Watching Cars Go By

Chapter 3: Silke

Chapter 3: Silke“You have to be kidding.” Aghast, Silke stared at the lumpy mattress in the middle of the room. Stains of every imaginable origin decorated the faded blue and tan stripes. One particularly bad one seemed to very nearly match the moldy blob on the wall not far behind it. No scrubbing would ever get that clean.

“Hey, it’s furnished, isn’t it?” The youngish guy with the bad haircut who had unlocked the door for her shrugged.

Yes, but how? Granted, there was a built-in closet, and in one corner a makeshift kitchen held a microwave and a coffeepot, but what this guy called furniture defied all description: three chairs around a rickety table that was supposed to look like wood yet didn’t, a formerly red two-seater sofa with torn cushions, and a scuffed coffee table across from an ancient tube TV—all looking like something that, back in Germany, she would have put out for the garbage men to take. “And you are asking $550 a month for this?” She gestured in disbelief.

“Take it or leave it, lady. But I’ll guarantee you that for the money, you won’t find any better.”

And alas, he turned out to be right. Silke checked out four more “fully furnished” studio apartments (what a euphemism that was!) and all were the same: Awful furniture, as old as it was old-fashioned, everywhere. The one place that at least sported a somewhat modern couch was in the back of an apartment complex so close to the next building that she was sure, if she moved there, within a few months she would be borderline depressive.

“What am I to do?” She wailed to her sister Claudia on Skype as soon as she got back to her motel room on day three of her apartment hunt. “Who would have thought that renting could be so expensive? When I Googled San Antonio they made it sound like it was one of the cities with the lowest cost of living in the U.S.”

“What did you put in your ad again? Looking for one bedroom?”

“Yes, and I did get more answers, but…”

“But you don’t want to live in somebody else’s home.”

They had gone over this before. Yet, after Claudia hung up, Silke sorted through her emails again. Seven more offers, all in private homes. With a sigh she pulled out her cell phone and called the first number. Number one and number two went straight to voicemail, and number three was already taken as far as she could comprehend from the broken English of the man on the phone. Number four not only answered on the first ring, but the woman spoke clear, understandable English which sounded downright sophisticated.

“Yes, yes, I can come today. Right now even.” Excited, she almost ran out of her room, only to bump into a middle-aged, business-looking type.

“Tschuldigung.”

Dang. English had always been familiar to her, what with her dad speaking nothing else to her even after all his years in Dasing, yet in situations like this it was always German that came out. Just like at the airport, when in her groggy state she had almost mowed over some housewife. Briefly she remembered disheveled hair and a frazzled look out of strangely beautiful eyes before heat hit her like a wall and she was out in the San Antonio sun again.

Google maps led her away from the main roads into an affluent-looking subdivision. Two-story, single-family homes lined the street. Behind ornate wrought iron gates she glimpsed the blue of a large pool, with a children’s playground next to it. One front yard was as manicured and pretty as the next: 317, 321, 325…there it was, 329. She parked her rental—buying or leasing a car was next on her list—in front of the two-car garage and paused for a second. The front door was already opening and a woman stepped out.

“Good afternoon! I’m Ruth. And you are?”

“Silke, em, Silke Williams,” Silke stuttered as the woman pulled her into a sideways hug.

“Do come in, my dear, it’s so dreadfully hot today. The summers are terrible here.”

It was as cold within as it was hot outside. Silke felt as if she had stepped into a walk-in refrigerator and immediately wished she had brought her jacket.

“Let me show you everything.”

The fortyish Ruth was wearing just capris, flip flops, and a sleeveless top that showed glimpses of her bra straps, but she seemed perfectly comfortable as she led Silke into a gleaming kitchen with a huge side-by-side stainless steel refrigerator. “All state of the art.” She shrugged lightheartedly. Close up she looked older, the wrinkles on her neck proving her to be at least fifty, if not more. “You can keep your food in there of course.”

Ruth led the way past a formal dining area that looked like it was only used on holidays into a living room with a gigantic TV and a just-as-enormous fireplace. Large, overstuffed couches and chairs in bold colors dominated the room, and expensive looking knickknacks adorned every possible surface. “This over here is the family room.”

