Your Perfect Year(35)
Yours,
The Inconsiderate Driver
With a sigh, Jonathan picked up the parking ticket from beneath his wiper and crumpled it in his hand. He was surprised to find himself laughing out loud.
16
Hannah
Fourteen days before:
Tuesday, December 19, 4:47 p.m.
“Brrr, it’s cold outside! I’m like an icicle on legs. We could use a hot chocolate—right now!” Lisa’s cheeks were glowing as she tumbled through the door of Little Rascals dragging seven shivering children behind her. She had spent a good hour with them in Eppendorfer Park after the little darlings demanded a snowball fight. Now, despite woolly hats and scarves and waterproof coats and snowsuits, they were frozen through, although they all had cheerful grins on their faces.
Hannah had to smile at the sight. Romping in the snow was the absolute best for little kids—nothing had changed in that respect since her own childhood. Armed with a fat, hard-packed snowball, whooping for joy when a well-aimed missile hit a friend smack in the middle of their back, they never noticed the subzero temperatures and numb feet. As a little girl, she had always felt the excitement from the moment the first flake of snow fell. Her parents would get the old wooden sled from the cellar and tow her behind them to the nearest park, where she would enter into hard-fought snowball battles with her father.
“Hello? Earth to Hannah. We need hot chocolate!” Lisa was standing right in front of her, staring in amusement.
“Sorry, I was miles away.”
“So I saw. You were all glazed over.” Lisa winked. “Let me guess—it involved Simon.”
“Wrong. I was lost in memories.”
“Dreaming of a white Christmas.”
“You got it.” She gestured toward the kitchenette. “The hot chocolate’s ready and waiting on the stove.”
“Great!” Lisa rubbed her hands. “We might just get away without freezing to death.” She took off her winter jacket, hung it in the coatroom, and busied herself releasing one child after another from snowsuits and winter boots.
Hannah went back to the playroom, where she had been keeping eight other kids busy making stars of Bethlehem and angels out of gold paper in a cozy indoor temperature of over seventy degrees. A third group, watched over by Hannah’s mother, Sybille, had left at noon for a tour around the local police station and were expected back at any minute.
Their optimistic forecast had proved true and more. The huge interest since the opening of Little Rascals had not only been maintained but had even increased. Word-of-mouth publicity was proving an outstanding success, and the four articles on the Little Rascals that Simon had produced for them—sadly, as press releases, so unpaid—had brought Lisa and Hannah a rather sour telephone call from their last boss (“You could have said something!” “We did, but you weren’t listening.”) and children from more far-flung districts such as Blankenese and Sasel. Hannah and Lisa were forced to put off new parents temporarily and add them to a waiting list.
In addition to Lisa’s and Hannah’s mothers—Barbara and Sybille—a number of teaching students and trainee childcare workers came to Little Rascals as assistants. The two friends needed the extra help because the huge demand meant they had to extend their hours to include mornings, and they were also offering sleepovers every other weekend. In short, the Little Rascals business was an out-and-out success. It looked like they would have more Christmas money to spend than in recent years. They’d even been able to give each of their employees a small Christmas bonus of fifty euros.
Sometimes Hannah caught herself thinking what a pity it was that she hadn’t plucked up the courage sooner to turn her idea into reality. But it didn’t really worry her; she had no time for might-have-beens, and it was better late than never. She was already considering expansion, but kept that to herself for the time being. She didn’t want Simon or Lisa to think she had delusions of grandeur, and she thought it better to wait and see whether their business model continued on its stellar trajectory.
In any case, however sweet the taste of their success, the fact that there was still nothing doing with Simon put a bit of a damper on her enthusiasm. Sadly, since his collapse a few weeks ago, her boyfriend had still not asked her the mysterious question, nor had he found another job and with it a better mood.
And he hadn’t really made much progress on the health front either. He spent most of his time at home, slouched on the sofa watching some TV series, sending out the occasional lackluster application and spending the rest of the time bemoaning the fact that he still wasn’t properly back on his feet. It was enough to make her weep!
Of course, like most men, Simon was a master of complaining about his regrettable situation—but actually doing something about it and getting the medical advice Dr. Fuchs had clearly recommended seemed not to enter his head.
Hannah suspected she knew what his problem really was—she was convinced that he was suffering some kind of depression that he couldn’t shake off. His physical complaints were merely a symptom of his mental state—as well as the perfect excuse for letting himself go.
Yesterday morning, after yet another night she had spent alone because Simon had wanted to creep into his own bed alone, she had felt it was time to take action. She had ferried him to his family doctor, determined to make sure he had a thorough examination before Christmas. The laboratory results were due that afternoon, and Hannah had been waiting hours for his call, fully expecting him to say meekly that the doctor had prescribed him a few vitamin supplements and recommended he get out his jogging clothes and prepare to engage with life again.