Your Perfect Year(111)

Friday, May 11, 7:53 p.m.

Excited. Angry. Mixed up. Sad. Curious. Scared.

Hannah was all of these as she took her seat—almost ten minutes early—at the Da Riccardo table reserved for Marx.

The moment of truth had arrived. She was about to discover who the man was who, for almost six months, had been roaming the neighborhood with Simon’s diary, walking in his footsteps. At least, Hannah was hoping he’d appear, because the question of his identity would no longer leave her in peace.

She and Lisa had repeatedly wondered what kind of person would find a Filofax and then, instead of simply handing it in (to the police, wherever), live according to the schedule of events it contained. Including buying someone else’s engagement rings! They couldn’t think of a single comprehensible reason, only that this certainly was not a normal person but a complete lunatic.

Lisa had begun by insisting that she go with Hannah to Da Riccardo that evening, as she didn’t want her best friend to become the victim of a chain-saw-wielding murderer. But after much discussion, Hannah managed to persuade her that the probability of being bumped off was relatively low on a Friday evening in a popular restaurant under the eyes of numerous witnesses. She had nevertheless had to promise to contact Lisa on an hourly basis. “Otherwise I’m calling the police,” her friend had threatened. “Or I’ll come down there in person!”

In the meantime, Lisa had also read Simon’s novel. She had been equally swept away, which meant it wasn’t only Hannah’s own opinion that it was a good book.

But to date, Hannah had heard nothing from Grief & Son Books, which she found a little disappointing. She had no idea how the publishing world worked, but she would have expected some kind of response in six weeks. Indeed, she had been secretly hoping for a euphoric phone call promising an on-the-spot contract.

It wasn’t about the money—she didn’t even know if she was entitled to any of it (and didn’t want it, in any case). It was that she believed Simon’s novel deserved to be published, even if posthumously.

As she so often did, Hannah thought of the story her boyfriend had laid out in the manuscript. Such a beautiful love story! Tears sprang to her eyes again. A wonderful story—and, sadly, not at all true.

She was about to reach in her purse for a tissue, when the curtain to her little booth was drawn aside by Riccardo.

Hannah looked up.

He was standing there. Before her eyes. The man with the blue eyes and the gray-streaked black hair. The guy who had stared at her in the café so weirdly that she couldn’t really remember his face.

He was staring at her again now, a little uncertainly.

“Good evening,” he said quietly. “My name is Jonathan Grief. Are you Frau Marx?”

She pushed her chair back a little, rose, and stepped toward him.

“Hannah,” she said.





61

Jonathan

Friday, May 11, 7:55 p.m.

Jonathan’s knees were weak as he got out of his car in front of the Italian restaurant called Da Riccardo at five to eight. His heart was fluttering in his chest, there was no other way to describe it, and he had no idea how he was going to get through the next five minutes—or, if things went well, the entire evening—in this state. Of course, that was if he was even going to meet the red-haired woman from the café in the next few minutes, for he was by no means certain that H. Marks was actually the red-haired woman from the café. Or, if she was, that she would be there.

He was more nervous than he’d ever been. But there was no question of pulling out now; he had feverishly awaited this moment for far too long.

He had been saved from thinking too much about May 11, that fateful day, because the days since Markus Bode’s surprising resignation had turned out to be incredibly busy. Jonathan had been in the office every day since then. He wanted to make his presence felt by his staff, and he knew he should somehow start coming to grips with the work his CEO had performed. Some of it, at least.

After Renate Krug had told him of Markus Bode’s resignation, Jonathan had raced to the press, tires screeching, and stormed into Bode’s office. There, he had tried to sweet-talk him: offered him more money, a new company car, sole responsibility for the whole of the publishing house’s output, if necessary a daily massage in his private office—but all in vain.

“I can’t go on,” Bode had replied. “And it has nothing to do with the fact that for years I’ve felt like a puppet on a string, dangling from your father’s hands like you, with no real ability to make my own decisions—”

Jonathan had wanted to interrupt: “What do you mean by ‘puppet on a string’ and ‘like me’?”

But Bode had continued, unperturbed, as he calmly cleared his desk. “My wife and I have realized that things can’t go on like this.”

“I’m sorry?” Jonathan asked in amazement. “You and your wife? I thought—”

“Ah. We’ve gotten back together.”

“Really? How come?” Jonathan had intended to sound more pleased than horrified. He was pleased—very much so. But it would be nice if couples getting back together didn’t mean Bode handing in his notice—that was more cause for horror than joy.

“Well,” his CEO—ex-CEO—had replied, “as so often happens in life, and as you know yourself, a crisis is an opportunity. My wife and I had a long conversation yesterday, in which she told me that she still loved me, but that she’d given up feeling we were a family a long time ago, because my job had been grinding me down for years.” He laughed. “As I’ve just said, a job that . . . But let’s not go there.”