Heidelberg Effect (4 page)

Heidi led Ella to a large corner office with
a view of Bergheimer and Rohrbacher streets below.

“Oh, this is fabulous,”
Ella said, putting her briefcase down in one of the leather
visitor’s chairs. She walked over to the window to look out. “I had
a
cubicle
at my
last job,” she said.

“We have been looking forward to your
arrival,” Heidi said. “When you are settled, there is a meeting at
nine o’clock with the managers. If you like, I would love to go to
lunch with you today.”

“That’d be awesome, Heidi. Thank you,” Ella
said.

After Heidi left her, Ella sat down at her
desk and turned on her computer. Her first official email went to
Rowan. Since it was two in the morning in Atlanta, she assumed he
wouldn’t get it for hours, but it felt nice to have him be the
first person to hear about her new office.

It only took a few hours to nail down the
specific duties of her new job. Ella could tell immediately that
the job would not be challenging but that was fine with her. Now
that she was living in a foreign country, she had all the challenge
she could handle just ordering a meal or buying groceries.

At lunchtime, Heidi showed up in her doorway
with a purse on her shoulder and a tall, stunningly handsome man at
her side.

“Are you ready, Ella?” she said. “Do you
mind if Hugo comes with us?”

“Not at all,” she said. “Pleased to meet
you, Hugo.” They shook hands and Ella thought he held onto her hand
a tad longer than necessary.

“I love Americans,” he said. “I used to live
in America.”

“Oh, that’s cool,” Ella said as the three
moved to the elevator. “Where?”

“Indiana. It was after college. Very
enlightening.”

Lunch was loud and fun. Ella was surprised
to learn that drinking beer at lunch was not frowned upon—or at
least that’s what Hugo and Heidi told her. They lunched at a
tourist spot in the old part of Heidelberg, off the main market
square near the Church of the Holy Spirit. Ella had walked by it
several times in her first couple of days of exploring the
town.

Hugo was a large man but trim and lean. He
gave off a strong scent of athleticism and Ella had an image of him
playing soccer with his pals after work. Whatever was going on with
the handshake, she did not mistake the fact that his knee stayed in
constant contact with hers under the table throughout lunch.

On paper, Ella decided, Hugo might add up to
look and sound a lot like Rowan. But there were some major
differences she couldn’t help but notice. Rowan was more taciturn,
that was for sure. Hugo was positively chatty. And while he was
witty in at least two languages, for her tastes he was almost too
much.

As they were leaving the restaurant, he
leaned over and whispered: “Want to get together tonight?”

Wow. Come right out with
it,
Ella thought, slightly
amused.

She glanced at Heidi who was the picture of
someone pretending not to listen and Ella realized that Heidi was
aiding and abetting Hugo in his attempt to pick her up.

“Thanks,” she said to Hugo. “But I’ve got a
boyfriend back home.”

Which was weird because she
hadn’t known Rowan long enough to consider him her boyfriend by any
stretch of the imagination and yet…whatever she felt for him she
didn’t completely feel free either. Was she using that as an excuse
not to date Hugo? Did she
want
to date Hugo?

“The operative words there
being
back home
,
yes?” Hugo wiggled his eyebrows at her and she laughed.

“You’re kind of a little devil, aren’t you,
Hugo?”

Heidi laughed too. “Only,
at six foot three, not
too
little,” she said.

“Your boyfriend is alone tonight, you
think?” Hugo asked in mock seriousness.

“Okay, Hugo,” Heidi said, wagging a finger
at him. “Now you go too far.”

“Yeah, Hugo,” Ella said. “I’m still in the
early stages of imagining him spending his nights bereft and alone.
Besides, he’s staying at his parents’ at the moment so I feel
confident he is lonely.”

“Is that because most American women
typically do not have their own apartments?”

“Enough, Hugo,” Heidi said, but she was
watching Ella to see if he was upsetting her.

“I’m fine, Heidi,” Ella said. She turned to
Hugo. “Flattered,” she said. “But not interested. Thank you.”

