by Hope Franke
They entered the kitchen area that opened up to the living room and stopped short when they spotted Katja standing there. She had her hands folded in front of her like a young girl scared of her teacher on her first day of school.
Micah’s father was a handsome man for his age, with greying temples and the same warm, brown eyes as his son. His mother looked like Meryl Streep in, The Devil Wears Prada. She wore a high-end, fitted dress suit and four-inch stilettos, definitely brand name items. Her hair was short and blond and perfectly styled. She wore fashionable glasses, which she slowly removed as her eyes roamed from Katja’s face, down to her feet and back again.
“Hello,” Katja said timidly.
Frau Sturm looked at her son and said in English, “Seriously, Micah?”
He frowned and returned in English. “Now, don’t be rude.”
Katja took English all through school, and of course listened to a lot of English music and watched English movies. She wasn’t that comfortable speaking it, but she understood a lot.
“Of course.” She turned back to Katja and spoke once again in German. “Who is your friend?”
“Mama, Papa, this is Katja Stoltz.”
Frau Sturm stepped close to Katja and offered her hand. Katja shook it, hating how her palms had suddenly grown damp. “Good day,” Frau Sturm said stiffly.
Herr Sturm was slightly more cordial. He shook Katja’s hand and smiled, “It’s my pleasure to meet you.” Then he settled on the chair nearest the window and stared outside.
Frau Strum continued, “So, Katja, how did you meet my son?”
Katja’s face grew red at the memory of being picked up on the street like a common hooker. Her eyes flashed to Micah for help.
“I saw her playing at a pub. She’s very good.”
Frau Sturm’s eyes darted to Micah and then back to Katja. “You’re a musician?”
“Yes,” Katja said. “And an artist.” She didn’t know why she added that. This woman just made her so nervous.
Frau Sturm’s gaze landed on the wall behind her, to the three framed sketches. Her heels clicked along the floor as she walked over to examine them. “These are new, Micah,” she stated.
Herr Sturm twisted to look, apparently amused by the dramatic scene playing out in front of him.
“I thought it time to hang something up,” Micah muttered.
“Hmm,” Frau Sturm hummed. She turned back to Katja. “Is this your signature?”
Katja nodded. She waited for a commentary on the quality of her work, but Frau Sturm’s lips formed a firm line. Then she said, “What do you do for employment?”
“Mama?” Micah said, breathing out hard. “What’s with the interrogation?”
“What?” Frau Sturm feigned puzzlement. “I’m just trying to get to know your friend.”
“I work at the coffee shop around the corner,” Katja blurted out. It was a lie. She didn’t work anywhere, but she didn’t want Frau Sturm to think she was an unemployed bum. She wasn’t sure why she cared what this woman thought, but she did. And she did know why. She was Micah’s mother, an important person to him, and she knew deep down she had the power to take him from her.
Even though he wasn’t hers.
What was the matter with her? Katja couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt so flustered and so… lacking.
Frau Sturm turned to Micah. “I must visit your bathroom.”
It was like a tornado died down when Micah’s mother disappeared behind the closed bathroom door.
Katja stared at Micah with wide eyes and whispered, “Should I leave?”
He shook his head sharply. “No.”
Katja slumped into one of the chairs, feeling completely exhausted and depleted.
Herr Sturm’s interest returned to something outside the window. “Are you planning on staying at this branch for a while, then?” he said without looking at his son.
Micah frowned. Katja sensed there was something deeper implied by the question. Micah didn’t answer. Instead he said, “I’ll get us some drinks.”
Katja knew he meant juice or water or tea, but she could use something much stronger right about now.
Frau Sturm came out in time to accept Micah’s offer of a tall glass of sparkling water. She took it, then motioned for him to follow her into the kitchen.
Even though his mother made an attempt to lower her voice, Katja could easily hear her, and she understood her English perfectly. “What’s going on here, Micah? The truth now.”
“I don’t know what you mean?”
