Tales From a Broad (23 page)

After we had been there for about an hour,
Tess announced she needed to use the ladies room. As she pushed her
chair away from the table, I watched her remove her cell phone from
inside her bag.

My eyes narrowed, and I pointed an unsteady
finger to her phone. “Who are you calling?”

Tess wobbled as she stood up. “No one,” she
protested.

I nodded and turned my attention back to a
man named Dan, for whom I was starting to have a real affinity. He
was a dead ringer for Cooper’s deceased German grandfather, and,
while initially I had found it to be endearing, at that particular
moment, it began to bother me.

I felt a lump in my throat, and a melancholy
feeling washed over me. Over the past few months, I had been so
Cooper-centric that I hadn’t even thought about the baggage that
came along with him. Now that we had crossed the border where there
were oodles of German stuff to remind me of Cooper’s family, I was
suddenly aware that our breakup probably hadn’t affected only
me.

Not that I thought Cooper’s family was
weeping and mourning, but I realized we had all lost more than just
a glamorous wedding day. And shame on me for not realizing that
sooner.

Cooper’s mother had left two messages after
the breakup. Why hadn’t I had the courage to return her calls?
Chances were pretty high that Marjorie wasn’t calling for the
crock-pot she had given us. She was probably just trying to help,
and I suddenly felt terrible that it had taken me so long to pull
my head out of my ass. I made a mental note to reach out when I got
back to the States.

All of a sudden, I longed for my past. Since
the day before, I had been prompted by the embroidered pillows and
cuckoo clocks that were the cornerstones of Cooper’s grandmother’s
interior decorating. The blueberry pancakes I’d had for breakfast
took me back to many lazy Sunday mornings at Cooper’s apartment,
and the weinerschnitzel I’d eaten for lunch tasted exactly like his
mother’s. I became completely nostalgic for the life I had shared
with him.

Sitting there, even the little old men
affected me. Dwarf Dan was the icing on the apple strudel. Add to
that all the beer I had consumed, and I wasn’t sure what was
happening. It was as if I had gone from doing a hundred-twenty on
the Autobahn to about ten miles per hour, and I struggled to pull
the breaks on the waterworks.

“Did you?” Dan said, suddenly interrupting my
train of thought.

I blinked at him. “Did I what?” I responded,
completely bewildered, subtly dabbing my eyes while pretending to
wipe beer foam from my upper lip.

“Did you hear the latest joke about Jane
Smith who lives over on the next block?”

“No, what about her?” I forced a polite
smile.

“She had triplets. Then two weeks later, she
had twins.”

“That's impossible.” I dismissed it with a
wave of my hand.

“One of the triplets got lost.” Dan laughed
so hard his shoulders shook. His red cheeks looked like shiny
little apples.

The harder he laughed, the more I wanted to
cry. Feeling like I was on the brink of a breakdown, I pretended I
was laughing too.

I let my tears fall and wiped them away as if
they were tears of laughter. Fake laughing while crying is pretty
draining and borderline creepy. I think I even managed to freak Dan
out. He anxiously excused himself to use the bathroom, and I closed
my eyes, rubbed them hard, and reopened them to see the profile of
a man in a Yankee hat.

Was that...?
No way
. My heart pounded
in my chest and I swooned from dizziness. I closed my eyes again
and reopened them. Oh my God. Oh. My. God. It was Simon.

I took a deep breath and looked down at the
table. My body didn’t know which end was up and anxiety kept me
riveted to my seat. When in doubt, bottoms up. I chugged the entire
liter of beer that sat in front of me. That was the third one in an
hour.

One of the men who sat beside me leaned
closer. I winced as he yelled in my ear. “Surely, I must be looking
somewhat attractive to you by now?”

My ear buzzed from the loudness of his voice.
I made a mental note to tell Tess the man we coined Dopey was
actually rather slick.

“We’re gettin’ there,” I winked while I
rubbed my ear. “Can you excuse me for a sec?”

“Of course. You can’t ignore the call of
nature.”

“You got that right.” Nature was calling, and
I was a dog in heat. I stood up and smoothed my tank top.

