House Number One
“Psst,” cut through the moonlit night.
Heidi flinched. She had never been caught sneaking down to the small pool to smoke after midnight. And it had already been three weeks since they moved into the new house. Back in their downtown rental, it had been harder to smoke in secret because the front door would beep every time someone opened or closed it. When her parents were still planning to buy the house, she decided to smoke in the cosy courtyard at night. The teenage girl was completely enchanted by the new, modern, and elegant residential complex, which even had its own janitor.
Her brother, Uwe, had crept after her.
“Gotcha, loser,” the boy whispered.
“Says you. I’ve been coming here for three weeks, and you’re just noticing now.”
“The old lady with the lipstick has already spotted you. I heard her grilling the gardener about whether you’re tossing your cigarette butts around.”
Heidi glanced up toward the window of the elderly German woman and stuck out her tongue.
“Take that, hag!”
Uwe burst into laughter.
“Shut up, Uwe! Are you out of your mind? You’ll wake that crazy jerk Ted.”
The boy raised his hand high and flipped his middle finger in the direction of Ted’s house.
“Hope you’re not sleeping, asshole!”
“Stay quiet,” Heidi snapped at her brother again. “Here, take a cigarette, but you owe me one tomorrow.”
Viktoria let out a soft sigh and leaned against her husband’s chest. Over the years, she’d grown used to holding herself back. She stayed in Günther’s arms for a long moment.
“Do you think she’s out smoking again?” she asked once she was calm enough to breathe steadily.
“I assume so. Better there than stinking up the house.”
“Is Uwe still smoking too?”
“I don’t know. I never smell it on him.”
“I heard that our fellow countrywoman is searching for Heidi’s cigarette butts. Crazy woman. Can’t she find something better to do? We should set her up with Ted.”
Günther was setting the table for breakfast on the terrace. He loved serving food to his family. Whenever he could, he baked, cooked, and grilled. He kneaded bread dough and experimented with stuffed pizza crusts in his free time. That morning, he treated his two ravenous teenage kids and his wife to freshly baked, homemade seeded rolls. The sun was blazing, and while he worked, he took off his shirt. The warm stone tiles were so comfortable that he didn’t even need slippers for his bare feet.
“How much wax do you need to get your hair to stand up like that?” Uwe teased his sister.
Thanks to her fine hair, Heidi needed a good amount of product to style her short, tousled cut. The red bumps multiplying around her mouth betrayed the hormonal changes happening in her body. The fifteen-year-old girl pretended not to hear Uwe’s words.
“If you were dating boys,” her brother continued in his know-it-all tone, “you wouldn’t need to ruin your hair. We don’t like it when a girl’s hair looks like plastic.”
“For your information,” Heidi shot back, finally taking the bait, “I am seeing a guy right now. And, by the way, my private life is none of your business.”
In truth, Uwe didn’t care that his sister was attracted to both boys and girls. He sometimes teased her by saying that if he broke up with a girl, he’d hand her over to Heidi.
“I’d love for us to go up to Teide this afternoon!” Viktoria said, looking toward the mountain. “The peak is white, and it’s been so long since I touched snow.”
“Great idea!” Günther exclaimed enthusiastically. “We could take a sled and slide around!”
“We don’t even have a sled, Dad,” Heidi pointed out cautiously.
“We’ll buy one on the way!”
Uwe sniffed the air.
“Let’s just eat first, or I’ll starve if we have to wait any longer.”