Your Perfect Year(37)
“No idea. I’m supposed to change into a dress and wait for him to collect me.”
“Does that mean he’s got a new job?”
Hannah shook her head. “Not that.”
“Hmm.” Her friend looked at a loss for a moment, then her expression brightened and she clapped her hands in delight. “He-e-e-y!” she cried out. “This sounds much more promising!”
“Promising? I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.”
Lisa looked at her sternly. “Isn’t it obvious? You’re not usually so slow on the uptake.”
“What’s so obvious?”
“Tonight’s the night—he’s going to propose to you!”
“You really think so?”
“Of course! What else could it be, if it’s not a new job? I seriously doubt Simon would ask you to get all dressed up for a night out with him so he can tell you about his blood cholesterol levels.”
“You’re right.”
“How wonderful! Something’s happening at last!” Lisa broke into a crooked smile. “Even if it’s not in my life.”
“Excuse me,” Hannah said reassuringly, “I’m sure that the right guy will turn up soon. But in the meantime”—she made an expansive gesture encompassing the premises with both arms—“just take a look around! I’d say rather a lot has happened in the last few weeks.”
“True,” Lisa conceded. “But I was talking about something really important. Something significant. Something . . .” She paused, searching for the right words. “Something life changing!”
17
Jonathan
Wednesday, January 3, 9:11 a.m.
After his morning run, followed by his customary shower, change, and breakfast, Jonathan sat at his desk and looked at the pile of documents Markus Bode had left with him the day before. He knew that as publisher it was his responsibility to deal with them, but he didn’t have the slightest inclination to do it.
As far as he was concerned, Markus Bode could have complete freedom to do whatever he thought fit—Jonathan had the greatest trust in him. It was just that saying such a thing directly would have been equivalent to professional suicide, so his only choice was to at least make an attempt to look through the heap.
His eyes wandered over the endless columns of numbers. Here and there Bode had marked something with a highlighter, but Jonathan felt stupid as he admitted to himself that he had no idea what his CEO meant by it. It was embarrassing to admit such a failing, even to himself, but he felt like he was wandering through a dark vale of cluelessness.
On hearing Jonathan’s decision to study philosophy and comparative literature, his father had given him a kindly smile and merely remarked that he would learn the business side of publishing later, “by getting thrown in the deep end.” This had not ultimately proved necessary, since Wolfgang Grief had at some stage decided that his son would be better suited to the role of representative for the publishing house. Jonathan did not know to that day what had led to his father’s decision, but deep down he wasn’t bothered by it, since he’d always liked the role.
Jonathan moved in the PR side of publishing, making sure the authors felt well cared for. And who wouldn’t appreciate a job that involved dining out and enjoying conversations with knowledgeable people about quality literature? The really important decisions were made by his father, even for a long time after his official retirement, when he hovered in the background as a kind of elder statesman.
Given the way their affairs had been arranged until Wolfgang Grief had become so ill, Jonathan had lost the capacity to use his own initiative in the company. Which was not the end of the world, since Markus Bode was an outstanding CEO, and business was going well. Jonathan would happily have allowed things to go on as they were. Until now. Now he recognized the quandary in which he found himself: Should he confess to his CEO that he understood absolutely nothing about running a business, especially not the accounting side?
Jonathan stared at the documents for a few more minutes before shoving them aside with a sigh and reaching instead for the latest edition of the Hamburg News. He’d go back to the publishing-house affairs later. Right now, he preferred to start the day with a pleasant perusal of the morning headlines.
He was annoyed to see that the front page of the newspaper was torn. He would have to have a serious word with the delivery person, tell them they should take greater care when placing the paper in the box. That was why Jonathan had installed it. Was it really too much to ask that his newspaper was properly rolled up and pushed without mishap into the generously proportioned tube by his front door? Hardly.
He skimmed the latest news articles with interest, highlighting a typo or grammatical error here and there with a sharpened pencil. He skipped the sports section—for Jonathan, the only point of sports was in taking an active part, not reading about the achievements of others—and finally he immersed himself in the arts-and-culture section.
As he folded up the newspaper a short hour later and set it down on his desk, a missing-person notice at the bottom of page 1 caught his eye.
Huh. Thanks to the careless delivery person, the article ended before it began. The corner had been torn off—the very corner where Jonathan imagined further information and a photo of the missing person would be. What a nuisance!