Your Perfect Year(10)
A raindrop fell on the page, blurring the ink slightly, and Jonathan rubbed his right thumb over it without thinking. He was even more astonished to realize that it wasn’t actually raining. How ridiculous!
He quickly snapped the diary shut, shoved it back in the bag, and drew the zipper closed. The best thing would be to leave the book here on the bench, where its owner would be sure to find it if he came looking. He had probably simply dropped the bag on the path nearby, and an observant passerby had hung it on his bicycle, assuming that it belonged there or would be more easily spotted.
Jonathan’s hands trembled as he tried to enter the combination of his bike lock. No wonder—he was completely exhausted and hadn’t yet had anything to eat. It was high time to go home and enjoy a sumptuous breakfast! He jumped onto his bike and pedaled off, his fitness band showing a pulse of 175 after a few yards.
Three minutes later he stopped pedaling and braked hard, almost propelling himself out of the saddle. No. He couldn’t. It was wrong to leave the bag lying on a bench, an invitation for any stranger to pick it up.
So he turned. He would take the bag with the Filofax home with him and make the effort to trace its rightful owner. Yes. That was it. It seemed the only right thing to do.
4
Hannah
Two months before:
Sunday, October 29, 12:47 p.m.
“If you don’t answer the phone now, I’m calling the police! Or I’ll have a heart attack! Maybe both!” Hannah yelled so loudly into the receiver that Simon, in his apartment over in Hohenfelde, could probably have heard it without a phone line.
“Tell him we’ll have the Russian Mafia after him!” Lisa shrieked in the background. “And the Albanians as well!”
“Did you hear that?” Hannah bellowed. “That was Lisa, and she’s not amused!” She waited a moment, but no sound came down the line apart from the white noise of the answering machine. Simon wasn’t answering his landline, and her attempts to reach him on his cell phone had also failed dismally. Nothing, nada, niente—Hannah’s boyfriend was nowhere to be found.
In a little over an hour the first visitors would be arriving for the opening party of Little Rascals. Everything was ready, perfectly prepared: the puppet-show people had arrived in good time and were shuffling from foot to foot outside; the two girls hired to do face painting were setting up on a table in the corner; the small bouncy castle had been inflated in the parking lot next to the entrance; the loudspeakers were playing a selection of children’s favorites; the side table was groaning beneath the weight of not only the doughnuts and cookies but also a variety of cakes and other treats that Hannah’s and Lisa’s friends and parents had brought for them—but the five hundred balloons lay flaccid in a bag, and apart from tap water from the little kitchenette and Lisa’s lukewarm half bottle of diet cola, there was a serious drought on the drinks front. Without the promised paper plates and cups, it didn’t really matter anyway.
“Don’t worry, I’ll be there no later than eleven, blowing up balloons like there’s no tomorrow!” Simon had promised the evening before, when Hannah had complained that he chose to spend the night before her big day not at her place but, as he did so often recently, in his own apartment. “I think I’m coming down with a cold, so I’d be better off having an early night with a hot-water bottle to make sure I’m ready for action in the morning.”
Ready for action! As if. It was as though the earth had opened up and swallowed him. That in itself was not good. But since he had the helium tank for the balloons, and the plates and cups and drinks for the opening party, it was an absolute catastrophe!
She simply didn’t understand it. Simon was normally so reliable. She had been over the moon when he offered to buy the things at the wholesale store, where his press pass still allowed him to shop. “Things are a lot cheaper there,” he’d said, “and besides, you won’t need to lug heavy bags around. I’ll do it. And I’ll pay, too—consider it my opening gift to you both.”
“What are we going to do now?” Lisa asked. She ran her hands through her short black hair, transforming her tousled style into a just-out-of-bed look.
Hannah shrugged. “No idea.”
“Do you think Simon will be offended by that business with the Russian Mafia and the Albanians? It just slipped out.”
Hannah rolled her eyes. “You’re not seriously worried about whether he’ll take offense at your sass, are you?”
“No, of course not,” Lisa replied quickly. But Hannah knew she was. She was like that.
“Well,” Hannah said, “instead of concerning ourselves with Simon’s sensitivities, we’d be better off finding a solution to the drinks problem.”
“I could pop back to Wernicke’s and see what kinds of water and juice they have. You never know, they might even sell paper plates and cups.”
“Do you know how much that would cost? We pay two euros there for a stupid Capri Sun!”
“Do you have a better idea?”
Hannah thought for a moment, then hurried over to the kitchenette and grabbed her coat from the hook. “I’ll drive over to Simon’s place and see where he’s hiding.” She hurried past Lisa toward the exit.
“And what am I supposed to do while you’re gone?” her friend called after her. “You can’t leave me here on my own!”