“You are absolutely welcome,” Hugo said, as
the three walked down the street toward their office. “But I wish
you would wait until I have done something for which you will thank
me.”

“He never quits, does he?” Ella said to
Heidi and the two women laughed and teased poor Hugo the rest of
the way back.

That night after work, Heidi and Hugo talked
Ella into going out for drinks to commemorate her first day on the
job. During the course of the evening, she let two calls from Rowan
go to voicemail because it was too noisy in the restaurant to talk.
And by the time she got back to her apartment, she was just too
exhausted from her long full day to call him back.

When she had been gone for two weeks, Rowan
began to see the cracks in their plan. For Ella, those two weeks
were weeks of exciting, interesting events that chocked her days
full and left her tired and often unavailable in the evenings. For
him, not so much. He was due to go back to Dothan tomorrow. Truth
be told, he had been ready to go back as soon as Ella left but he
knew his folks were counting on him staying the full time with
them.

It was Thursday evening. While Ella didn’t
seem to need a Friday or Saturday evening to spend the evening
clubbing, he knew his chances of catching her at home were greater
during the workweek. He opened up Skype on his computer and typed
in her number. Their arrangement had been for him to call the same
time every evening but sometimes she didn’t answer, or if she did,
she often could only talk for a few minutes. Lately, when he sat
down to call her, he started to get a queasy feeling in the pit of
his stomach. And not good queasy either.

Rowan sighed and drank from a bottle of Lone
Star Beer at the desk in his father’s den. He watched the digital
clock on the computer and waited. He didn’t usually consider
himself the OCD type. It occurred to him that his waiting—after
all, what did a few minutes on either side of the allotted time
matter?—was just his way of putting off what was inevitably coming.
It stood to reason that she would create a new life over there, one
that didn’t include him. He understood that. Hell, he’d expected
that. It was different with him. His life was his work. There was
room in it for her, but without her presence—either physically or
emotionally—his work would just fill the vacuum.

He logged on and listened to the connection
ringing.

“Hey, Rowan.” She picked up
straightaway and Rowan felt his heart lift. Not since the first few
days over there had she answered so quickly. She must have been
waiting for him. Immediately, he tensed.
Why had she been waiting?

“Hey, beautiful,” he said. “You’re letting
your hair grow long.”

“Yeah, it’s the style over here,” she said,
patting her long dark hair. He noticed she had it down around her
shoulders instead of twisted up in a bun or pinned up somehow. Up
meant the office. Down meant she was going out.

“Looks good. So how you been?” He hated
these damn Skype calls. He wasn’t sure where he was supposed to
stare. If it were up to him he’d talk to her on a regular phone
while he was on the back porch where he could just close his eyes
and imagine what she looked like. Naked, would be good.

“I’m okay,” she said. “The work is pretty
dull but I’ve been meeting some great people.”

Not
what he was hoping to hear, he had to admit.

“Yeah? That’s great. How’s your German
coming?”

“Crappy. Everyone I’m hanging with speaks
English so I just speak English.”

“I can see how that’d be tempting,” he
said.

Was it his imagination or were these calls
becoming positively painful?

“How about you?” she said. “You still in
Atlanta?”

“Going home tomorrow,” he said. “Then it’s
doing all the usual Marshal shit. Transporting, guarding, cleaning
up the FBI’s messes.”

She laughed and he thought
of how that laugh had felt when she had done it from the snug
confines of his arms. It brought back the memory of her scent, all
flowers and lemons. Suddenly, the memory of how it used to be with
her felt so strong—and the realization of what he’d lost so
palpable—that he wanted to just remove himself and be done with
it.
What was this slow death they both
insisted on enduring? What was that? Were they
masochists?

“Hey, listen, Rowan,” she
said. “I can’t talk long tonight. I told Heidi I’d meet her
at
Chism
in about
an hour and I need to get ready.”

