as strong as she’d hoped and she soon emptied it.

  ‘You’re a real pro at drinking,’ said Erik.

  ‘That was just fruit juice. They’re a little stingy with the alcohol, I think. I’ll go get a beer instead, then you know what you’re getting.’

  ‘No, no, what the hell, our treat,’ said Henrik. ‘But you know what, let’s go down to our cabin instead, where we’ve got some real stuff. What do you say, Erik?’

  Erik agreed, the two men finished their beers and all three left the bar and made their way towards the lifts.

  Their cabin was higher up in the boat than Jennifer’s, but not high enough to have windows. This cabin also had room for four people, but Erik assured her that he and Henrik were the only occupants. Henrik uncorked a bottle of Finnish vodka that he pulled out of a bag from the duty-free shop, mixing the alcohol with orange juice in some toothbrush glasses. Jennifer and Henrik sat down on one lower bunk with Erik across from them.

  He’s handsome, thought Jennifer. He and Henrik were talking about something and joking and laughing, but she wasn’t thinking about what they said so much as how they said it. Henrik was h
andsome too; tall and dark, maybe a little too thin. He looked almost dangerous, with his cheeks scarred by something, probably teenage acne. He was better dressed, with a slightly more refined style than his friend, but Erik on the other hand had a kind of bitter humour and a dimple in his chin that appealed to her. He was a bit more rugged and had streaks of grey in his medium-blond hair, but it suited him.

  Jennifer had always been attracted to older guys, but they were both considerably older than what she was used to. Real men, simply. In their prime. Different from the blokes her mother dragged home, or the peach-fuzzed geeks her own age, for that matter. No, she would probably choose Erik, but it could go either way. There was something exciting about both of them and to top it off, that mature, manly self-confidence. It was like they owned the world, they didn’t need to look around to see what people thought. Nothing worried them. They were the ones who set the agenda; they didn’t accommodate other people.

  ‘Cheers again, kiddo,’ said Henrik, placing his hand on her thigh.

  He could do that, completely unruffled, without risking anything. He placed his hand on her leg and then the leg was his. He spoke to her as if she were little and he was big, and she could calmly lean back and let herself be taken care of on his terms. It was natural and obvious and she felt comfortable. With Joakim it was different. Suddenly it occurred to her what the problem was with him. Even though he was much older, it was Jennifer who was in charge, and that wasn’t the way she wanted it.

  They talked and drank and everything felt completely natural. She found herself far from her everyday world and far from her friends and their loud teenage drunkenness. She had taken yet another step into the adult world; Joakim and his yearning and fumbling were forgotten. It was not long before Jennifer was perched on Henrik’s lap. Erik moved over and took her place on the bed. Suddenly she caught sight of a ring on his finger.