"Do you need me to help you unpack quickly?"
"Oh, um, no. I'll do it later, Mom."
"I could do the dishes or hang your laundry on the balcony to air it."
Was she even listening to Carola? Had she ever listened to her at all?
The whole situation was enough of a pain in the ass for her anyway, so her mother Brigitte didn't need to act like a Samaritan on top of all.
Carola was forced to move back into the house where her mother had lived for as long as anyone could remember. She had been so happy to leave behind this part of town, which had become increasingly shabby over the years. Every house, every resident and every car parked here (if they were cars and not mopeds) screamed cheap, cheaper, very cheap.... Despite the best economic conditions, the unemployment rate was still higher than in all other neighborhoods around, not to mention further away. There were at least three wild garbage dumps that the city couldn't eradicate despite regular clean-up operations, and there wasn't a single wall of houses that was free of smeared graffiti - and we're not talking about artistically designed pictures here, but about badly made lettering, so-called tags.
Her own neighborhood had been quite different until recently. She had lived with her husband Michael and their daughter Jolie, who was now 6 years old, in a beautiful single-family home with a 24 square meter terrace and a garden of almost 200 square meters. This house had been located in a contemplative, well-kept suburb, which was only a few kilometers away geographically, but socially there were worlds in between: her neighbors had all been doctors, lawyers or other academics, in the upper civil service or at least department heads with only very few superiors up to the absolute top floors.
But these times were over.
Michael had cheated. With a doctor's assistant, about whom he had said shortly after she started work that she must have other qualities than purely professional ones if she was to change from her old employer to him with such a good report card. With these words he had opened his palms as if he were holding two large grapefruits pressed against his chest.
They had both laughed at that time.
He said that he still had time to decide until the end of her probationary period to get an idea of her work...
But then, on Friday three weeks ago...
Carola had seen them. At her favorite Italian restaurant. Between two glasses of red wine his hand was resting on hers. He had smiled at her and she had laughingly thrown her head back, which perfectly set off her long hair and her plunging neckline.
And he had told her that he still had to write patient reports...
She had already buried her belief in the great, eternal, faithful and devoted love before she had even met Michael. That was just a utopian idea, which was taught to little girls, nicely wrapped up in princess stories. Probably so that the very men who created these stories would have someone to take care of them years later. Carola had always resisted this idea.
She used to compare the number of happy marriages to the number of bad jokes about unhappy couples. Married couples who made each other's lives a living hell and probably harmed rather than benefited each other. And then the amount of divorces! Every third marriage was divorced today. And of the two-thirds who stayed married, only very few were really happy together. She would have liked to be a fly on the wall in some relationships, to see if there was anything behind the idyllic suburban marriage that could be called a relationship. No more than half of them, she guessed. The word "shared apartment" was probably much more accurate. With chance of only 33 percent for a good marriage, the risk of betting her life seemed too great.
This was exactly the reason why she had rejected the marriage proposal that Michael had made to her. If you could call it a marriage proposal at all: when she was five months pregnant with Jolie, he had asked her during the second commercial break of Pretty Woman, whom they saw for the umpteenth time, if it wasn't time to get married. No, you couldn't call it a proposal of marriage, at most it passed for a suggestion.
She had once read somewhere that the phase of real infatuation for most couples faded away after about two years. Only very few were the exception and still happy like teenagers when their partner finally came home from work.
So the fact that cloud nine had reduced after several years was more average than exception. In Germany there was even a song on the radio where someone admitted that he would rather be on cloud four with his current partner. Carola felt that this strengthened her opinion. Although she of course completely fulfilled the cliché of the song: down below all alone...
In the beginning, she had walked around with Michael, holding his hand and smiling all the time. Nevertheless, she had never had the feeling to be really in love.
She only knew this feeling from feature films: when the hero looks at the heroine, languishing for a long time, she returns his gaze and both heads tilt to kiss each other in a camera-friendly manner, in a sea of people in which they seem to perceive only themselves, plus romantic music and complexion-friendly lighting - perfect. Or when both finally face each other after countless misunderstandings and at the same time realize that the other one is the love of their life. Then for a fraction of a second she got such a wistfully felling in the stomach area, which for her represented the ultimate feeling of love. It was like having a five scoop ice cream sundae with a cream topping and an enormous shot of eggnog in front of you and it was completely calorie-free! She imagined this feeling as true love. Unique. Extremely short. But above all: completely unrealistic, utopian, just like movies are.
