New York for Beginners

by Remke, Susann

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © 2013 Susann Remke

  Translation copyright © 2015 Kate Northrop

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Previously published as New York für Anfängerinnen by Amazon Publishing in Germany in 2014. Translated from German by Kate Northrop. First published in English by AmazonCrossing in 2015.

  Published by AmazonCrossing, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and AmazonCrossing are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781503945067

  ISBN-10: 1503945065

  Cover design by Shasti O’Leary-Soudant

  CONTENTS

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR

  1

  AUGUST, Berlin, Germany

  CAREER

  CAREER

  CAREER

  That’s what was scrawled on the bathroom mirror in brilliant-red Chanel lipstick. As usual, Zoe Schuhmacher had made a to-do list, but this time, in preparation for her new life journey, her list was short and sweet. Zoe would leave Germany for a year to concentrate on precisely one thing: her career! Nothing but her career. Because she was a perfectionist, she not only had a Plan B ready, but also a Plan C. And, of course, she’d also created a not-to-do list:

  NO SERIOUS RELATIONSHIPS WITH MEN

  NO SERIOUS RELATIONSHIPS WITH MEN

  Preferably no relationships with men at all, she thought. Not even purely platonic ones.

  Zoe examined her face in the bathroom mirror. In bold red letters, the word “CAREER” appeared emblazoned across her forehead, while the resolution “NO SERIOUS RELATIONSHIPS WITH MEN” glared over her chin. For a change, she had parted her shoulder-length hair in the center and styled it with a curling iron in casual, messy waves. The fashion magazine she worked for had called the look “beach blown,” of all things. She’d known from the moment she saw it that it would suit her. Her almost olive-toned skin lent her a touch of summer at any time of year. The only makeup she bothered with was Chanel Rouge Coco in No. 31 Cambon red to emphasize her lips.

  She left the lipstick open on the shelf under the mirror. “Doesn’t the Mafia usually leave a dead fish or something?” she murmured to herself. “Warning: Don’t try anything funny, or you’ll end up with your feet in cement at the bottom of the next river!”

  Zoe obviously preferred Chanel to dead fish.

  She pulled a sunny light-yellow T-shirt over her carefully tousled curls. Yellow signaled that she was OK—more than OK! People who’d been betrayed usually wore black, didn’t they? Or green. Apparently, most green cars were bought by divorced people, Zoe had once read. To top off her look, she put on a large pair of horn-rimmed glasses—nonprescription, of course—and peered at herself critically. She liked the mixture of girly and geeky. The strange woman in the mirror gave off the impression that she had a few surprises up her sleeve: a clever turn of phrase, a fantastic secret, and maybe even a few dirty jokes. She was ready!

  “If you can make it there, you’ll make it anywhere, Zoe Schuhmacher,” she told her reflection.

  She took one last turn through the apartment. She paused in the living room doorway and gazed contentedly at the white mohair rug. Actually, it was more green than white now. The pound of garden cress seeds that were sprouting all over made it look almost cheerful. The 26-inch flat-screen TV, the stainless steel refrigerator with the built-in ice maker, and the new noiseless eco-friendly dishwasher were all gone. She had arranged for a moving company to pick them up and take them to her parents’ house.

  “What about the rest of this stuff?” the mover had asked, a little annoyed.

  “It stays here,” she’d answered.

  After all, could a woman do anything worse to a man than take away his access to cold beer and ability to watch sports, force him to wash his own dishes, and turn his living room carpet into a living organism? Zoe had briefly considered installing a collection of cuddly teddy bears in a rainbow of colors on the sofa, but she decided to invest the money in her new glasses instead. She locked the apartment door and heaved her suitcases down the stairs with a feeling of exhilaration.

  Her friend Allegra was already waiting outside to drive her to the airport. “Wow! You look like you’re ready to join the witness protection program,” she said, eyeing Zoe’s new look. “New hairstyle, new glasses, and, in less than twelve hours, a new apartment, too. New York City, baby!”

  “New York City!” Zoe echoed, catching the reflection of an unfamiliar woman with a huge grin on her face in the rearview mirror. That must be her.

  “Fifth Avenue!” Allegra cried as she started the car.

  “The Empire State Building!” Zoe added.

  “Honking yellow taxis!”

  “Howling police sirens!”

  “Bagels with cream cheese and smoked salmon!”

  “The Statue of Liberty!”

  “The freedom to reinvent yourself!”

  Zoe paused, then added, “You’re right. This is probably the last time in my life I’ll have the chance to reinvent myself completely.”

  “You’re thirty-four, sweetie, not seventy-four,” Allegra said.

  “I guess you’re right. Now let’s get out of here!”