“That girl. She looks like…”
“Mother!”
“Are you living together?”
“No, it’s not like that.”
“I found feminine items under the sink.”
Oh, good Lord, Katja thought. She’d left a box of tampons there.
“You were snooping?” Micah’s voice was hard and low. Katja could picture the look on his face. Narrowed eyes, deep lines pulling his lips into a frown.
“Don’t deflect. This girl isn’t right for you.”
Katja stood sharply and grabbed her coat and purse. She couldn’t avoid seeing Micah and his mother as she approached the door.
“I’m sorry, Micah. I forgot, I have this thing.” She couldn’t think of anything nice to say to his mother, so she said nothing. She did make a point of slamming the door when she left.
Not surprisingly, Katja found herself sitting on a bar stool at the Blue Note, her home away from home.
“Hello, ma Cherie,” Maurice said when he saw her. “Oh, why the sad face?”
“It’s my birthday,” Katja said. “I need a drink.”
“All the best! We must celebrate!” Maurice removed her favorite wine from the shelf and poured her a glass. It warmed her heart that he remembered the kind of wine she liked.
“So.” He leaned thick elbows on the counter. “How old are we today?”
She took a long drink and then sighed. “We are twenty-one years old.”
“Oh, yes. The twenties. Such an exciting time of one’s life.”
Katja didn’t share his enthusiasm. “Can I ask you something, Maurice?”
“Sure.”
“Why don’t you live in France?”
He grinned coyly. “How can I live there, when my true love is here?”
His answer surprised her. “You’re married?”
His smile faltered. “My dear wife passed away five years ago. I joke that my bar is my true love now, but my heart knows better. I’m here in Dresden because it was the hometown of my beautiful wife, and it’s my home now. We were married for twenty-five years.” He winked. “Otherwise, the Blue Note would be in France.”
Suddenly Renata’s face flashed across Katja’s mind. “Do you think you’ll ever remarry?”
He washed a glass in a sink of soapy water. “I doubt it. I don’t think love like that comes along twice in a lifetime.” He smiled and put the glass he was drying on the shelf. “She was the sun to my moon.”
Did he really say that? “The sun to your moon?”
“Yes, like your song.”
A shrill ring came from Katja’s purse on the counter.
“Your purse is ringing,” Maurice said. He left her to serve other customers. Katja removed her new phone and stared at it. She didn’t want to talk to Micah right now. She pushed ignore, switched it to vibrate and shoved it in her back pocket.
The front door of the pub opened continuously, and the place was soon full. Music pumped from the speakers in the corners and Katja started to relax in the party atmosphere. Sebastian and Karl-Heinz were there, and she sat in a chair across from them.
“Hey,” she said. “It’s my birthday.”
“All the best!” Sebastian said. “Your next drink is on me.”
Katja readily accepted it. She wanted to drink. She wanted to forget. “Thanks!” She looked around for Sebastian’s girlfriend. “Where’s Yvonne?”
Sebastian shrugged and ran a h
and through his spiky hair. “She has some family thing.”
Karl-Heinz leaned across the table. She observed him with her artist’s eye. He had messy black hair and thick eyebrows. His eyes were a grey blue and he had slender lips. He’d be an interesting subject.
“Where’s your boyfriend?” he said.
Katja squinted at him. “I don’t have a boyfriend.”
He flashed her a lopsided grin. “I think my night just got a whole lot better.”
She laughed. He was flirting with her. See? She was desirable. Guys did like her. Take that, Micah Sturm. She winked at Karl-Heinz and slugged back her drink.
She liked the buzz. It made her happy. It made her feel good about herself. She didn’t need anything or anyone. Especially not him.
Why did her butt keep vibrating? She reached back and found the phone. Oh yeah, her birthday gift from Micah.
“Heelllooo,” she sang. “What? I can’t hear you. Blue Note? Heck, yeah!” It took a couple tries to push the tiny end call button—why’d they make it so blurry anyway?