Therefore she had made it unmistakably clear to Michael that she never wanted to degenerate by a wedding to a woman at the stove. She gladly did without the short moment of princess feeling in a white meringue-looking nightmare, if she was spared from quarrels, monotony and lethargy. At the same time, this rejection of the marriage proposal made her feel like the absolutely independent, self-confident and modern woman. She had no need to marry at all!
Of course she liked him very much. And the advantages of living together could not be denied either: she had someone who earned a living for the three of them, did something with her once a month (Jolie would sometimes stay with her in-laws or sleep at a friend's house, but for this overnight stay she usually had to make a corresponding counteroffer) and she didn't have to sleep alone in the detached house, which was always a little scary for her. Michael was not a spawn of ingenuity (he probably saved that for work) or cheerfulness, but he was always reliable and trustworthy - average in every way imaginable.
Well, in retrospect she probably had to cancel the trustworthy part.
She actually felt like on cloud four. But wasn't that exactly the difference between "being in love" and "loving each other"? Maybe that was what the song meant. According to the motto: if you can stay on cloud four in the long run, a lot would be achieved.
Cloud four was now passé. She had addressed him when he came home way past eleven (unfortunately, tears ran down her face when she formulated the words, although she had firmly resolved not to cry) and he had not even tried to deny. Not to mention winning her back through affirmations of love and pleas for forgiveness.
And then had the audacity to blame her! Said that she had become boring, had let herself go a little physically (hey, she had been on a diet again for two weeks and had already lost 600 grams) and the relationship just wasn't the same anymore. He wanted someone who would give him a carefree leisure time and who would also stimulate him physically.
She would have liked to contradict him sooo gladly...! Thrown at him that he neither had the looks of Brad Pitt, the spirit of Einstein nor the means of a Saudi prince. But she couldn't get a word out because of crying, desperation and helplessness. She could only cry without stopping.
He had offered to move into a hotel for one or two weeks so that she could find an apartment in that time.
She suddenly realized the fatal thing: Since the two were not married and the house was bought by Michael, she had no right to stay there! She would have to give up the big bathroom, the beautiful fitted kitchen with cooking island and the so lovingly arranged garden!
So this is how it felt when people talked about being in front of the shambles of their lives.
Whoosh: Crash from cloud four to the extremely hard ground of reality. She felt flat as a cartoon character who had just been run over by a car. Only she wouldn't flit around in top shape again in the next scene.
For the first two days she had hoped that he would calm down again, ask for her forgiveness, and realize his mistake. She had tried to reach him on his cell phone, but on the first call he had only said that he needed distance now and always rejected her call later. She had written several messages, but only one with the content that if there was something wrong with Jolie or she needed help in any other way, she should contact him by SMS.
Furiously she had written back: "Before I ask you for help, I’ll sleep under the next bridge! I am not stupid after all and certainly don't need help from a liar and cheater."
Michael did not bother to answer.
She had even tried to reach him at his parents' house. She was that desperate! Especially his mother Henriette would not leave a good hair on her head, Carola was sure of that. She always made Carola feel that she was not good enough for her Michael (Henriette never spoke of "Michael" but only of "her" or "ours" (when Karl, Michael's father, was present) Michael).
Karl was different: a little bit more relaxed, a little bit more neutral and a little bit more likeable. However, he usually kept out of Henriette's unjustified accusations. When he was asked for his opinion, the only thing that came to light was an understanding hum, but mostly he limited himself to a shrug of the shoulders, as if he was powerless against Henriette, that old lethal injection anyway. Once more a marriage that seemed more like a life sentence!
Carola had actually had no reason to complain, after all, she had managed to escape the life her own mother led. She had quit her job in a photo lab, which she had never liked anyway, when Jolie was born because she didn't need to work, and she was practically spending the money that Michael earned. What could she complain about? Many women would have liked to swap.
Here and there a certain dissatisfaction came over her: she thought of the great dreams she had at school, which ranged from animal rights activist to doctor in the Third World to inventor and female chancellor (Female chancellors did not exist in Germany at that time. Until then, she thought it was a hereditary position that Helmut Kohl held throughout his life, like a king... She wondered if the children nowadays felt the same way with Frau Merkel?)