  The whole New York thing was a man’s fault, just like almost every other meaningful thing in Zoe’s life up until now. To be precise, it was a dead man’s fault. And for that reason, before Zoe and Allegra went to the check-in counter at the Berlin Tegel Airport, they stopped at a newsstand to buy a hot-off-the-press copy of the Berliner Morgenpost. After flipping to the obituary section, Allegra cleared her throat and read aloud:

  The lord is my shepherd (Psalm 23)

  To our great dismay

  Benjamin Nikolaus Nigmann

  (10/1/1976–7/29/2012)

  Succumbed to his condition

  No one will really miss him.

  A warm feeling of contentment spread through Zoe. It was similar to the rush she got from snapping up the last pair of size-seven Louboutins at a sample sale and leaving the sixes and tens for the rest of the fashion scavengers. Zoe grinned at Allegra, and Allegra grinned back. Then both women raised their right hands for a high five.

  “Slam dunk!” they chorused before breaking into laughter.

  Benjamin Nigmann wasn’t actually stone-cold-six-feet-under-eaten-by-worms dead. To be fair, Zoe had once (merely out of pure curiosity, of course) Googled to find out which would guarantee the most painful death: cyanide in espresso or an el
ectric shock in the bathtub. And in an online forum for hardened ex-wives, she had even found advice for wannabe Lorena Bobbitts. But that simply wasn’t her style. Benjamin’s family, friends, and colleagues would surely soon discover that the bastard was still alive. And by then, Zoe would be 3,979 miles away as the crow flies, beginning her new life.

  “The joy of revenge is completely undervalued. People should be encouraged to experience it every now and then, don’t you think?” Zoe said.

  “My feelings exactly,” Allegra said. “And after ten years of being with Prince Charming On Hold, it was about time.”

  Prince Charming On Hold. Zoe had always rather euphemistically called him that. Benjamin Nikolaus Nigmann—Benni for short—was considerate (“Let me close the shades to help your migraine”), empathetic (“I can understand your pain—we’ll get through this together”), and diplomatic (“Your mother is definitely wrong, but of course she has a right to her point of view”). He wore the right shoes (brown desert boots), the right skinny jeans (Acne), and the right long-sleeved shirts (American Vintage). He ate sushi, but not the kind with overfished bluefin tuna. And he ate at least five servings of fruits and vegetables a day, but only the local, organic, in-season kind. He didn’t just use shower gel and deodorant—he also moisturized. He got regular pedicures. He watched soccer on Saturdays like every other fun-loving guy, and he haggled with his boss for more vacation time instead of a higher salary, as every enlightened man should. And he was damn good-looking. He was long and lean, but muscular like a dancer. High cheekbones and a crease between his eyebrows lent him an aristocratic air. His carefully cultivated three-day beard didn’t even scratch her face when he kissed her.

  “So what was so great about BNN anyway?” Allegra asked on the way to the check-in counter. Allegra always referred to Benjamin Nikolaus Nigmann in abbreviated form. She claimed it stood for Big Nice Nothing.

  “He was the perfect man,” Zoe answered. “That’s what I thought, at least.”

  “Exactly!” Allegra cried. “It’s what you thought. But here’s a guy who can’t even decide on a brand of breakfast cereal after an hour in the supermarket, let alone make a commitment to a woman after living with her for ten years.”

  Zoe had to admit that Benni had a serious problem with decisions. Big and small ones. Breakfast cereal was a sore point, because it had led to the first big fight in the Schuhmacher-Nigmann household. Once, when Zoe had sent Benni back to the supermarket around the corner to buy a box of cereal he’d forgotten, he’d returned home an hour later, frustrated and empty-handed.

  “What took you so long?” she had asked him.

  “I stood in front of the shelf for forty-five minutes and compared the nutritional information on every box,” he said. He seemed to think he was defending himself, but it sounded more like a complaint. “How are you supposed to decide with such a huge selection? Cornflakes are boring, Frosted Flakes have ten grams of sugar in a twenty-nine gram serving, Froot Loops are filled with strange dyes, and I won’t buy Coco Pops on principle, because of that stupid monkey on the package. I’m not six years old anymore, after all.”

  From then on, Zoe went to the supermarket herself and felt a little like Benni’s therapist—or worse yet, his mother. And despite his previous objections, the cornflakes and Froot Loops she brought home would magically disappear from their pantry. It started to feel like Zoe had saved poor Benni from the pain of making any decisions for the rest of his (and her!) life. She might as well have bought the cereal with the monkey on it, since he acted like he was six years old anyway.

  As Zoe exchanged her suitcases for a boarding pass at the check-in counter, her mind was still on breakfast cereal.

  “Your darling BNN belongs to the YEPPIE generation, the Young Experimenting Perfection Seekers,” Allegra had said after the cereal debacle. She’d read about the phenomenon in some book. Apparently YEPPIES, who were part of the generation born around 1975, had extremely high expectations of their surroundings. They avoided making decisions whenever possible out of fear that something better might come along.

  “He thinks of you exactly like breakfast cereal,” she warned. “He’s just putting you on hold! He’s leaving room for a better option.”

  And that’s exactly what happened.