“Yeah, that’s cool,” he
said, taking another long pull off his beer.
What is that? A nightclub? A bar?

“I miss you, Rowan,” she said.

“I miss you, too, Ella,” he said.

“Talk to you tomorrow?”

“Same Bat channel,” he said.

She laughed. “See ya, Rowan.”

“Bye, beautiful,” he said.

He sat there after they’d
disconnected just staring at the screen saver on his computer for
another ten minutes before he finally moved to the living room
where his parents sat watching reruns of
Hell on Wheels
on the flat screen
TV.

Ella sat in her living room
and stared at the blank computer screen. He had sounded almost
listless, she thought. Compared to Hugo and some of the other guys
who had started to come out with her and Heidi on their nightly
sojourns in the
Altstadt
, he sounded like a sad
sack. Ella scolded herself for thinking that. He just spent five
weeks living in this parents’ split level in a suburb in Atlanta,
for God’s sake. Of course, he sounds a little monotone. Anyone
would.

Sighing, she got up to put the final touches
on her makeup. Heidi would be here to pick her up any minute. She
dropped a handful of Euros in her purse for the taxi ride home
tonight. She knew she would not be buying her own drinks. What a
difference from her life in Atlanta! She had been so right to make
this move. Everything was so new and different and fresh.

Just learning the names of
the streets that led to her favorite café or the market in
Altstadt
was a thrill in
its own way. When she added her new best girlfriend, Heidi, to the
mix, the evenings began to fill up with laughter and the antics of
new friends. Heidi knew everyone. She had attended the University
of Heidelberg and still had friends and professors there. She
brought Ella into her world of intellectuals and musicians, actors
and academics.

As Ella applied her lipstick, she saw that
her cellphone was vibrating. Frowning, and thinking it might be
Heidi, she snatched it up without looking at the screen first.

“Hello?”

“Ella, honey?”

Oh, crap
. It was her father.

“Oh, Dad,” she said. “I am so sorry I
haven’t called in awhile. You have no idea how busy I’ve been.”

“That’s all right, sweetheart,” her dad
said. “I’m glad you’re busy. So everything’s going well with the
new job?”

“Just perfect.”

“You brought your Taser, right?”

Give me a break. What is with him?

“Yes, Dad,” she said,
patiently. I’ve got it and I carry it.” She glanced in the
direction of her day bag. She wasn’t lying to him. She
did
carry the Taser—a
small handheld wireless model—but she certainly wasn’t going to
bring it into nightclubs with her.

“That’s good, darling. You can never be too
careful.”

Honestly, Dad? I bet you can.

“Listen, I hate to cut you off, Dad but I’m
just on my way out—”

“Yes, that’s fine,” he said. “Just checking
on you. Ah, Ella, I was wondering if you intended to do any, you
know, visiting with family while you were there.”

Ella sat down on the couch. “Visiting?” she
said.

“Well, we never talked about it before you
left but you know your mother’s people came from that area of
Germany.”

“Heidelberg?”

This was news.

“Or thereabouts.”

“Is there family left over here? I thought
her whole family came over when she was like six or something.”

“There may be one or two people left.” He
cleared his throat and laughed and Ella’s hands froze on the phone.
It was an affectation she had heard before when he was nervous or
about to lie. Or both.

“Really.”

“And if you do,” he said, clearing his
throat again. “I’d appreciate it if you kept me in the loop on
anything you might, you know, find out.”

“Find
out
?”

“Well, any people you might meet.”

“As in relatives?”

“That’s right.”

“Sure, Dad,” she said.

“And, on the other hand,” he said. “If you
have no intention of looking up your mother’s relatives, well, just
forget I said anything.”

That night Ella and Heidi
had dinner in one of their favorite restaurants in the old town
facing the pedestrian bridge. It had taken Ella all of one day to
officially retire any desire to ever eat
sauerbraten
or
wienerschnitzel
again. Fortunately,
Heidi was a vegan and so was happy to discover less than
traditional dishes when they went out together.