Now and then she was a bit underchallenged. Due to the size of the house, taking care ONLY of the household and the child was time-consuming, but intellectually, gardening, ironing and childcare did not demand much from her. Now and then she even envied the women who worked part-time. At least she did not get much satisfaction from chasing away the dust, cleaning the living room or washing the dishes.
During a visit to Dr. Hausmann, her daughter Jolie's pediatrician, a good year ago, she spoke with a mother of twins who also worked part-time in a law firm. Although she admitted that it was quite an effort to have a family and a job, she also emphasized that sometimes she was almost happy to not only talk about teething problems and developmental progress, but also to have "grown-up" conversations. Carola had known exactly what was meant at the time. How often did she envy Michael for the conversations he had with professional colleagues, for the training courses he attended and where he met other people, and for the important decisions he made for the practice. What did Carola decide? Which flowers to put in the front garden, which color to choose for the dining room, and which music school Jolie should go to... Wow....
Michael had often encouraged her to go to work herself, but she had never found the right time. Sometimes she blamed it on Jolie's kindergarten times, sometimes on the wrong season (in fall: "next summer I'll go ....", in summer: "not now in summer, but as soon as it gets cooler...") and later she had gotten into her cab routine for Jolie or Henriette and household in such a way that nothing more came of it...
She had always dismissed her whining to her friend Sandra as a luxury whining that would pass.
Now, unfortunately, she found her stock-taking more than sobering: she was 38 years old, had a 6-year-old daughter, no apprenticeship (she hadn’t completed her degree and only ever worked in the job in the photo studio) and no income of her own.
And now she had lost her free accommodation as well...
Of course she had called some of her friends, hoping that one of them would have heard something about a job offer. If she knew what kind of income she could expect, it would be much easier to find an adequate apartment.
Ellen from yoga class hummed and hawed as if she had suddenly started to stutter, so Carola quickly ended the conversation to keep some pride.
Sonja (also Yoga) could not believe that Carola and Michael were separating, pitied Carola, but she suddenly seemed very distant.
Margret from the Walking Group told Carola very harshly that she didn't want to have any further contact with Carola because of the position her husband held at the local savings bank. What? The one thing did not have anything to do with the other! Carola couldn't believe what was happening. After all, she was not an outlaw who could have any kind of bad influence.
Judith, with whom she always went for a latte macchiato when Jolie and Judith's daughter Natalia went to piano lessons, said that her contacts were "not that good either" and that they weren't as good friends as their husbands anyway. Bloody traitor!!
Even the chubby Kristin, who weighed in even more than Carola and who had always been picked up by Carola to be taken to the swimming pool (aqua fitness), let it be known that "as sorry as she was" she had to keep her distance, otherwise the whole town would pass on Michael's or Carola's situation to her! Eh?? Was cheating contagious? And even if it would be, then Michael would be the one to avoid! What was that stupid cow thinking...? Carola couldn’t believe it.
How was everyone informed that quickly? Were they informed at all? Were her "friends" afraid that their husbands would be angry if they did her a favor? Were they dependent upon their husbands and didn't dare open their mouths? None of this could be true. Carola felt as if the whole world had conspired against her.
Maybe Michael had complained to all the neighbors about his unhappy marriage and got support from them...
Or were they even afraid to loose their husbands? Carola could take this worry away, she certainly didn't want any of them! Kristin's husband was far too busy with himself when he was "working" on his laptop and Margret's husband Gerd, in his mid-forties, pushed a belly in front of him that already touched the front door when he was still standing at the garden gate. No, thanks.
Neighbor Vanessa from across the street even had the nerve not to answer the phone when she saw Carola's number in the display. Carola then scolded on the tape of the answering machine that she could see exactly that Vanessa was at home because she had a clear view of the neighbor's living room.
At least Vanessa was honest enough to call back. Unfortunately only to tell Carola that she herself not only had a clear view into Carola's living room, but also to the bedroom door .... Had Michael also done it here at home with the doctor's assistant? Vanessa should have warned Carola in this case! The stupid goat! Knew about it and had let Carola walk around as a cuckold! Those weren't friends, they were sneaky rats! Even a rat had more decency than this pack!
