Paper Love Read online

  “What?” Frau Lamm asked.

  “Nothing.”

  The doorbell made them both jump.

  “Oh shit, I forgot.” Frau Lamm slapped her forehead.

  Hot date with the boyfriend? Susanne bit back the words before she could ask. Frau Lamm was an employee, she reminded herself, so her private life was none of her business.

  “Be right back.” Frau Lamm hurried past her before Susanne could offer to leave. “Yes?” she said into an intercom in the hallway.

  “It’s me,” came the slightly distorted answer. The person didn’t add a name, but the voice was definitely female.

  Not a boyfriend, then. Susanne turned and craned her neck, but, of course, there was nothing to see.

  “Come on up.” Frau Lamm pressed a buzzer and opened the door.

  Seconds later, a knee-high dog rushed into the apartment. The cream-colored mutt looked like a mix of standard poodle and terrier, perhaps with some other breed thrown in somewhere along the line. It greeted Frau Lamm with excited yips, its soaking wet tail going back and forth faster than the windshield wipers had, then bolted across the hardwood floor toward Susanne.

  “Gino, no!”

  Before Frau Lamm or the woman stepping into the apartment could stop him, Gino jumped.

  Susanne stumbled back and protectively threw up her arm. But instead of teeth piercing her skin, a wet tongue licked her hands, and two equally wet paws were planted on her thigh.

  “Gino!” A sharp whistle pierced the air.

  The dog dropped down and trotted back to its owner with a whine.

  Susanne gazed down at the muddy paw prints on her slacks. What was it with the pets in this city? First, a cat decided to move in with her, and now a dog greeted her as if they were long-lost buddies.

  “I’m so sorry.” His owner rushed over to her. “He doesn’t get that from me. I usually introduce myself to a woman before I jump her.”

  Susanne stared at the stranger. The woman was tall, so Susanne could look into her twinkling hazel eyes without having to tilt her head up or down. The stranger ran a hand through her very short, dark hair and gave Susanne an impish grin.

  Frau Lamm groaned. “This is my impossible best friend, Miriam Blattmann. Miri, this is Susanne Wolff, whom I work with.” She stressed the word work and glared at her friend.

  “Oh.” Miriam’s grin fell. “Oops. Sorry. I didn’t mean to… I thought you had finally taken my little nudges to heart and had decided to ask someone out on a date.”

  Date? Did that mean…? Susanne’s gaze flicked back and forth between them. Anja…Frau Lamm was gay?

  At the moment, she seemed to be mostly embarrassed. Her cheeks were as red as a fire hydrant. She disappeared into the other room and returned with two towels. One she wet at the sink and pressed into Susanne’s hands while she started to dry the dog with the other, bending over him in a way that hid her flushed face.

  Susanne watched her for a second, then dabbed at the mud stains on her slacks.

  “Sorry,” Miriam said again. “But hey, I brought Indian food for our Netflix night—which you apparently forgot, Anja. It should be enough for three.” She held up two white plastic bags with a logo that said Kashmir and sent Susanne an inviting look. “Can I tempt you?”

  “Miri!” Frau Lamm groaned from her kneeling position.

  “What? I didn’t mean it that way. Get your mind out of the gutter, woman!”

  Susanne couldn’t help it—she burst out laughing. She hadn’t expected Frau Lamm to have such an irreverent friend…a friend who very obviously was a lesbian or bi. No matter what her own sexual orientation might be, Frau Lamm apparently didn’t have a problem with women who were attracted to women. Why then that weird reaction when they had first met? If it hadn’t been Susanne’s sexual orientation, what had thrown her for a loop?

  “Um, I’m sure Frau Wolff has plans for the evening.” Frau Lamm spoke without looking up from the dog that had stretched out on the floor, letting her towel-dry his belly.

  Susanne’s plans consisted of reading up on the stationery business and trying to keep the cat from getting into her apartment any time she opened a door or window.

  “Do you?” Miriam asked. “Because if you don’t, you’re welcome to stay and have dinner with us. Right, Anja?”