I made my way over to Simon. There were about
a dozen guys standing with him, and they were in the midst of a
toast. As I waited for them to clink glasses, I took several deep
breaths to relax and wondered if they were friends of Simon’s from
back home. After the mug chug, I tapped him on the back and braced
myself.

Simon turned around, and without even
allowing him a nanosecond to see me, I kissed him square on the
lips. After a small pause, he hungrily returned the gesture with
wet, sloppy kisses that were nothing like I remembered. It felt
like a stranger was kissing me. I pulled back and smiled at
him.

All the blood drained from my face. Sweet
Jesus, a stranger
was
kissing me.

An alarm went off in my head, and I quickly
pulled away to face the pimply mess I’d just kissed. I inhaled
sharply and sucked in some of his bad breath in the process. My
hand flew to my mouth in horror. His friends roared with laughter.
As the sounds around me became deafening, I could actually feel
vomit rising in my throat.

“I ... I...” I swallowed. “You’re not
Simon.

“And you’re not a
girl
,” not-so-Simon
said with his lip curled. “You’re like, old!”

“Excuse me?” I tasted bitter saliva in my
mouth and swallowed hard. I looked down at his University of
Wisconsin t-shirt.

“It’s my twenty-first birthday,” the guy
slurred, glaring at me. “My buddies dared me to kiss a random girl
tonight. I didn’t expect her to be someone my mother’s age.”

Twenty-freaking-one. I shook my head in
disbelief and rubbed my burning lips. “Well, I didn’t expect you to
be a child,” I snorted. Or a he-she. I had noticed flabby breasts
underneath his shirt.

“Dude, you landed a MILF,” his friend said,
slapping him on the back.

“I don’t know about that,” he sneered.

I felt my hands shaking with rage. “You’re
right. I’m not a mother and—”

Suddenly, the loudest belch known to man came
roaring out of the dark depths of my soul. It was if an alien had
escaped me in his entirety.

Then suddenly I felt something else escaping,
and before I could move, vomit erupted and landed all over the feet
of the birthday boy.

“What the fuck?” He stood frozen in a puddle
of regurgitated food.

My tongue seemed to be attached to the roof
of my mouth. With shaking fingers, I wiped the corners of my mouth
and pried my mouth open. It definitely was not my finest moment. I
did my best to recover.

“I’m sorry. Your breath was just so,
ugh
,” I said with a shiver.

His face turned various shades of red as his
friends roared with laughter around him.

“Happy birthday,” I grumbled.

I spun on my heels and surveyed the room
rapid-fire. I needed either an exit sign or a suicide bomber to
come rolling in. I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. I saw the
exit and bee-lined towards the door. Keep walking, don’t look back,
keep walking, don’t look back. I repeated the chant over and over
until I busted my way outside.

I glanced over my shoulder, and once I knew
that I was alone, I bent down to rest my hands on my knees. I felt
like a marathon runner who had just crossed the finish line. My
chest was tight, and I struggled to release the breath I’d been
holding. I spit at the ground several times, hoping to rid myself
from the taste of that nasty kid. I took a tissue out of my bag and
licked it fast and furiously.

“Ack,” I groaned while moving little pieces
of tissue around my mouth with my tongue.

I saw a taxi idling across the street. The
little red walking man was on the sign, but since there were no
cars coming, I began to run. I was about one foot into a sprint
when someone yanked me back onto the sidewalk.

Oh, sweet Jesus, I was being mugged. I’d read
that crime was rising in Germany, but right outside a major tourist
attraction? Please don’t kill me. How will Tess ever find me? What
if she thought I ditched her in a foreign country?

I snapped my head around to look at my
assailant. I was momentarily taken aback when I stared into the
beady eyes of a policeman. He was a big, burly guy with puffy
cheeks and blond hair that curled around a very scary looking hat.
He looked like an evil doll come to life. Still, the alternative
was worse.

“Oh, thank God! You scared me,” I cried.

He shouted something in German, and I cringed
as I clasped my hands together. I looked around and all I saw was a
teenager who was leaning against a nearby building, his ears
stuffed with headphones.

“Ich verstehe nicht
?” I ventured. I
clenched my teeth and prayed I retained the three words I read
earlier in my guidebook. They meant “I don’t understand” and it was
one of the few phrases I really did understand.