Sandra was on vacation, and she didn't want to call her on her cell phone. Vacation had to be vacation, she didn't want to change that principle.
What else could she do but call mom?
Her mother was initially shocked by the news, but as always, she quickly and pragmatically got to the heart of the problem: finding an apartment. It was a perfect coincidence that this three-room apartment on the second floor of "her" house had been vacant for some time because the landlord was no longer interested in finding a new tenant due to his age. But she was sure that he would help unbureaucratically if she explained the situation to him. In addition, the rents here were a lot cheaper than in Carola's one-family house suburb, where a) there were no apartments to be rented, b) even if there were, she would never have been able to afford the rent, and c) she was obviously no longer welcome anyway. Another advantage was that Jolie would have a great connection to her elementary school from here, which, unlike the rest of the district, enjoyed a very good reputation. And if Carola had to work, with Brigitte she would have someone who could keep an eye on Jolie.
The decision had not been easy, but the only logical one. She simply had no alternatives. Carola reassured herself that it was only temporary and she would certainly find a better solution (good job, back to Michael or some other "sponsor" for her life) soon.
Surprisingly, the missing of Michael was still limited. However, lately she had been too busy with phone calls, lease, re-registration and moving to be able to calm down and deal with the separation.
But the fact that her mother acted like the head Samaritan caretaker was too much for Carola at the moment. How she always emphasized doing everything "just quickly". Her mother did things "just quickly", which Carola had to write down on a long to-do list, only to misplace it and then move it to later.
"No, Mom, everything’s fine. I'll do the rest alone."
"But I'm happy to help you!"
"No, really, mom. You've done enough. Now I'll do the rest alone."
"How's Jolie taking it?" her mother just whispered.
Why did she whisper "it"? Wasn’t it funny that some people tended to paraphrase unpleasant things or situations. Brigitte Seiffert was such a person. "It" had to be the separation, the bankruptcy or the move out. And what about the whispering? Was a separation less bad if you whispered the word "separation"? Then a tumor might be less deadly if you whispered the word "tumor"...
Her mother had done the same when Carola's father had died. She would never have said "After Gerd's death." She always talked about "Gerd no longer being there". He had been an alcoholic and his liver couldn’t stand the drinking any more one day. That was the hard truth, anyway, and Carola didn't bother to gloss it over in any way.
And why whisper at all when they were completely alone in the living room? Jolie was listening to a Bibi-Blocksberg (author’s note: famous German cartoon character) CD in her new room.
"You mean the separation," Carola couldn't help but emphasize the word separation. "So far, so good. I am surprised myself how relaxed she is about it. Maybe that's the advantage if it is already common practice in kindergarten that many a child lived with only one parent nowadays," Carola thought aloud. "Patchwork is rather the rule than the exception."
A few weeks ago, at the end of the kindergarten time, little Mathilda, whose mother was newly married, had murmured to Jolie after a small argument with Michael (he actually wanted her to put on her raincoat because it was raining) "Only the first daddy is that stupid, it gets better with the second one." It was that common today to replace the first daddy with the second one.
Carola's mother was horrified "Are there really so many? You hear statistics like that all the time, but it's a pity, especially for the children."
Carola better not made any comment, otherwise she would have asked her mother whether she hadn't wished a thousand times to leave her husband, who always smelled of cheap booze. Instead, she had silently accepted his whims and invented new illnesses and appointments again and again, because of which he couldn't attend family birthdays or similar events even though he was lying in front of the TV, drinking. But on the one hand, she didn't want to stir up her mother's wounds, and on the other hand, she had just enough problems of her own.
In fact, Carola even feared that Jolie might have decided to stay with Michael. But Michael didn't make any plans to "take Jolie with him", because it was out of the question professionally. And the evenings in the candlelight at the Italian restaurant were far more romantic than, for example, a six-year-old girl who had to be wrapped in calf compresses due to high fever.
Thank God!
It had been hard to inform Jolie about the separation. Carola had read a few tips on the Internet beforehand (among other things, parents should tell their children about the impending separation together) and had gone through the conversation in her mind again and again for safety reasons. Of course Michael had left her completely alone with it.
