Freak City (17 page)

I dropped the glass and it broke into a thousand pieces on the street. “What does that sound like?” My voice was thick. The blinking hearts had finally given out. They looked at me like dead eyes.

“That sounds like a drunk dude dropping a glass.”

I sighed. “You have to get your ears checked. Something’s wrong with them. What that really sounds like is a guy granting wishes.”

“You’re wasted.” The girl left me standing there and took off.

The shards of glass on the ground looked like broken stars.

It had been raining for nine hours without a pause. It had started before dawn and hadn’t let up once since then. Summer vacation was half over. The rain came down in sheets.

Claudio was still in Spain, and Tobias had left the club without saying anything. Leah hadn’t gotten in touch since the fight the night before, either.

I wanted to talk things over with her, make up with her. But I didn’t dare go to her house. After our terrible discussion the night before, she had probably had enough of me and was getting together with someone else just out of spite. Since we had met, we had gotten together somewhere other than Freak City three times, and two of those times we had clashed mightily.

This afternoon I still wanted to go to Sabine’s class, but my motivation was completely gone. Why should I learn all that stuff when there was no one I could talk with?

And tomorrow, on Saturday, I was getting together with Sandra. When I thought about her, I felt dizzy. One the one hand, I wanted her back, definitely. On the other hand, though, there were times when she meant terrifyingly little to me. Times when I was thinking about Leah. Times that I started to count. We’d split up more than a month and a half ago, and with every day I seemed to move further away from Sandra.

I lay on the sofa with the curtains pulled shut and watched the movie Tommek had given me.
Children of a Lesser God
. It was about a man with hearing who falls in love with one of his deaf students.

On the case was a picture of the lead actress having sex with the leading man in a swimming pool. Ever since the preview, I had been waiting for exactly that scene. It was embarrassing even to myself that I was so obsessed with sex. But ever since Leah had taken me by the hand the day before, I hadn’t been able to think about anything else. It was the way she had touched me. The moment our hands were intertwined, something had been set in motion that I couldn’t get under control.

Finally, the scene came, and I eagerly sat up on the sofa. There were sounds in the foyer. My mom was back from her shopping trip. Before I even realized what was happening, she squeezed herself through the living room door and dropped her shopping bags on the floor. Annoyed, she ran a hand through her wet hair. “It’s about time you got up. When did you get home last night, anyway? I didn’t even hear you!”

Caught red-handed, I pressed the pause button on the remote.

Irritated, my mom looked over at the TV screen. “Oh, pardon me,” she muttered bashfully as her cheeks flushed. In close up, she saw two naked bodies pressed close to each other flickering on the big screen. “I didn’t mean to disturb you. I’m leaving again.”

I blushed, too. Clearly, my mom thought I was secretly watching some porno in the living room.

“You’re not disturbing anything,” I said, feeling awkward. “This is a really famous movie.” I pressed play again. Hopefully, the actors were almost finished feeling each other up. “Someone recommended it to me,” I said quickly. “Won an Oscar and everything, but it was ages ago.”

My mom’s eyes narrowed. “I know him!” she finally said, nodding. She plopped down on the sofa next to me. “Isn’t it about a deaf woman? I saw this years ago in the movie theater! Cried my eyes out.”

I looked at my mom sideways.

“Amazing,” she murmured, “how these people go through life, not able to hear. I couldn’t do that.”

Suddenly, she turned her head to face me. It was like something in her brain had gone “click.” “Hey, Mika, whatever happened with that . . . wasn’t there a sign language class? You mentioned something about it at Iris’s birthday party.”

I didn’t say anything.

“So what’s up? Do you really want to take it, or was that just a joke?”

“Started three weeks ago already,” I admitted. “Three hours every afternoon. I can already say a few things in sign language.”

My mother stared at me. “Why don’t you tell us anything about it? I thought you were always getting together with friends in the afternoons!”

I shrugged. “No idea. I thought you weren’t interested.”

My mom stopped looking at me and gazed at the screen. For a few seconds, she gathered her thoughts. “Just because Dad sometimes makes fun of things doesn’t mean that we aren’t interested in our kids. We’re a family, don’t forget that.” She sounded sad, almost disappointed.