  “Uh, yeah. Right.” Then, as if realizing how half-hearted her answer had come across, Frau Lamm got up from the floor and looked Susanne in the eyes. “Seriously, if you’re not in a hurry, stay. Miriam always gets enough to feed an army.”

  “Never heard you complain about getting leftovers,” Miriam said.

  “And you never will. I don’t know how it’s possible, but their food tastes even better the next day. So?”

  They both looked at Susanne expectantly.

  Susanne hesitated. Normally, she avoided socializing with co-workers. She had her own circle of friends, independent of work. But they were all in Berlin and London, while she didn’t know a soul except for Frau Lamm and Uncle Norbert in this little city. Suddenly, she found herself reluctant to return to her large, half-empty apartment. Must be all that rain, she told herself. It was messing with her mood, making her sentimental. “Is there space for me?” She gestured at the small, round table, which had only two chairs.

  “Oh yeah.” Frau Lamm left the room. She rummaged around in the hallway and returned with a folding chair, which she unfolded and pushed up to the table. “Is this okay?”

  “Sure.” Had she come across as so spoiled that Frau Lamm thought she needed a throne or something?

  Miriam rubbed her hands together. “Come on. Let’s eat. I’m starving.” She took plates from the cupboard over the stove, apparently very familiar with where things were kept in Frau Lamm’s apartment. She opened the food containers and glanced over her shoulder at Susanne. “Do you like it ho—?”

  Frau Lamm clamped her hand over her friend’s mouth and nudged her aside. “What she’s trying to ask is if you like spicy food.”

  Their antics made Susanne bite back a grin. Their dynamic reminded her a little of herself and her twin sister. She really should call Franzi this weekend. “I love it. Whenever I was in London for work, I ate nothing but Indian food. They had a chicken jalfrezi that was to die for.”

  “Sorry, no chicken jalfrezi tonight,” Miriam said. “We usually get just veggie options so we can share. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Not at all.”

  They took their seats around the small table, while Gino sniffed the floor in the tiny kitchen as if looking for dropped morsels.

  “Gino, go lie down.” Miriam pointed to the space behind the dividing wall.

  He let out a sigh that sounded almost human, trudged to the indicated spot, and plopped down.

  Susanne cut the samosa on her plate in half. “So you are the vegetarian, right?” She glanced at Frau Lamm, who nodded.

  “She and half of Freiburg.” Miriam grinned. “If you’re ever looking for a place to get a juicy steak or a schnitzel, I’m the person to ask.”

  Was this Miriam’s way to get her to call her? Susanne couldn’t tell. She glanced over at Frau Lamm, who dug into her paneer salad with enthusiasm but didn’t say anything. Susanne gave Miriam a noncommittal nod. “I’ll keep that in mind. But I won’t be here that long. Just until we somehow manage to get my uncle’s store out of trouble.”

  “About that…” Frau Lamm looked up from her salad. “Now that you’ve been here for a while and know the store a little, what do you think would be the best way to—?”

  “Nuh-uh!” Miriam waved her fork. “Remember the rule? No work talk on Netflix night!”

  Frau Lamm snapped her mouth shut and started to hunt down the pomegranate seeds in her salad, as if she didn’t know what else to talk about with Susanne.

  Her friend didn’t seem to have the same problem. “So tell me a little about yourself.”

  Susanne chewed her piece of naan bread extra thoroughly to give herself a moment to think ab
out what she wanted to tell them. Normally, she didn’t talk about her private life with co-workers. “I’m thirty-eight, was born and raised in Berlin, have an MBA, and I’m in between jobs at the moment.”

  Miriam chuckled. “That was the resume version. Now something that wouldn’t make it onto your resume.”

  “Miriam.” A warning growl resonated in Frau Lamm’s voice. “Frau Wolff said yes to having dinner with us, not to being interrogated.”

  “That’s okay,” Susanne said. While she wasn’t completely comfortable talking about herself in this context, it wasn’t as if she had anything to hide. “What do you want to know?”

  “Let’s start with the basics. Hobbies?”

  “I don’t have much time for hobbies, but I love snowboarding and just about any kind of water sports. I’m also a bit of an amateur photographer.”

  “Water sports, hmm?” Miriam popped half a pekora into her mouth, chewed, and swallowed. “Anja likes getting wet too.”