Jolie had listened to her carefully. She had cried a few tears, but with the promise that she would continue to see them both and the prospect of a large sundae, Carola had been able to cheer her up temporarily. Carola had explained to her that Mathilda was no longer living with her dad after all, but was still a very happy girl. Mathilda was a kindergarten friend who had decided to attend the same elementary school after the holidays.
Before going to bed, Jolie asked Carola once more "You don't want to live together anymore, but you still like each other, don't you?" She wanted to make sure.
Carola tried to be as honest as possible, but she also tried to spare her little daughter the details for which she was not yet old enough, and to follow the advice from the net not to discredit the other parent. Moreover, she did not want to get involved in promises out of pity, which she had no influence on. "We definitely want to try to stay friends. It will certainly be weird in the beginning, but we will try hard to stay friendly to each other. It won't be easy for either of us." Yes, she was pleased with herself and this answer!
Jolie's best friend Alexa also lived in a patchwork family. Carrying this name, the use of a large supplier of voice-controlled computer aids was no longer an option... In her class, jokes were often made about what would happen if Alexa was at a party and someone called her name. Something like this: "Alexa, do you want a coke as well?" "Sorry, I didn't understand the input". However, in Alexa's case in addition to her mother's new boyfriend every other weekend they were joined by a pair of seven-year-old twins.
Finally, Carola managed to get her mother out of the apartment with the reference to the main TV news, which she hated to miss. Of course it was kind to offer her help, but this was not supposed to be a grandmother-mother-daughter flat share, mother-daughter was completely enough.
The next morning, Carola searched the Internet for job ads. Not that easy: She had an almost 20-year-old high school diploma and otherwise unfortunately more dropouts than graduations. A decent general education and good language skills were probably not enough to get a job, that became clear to Carola very quickly. Commercial training was required for the most simple administrative tasks. Even as a secretary she would hardly have a chance, since her English was rusty and her computer skills were limited to a free writing program - googling did not count as expert knowledge...
The only job that would come into question right now would be in a call center. There, the standards didn't seem to be too high - at least in the lower range. That probably explained why one was always dissatisfied with the answers from call center agents. But Carola really couldn't imagine herself sitting in front of a screen with a headset, either trying to persuade innocent people to buy a subscription or answering stupid questions about how to use an iron properly. She would rather go back to waiting tables. Only there the working hours were not quite suitable for the care of a six-year-old.
If there was one thing she was sure of, it was that she wanted to have some contact to people while working. Whether by teamwork with occasional customer visits or in any other way - it had to be vis-à-vis and not exclusively by telephone.
She called a doctor who was looking for a receptionist to help register: unfortunately he wanted a trained medical assistant, although the lady was only supposed to make appointments.
She called a system restaurateur, but found out that it was a burger restaurant where she certainly did not want to work for the next 25 years.
She even called a private detective, who, however, was looking for physically fit men with experience on the job. He just didn't want to put that into his text because of 'the fuss of politically correct expressions'. So much for the subject of equality. But since she had no experience at all, she saved herself the excitement. Not to mention her state of fitness...
Waitressing after all! She called a trendy bistro and was very disappointed when she was told that she didn't fit into the otherwise "young" team. So much for age discrimination - and that at the age of 38! Though everyone should be working longer and longer. If the government could, it would raise the retirement age to 70, except of course for civil servants, who were already better off with their pensions.
She still had about 30 more years to work, but was now already considered old. That was just as unbelievable as the many large packs that were offered in supermarkets, even though the number of single households had been rising for years.
Or like the 'advertising-relevant target group', which ended with 49 years. The way advertising was today, this target group had probably shifted: more interesting than the middle-aged were children and teenagers, because they hardly had any relation to the value of their money (they didn't have to work for it) and therefore spent it easily, and the seniors, sorry: best-agers, who were able to spread their hard-earned money easily, because they didn't have to save it 'for later'.
That was the job market - congratulations.
Didn't one hear everywhere that skilled workers were being sought? Qualified specialists corrected Carola herself. She was neither a specialist nor qualified. What a bummer. She had to earn money somehow. But she did not want to do cleaning.
Of course there was still the way to the employment office. Carola promised herself that she would give herself a week and a half. If she hadn't found a source of money till then, she would go to the office and ask for help.
