Something big
In der Gerüchteküche brodelt es und etwas Gravierendes muss passiert sein. Was aber steckt tatsächlich hinter all dem Klatsch und Tratsch? Von JAMES SCHOFIELD
get the advertising pitch ready if he couldn’t get to work on time? She looked at what they’d finished the day before, yawned and then wandered into the kitchen. She made some chamomile tea out of boredom and took it back to her desk, where she alternately sipped it and looked around the room she shared with Bernie.
Suddenly, she got up and went to the shelf opposite her desk, which carried all the industry trophies that she and Bernie had won over the past seven years. She moved one of the blocks a centimetre to the left, then sat down again. It didn’t make any difference; they were still hideous to look at. “Our little plastic tombstones…,” Bernie would say with a careless laugh to any visitors who admired them. Every time. Every single time. Every single damn time.
Bernie Kravitz got out of the lift and walked down the corridor towards their office. He could feel his stomach tightening as he smelled the chamomile tea in the air. What had happened? He and Liz used to make fun of people who drank that sort of stuff, but now, he was surrounded by it every day.
“Hi, Liz,” he said brightly as he took off his coat and sat down at his desk. “Sorry I’m late. You would not believe what happened…”
Please, God, don’t let him talk about taking his daughter to school, Liz thought to herself, smiling at him. I can’t face another story about his spoiled little princess. Please, God...
“Your Amy,” she said when he’d finished, “how old is she? Six? Wow, she’s as cute as a button!” She took a sip of her tea. “So, how’s it going with the design of the…”
Bernie clattered the keys of his computer as loudly as possible while she asked about their latest project, and then gave the return key an extra savage thump
Exercise: Reading comprehension as he entered a password. Was five minutes really too much to expect? Couldn’t she just let him tell her when he was ready?
“It’s going well!” he answered cheerfully. “I think we’ll have a winner with this one. We’ll probably get ourselves another plastic tombstone,” he gave a laugh — the careless one — and Liz found herself pressing the sides of her cup much harder than necessary.
“Well, that’s great,” she said, then stopped, unable to think of anything else to say. On the way into the office, she’d prepared a mental list of topics they could talk about: a new series on Netflix she’d watched, her husband’s experience buying a suit, an earthquake in Italy, but suddenly, they all seemed boring and lifeless. It was so strange. Both were good at talking when other people were around, and it hadn’t always been like this between them. When they’d started out, they could talk for hours about nothing at all.
Silence filled the room, and they stared at their computers.
“I do love this … yucca,” she said finally in desperation. “Would you like me to get you one?”
Bernie looked up, and their eyes locked.
“It’s an aloe,” he said quietly. “For the third time this year, Liz. It’s an aloe.”
“Well,” said Jemima, “if it wasn’t an affair that went wrong, I really can’t imagine what happened.”
“Me neither,” said Gina. “But whatever it was, it must have been something big.”
How well did you understand our short story? Here are some questions you might want to answer.
A. Has Gina wondered whether Bernie and Liz were having an affair?