Part One #2
"She wasn't being honest," she broke the silence. She took another bite of bacon and went on. "I thought I'd read her right, but I was obviously wrong."
"What do you mean?" he looked at her questioningly.
"It was all there — all the signs, the touches, the looks, everything…" She grew visibly sad. He didn't interrupt her.
"We danced until we dropped, drank quite a bit, the feel of the sweat on her back as we danced, the swaying and the hungry look, it was all there…"
He watched the restless swaying of the birch branches in the light breeze through the great glass wall behind her back.
He listened carelessly, yet attentively enough to follow the story.
A thought crossed his mind: A fine way to start the day, listening to someone's problems.
He tried to keep an interested face while inwardly humming the jingle of some commercial he couldn't get out of his head.
"But when I went to kiss her, she pulled back in disgust. How could I have been so wrong?"
She set the plate down on the counter and buried her face in her hands.
She looked as if she'd start crying again, but she only sighed.
"She was hiding a ring!" she suddenly exclaimed, making him flinch.
"She's been married for years and has a little kid, and I thought she was gay — oh, what an idiot I am."
She looked at him questioningly, but when she got no reaction she decided to go on.
"Of course, once she showed up at the entrance she confessed to me that she was married, admitted the husband and the child, said she was strictly hetero and had only wanted to unwind in female company. But she couldn't hold back the disgust in her eyes. The incomprehension and the reproach."
She sighed heavily. "I don't care," her voice dropped.
"Her loss." she finally declared, looking him in the eye.
Realizing he had to react, he answered her in a comforting voice.
"Ana, you're a beautiful woman — young, successful, and above all sexy. One miss and one bad read don't change the fact that any halfway respectable girl would love to have you as a partner."
She quietly agreed with a shrug of her shoulders, and he went on with comforting words.
"Trust me, I'm sure that at this weekend's party there are one or two girls longing for your company — they just don't know it yet. And that by tomorrow you'll have forgotten last night." He loaded the dishes into the dishwasher and added the detergent.
He turned, wiping up the leftovers of the food with a cloth, when she came up and hugged him.
"Thank you." She rested her head against his back. "You've always been my best friend, you know that."
"Just a friend?" he replied, setting the cloth down on the counter.
"A brother, an acquaintance, a neighbor…"
"Just not a lover." They both laughed at his quip.
He felt her hug loosen and her whole body relax. "What time is it?" she asked. He glanced at his wristwatch and answered.
"Half past one — I think you're late for work, my dear."
She squeaked like a mouse and dashed for the door.
"Thanks for the breakfast and the company."
"Anytime," he replied, closing the door.
For him the day was still young — in fact it was only just beginning; he wasn't due at work before seven in the evening, so he still had time to kill.
He glanced at the television, but he wasn't in the mood for grim news, and he didn't follow films or series.
So he headed into the living room, sank into the sofa, and picked up his phone to devote himself in peace to his second job.
Nicklaus, or Nick, as he liked to be called, had two jobs.
One public, as a member of a top-tier security firm, and the other as an illegal organizer of parties around the city.
Celebrating a new job? You call Nick and he sets you up with the best party, strippers included, to help you impress your new boss.
There was no situation Nick couldn't handle, no trouble his level head couldn't find a way out of.
Silver-tongued and clever, he always knew how to work people's emotions to turn the current to his mill.
He could find common ground even with the most zealous cops.
He'd never once been booked, he knew everyone and everything, and he had a spotless record at work.
His phone was crammed with messages and calls.
He looked through some, answered others, and called a third batch.
There was plenty of work in the organizing, because the coming weekend, judging by the interest, was shaping up to be the party of the century.
That's exactly what he'd named it. As chance would have it, the final exams at the universities fell at the same time as the entrance exams for freshmen.
Add the end of the school year for the high schoolers, and you had a cocktail of young people of every age group itching to party and have fun.
And he had an isolated location that could take in hundreds, maybe more.
By every indication, this really could be massive.
For someone else, organizing such a thing would be a nightmare, but he loved it.
On top of that he had plenty of acquaintances to whom he delegated tasks without a second thought, so the whole operation would run as smoothly and frictionlessly as possible.
For a moment he scrolled through the numbers on his phone, clearly hunting for someone. Finally he hit the call button.
"Hi, Nick here." He listened for a moment, then abruptly and a touch imperiously cut the other man off.
"No. Listen. Two thousand tickets have gone to print. Yes, two thousand. Yes, I know, the risk that it leaks somewhere is enormous."
He paused, listening to the other man, who was explaining something rapidly.
Without realizing it he nodded in agreement.
Then he spoke again in a calm voice. "So, if I've got this right, you guarantee me that this guy takes the responsibility if things go to shit?"
He listened tensely. In the end he nodded.
"Okay, deal — if something leaks, I spent the weekend in Zagorje. And as for him, how much is he asking?"
He listened a moment, then breathed out in relief.
"Okay, that's doable. Remember, for that sum he takes on all responsibility. For everything that could happen!" He stressed the last part and hung up.
He spent the rest of the afternoon on it, and toward evening he pulled on his uniform and set off for work.