“Does anyone want to dance?” she shouted.
Karl-Heinz reached out a hand. “I’m game.”
She swayed with the upbeat music, and Karl-Heinz pulled her close until her body slammed into his. His hands moved down her shoulders and over her hips. She pulled away a little, not exactly comfortable with how close they were, but at the same time it felt good. His hands on her body signaled to her that he wanted her. She was wanted.
She felt his lips brush her forehead, and she stiffened slightly. She didn’t know him, but, she decided at that moment, she didn’t care. She just wanted to be loved, and if he wouldn’t love her, she’d take it from wherever she could get it.
Karl-Heinz whispered in her ear. “Do you want to get out of here?”
She knew what he was saying. Did she want to sleep with him? No. Besides, she hadn’t been here long, and she wanted to party.
She felt a hand on her shoulder before she could answer. She turned and burst out laughing. “Micah? What are you doing here?”
Why are you here?
I don’t want you here.
I really want you here.
He didn’t smile. He flashed Karl-Heinz a blistering glare, then said to her, “Let’s go home.”
She pulled away from both of them. “I don’t want to go home. I don’t have a home. I want to paarrrtttyyy.”
Katja stumbled back to the table and squeezed in beside Sebastian. “You’re such a good friend,” she slurred. She picked up his drink and took a sip. “You don’t try to use me. You don’t try to change me. You’re not ashamed of me.”
Sebastian wrapped an arm around her shoulders and gently removed his drink from her with the other. “I think you’ve had too much to drink already.”
“I don’t care,” she whined. “It’s my birthday.”
She was vaguely aware of the two empty seats in front of them becoming occupied by Karl-Heinz and Micah. They both looked frustrated. They both could go fly a kite.
“Sebastian,” she said. “Why do we do this?”
“Do what?”
“This?” She flung out an arm almost knocking Sebastian’s drink over. He expertly rescued it. “Play music. Write songs. What drives us to pursue this life so hard?”
“It’s the way we’re built, baby. Not playing is like not breathing.”
Katja narrowed her gaze at Micah, but continued to converse with Sebastian. “He doesn’t approve,” she slurred. “His family are bankers. They don’t get people like us.”
Katja was drunk, but not so much that she didn’t catch the hurt that flashed in Micah’s eyes. He shifted as if to leave, but she reached across the table and grabbed his wrist.
“Don’t go. I’m sorry.” She pulled a sad, pleading puppy dog face. “Please.”
She giggled when Micah relaxed back in his chair. “Micah doesn’t drink,” she announced. She raised her half-empty glass. “Can you believe it? He’s my designated driver. Except that we walked here. He’s my designated walker!” She lifted her drink to her lips and emptied it.
She slammed her glass down and locked eyes with Micah. “I want to dance. With you.”
He slowly reached his hand out and lifted her to the dance floor. She leaned into him and swayed with the music. It was so different than with Karl-Heinz. He held her gently, stroking her hair. He didn’t grope her like she was a play thing. She wondered why.
She looked up at him, and soaked in his beautiful, brown eyes. “Are you gay?”
His eyebrows jumped. “No.”
“Have you ever had a girlfriend?”
Micah swallowed. “Yes.”
“Do you know what Maurice told me?”
“Uh, nope.”
“His wife was the sun to his moon. He said that. She’s dead now, but she was the sun to his moon. Isn’t that romantic? He said he got that from my song.”
Micah laughed a little. “It’s a great song.”
“So, why don’t you like me?”
His eyes grew sad again. “I do like you, Katja. Very much. But you’ve been drinking, and you’re probably not going to like having this conversation now. Let’s save it until later, okay?”
“Okay.” Katja rested her head against his chest. Micah was such a nice guy. Such a good, decent, nice guy. His prissy, judgmental mother was right about her, though. She wasn’t good enough for her son.