I nodded. My mom put her hand on my shoulder. “Your dad loves you, Mika. And so do I. I know things have been better between you and him. But when you close yourself off like that, you only make things worse.”

I nodded again. Deep crisis discussions with my mom were exhausting. It would have been easier if she had just screamed at me.

“Where is Dad, anyway?” I asked. Since the beginning of summer, he had hardly ever been home.

“He’s going climbing with Tanya again.” My mom got up from the couch. “She really liked it on Monday. She had the day off today, and he’s going back to the indoor climbing center with her. He’ll be gone this weekend, too, by the way. A guided tour in the mountains staying in cabins overnight. He got a last-minute spot with some group.”

So my dad had recently started spending his afternoons with my ex-girlfriend’s mother. That was weird.

“When do you have to take the DVD back? Aunt Vera would be thrilled if you’d lend it to her tonight. She’s having a rough time of it, she could use a distraction.”

I didn’t react, just turned up the volume. My mom bent over to pick up the shopping bags and went toward the kitchen.

At the door, she stopped and turned around again. “Mika, why are you doing that? I mean, who do you want to talk to in sign language?”

I chewed nervously on my lower lip. “I met this girl,” I finally muttered. It must have sounded like I had swallowed gum. “In a café. She’s been deaf since she was born. She’s my age. I thought I’d like to get know her better. What her life is like and stuff, the whole situation.”

My mother’s gaze drilled holes in me. Her eyes turned glassy, as if she had been smoking something illegal. “Are you serious, Mika?”

I nodded. She had apparently gotten it immediately. That I had fallen in love. No idea how she knew. That was some motherly sensor. When things got serious with Sandra, she had been the first to notice.

She moved from the doorway back toward me still carrying the bags, pressed a kiss on my forehead, and looked at me lovingly. “You know, that’s exactly what I always wanted!”

She hugged the heavy bags to her and looked down at me as if she were about to start crying.

What had she always wanted? A deaf daughter-in-law? Confused, I looked up at her.

“A son who takes responsibility in society. Who looks after other people who have problems. I’m sure you can be a great support for this girl. Maybe you’ll even enjoy it so much you’ll want to do something with it professionally. Special education or something. Or you could volunteer in a school for the deaf.”

Her eyes were still gleaming like they used to on Mother’s Day, when I would put a crooked heart made from salt dough on the table next to her plate. Every year. Our art teacher in elementary school didn’t have any other ideas. What ever happened to all those hearts, anyway? She probably threw them away two weeks after Mother’s Day when we weren’t looking.

“That’s fantastic, Mika. You’re a kid a parent can be proud of! Not every mother can say that about her son!”

My face burned, and the spot where she had kissed me throbbed like crazy. My mom smiled and disappeared into the kitchen with her bags.

I stared at the stack of already-read magazines next to the table. Mom had marked some pages with yellow sticky notes. Those were things that were essential not to forget. Would she still be proud of me if I told her the truth? I didn’t want to support Leah. I didn’t want to be her volunteer or her special-ed teacher. I wanted to have sex with her, if possible, every bit as passionately as those two actors had just done in the movie. It didn’t have to be in a swimming pool. But still: I wanted to touch her, kiss her. If I was honest, I wanted to be her boyfriend. Not a friend who went shopping for her or helped her across the street. But a boyfriend like I had been for Sandra.

Yup, ever since our fight yesterday, I had been sure. I was still attached to Sandra, sure. But Leah was a genuine and serious alternative.

I missed her unbelievably, so much it hurt physically. Her laugh, her eyes, her accusing face. Her strange, useless knowledge.

I wanted to be together with her; I had grasped that during an all-nighter of drinking and dancing.

My mom hummed happily in the kitchen. It smelled like fresh strawberries, and upstairs a window swung shut with a bang.

I leafed through one of Sandra’s magazines while she mixed some kind of cocktail in the kitchen. Then I took the “Ultimate Dream Guy” quiz.

