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“Gee, Pauline!” I decide to try my luck with an attack. “Now please don’t play the prima donna, just because I couldn’t come for once!”
“Pah!” she mutters. “Once? I haven’t seen you in weeks!” She waves her cell phone in my face. “You haven’t even responded to my messages!”
“You haven’t sent me any…” Now, for my part, I pull out the phone and unlock it. “Oh my God!” It almost falls out of my hand when I spot the bright red bubble on the tile. With erratic finger movements, I check the app. “Twenty-three messages!”
Pauline looks at me with her chin jutting out.
“This…”I have no idea what to say.My guilty conscience reacts faster than I do, loading my mind with Kevin’s cutting rebuke:Apologies can be hoped for. One may ask for them to be granted, if necessary. But one may never demand it!
“Celine! Jeez! What happened?” A waft of perfume envelops me; a split second later, my friend’s arms, wrapped in precious knitwear, pull me into a hug. “Your makeup completely melts away when you boo-hoo!” Sympathetically, she presses a Kleenex into my hand.
I blow my nose, realizing in bits and pieces that tears really are streaming down my cheeks. “I… I don’t know either. That I didn’t get in touch… I’m terribly sorry, but…” Despite tear-induced blurriness, I try to read Pauline’s expression.Is she going to stop being friends with me?“Can you forgive me? Please!”
“Jesus Christ, Celine…” She shakes her head and resolutely leads me into one of the spacious two-person cabins. There she pushes me down onto the fitting chair. “You’re in a complete tizzy. What’s wrong with you?”
Well. If I only knew…
“Is your job too demanding?” she guesses, but then shakes her head. “No. You’ve always thrived under pressure. Is everything okay with your aunt?” She tilts her head. “Nah. You would have called me right away.”
That’s right.I nod, dabbing my face dry with a fresh Kleenex from the box on the shelf.Crazy how well Pauline knows me… Almost better than I do.
“What then?” She props her hands on her hips, leans down to me, and… sniffs me.
She sniffs me?As inconspicuously as possible, I lift my right arm to reassure myself I haven’t forgotten to use my deodorant this morning.
“But… of course!” Pauline blurts out, and I wince.
“What is… of course?”
“You…!” She almost pokes my eye out with her finger as she points at me. “You didn’t follow my instructions! Now spill it!”
“Which instructions?” I play the fool, although I know what she’s probably talking about. The scene fromThere’s Something About Mary. The vibrator.
She stops me with a wave of her hand. “Don’t even try it. You’re fadin’ like an old maid, beingCUF. Almost as bad as Fraulein Hengesbach used to be.”
Chronically underfucked?The corners of my mouth are slipping.I certainly don’t smell as disgusting as the deaconess who led the girls’ choir!
“Your grimace exposes you,” Pauline sneers with barely veiled glee. “So, it’s true: you didn’t take my advice. Therefore, it’s your own fault for smelling like this.”
“As if it would change anything…”
“It changes… everything!” Pauline punctuates the last word with a spacey gesture. “Fundamentally everything. Completely!”
“Yeah,” I confirm with a drawn-out vowel, thinking about how terribly embarrassing the first and only outreach had ended. “That’s true, though. But then, honestly, I prefer to exude sexual distress—which is only perceptible to your fine nose.”
“So…?” asks Pauline with raised eyebrows as she elicits two cappuccinos from the fully automatic coffee machine. “Come on. What happened that was so bad?”
With a grateful bow of the head, I accept the cup from her. I gently blow the milk foam aside, cooling the hellishly hot brew with my breath.
“Celine!” Pauline drums her fingernails—painted in the colors of the rainbow today—on the rim of her cup. “Will you get to the point? What happened?”
I sigh and fortify myself with a big gulp before answering. “I passed out. To make matters worse, right…”
“Right into the arms of your Adonis-like Philipp?”
Oh my god. Is it that obvious?“Sort of.” Speaking of… I tilt my head.Since when Pauline can remember Philipp’s name? After all, she’s been penetratingly referring to him asAntony-ish… until now.
“…did it feel like?” Pauline leans forward, literally hanging on my lips. “Come on, don’t let me die dried up like an old chalkboard sponge!”