He narrowed his beady eyes and pulled a pad
from his pocket. “Jaywalking is illegal. Do you understand that?”
he announced in a heavy accent.

“Yes, sir.” Something pounded inside my head
as I nodded.

“You cross like this in America?”

“No. I don’t feel well, and I am having...” I
paused to swallow a sour taste that had reappeared in my throat. “A
bad night.” My eyes watered, and I blinked several times to stop
the tears from falling.

“Well, do not do it again.” He wagged one of
his pudgy fingers and tucked the pad back into his pocket.

I knew if I opened my mouth to speak, the
tears would flow faster than a beer on tap. I nodded again and made
the hand signal for ok. I connected my thumb and forefinger into a
circle and held the other fingers straight up.

“Really?” he said. His beady eyes bulged and
his face reddened as he spoke. “I need to see your identification.”
He whipped out his pad again and clicked the pen open with
rage.

I couldn’t even imagine what I did to make
him so upset. I hastily took out my passport and handed it to him.
He snatched it from my hands and began to scribble wildly.

“Don’t insult the
polizei
,” he spat.
He tore a ticket from his pad and waved it in front of my nose.

“I didn’t.” I accepted it reluctantly, and he
strutted away, looking like a ten-pound bratwurst stuffed into a
five-pound bag. I looked down at the ticket.

“What the ... one hundred euros!” I cried
aloud.

“You gave him the driver’s salutation,” said
the teenager in a nonchalant tone, as he pulled his ear buds out of
his ears and held his fingers up in the same sign I had made
moments earlier.

“The ok sign?” I held my hands up in the air.
“Why did that make him mad? I was agreeing with him and promising
never to do it again.”

“It means arsehole,” the teen said
smugly.

“Excuse me?”

“That’s what you called him.” The guy
shrugged and put his headphones back on.

My mouth fell open, and I stood on the
sidewalk completely dumbfounded. “Are you serious?”

He closed his eyes and began to play the air
guitar. Dipshit.

Feeling like the biggest arsehole that ever
lived, I crossed the street and got into the taxi.

The driver made a u-turn and pulled up next
to the one-man band. He had apparently moved on to drums and shook
his wrists in the air.

We locked eyes and when the light turned
green I gave him a sweet smile and flashed the ok sign as we pulled
away.

* * * *

“Stop,” Tess hissed in a loud whisper from
the top bunk. We were back at the hostel and one of our roommates,
a Japanese student, had fallen asleep with a book on her chest.
“You actually threw up?”

“Yep.” I dried my hair and hung the towel off
of the railing on her bed. I tossed my toiletries bag onto the
bottom bunk. “So, that’s why I left you. I hope you understand. I
was totally—”

Tess held up a hand. “Say no more, Aunt Lu. I
hope you ruined that loser’s birthday.”

“Let’s just hope someone bought the guy a
bra. He’s the one who should have been ticketed for walking around
with his big ol’ man boobs.”

“Zits and moobies? Wow. And you thought he
was Simon? How exactly?” Tess picked up her pillow and covered her
face.

I could see her shoulders shaking with
laughter. I stepped onto my bed and reached up to take the ticket
that sat on hers. I tapped Tess on the head with it and jumped down
to the floor.

“I’m sorry,” she giggled. “And I’m even
sorrier about that.” She made a face and pointed to the ticket. “I
say rip it up. You’ve already paid the price.”

“Wait, there’s more. After I called you, I
went straight to the showers. I needed to wash my sins down the
drain. You know how I feel about communal showers—get wet and jet.
Well, no one was there so I decided to take the time to catch up on
all of my grooming.”

“Okay...” Tess reached into her backpack
hanging from a hook on the bed and pulled out a bag of M&M’s.
She tore it open and offered it to me.

I shook my head. “Well, I was enjoying my
solitude so much, I guess I just got a little lost in thought. By
the time I shut the water off, I saw I had over-shaved during my
musings and I was no longer alone. There were three other women
present, and all eyes were on me.”

“I had gone into the shower already feeling
like a dirty old woman. I seriously feel like I have been violated
on so many levels.”

“Ew,” Tess cried. She folded over the bag of
candy and stuffed it back into her bag. “How did you not notice
them? What the heck were you thinking about?”