Your dream girl asks you to sing her a song for her birthday. What do you sing?

a) Blue Suede Shoes

b) Like a Virgin

c) Highway to Hell

d) My Heart Will Go On

e) My dream girl doesn’t hear anything, so it would be kind of pointless to sing for her. It’s also pointless to recite a poem or a declaration of love. I could try it in sign language, but with vocabulary limited to food and family members, I won’t get very far here.

Answer e), of course, was made up. There were no deaf girls in these magazines. There was no one in there who had any problems that couldn’t be solved with acne cream or a cash injection from dad. They were all healthy, happy, and sexy, and all of them had enough money for the new summer outfit on page eight. They all looked a little like Paris Hilton, and the right answer, of course, was d).

“And? Are you it?”

Sandra had come back into her room with two drinks. She and her mom lived in a cool apartment in an old building in Munich. From Sandra’s room, you had a view of a beautiful façade. Her dad lived about a mile away with his new wife. As far as I knew, he and Sandra’s mom got along really well.

“What?”

“The ultimate dream guy! You had it open to the page with the quiz.” She handed me the cocktail, and I sipped at it. Too sweet for my taste, but with a heavy dose of alcohol. I started to get nervous.

“I talked to Claudio on the phone.” Sandra looked at me cleverly.

“When?” I drank too fast. The alcohol went to my head, but at least it made me less nervous.

“He called me yesterday. We must have talked for an hour.”

“That’s a joke, right?” I looked at Sandra in disbelief. Sandra had always made fun of Claudio and rolled her eyes every time I brought him along. And now suddenly . . .

“He’s worried about you. Wanted to talk to me, see what I think of it. He just got back from Spain yesterday afternoon.”

I couldn’t believe it. Claudio was back home, and instead of getting in touch with me, he secretly called my ex-girlfriend to complain about me.

“Why would he be worried?” I wasn’t sure if I should be pissed off or indifferent.

“Because of that girl. You know, from the handicapped café. Where did you go on Thursday, anyway?”

I thought about the rap concert. That night had been so cool. Until that moment in the car when the mood shifted. The police car came to mind again. The sound of the siren had been ear piercing for me, while Leah and the others had been startled by the shadows of the blue lights. Maybe that was exactly the problem—we moved in completely separate worlds. If I were Leah, I would probably wish for a child who was afraid of blue lights, too. A child that was kind of like me. Sirens and shadows. Maybe the entire conflict could be reduced to that.

“We went to a concert.”

“Sure.” Sandra laughed and drained her drink. We were sitting on her sofa, and I stared at the row of pictures on the wall across from us. Sandra had hung pictures of herself everywhere. Sandra in a floor-length chiffon dress at the graduation ball for her dance course. Sandra at the school band concert, where she won first prize. Sandra doing ballet, Sandra with her voice teacher, Sandra in Paris, Sandra in Rome, Sandra with her friends, Sandra alone. Far down on the right, I spotted a photo of the two of us, Sandra and me in my parents’ living room. That had been sometime in December. We had baked hundreds of Christmas cookies, all of them burned.

“We were really at a concert. With a deaf singer. Signmark. He’s a rapper who raps in sign language.”

“Wow!” Sandra leaned against me. “Say something in sign language,” she asked. “Anything.”

“Like what?”

“I love you, for example.”

My hands lay in my lap. Sandra snuggled up even closer to me.

“Don’t know it,” I said. Sabine had not taught us those words yet.

Sandra purred like a cat. She wore a tank top and shorts, even though the weather wasn’t so great. The ankle bracelet jingled, and I noticed she had painted her toenails light blue.

“I missed you,” she whispered, and her head felt heavy on my shoulder. “I’ve thought about the two of us a lot.”

My heart rate tripled. She hadn’t said a word about Daniel so far. Maybe it was only a rumor that the two of them were going out with each other.

“I think it would be great if we would get back together again.” There it was, the sentence I had been waiting seven weeks to hear. She had finally said it.

I leaned against her. In theory, I should have been rejoicing, but I felt strangely empty. I stopped breathing for a moment. I felt like I did when she broke up with me, as if I were deep underwater, with no solid ground under my feet and completely dissolved. My silence poisoned the atmosphere. Sandra had expected a different reaction. Her body tensed up. I could feel it.