Actually, she should have thought about which other career options were possible, but her thoughts strayed again to Michael and her beautiful house. Why had Michael betrayed her? Now she had to cry, more out of anger for the loss of the life she had settled in comfortably than out of the relationship’s loss, she slowly realized that.
What was Michael thinking, just chasing her out of the house like a mangy mutt? Couldn't he have argued with her? If there was one thing you deserved after a long relationship, it was that you didn't give up that easily. Didn't Grönemeyer (author’s note: famous German singer) also say something like "would have shocked me, but probably I would have got it in the end"? Maybe she would have understood... That he felt attracted to another woman... That he hoped for more pep and variety and fun from their life together... That he ... whatever...
Maybe she should try her hand at being a writer and tell a few fairy tales: The prince who had kissed Sleeping Beauty so tenderly awake turns out to be an unreliable gambler who sells the castle to be able to go on gambling; the prince who saved Cinderella from her stepmother was totally dependent and later demanded that she took care of his senile parents; Rapunzel was neglected by her prince because of sparse household money in the castle, but was also not allowed to appear as a singer in the local theater. Yes, that kind of story would certainly have potential. The one or other divorced mother would certainly buy her daughter a copy. And maybe girls would then no longer hold back at school and would concentrate more on learning rather than styling, and would learn vocabulary at home instead of perfecting advantageous selfie-taking. In any case, she really wished she had put more emphasis on a proper education.
Michael's accusation of not being physically attractive anymore annoyed her! Sure, after Jolie's birth she had hardly lost any of her pregnancy pounds and in the last five years she had added a pound here and there after every diet... But she was getting older, too, and people were not as agile and busy as they used to be. Yoga and walking had not had the desired success. That was not as much the fault of yoga and walking as of the rich breakfast in front of the TV, which Carola always treated herself to afterwards, but one had to reward oneself for the hard work. While Sylvester Stallone was sweating out his soul as Rocky, she treated herself to a second croissant and a sweet latte.
She had felt secure that Michael could never leave her. He did love her, he had told her so many times. At least he used to. Where had that love gone when you really needed it? Right now she was angry that she wished the plague on him.
Just now she was thinking about what other diseases she could wish for him, since the plague was no longer available easily when the doorbell rang and immediately afterwards someone knocked at the door. Actually almost a pity, because after a short thought of a horrible vomiting diarrhea Carola had just thought about a nasty, itchy rash, which would not only annoy Michael but also disfigure him a little - it would certainly be interesting whether Miss Doctor's Assistant would still be there for him in that case.
"Come on Carola, it's me." Then her mother unnecessarily added "Mum.”
While she turned off the TV, she hurriedly wiped her sleeve over her face, but in the mirror she had hung up in the hallway last night, she saw that her eyes were hopelessly red, and opened the door. Her looks didn’t matter as it was only her mother knocking...
Two people were talking at the same time now:
The guy with a toolbox in his hand, who averted his eyes as he saw Carola, mumbled "If it's inconvenient, I can come back later."
Wow, he had an extremly deep voice. Probably used scouring milk to gurgle. In Wild West movies he could have easily dubbed a brave cowboy. Or a high-ranking mafioso in Italo films. Or any part Sylvester Stallone had ever played. Whose voice Carola loved. Supposedly, the fathers of the girls he wanted to talk to on the phone as a teenager never believed that he was only fifteen years old at the time - just due to his voice!
The guy with the toolbox was somehow too tall, had too long, completely fuzzy blond hair and wore a washed-out T-shirt and cargo pants. Carola didn't think much of people who didn't care about their appearance. Definitely not her type, but if you were into that surfer look, he was quite something, Carola quickly realized. His figure was excellent, and you didn't need glasses for that. If his butt had been tucked into a pair of crisp jeans and he had left the T-shirt out, Carola would have voluntarily smashed her faucet so that it would stay for repairs.
She herself was shocked by her way of thinking, she certainly had other worries than men, at least as far as strange men were concerned. Her previous one worried her more than she had ever imagined.
Carola's mother said at the same time "This is Andi from downstairs, he can help you assemble the living room cupboard. Did you cry?" This unique combination of themes was easily done by Brigitte.
It had to be the neighbor whom Brigitte had mentioned on the phone on several occasions: my neighbor helped me to carry the water boxes inside, my neighbor repaired the dripping faucet, my neighbor bought me a new washbasin base cabinet and also assembled it right away.
