Page 93 of Tattooed Sweetness
I am very close to opening my mouth, to unloading everything on her. But then I think of what her aunt said to me. About the cross, Celine has to bear. And I reject the idiotic idea.
“What’s up?” she asks. “You’re smirking so… ambiguously.”
“Touché.” Caught, I stroke my cheeks, and listen to the scraping sound my fingers make on the stubble. “I don’t know where to start. Or where to stop.”
She crosses her legs, props her elbow on them, and rests her chin in the palm of her hand. “How about you start at the beginning?”
“An argument that’s hard to refute,” I concede. “Well: the relationship with my… mother…” Although my voice briefly fails, I get the word out cleanly and without faltering. “…was anything but harmonious.”Come on, old boy! That’s the understatement of the century!But before I can change my mind, I quickly continue talking. “It’s probably surfaced now…”
Celine sighs. “That’s why you normally don’t celebrate your birthday…” She looks guilty. “And I, silly cow, can’t think of anything more stupid than forcing a party on you. Oh my God, can you please forgive me?”
“Sure, I can.” Grateful for her fit occasion, I smirk at her. “Only on the condition, though, that you drop this over-the-top formality quickly. I thought we’d worked this out forever ago, that you can call me Philip, by all means. God isn’t required at all.”
“Oh my Go—” Celine’s voice cracks with a squeak, her mouth staying open. Then she shoots true welder’s arcs of light from her eyes at me. “If only you can tease me!”
26. End ofSunset!
Celine
Standing in the small bathroom of my apartment, I scrub my teeth. I rinse, gargle and spit. I smile broadly at myself in the mirror to check that there are no remnants of breakfast stuck in the gaps between my teeth, while the busy clatter of dishes can be heard from next door.
Philipp.
I sigh. It feels good how our completely opposite daily routines harmonize with each other. Way too good. Falsely tempting to imagine it could grow into something more than a business partnership.
Or is it friendship?
As I touch up my lips, I can’t help but think of his late-night meltdown last week. My heart tightens like a top that got caught in the boil wash.How could I have been so stupid as to force the celebration of his birthday on him? And in doing so, awaken the demons he had so carefully banished from his life?
I really have to be grateful that he didn’t hold that against me.
Instead…I have a crazy feeling that we’ve had a closer relationship ever since. After all, with his allusion to our totally failed getting-to-know-each-other, he made us both, himself and me, laugh loosely after the whole scare.
So, friendship after all? Without question marks?
Friendship.I say the word to myself in my mind—and roll my eyes.Oh my God! It’s got me pretty badly. I’m so smitten by him that I’d even pick up the crumbs off the floor in the form of a purely platonic friendship.
“…you ready?” his voice comes through the ajar bathroom door. Footsteps approach. “I don’t mean to push. But didn’t you say something about a quarter past eight appointment?”
“What time is it?” I push back my blouse sleeve and freeze at the readout on my Daniel Wellington wristwatch. “Ten to already? Oh my God!”I hate stress—and that’s bursting out of my every pore right now!
“No problem.” Rotating the truck key on the ring around his index finger, Philipp stands leaning against the tip-top tidy mini-kitchen as I come out of the bathroom. He smirks at me. “I can do this in under five minutes.”
“Surely?”And without being caught by a speeding camera, too?Distracted, I gather my things: pluck the cell phone from the charging station, dig in my purse for my wallet, and stuff everything into my briefcase along with a fresh pack of Kleenex.
“Do you have everything?” Wrapped in his leather jacket, he stands at the door. At my nod, he tosses me my coat. “Let’s go!”
Outside in the parking lot, a gust blows my hair in my face. A strand gets caught in the corner of my mouth. Brushing it away, I touch my cheek with my finger. I remember Philipp making this gesture a few days ago when I helped him unload our weekly groceries.
Gruffly, I shake my head to shoo away the absurd thought: That this might have been about more to him than getting me—a stack of boxes wedged between my hands and chin—out of a predicament.
“What’s up?” Philipp wants to know as I fasten my seat belt next to him in the passenger seat.
Oh my God! How come he canreadme like Sherlock Holmes interprets the most subtle clues? And what can I present to him as a plausible white lie?
“Uh-huh?” He starts the engine with a low rumble.
What? What?I rummage through my brain box like a cosmetic bag stuffed with mini toiletries at the end of a vacation.There, the rescue!“Oh, I just had to think about yesterday’s phone call with Mareike,” I fib. I don’t even have to lie about the fact that my aunt could have extended her stay in the Caribbean for a third and fourth time…