Tuesday afternoon, I had a visitor. She’s someone I met during my exodus to Stuttgart in May, the month I was living apart from my husband. In fact, our meeting was so coincidental, it can’t have been coincidence. Some kind of divine intervention must have taken place to bring us together.
It was laundry day. My son and I had gotten up good and early to beat the collection of souls waiting to use the machines at one of the three Laundromats in the Stuttgart metro area I could locate. It so happened this Laundromat was located just down the street from the first apartment my husband and I once lived in, during the months before our son was born. I was grateful for its relative nearness.
I don’t remember what delayed us, but we were a day late doing laundry and had got a late start that morning, as well. Quite sure we would be waiting ages for machines if we didn’t scurry our little selves over there right quick, we hied it to the bus stop with our suitcase full of dirty clothes, and rode the two buses it required to reach the wash salon. We were lucky. On this particular Thursday, there were only two others there, and plenty of machines to choose from.
There was, however, a problem with the electronic device you put your money in and started the machine. One man told me I had to call the service desk, and pointed toward a phone on the wall. This idea did not please me because of the language barrier. My German isn’t terrible, but it certainly isn’t as far along as it should be given that I’ve lived here for nearly six-point-five years. The best option, I thought, was to simply come back the next day.
But it wasn’t an option for me. I had no underwear left, and the next day was Friday, and I’ll be damned if I was going to spend half my day, unshowered, shoulder-to-shoulder with a bunch of other unshowered launderers struggling to get their wash done before the weekend.
I walked to the phone and picked up the receiver, working through the jumble of words that were the instructions. I punched some numbers and a woman answered. In my imperfect German, I explained what the problem was, and it wasn’t long before she interrupted me and asked if I spoke English. Well, honey, I sure as shit do, I thought. Switching to my native language, I explained again, slowly, using as simple language as I could to make myself clear. I wasn’t condescending in the least. I know what it’s like to muck through a foreign language, and the slower and more simply a person speaks, so much the better.
So, between a mixture of German and English, we got our messages across, and I was told a man would be by shortly to take care of the problem.
And that’s when I met my friend.
“Are you American,” she asked me in English.
“Yes, I am,” I answered.
“I love America,” she said, and described her most recent vacation there.
It turns out we have similar experiences regarding our marriages and husbands, and she suggested we get together once in a while to chat. She’d bring her dog for my son to play with, and we could enjoy some coffee and cake. She had never been to that Laundromat in Stuttgart before. She doesn’t even live in Stuttgart, but rather about 30 minutes SW of there. I don’t know why she was doing her laundry there, instead of at home. I didn’t ask. Like her, I believed there was a reason I was a day late getting laundry done, late getting there that morning, and we happened to be standing in the same place at the same time.
It turns out we did not get together. About ten days after I met her, my husband and I reconciled and I moved back to our Schwarzwald home. The prepaid cell phone I had purchased when I moved out was on its last minute, and I wasn’t about to buy a new calling card when I had my old cell phone back. Figuring she’d probably forgotten all about me, I put the little phone away and never heard from my new friend.
A few weeks ago, I was curious whether I had any messages on my prepaid phone (I was bored. Really, who’s going to call me but my attorney, who I didn't need anymore, and my mother, who knew I was back home?). I checked my phone, and wouldn’t you know, there was a text message for me, and it was from my new friend. She had called only the day before, wondering how I was doing.
Well, I SMSed her back, and made plans to meet the following week. It was good to see her again. We talked about a lot of stuff over coffee and cake, and agreed to get together again in a week or two.
I saw her again on Tuesday. “This is for your birthday, since I missed it two weeks ago.” She held forth the biggest, orangest roses I’ve ever seen. They were enough to put any carefully cultivated hot-house flower to shame.
“How sweet,” I exclaimed, placing them on the floor next to the phone stand. “I’ll put them right here where they’ll shed a little sunlight.” She smiled in agreement, then we went about preparing our barbecue.
Those roses are still on the floor where I can see them every time I walk through the hallway, or sit at the kitchen table to pound away at my laptop. They do, indeed, bring a little sunlight into the semi-dark that separates the rooms on the upper level of our house. They are really very orange, and absolutely gigantic, requiring their own stand for display. They are also completely fake and nothing I would ever purchase for myself, or for anyone else. But they possess a singular beauty that not even a hot-house flower can match, because they were unexpected and given with love.