Carola had always imagined this neighbor as a classic sprightly pensioner who, due to a lack of daily tasks, was now passing the time with Brigitte's concerns. Wrong thought...
Carola was overwhelmed and just said "Oooh, Mom!!"
This kind of embarrassment was beyond compare. Typically mother: talking to all kinds of people and bringing them together. Of course she avoided clarifying in advance whether this help was even desired. Carola would certainly have been able to assemble the cabinet on her own. On the other hand, the guy might be able to do it faster... besides, he was already here now anyway.
The fact that Carola was wearing yesterday's sweaty clothes because she didn't want to shower until after breakfast and the job search "got in the way" didn't exactly make her feel more comfortable with this stranger. A good morning definitely looked different.
As quickly as he realized that the timing was inconvenient, her mother was rude about that fact, if she had even noticed it. She simply pushed past Carola into the apartment. "Hi Jolie, grandma's here!"
She immediately stormed out of her room and let herself fall into Brigitte's arms. At least the two of them were happy about the new closeness...
Jolie got a little scared because she had discovered her neighbor and hid behind Brigitte - or rather behind her right leg. A rhinoceros could just as well have hidden behind a yucca palm, even though the comparison of Brigitte's legs with a yucca palm was not exactly obvious.
The guy crouched down and reached out his hand to Jolie: "Hi, I'm Andi. If you have time, you can help me with the closet. Shall we set it up together?" The voice immediately sent a shiver down Carola's spine. And how nice of him to squat down to greet Jolie. Normally she behaved more shyly to strangers than an antelope fearing the attack of a lion.
As if, thought Carola...and was deeply surprised when Jolie nodded tentatively.
"That is, of course, if the cabinet is to be assembled at all now." He was still squatting on the doormat, waiting for Carola's reaction. His gaze came up to Carola from below. You didn't need to know him closely to understand that he was certainly not here voluntarily. Carola preferred not to know how stubbornly her mother had worked the poor guy. She always stayed friendly, but still got on your nerves until you gave in "voluntarily".
She had once managed to persuade Carola (persuade in the truest sense of the word, because convincing was something else...) to pick up her boss, with whom Carola had nothing to do, from the hospital. To this day, Carola still didn't understand why she had agreed at the time. Mothers....
Anyway, in this case it was his business. Carola hadn't asked him for his help. If he had let himself be talked into it, she would be the third one to laugh. And if he also kept Jolie busy - all the better.
"Of course today, you do have the time today. Come on in!" Carola's mother opened the door wide. "Carola will make us some coffee," she looked at Carola and pointed her head towards the kitchen. Very subtle.
Carola bowed and put on coffee in the kitchen. Where had her fighting spirit gone? It was not the first time she asked herself this question. She had let herself be ordered around long enough by Michael, by his terrible mother Henriette as well, and now she let her retired mother send her to make coffee.
For Jolie, she poured milk into a cup and, for lack of cocoa powder, stirred in a spoon of nut nougat cream. Warmed briefly in the microwave, this also resulted in a cup of warm cocoa. Armed like this, she went back into the living room, which had nothing to do with a homelike room yet: there were boxes everywhere that had not yet been unpacked, since the living room cupboard was still wrapped in five packages with various boards and the usual assortment of probably incomplete screws leaning against the wall.
"This is not our real living room, that one is at home. We just live here," Jolie explained the mess right now. Carola took a stab at it.
"I see... We'll put the cupboard together now and then you'll unpack all the things you brought here from the other apartment," Andi fortunately didn't go into Jolie's explanation.
Carola would have liked to imitate his tone of voice "This is because your overweight mom hardly has any cupboards yet for her husband has found a hotter one. Young and slim and all a man can dream of. Furthermore, she thinks she's better than us, but now she has to live under the same roof we live because she's broke.” She didn't, of course, because her mother was already "whispering" to her "Pull yourself together, you can't cry about Michael all day."
Great, now her mother was standing here in this tiny apartment and triumphed that she had found a guy who could assemble a closet and expected Carola to pull herself together for him. The whole situation became too much for her. Way too much.