Katja woke up the next morning on the sofa bed in Micah’s living room with a splitting headache and no recollection of how she got there. She still wore the clothes she had on the day before, so Micah obviously hadn’t felt comfortable stripping her and putting her into her night T-shirt. She was glad of it. She already had far too much to be mortified over.
Her jeans cut into her knees and her stomach. She eased the top button open to relieve the pressure. The room swirled when she attempted to sit up. She had to go to the bathroom. And she thought she might throw up.
It was too much to hope for that she would’ve forgotten the night before. No, she remembered everything. Every shameful thing. Her sensual dance with Karl-Heinz, the horrible things she said about Micah right in front of him. Her questions and confessions.
Ugh.
And then there was the whole fiasco before it with his über-domineering mother. The anger she felt at Micah for making her pretend she didn’t live here, like she was a dirty little secret, bubbled up again.
She should move out. She knew this, but where to go? There had to be some place.
Karl-Heinz would probably make room for a new roommate.
The thought made her gag.
Her eyes traced the wall where her sketches hung, and the memory of Frau Sturm’s body bending forward to scrutinize her work, burned in her mind. Then she noticed the locked door. Her sun and moon sketch was missing.
A deep sadness streamed through her.
She forced herself to get up and made it to the bathroom without puking on the floor or wetting her pants. Her next stop was the kitchen, where she drank a half a bottle of juice straight from the container, popped two aspirin, then prepared a strong coffee.
Micah had placed her duffle bag along with her guitar and notebooks in the hall outside his bedroom door. She plucked out a clean shirt, underwear and jeans and headed for the shower. She let the hot water pour down on her head for a good while.
Afterward, she put the sofa bed back into its sofa form and by then she could face a little breakfast. Her eyes continued to dart to the blank space on the locked room door, and she wondered why Micah took it down. Did his mother have something to do with it?
She cringed at the memory of the questions she asked Micah at the Blue Note, especially when she asked him if he’d ever had a girlfriend. Of course a guy like that would’ve had a girlfriend before. Likely a lot of girlfriends. Ugh, how infantile could she get?
He probably wanted her out, and she didn’t blame him. If she owned a laptop, she’d check the want ads right no
w. As it were, she’d have to read the papers. They carried local ones at the coffee shop.
As usual, Katja took her sketch pad with her. Her favorite table was empty and since she just ate and drank a coffee, she didn’t bother to stand in line. She sat down and started sketching. Her hand moved as if of its own free will. Another face. This one wasn’t a patron in the shop. This was a face she knew from memory. Dark, moody eyes, a narrow nose. A square jaw, with full lips in a near frown. Hair trimmed short but growing out around small ears. Behind him, a shadow. She didn’t know what it was. A ghost of his past. Some trauma that left an echo.
She jumped when the chair in front of her moved. Renata sat down and looked at her with questioning eyes.
“Is everything all right? You look pensive.”
She was about to say everything was fine, but something in her burned to tell someone her problems. She didn’t have any real friends besides Renata.
“I’m alone.”
“What do you mean? You must have family?”
Katja shook her head sadly. “Not really. It’s a long story.”
“What about that boy I see you walking around with sometimes.”
“I don’t think he’s interested.”
Renata cupped her hand with hers. “Schätzchen, you are never alone. God is always there for you. He’ll help you if you ask him.”
Katja smiled. Renata was such a kind hearted lady, but she obviously never had any real problems in her life.
Renata saw the look of doubt on her face. “My husband left me ten years ago. I raised our two children alone, all the while working here day and night. I’ve had my share of problems, but I’m all right. And you’ll be all right, too. So tell me what you need.”
Katja felt appropriately chastised, but at the same time accepted. Renata was a person she could trust.
“I need to move, and I don’t have any money. Actually,” Katja’s gaze darted to the newspaper stand by the counter. “I should be reading the papers, looking for a job.”
“Why don’t you work here? One of our employees just quit yesterday, and you know how busy it can get in the afternoons.”
“You mean right now?”
