Love Is Pink!

“I thought he was the janitor.”


Marianne looked contemplative and then snorted. “Sometimes he really acts like one. But it’s true—the business belongs to him. He’s the creative engine. Without him, nothing works.”

“But,” I stuttered, “the old guy. I mean . . . Dr. Stieglitz?”

Marianne was still smiling and wiping tears out of her eyes. “Andreas? He’s our guardian angel. He makes sure we don’t sink into full-on chaos.”

I watched David as he conversed with an employee who was dressed even worse than he was. And I began to understand: the guy David was talking to probably owned the Mercedes or the Porsche.

“David is not at all poor,” I said, mostly to myself.

“David?” Marianne giggled. “He took care of his ex-wife with obscene sums of money and is still as rich as shi—, uh, he’s very rich.”

“So why does he drive that pink hunk of junk?

“You don’t know much about cars, do you?”

“I do,” I said. “But not so much about such . . . classics.”

“David searched for that particular Citro?n for years. He was overjoyed to finally discover it at a collector’s in France. He went there immediately to get it. In its current condition, the car is worth sixty or seventy thousand euros. But once David finishes restoring it, it will be worth at least two hundred thousand.”

“Two hundred thousand,” I repeated. I’d gotten a knot in my throat. Suddenly, I began sobbing. Loudly.

“But Michelle,” Marianne said, concerned, “that’s a good thing! It’s no reason to cry!”

David fought his way through the crowd to get to me. His eyes were shining. He looked so happy. “Michelle, what’s wrong?” When I didn’t answer, he turned to Marianne.

“What happened?”

I didn’t hear what Marianne said. Instead, I turned around and ran out of the room. David followed and caught up to me in the lobby. He grabbed my arm from behind.

I whirled around and screamed, “You liar—let go of me!”

“Liar?” David said, sounding completely perplexed.

“Liar, cheat, bastard! You choose the name that suits you best!”

“But I don’t understand.”

“You don’t understand? You played me. You really played me well, making me believe that you’re a janitor, that you have no money and drive around in a hunk of rust!”

David shook his head. “I’ve done exactly what you said.”

“Oh? That’s just the best! Now I’m to blame for everything! I’m the one who told you to pretend to be a janitor? And we would have almost starved and frozen to death in France! We even had to eat at McDonald’s! McDonald’s! And we even slept with each other . . . I mean, in the same bed! And to top it off, you even dragged poor little Emma into this idiotic game!” I gasped for air.

“I don’t know what you want,” he said, making a helpless gesture. “Don’t you remember our first evening in the small hotel? You told me exactly what you wanted from me.”

“What did I say?”

“You said that when a rich man falls in love with a woman but isn’t sure whether she loves him or just loves his money, then all he has to do is pretend to be poor. And then he’ll quickly be able to tell which way the wind blows.”

“The wind?”

“You know what I mean! And admit it—you said that.”

I felt my cheeks flush as I recalled that conversation. “You idiot!” I said, furious. “I was speaking abstractly. I wasn’t thinking about myself, or about you—or about anyone I know!”

David crinkled his forehead and raised his hands as though he was about to touch me. I took a step back, scared because I didn’t know how I’d react to that.

“Those days in France with you were the most beautiful ones in my life,” he said. “Nothing was missing, Michelle.”

I began shaking my head slowly. A gray emptiness was taking hold of me. “How can something be beautiful when it’s built on lies, deceit, and manipulation? I just ended a relationship like that with Valentin. I’m not letting it happen to me again.”

David took a deep breath. “But we really love each other,” he said.

“Love?” I noticed that I was sobbing again. “It’s just an illusion. Nothing that happened between us is really true. Nothing at all. My name isn’t even really Michelle.”

I went to Baby, grabbed his leash and his blanket, and left the building. Outside, it was raining buckets. I flagged a taxi, and the driver helped me get Baby into the backseat.

As we drove away, I saw David watching from the entrance to his company. He was dripping wet and looked lonely and abandoned.





39


I spent half of the night crying into my pillow. I finally fell asleep in the early morning.

When I woke up, it was almost afternoon. I had a headache. I was ill and my face looked like a spotted cauliflower, long forgotten in the refrigerator.