  The small table wobbled, and Miriam jumped. “Ouch!”

  Frau Lamm flicked a piece of naan bread at her. “She means I like swimming and water volleyball.”

  “That’s what I said, isn’t it?” Miriam innocently batted her lashes before turning back to Susanne. “Pets, house plants, siblings, boyfriend…girlfriend?” She drawled out the last word as if it had five syllables.

  “Okay, let’s see.” Susanne put her fork down and ticked each item off on her fingers. “No pets, one plant—species unknown—one twin sister, no girlfriend, and definitely no boyfriend.”

  “You have a twin sister?” This time it was Frau Lamm who asked the question. “Wow, that must be so cool.”

  Susanne shrugged. “My sister is great, but I’ll have to disappoint you if you’re imagining all kinds of shenanigans that we got into as kids, pretending we’re the other. We’re not identical, so we don’t look any more alike than other siblings.”

  “Still,” Frau Lamm said, “growing up together, having someone who’s always on your side, who understands you without many words… That must be kind of special.”

  Susanne had never thought about it much. Since she had never known anything else, maybe she had taken that kind of relationship with her sister for granted. “Yeah, I suppose it is. We’re still pretty close.”

  “What does your sister do for a living?” Frau Lamm asked. “Is she a businesswoman too?”

  “No. She lives from hand to mouth,” Susanne repeated what her sister always said when asked about her job.

  “So she’s a starving artist?” Miriam asked.

  Susanne chuckled. “No. She’s a dentist.”

  “Ouch.” Frau Lamm touched her very white teeth that didn’t look as if they had much need for a dentist. “Is she your dentist too?”

  “Hell, no! She put a Lego piece up my nose when we were playing doctor as kids. I’m not letting her anywhere near me with a drill.”

  Miriam burst out laughing so hard that she made the dog wake up. Frau Lamm’s laughter was quieter, but it was warm and genuine, making Susanne chuckle along with them.

  Finally, when the laughter had died down, Susanne looked back and forth between them. “How about you?” Her gaze settled on Miriam first. She found it easier to address her, maybe because she didn’t want to appear too nosy about a co-worker’s private life. “Any siblings, Frau Blattmann?”

  “Frau Blattmann.” Miriam groaned. “God, you make me feel like a school teacher. Why don’t we just call each other by our first names?” She lifted her water glass to drink to it.

  “Um…”

  Susanne and Frau Lamm glanced at each other.

  “Miri, Frau Wolff doesn’t—”

  “It’s fine.” Susanne suppressed a sigh. They could be professionals and work together efficiently even without the formal barrier of using last names, right? Just because they called each other by their first names wouldn’t make them friends.

  “Great…Susanne.” Miriam enthusiastically clinked her glass to Susanne’s, and after a moment’s hesitation, Anja lifted her glass too and joined it to the others. “And to answer your question about siblings… I’m the youngest of six.”

  “Six?” Susanne echoed.

  “Yeah. And I’m the only one who doesn’t have kids, so Christmas at my parents’ is an adventure.”

  Anja opened her eyes comically wide. “It is. I was invited for Christmas dinner one year, and it took me until the middle of January to recover.”

  Miriam reached across the table and patted her arm. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  “You did.” Anja squeezed Miriam’s hand. “My imagination just didn’t live up to the real thing.”

  Susanne observed their interaction. Had these two ever been a couple? But asking something like that crossed a line that she didn’t want to cross with someone she worked with. “What about you? Do you have any siblings?”

  “No, I don’t. My family tree is more like a bonsai.” Anja indicated the size of a miniature tree with her hands. “No siblings, no cousins, and not many kids my age in the tiny town where I grew up. By the time I was six, I sounded like an adult.”

  “And if she says tiny, she means tiny,” Miriam threw in. “I think there are more cows in that town than there are people.”

  Anja rolled her eyes. “There are no cows. Most families there used to grow grapes, not cattle.” She glanced at Susanne. “I grew up in a wine-producing region about thirty kilometers from here.”

  Since she had lived in Berlin for most of her life, Susanne couldn’t imagine what it must have been like to grow up in such a tiny village. “Weren’t you bored to death as a teenager?”

