Watching Cars Go By

Chapter 1: Silke“Chicken or pasta?” Ow! Silke pulled the elbow back in that had strayed into the airplane aisle and blinked groggily. “Chicken or pasta?” “Chicken,” mumbled the young man by the window. “Chicken,” echoed the large guy in shorts next to her, the main reason she was hanging as far to the left in her cramped seat as she possibly could. “Chicken. Please.” She rubbed her elbow vigorously. “And one of those little bottles of red wine to go with it.” Silke waited until the flight attendant had moved on before she unscrewed the Cabernet and poured some into a flimsy plastic cup. Ignoring her food, she took a good sip. Ahh. No Bardolino or Valpolicella and even further removed from her favorite Montepulciano, but it would do. Wine sloshed out of her cup onto the gold foil that still covered her chicken as the guy next to her tore open his package of salad dressing. Shit. Hastily she fumbled her napkin out of its holder and dabbed up the wine before it could ruin her third-favorite pair of jeans. Oh, but to have money and fly business or even first class! Instead, she was sitting here crammed next to Hank—as he had introduced himself—Hank, the man of thick, overly hairy legs, arms and neck, and of the many bulges that overflowed onto her seat and forced her to tuck herself into the corner. At least she was thin, well, not thin exactly, but the stress of the last ten weeks had made her drop enough pounds to put her at her power weight of 140, the same weight she had been when she first met Alex almost seven years ago. The thought of her made Silke take another sip. Alex. Thirty-six and good-looking in a hip way, with her lean body usually decked out stylishly in all black, as befitted a woman making money by selling style to others. Only last year she had become her own boss, running a graphic design studio in Munich that employed two and had made her put in ever longer hours. “Aren’t you going to eat?” Hairy Hank was shoveling his food in like there was no tomorrow. Didn’t your mother teach you to chew with your mouth shut? Disdainfully, Silke eyed first him then the limp salad before she peeled back the foil from the chicken. Knife in the right hand and fork in the left, she cut a small piece as properly as if she was in a gourmet restaurant, and paired it with a miniscule amount of mashed potato. Ick. Rubbery and tasteless, and the slice of carrot she attempted next was overcooked and just as bland. With a sigh she put the plastic silverware down and reached for the roll. Having been warm once, it was stale now and somewhere between dried out and chewy. Fortified by another swallow of Cabernet, she nibbled on her crackers and cheese as she replayed the scene in her head. It seemed a lifetime ago, but in fact had been a mere ten weeks. * * * * “Frau Williams? Herr Weißmüller will see you now.” Paula, the secretary, had ushered her in to see Franz Weißmüller, head of technical support and her boss of five years. The minute she had seen normally jovial Franz hiding behind his massive desk, barely meeting her eyes, Silke knew something was seriously wrong. “As you know, we lost the Schottdorf account,” he stated after a perfunctory greeting. Boy and how she knew! She slunk out of said specialty laboratory only last week with hanging shoulders upon hearing that they had finally decided not to renew their contract and gone with the competitors instead. “Anyway, we knew it was coming…” She hadn’t known. She had tried and tried until the last minute to convince them of the superior quality and efficiency of their architects, especially the ci8200 which, in her opinion, was way better than the Beckman instruments. But, of course, money had spoken. Those sleazy guys from Beckman must have underbid them and there they were. “…and headquarters is closing our Munich office.” “No!” She stared at him, openmouthed. “Some of us are going to Mainz or Berlin. I, myself, am taking over the Wiesbaden office.” He sat back in his chair. Mainz, Berlin, Wiesbaden? Silke forced herself to swallow the saliva that had collected in her mouth. All three were too far from Munich to drive to a customer location and come home to Alex at night, especially the first two. “And me? Are you taking me with you to Wiesbaden then?” “I’m sorry…” Again Franz didn’t meet her eyes. “Apart from Toni, I’m the only one headquarters wants there.” Of course they would keep Toni, the engineering whiz, on, or rather Franz would, since he was the only one that could solve, singlehandedly, all technical issues the machines ever had and ever would have. “What then?” Silke demanded stubbornly. “Mainz?” “No, Silke. Our higher-ups decided, what with losing the Schottdorf contract and all, we don’t need as many reps. Rudi, Sabine, Rüdiger and you being the newest on the team are being let go. Unless—” “No!” Silke clamped her suddenly damp fingers around the armrests of her chair. “But Franz, how can you say I’m new? I have worked for Abbott for five years.” “Indeed you have, but—” “Please, Franz,” Silke wailed. “I love my job, I will do anything—” “I am truly sorry. Believe me, it wasn’t my decision.” At least he had the grace to look pained. “I wish I could keep you all on, but it simply won’t work. Headquarters won’t go for it, not without the money coming in from Schottdorf.” “Those greedy penny pinchers! What am I supposed to do? And I just bought my BMW, too…” Her dream car, brand new to boot—she had splurged on it by investing literally all her savings and the monthly payments were hefty still. “Silke…” Franz cleared his throat. “You still have an American passport, don’t you?” She blinked. “Of course I do. Why?” Born to American GI Edward T. Williams, and her German mother, Renate, Silke had had both nationalities as long as she could remember. And her father had made sure that she not only received an American certificate for birth abroad right away, but also a Social Security number along with the blue passport she was currently using. “You’re a smart woman and a hard worker and, from what I’ve heard, fluent in English. Why