"So, here's your coffee and cocoa, you've already organized the assembly of the wardrobe, I'm going to take a shower," Carola said insulted. With a glance at her neighbor, she added: "No offence, and thank you very much. Bye."
She went into the bathroom, closed the door behind her and tried to calm down again. This kind of surprise was just too much for her. Besides, the sudden and unplanned appearance of this neighbor had thrown her off her game. No, of course she was not nervous! Or was she? Anyway, she couldn't control the situation at all, so the only thing left was escape.
Carola let the water run over her head. That felt good. The splashing of the water made her turn off the annoying, cheerful chattering of her mother and had a relaxing effect. The escape had come at just the right time. She sucked the air through her nose for four seconds, only to exhale it slowly for seven seconds. They had learned this procedure in a yoga class as a relaxation technique. If you did that for 11 minutes daily it was even supposed to lower blood pressure. In other words, the exact opposite of a visit from her mother, which caused Carola’s blood pressure to shoot into the stratosphere.
She could already imagine how her mother apologized for Carola's strange behavior. She allowed herself to stand motionless in the shower for a few minutes and enjoyed the splashing of the water.
At least until the whirring sound of a tool went through her limbs to such an extent that she decided to end the wellness program.
After turning off the water, she realized to her horror that not a single towel was in the bathroom. Only a roll of kitchen towels that she had been using because the towels had not been unpacked was left at the sink.
Great! Her mother's fault again! If she had announced herself with her great craftsman, Carola would have taken a shower long ago - with everything she needed at its place.
Oh, no!
She stepped on the bath mat soaking and pushed it up to the door in caterpillar fashion. "Mum!?" she called and listened.
The only audible noise was a drill. Or was it an electric screwdriver?
She tried louder: "MUM?!"
Nothing.
Then the machine stopped.
Now quickly: "MUM!!!"
The dark voice of the neighbor replied: "She's out shopping!" After a short moment he added: "What's wrong?"
Shopping? That couldn’t be true. Her mother left her all alone with that guy in the apartment? With herself under the shower?
"Well, um," she cleared her throat "I don't have any towels in here yet... Could you check the moving boxes and maybe send my daughter in with a towel?"
A moment later, instead of an answer there was a knock on the bathroom door. Carola cursed the door: it was made of milk glass! She had only visited the apartment briefly in the presence of her mother, who had received the key from the landlord. At that time she thought the frosted glass door was pleasantly modern. Now she pressed herself close to the wall, opened the door half an inch with her arm stretched far away from her, and wished it was a plain, simple, INTRANSPARENT wooden door, because the outlines that could be seen through the milk glass door definitely did not belong to a little girl.
"I'm not looking. Don't worry." His dark voice still made Carola feel uneasy. "Your daughter went shopping together with Brigitte." Great, so in fact she was alone with that man! With a strange man! Not even Jolie was here anymore! Her mother had a lot of nerve!
His big hand was behind the door, which was open for several centimeters. It held a kitchen towel. A kitchen towel?
"Take this, so I won't have to go looking."
Carola wanted to snap at him. A kitchen towel! Should she dry her feet with it now, and later dry the coffee cups? No, she was going to put them in the dishwasher, which she still had to buy. She wouldn't grumble, she would simply use the kitchen towel as a cleaning rag. Men!
Carola once again cursed the fact that she had left too quickly to shower when she realized her next problem, which she timidly told her mother's neighbor - and thus also her neighbor - "I need new clothes, too."
"Are you serious?"
"No, just kidding, I can tie a bathrobe out of the 30 by 40 centimeter kitchen towel," shot out Carola.
"Hey, hey, hey! Always stay friendly! I'm not standing in the bathroom naked!" Afterwards she heard him mumble as he left: "And if I did, I wouldn't care. Women..."
Bad things got even worse: she waited in the bathroom -naked- for a macho guy she didn't know to give her clothes from her moving boxes. She did not even allow herself to think about the individual components of the term "clothes".
"Well, the first particles are coming." With these words he brought her socks, a red lace bra and a worn out cotton slipper, which had seen better times... At the moment there was definitely only one person who was enjoying the situation.
Why didn't the ground open up when you needed it the most or why didn't she pack a box with the inscription 'In case I need clothes spontaneously', in which at least matching, modern but not too transparent underwear was?
The only way to save her face now was a heart attack.