Another huge TV and more couches. Next came the husband’s study, and after Silke not only saw the guest bathroom, but also admired the master bathroom with its walk-in shower and Jacuzzi tub, she began to wonder why the woman was showing her all this. After they left the walk-in closet that was bigger than the room Silke had grown up in, she concluded Ruth must either be tremendously bored or overly proud of her decorating skills.

“I had the bedroom redone just last year,” the woman was gushing now, which pointed toward the latter conclusion, and Silke’s mind drifted off as Ruth continued to explain every detail of every fabric and drape in the room, and where she purchased what. Not that the room wasn’t nice, of course, in its overdone way. What surely must be a mahogany headboard, with intricate flowery carvings, matched the six-drawer dresser and the two nightstands. Neither the style of the furnishings in the room, nor all the dark greens and earthy browns and golds and reds, were Silke’s taste. She preferred simple lines and light colors, if not the chrome Alex was so fond of. Alex! A deep longing washed over her and for a moment she was back in the stylish apartment in Munich they had shared for the last four years, languishing in bed on a lazy Sunday morning, the smell of coffee permeating the air and Alex just stepping out of the shower she always took after her morning run. Determinedly she pushed the memory away, concentrating once more on the not-so-pleasant present.

“As I was saying, dear…”

“Where is the room you are renting?” Silke blurted out, unable to endure yet another lecture on fabrics and each and every one of their distinctive qualities.

“I was just getting to that,” rebuked Ruth gently as she led Silke out of all this ostentatious glamour that she couldn’t have cared less about, and up to the second floor.

When they eventually made their way back down the carpeted steps, Silke was sold. What Ruth was renting out was not one but two spacious rooms, separated by a more than adequate bathroom, and while the décor upstairs wasn’t Silke’s style either, it was at least more subdued, in lighter and neutral tones that she thought she could easily learn to live with.

“And you’re really only asking $350?” Silke exclaimed happily as she sank deep into the cushions of one of the living room couches to discuss ‘further details.’

“Indeed we are, dear.” Ruth placed a crystal goblet in front of Silke and then joined her on the couch, her own goblet in hand. “You see, George and I like to have young people around and, well, you Silke,” she pronounced it Silk-y, “are an admirable young woman, smart and pretty. Very, very pretty.”

Was there a slight blush on Ruth’s face?

“Now, George and I are rather open-minded…” She slid closer on the couch and rested her hand lightly on Silke’s knee. “Let’s drink to the beginning of this new and wonderful relationship!”

Her glass clinked against Silke’s and as Silke savored the excellent Pinot Grigio, chilled to perfection, her mind began to swirl. Was she imagining things? Was this the often spoken of Southern hospitality or was this woman…? No, there was no mistaking it, Ruth was fondling her knee!

“Em, what exactly are you proposing?” Silke’s heart was rapidly sinking.

“Oh, you know…” Ruth pulled her hand back and nervously ran it through her hair.

“But that’s just it: I don’t know.”

“Well, dear…”

Don’t you dear me, you—you—! “Yes?” Silke prompted as silkily as Ruth had pronounced her name.

“George and I, we’re hoping for whoever moves in with us—and we’re only offering the room to young ladies of course—to become friends with us. Think about it, dear Silk-y, how lovely it would be to share a cozy evening in front of the fireplace right here, just the three of us, em, getting to know one another.”

Again she reached over to put a hand onto Silke’s knee, but this time Silke intercepted it and firmly placed the offending limb back into the woman’s lap.

“Dear Ruth-ee,” she drawled in an attempt to mock the suaveness of the woman. “No matter how tempting your offer may be, I have no intention whatsoever of playing your dirty little games.”

“Just think about it, dear.” Ruth smiled what she must have thought was a seductive smile.

“There is nothing to think about. I don’t do threesomes. Not with you, not with anybody. So next time you and your lecherous husband are looking for some stupid girl that finds nothing wrong with hopping into bed with a couple twice her age as long as it secures her a decent place to live, go take out an ad in the porn section instead of the rental classifieds! Goodbye.” She emptied her glass—no reason to waste good wine—and, leaving a satisfyingly crushed Ruth behind, stormed out.