don’t you apply for a position abroad? We have openings, I checked already, and I could put a good word in for you. That way it would be only a transfer and you wouldn’t actually be fired. And who knows, maybe in a couple of years…” * * * * That rainy April afternoon, Silke’s mind reeled as she stumbled out of Franz’s office. At home in the apartment she shared with Alex, she fired up her laptop and spent the next four hours curled up on the couch scouring the job openings in and around Munich. Nothing, zilch, nada. Nobody needed a biomedical engineer/service technician for medical analyzers. She was still looking when the key turned in the lock and Alex walked in. “Hallo, Schatz. Did you pick up my jacket from the cleaners?” Who cares about clothes, when my whole life is crumbling? “I lost my job!” “Seriously? Abbott fired you?” Alex sat down in the chair opposite the couch. “No, they didn’t! It’s just, they have to close our Munich office and…” Silke suppressed a sob. “Talk about bad timing! Remember that new equipment I just invested in? Schatz, I need you to help with the bills here. Anyway, I have to go over the books tonight, but first I’m going back out. I’ll pick up those clothes and get us some sushi.” And that had been it. Alex had crunched numbers while Silke continued looking for job opportunities until it was time to go to bed. “Alex, I—” Silke wailed as she slipped under the covers. “Shh!” Alex silenced her with a kiss. Desperately, Silke clung to her, and when Alex’s hands started roaming, she did not resist. Only later, when she lay spent yet unable to sleep next to the softly snoring Alex, she cried the tears that threatened to choke her. That had been on Monday. On Wednesday, Silke discovered an ad in an online forum. A small company in Fürstenfeldbruck was looking for a technical consultant. She called and obtained more information, and it sounded promising, fun even, but… “I found something!” she declared more triumphantly than she felt when Alex came home from an evening out with a potential customer. “That’s great, Schatz.” Alex hugged her this time, but Silke could smell the alcohol on her breath. “It’s only part time,” she cautioned, “but it’s a good opportunity really and anyway, we could move into a smaller apartment or maybe even away from Munich a little bit. And, Alex, I am thirty-three, I’m not getting any younger—maybe that’s a sign that it’s time for us to get serious and all, you know? Maybe start our own little family—” “Forget it!” Abruptly, Alex let her go. “You know I am not cut out for this bourgeoisie ‘marrying and having babies’ crap. And even if I was, I am right in the middle of building something for myself here. No, no, no, Silke!” She glared at Silke for a good thirty seconds, then stepped back with a shrug. “I honestly don’t know what your problem is. You’ve worked long enough to draw assistance and that’s got to be around seventy percent. Just file already, goddammit!” Except Silke couldn’t bring herself to do that. It was one thing, being the lesbian in the family, but at least she’d always been more successful than her sister. Her dad had been so proud when she got her degree, especially when she ended up making more money than anyone else in the family. She couldn’t disappoint him now. So she kept looking, diligently, night after night. Within a week she received her letter of termination. While she still had time to officially sign everything, since they couldn’t let her go until the quarter was up, she became more desperate every day. And after no leads turned up anything, she trudged back into Franz’s office and asked him to follow through on his offer. Abbott Diagnostics USA called her only two days later, the next day she had her phone interview, and a week after that the job was hers. If she wanted it, that is. As simple as that. Yet she waited one week, and then another. “Let’s go to Luigi’s tonight,” she suggested to Alex on Sunday, the day before she had to sign her exit papers at the office. Cut, chew, swallow. Cut, chew, swallow. But the calzone which she normally loved didn’t want to go down and not even the Montepulciano helped. There was still half a pizza left when Silke gave up and put her knife and fork down. “I have news,” she mumbled, dreading Alex’s reaction already. “Yes?” “I can stay on with Abbott. For a year anyway. But, in order to do so, I have to move out of the country.” “And?” “What is wrong with you?” Silke demanded hotly. “My whole world is shaken up and you sit there eating your quattro stagioni as if nothing happened. Don’t you understand? In order to keep my job I have to move away from here. And not just a few kilometers either: I have to move all the way to Texas.” “You’re kidding.” “I wish I was! But I already talked to them and the offer is on the table. The only offer, mind you. There is just no demand for biomedical engineers right now. Not in this part of the world.” Alex exhaled forcefully, but she continued eating until her pizza was gone. “Want to share a dessert? Waiter! Due espressi, per favore.” “Aren’t you going to say anything?” “What is there to say? You’re out of a job, you’re out of a job. Way I see it, you have two options. One, you go on unemployment.” Alex shot her a pointed look. “Two, you take what they offer. Is the money any good?” Money, always money. Alex hadn’t been like that in the beginning. Or if she had been, Silke hadn’t noticed. But then Silke had never not paid her share of the bills, actually more than that lately, when Alex had been putting every Euro into her business. “Yes, the money is good,” she forced out between clenched teeth. “But of course I don’t know anything about the cost of living there and I would need a car as well.” Why were they discussing this like some sort of business deal? Shouldn’t Alex be begging her not to go? “You sound like you’ve made up your mind already.” “Yes, I have,” Silke informed her haughtily, doing her best not to show that something inside her was breaking into a million little pieces. “I am taking the job in Texas. I’ll notify Abbott in the morning.”