  “No, not really.” Anja’s tone softened and a bit of dialect came through when she talked about her hometown. Susanne found it charming. “I was used to keeping myself entertained, and I was never one for wild parties.”

  “No parties?” Miriam huffed and nudged her. “Excuse me, but that’s not how I remember the stories about your childhood. What about the time you snuck out at night and rode your bike to a party several kilometers away?”

  “It wasn’t a party,” Anja protested, but her cheeks flushed scarlet. “A couple of friends from school went to see a movie, and I didn’t want to miss it.”

  “The movie. Suuuure, that’s why you risked being grounded until graduation.”

  Anja covered her face with both hands. “Why on earth did I ever tell you that?”

  Miriam pulled her hands down and grinned. “Because you can’t resist this beautiful face. Just like you couldn’t resist kissing M—”

  “Enough,” Anja said. “Frau Wolff doesn’t want to hear that.”

  “Susanne,” Miriam corrected. “First names, remember? And maybe she does want to hear about your adventures in the movie theater.”

  Truth be told, Susanne did want to hear it. Had Miriam been about to mention a boy’s or a girl’s name? What do you care? Even if she kissed all of the people in that movie theater, it wouldn’t be any of your business. She kept her gaze on the karahi paneer on her plate. “Uh, that’s okay.”

  For a minute or two, they ate in silence, which was only interrupted by Gino’s snoring from his spot next to the couch.

  “So did your parents catch you?” Susanne asked after a while.

  “Oh yeah. They were waiting in my room when I snuck back in. And boy, were they mad. I was grounded for three months.” With an almost inaudible mumble, Anja added, “That kiss was so not worth it.”

  They talked about wine, movies, and Miriam’s childhood while they finished their dinner. Soon every last bite of food, except for a couple of onion pakoras, was gone.

  Susanne stood, stacked the empty plates, and carried them the two steps to the kitchen, where she looked around for the dishwasher. “Where do I…?”

  “I don’t have a dishwasher,” Anja said. “Just put them in the sink. I’ll do them later.”

  Wow. No dishwasher. Susanne couldn’t imagine it. But even though
the apartment felt almost too small for three people and a dog, she had to admit that she’d had an unexpectedly nice evening in this cozy, little space. “All right, ladies. I’ll leave you to your Netflix, then.”

  “You’re welcome to stay,” Miriam said. “You could even help us decide between Lost Girl, The 100, and Orange Is the New Black.”

  Until now, Susanne had thought of Anja as pretty old-fashioned, but she wholeheartedly approved of her taste in TV shows. All the choices sounded great, but she didn’t even want to imagine where the three of them would sit to watch Netflix…all cuddled together on the sofa bed?

  Definitely not an option. “No, thanks. I think I should go. Looks like it has stopped raining for the moment, so this is my chance to get home. It was nice meeting you.” She nodded at Miriam from several steps away, keeping the table between them so she wouldn’t invite a hug.

  Anja walked her to the door.

  “Thanks again for dinner,” Susanne said. “That was really good. I had no idea there was such a great Indian restaurant in Freiburg.”

  “There are a lot of great things in Freiburg if you give it a chance,” Anja said softly.

  Susanne stiffened. “It’s not that I don’t like the city. It’s just… I’m here to work, not to enjoy a vacation.”

  Anja gave a short nod. “I understand.”

  Did she really? But there was no point in asking. “Enjoy Netflix. See you on Monday.”

  “Yes. See you. Drive carefully.” Anja squeezed past her through the door and turned on the light in the staircase for her.

  Their bodies brushed, making Susanne glad that she could escape to the cooler air in the staircase. She picked up her umbrella by the door and walked down the stairs. As she rounded the bend after the first set of stairs, she glanced back up.

  There were four small apartments on Anja’s floor, and since Anja’s was the one straight ahead from the stairs, Susanne could still see her. She stood in the doorway, gripping Gino’s collar with one hand so he wouldn’t run after her.

  Their gazes met, and they nodded at each other.

  Susanne raised her hand for one last wave before she reached the landing and was out of sight.