  At the time, BNN, who posted every little observation on Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, and Facebook (“Grilled cheese! In the cafeteria! How retro!”), had just found “an old friend from school” on Facebook. First messages were exchanged, and then addresses. In the end, bodily fluids were exchanged, too. Zoe only found out about it when Benni told her he’d “made an intuitive decision” to return to his “first true love,” which he “couldn’t fully appreciate at fifteen.” They were getting married this year.

  “You have a little time before boarding. Let’s grab a drink,” Allegra said, waking Zoe up from her brooding. They headed for the Lavazza Coffee Shop.

  “Good morning, ladies. Coffee, espresso, cappuccino?” the barista said, turning up the Italian charm.

  “Two glasses of champagne, please,” Allegra replied, fluttering her eyelashes.

  “Magnifico. Is there something to celebrate?”

  “There is! My friend here is single again.”

  The waiter grinned knowingly before disappearing behind the counter.

  Zoe elbowed Allegra in the ribs as they made their way to a table. “Al! You don’t have to tell everyone.”

  “Why not? You never know. Maybe our attractive Antonio here is the son of Lavazza’s CEO. He could be a great catch!”

  “No relationships with men! Have you forgotten?”

  “True. No relationships with men . . . but not even the barista?”

  “Not even the barista.”

  The attractive Antonio brought two glasses of champagne to the table.

  “So, if your friend doesn’t have a date for this evening, I know a charming Italian guy who wouldn’t mind taking her out,” he said, continuing the conversation as though Zoe wasn’t there.

  “Unfortunately, my friend will be dining in New York tonight,” Allegra responded with a shrug. Antonio hurried away, looking disappointed.

  Zoe and Allegra lifted their glasses in a toast, looking exaggeratedly into each other’s eyes. One last time the German way, Zoe thought. The idea was that if you didn’t look into each other’s eyes when toasting, you’d have bad luck. It was a holdover from the Middle Ages, when people had suspected each other of poisoning their wine. In their student days, they’d always jokingly warned of “seven years of bad sex” for the crime of not making eye contact. This time they skipped the joking.

  “I’m starting to feel a little guilty about what I did to him,” Zoe admitted after the first sip, as she watched the bubbles rising in her champagne.

  “Why? What happened to the glowing self-esteem you had this morning?” Allegra asked. “BNN is an I-D-I-O-T.”

  “Why are you spelling that out?”

  “I don’t know. Probably because I’m so angry at him. And at you. You obviously still love him.”

  “That’s ridiculous! Why would you say that? I spread a pound of garden cress seeds on the designer rug that his darling mother gave him for Christmas and watered it carefully until it sprouted. I moved out of our apartment while he was on a business trip. Jesus, I’m moving to another continent without telling him!”

  “That was all a reaction to what he did. Under the circumstances, you probably could have gotten away with murder.”

  “Do you really think so?”

  “What? That you could get away with murder, or that you love him?”

  “That I love him.”

  “Yes, I really mean it. You still love that wimpy guy who stays in his airplane seat until the seat belt light goes off.”

  “I do not,” Zoe said. She stared down at her glass.

  “You do, too! I�
��ll explain it again since you’re a little slow today. Your darling Benni wants a relationship, but only one that’s easy for him. He wants a royal rose garden without having to water it. He wants a Labradoodle, or whatever those silly dogs are called that are so fashionable right now. The ones that don’t eat or shit or need to be walked. He wants kids, but not now, just someday. He wants them delivered sleeping through the night, quiet, and potty trained, and he certainly doesn’t want them living permanently with him in his designer apartment. Your darling Benni doesn’t want any responsibilities, my dear. He only wants one thing: the possibility to wait and see. He’s completely terrified of conflict or risk. He’s a wimp. When are you going to see that?”

  “I’d rather have a wimp than some asshole in a three-piece suit in the Lufthansa Senator Lounge whose ringtone is the theme from Jaws.”

  “Of course you don’t want some discontinued eighties model who can’t tell his own kids apart. But there has to be something between Mister Cuddles and a great white shark.”

  “There must be,” Zoe said. She drank the rest of her champagne in one gulp.

  They made their way to the security line. Zoe hugged her friend tightly. “I’m going to miss you, Al.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll come visit you in the Big Apple very soon.”

  2

  When the plane landed for her layover in Frankfurt, Zoe made the trek to Gate C16, where an Airbus A380 was waiting for her. Even boarding the new megaplane was special. As over five hundred economy passengers entered through several gates, depending on where they would be seated, Zoe and the other business-class passengers went up the stairs to the upper level. So far, so posh. It was a typical business-class cabin: wide, comfortable seats, thick blankets, and generous storage space. But with almost a hundred travelers in the cabin, it somehow didn’t feel quite so special—despite the fact that the ticket cost around four thousand euros.

  This bird is just too big for me, Zoe thought. But as she tugged on the complimentary dark-blue Lufthansa socks, she realized with glee that there were cosmetic samples from Clarins in the goodie bag.