Not Another Broken Doll

Chapter 4

“Ingrid! I’m home! Bring a towel!” Ruth shouted down the hallway as she started to take her muddy shoes off.

“Jesus Christ, Ruth. You can’t keep forgetting about the rain” Ingrid tossed a towel at her cousin who was already half naked in the hallway. “I’ll make some tea. Go have a shower.”

Ruth was glad to have got home, and ever more that Ingrid would be home early that day. She really liked it there. Ingrid owned a two-bedroom flat in Sankt Pauli, and her living room looked straight into the neighbourhood’s church. It was cosy here, with big windows that let a lot of light in when the weather allowed, and Ingrid always had a great taste for interior design. There were shelves with books in every room, and her guitar and violin were hanging on the wall opposite the sofa.

As she walked into the shower Ruth still felt annoyed at that Christoff person. But mostly she was annoyed at herself. The guy was trying to be nice and she had been totally rude. She decided she would apologise the following day.

“Thanks for the tea” she said as Ingrid sat with her in the sofa. She saw there was mail on the coffee table and she opened the first letter under her name. She read and then screwed the paper up and tossed it to the bin next to Ingrid’s desk.

“What does he want now?” Her cousin asked. Ruth could tell she couldn’t help but read who the letter was from when picking up the mail.

“Same old tale.” She put her feet on the coffee table and grabbed the remote. She felt like watching some good old German police series. Her mum always had one of those on the screen when she baked. “How do you feel about apple pie?”

“Ruth. Don’t” Ingrid pushing down Ruth’s shoulders before she could stand up. “He always does this. Don’t let this get to you, please.”

“Oh, you think I’m annoyed at the letter? No. It’s just that I think I’ve been rude to someone today and I need to apologise” Ruth said as she walked into the kitchen.

“You? Rude? No way!” Ingrid followed with both cups of tea in her hands.

“Do you think an apple pie would be a good enough apology for a guy who owns a café and bakes the best vegan chocolate cake you’ve ever tried in your life?” Ruth asked as she looked for some flour. Ingrid raised an eyebrow.

“Definitely not. Now tell me more. What exactly could you’ve done to offend this culinary prodigy?”

Ruth told her cousin how she fell in the park, Christoff found her and tried to help, and she had been a jerk about it. Ingrid frowned. She was worried this might happen eventually.

“You need to let people help you when you need it, you know that. It is not like the entire male population of planet Earth are absolute waste of space. Some of them are nice” Ingrid pointed out. “You can’t judge half of the population of the world on your experiences with just the one bad egg.”

“Bad egg is an understatement” Ruth reflected. “You’re right. I don’t know why I got so annoyed.”

Ingrid looked at her cousin in the eye like she used to do when she caught her lying about their grandma’s spice rack that Christmas when everyone ended up eating sugar instead of salt on everything that was at the table. She knew how to catch her.

“Fine, I know. I suppose I’m not completely there yet” she admitted.

“How about a better apology?” Ingrid tossed her another envelope. “These are some of the extra tickets I always get for organising stuff around town. You might want to offer them to him? He can take someone I suppose. They’re V.I.P. passes for the backstage at Hafen Festival this year.”

“Are you sure? These are expensive, and the whole thing is for charity. Wouldn’t you like to give them up to your friends or something?” Ruth asked, knowing that most tickets were already sold out for this year’s edition of the festival in the harbour.

“Darling, my friends are all in the organisation, remember? Also, you should’ve got something back for your translation work last month, and you didn’t, so consider this payment. There’s no way those are going to waste if you use them well… you know, maybe even have a bit of fun for a change?”

Fun? That sounded nice. It had been a very long time since she went to a concert, and this Chris guy really did bake the best vegan chocolate cake she’d ever tried in her life. Ruth stared at the envelope and her mind went right back at his confused blue eyes when she refused his help earlier. She felt annoyed again for having been a jerk. She hoped he liked indie music, though.