Femke toasted her and sipped her whiskey.
Encouraged, Gita went on: “All those chichi places are the same: a brick wall, ferns, folding chairs, a wooden bar; it’s like you’re in a house that’s in the middle of being remodeled. They serve your drink in a mason jar instead of a normal glass, but it’s not like those jars ever actually held pears or peaches or whatever, they buy them brand new by the case. Did you ever try to drink out of one of those things? You’re lucky if you don’t spill all over yourself!”
Femke laughed and shook her head. “I’ll drink to that!” She emptied her glass in one swallow and leaned across the bar, her face only inches from Gita’s. Her heavy perfume reminded Gita of her father’s aftershave, with just a hint of Gauloises mixed in.
“We should go to one of those hip places sometime,” Femke whispered conspiratorially, “and sabotage the joint.”
Gita laughed, not sure if Femke was serious, too tipsy from her drink to come up with a witty response.
Femke rose from her stool and picked up her phone. “I’ll text you so you can let me know if my gloves turn up. What’s your number?”
Gita told her. It seemed natural but at the same time not, as if she’d eaten a piece of candy of a type she hadn’t tasted in years. When was the last time anyone had asked her for her phone number?
When she got to Mireille’s that evening, Johnny was parked in front of the TV. She’d hurried up the six flights of stairs and stood panting in the quiet living room; the ticking of the cuckoo clock was an almost sarcastic echo of her heartbeat. Johnny was watching Elmo. It was his favorite DVD, though Gita wished he would pick something else for a change. Elmo reminded her that Johnny never made any progress, which reminded her in turn that she never made any progress, trapped in a stuffy room where the light was always blue and Elmo endlessly showed off his brand-new shoes.
Mireille slouched in her armchair by the window, paging through a magazine.
“Sorry I’m so late,” said Gita.
“You couldn’t call?” Mireille snapped, not looking up. “Johnny was worried about you.” She nodded at the television: Johnny was glued to the screen, his mouth slightly open, as if this was the first time he’d ever seen Elmo’s big red feet. “I do this for you, you know,” Mireille muttered, struggling to her own feet. “You want Earl Grey or rose hip?”
Whiskey, Gita thought. Do you carry Macallan?
That Friday evening, Johnny had splashed merrily in the tub, teasing her. She’d found the game tiring, but she’d played along: “Come on, I bet you can’t get me wet!” She was mopping the bathroom floor with a towel when her phone buzzed in her hip pocket. A text. She had to scroll up to see who had sent it, and what she found, from four days earlier, was Femke’s number and Red leather gloves!
This new message read: Sabotage the Soepboer on Sunday?
Gita stuffed the phone back in her pocket, as if she’d been caught looking at something not intended for her eyes.
She got to the Soepboer a little early. She’d dropped Johnny off at Mireille’s with the excuse that she’d been asked at the last minute to work an extra shift at the café, and then she hurried down the Van der Pekstraat more quickly than necessary, perhaps motivated by her lie, which had made it sound like she was in a rush. She wore her tightest jeans but worried her age would be a giveaway that the Soepboer wasn’t her type of place. The moment she came through the door, someone called her name: Femke, already seated at a little table by the window.
“No mason jars,” Femke whispered, after the server took their order. They had to back away from most of their other prejudgments too. Yes, there was a brick wall, but otherwise the Soepboer was more cozy than run-down, and they gave up their plan to sabotage the place. They sat there all afternoon, talking and talking, while the server kept returning to refill their wineglasses.
At Femke’s insistence — “You have a son? Really?” — Gita talked about Johnny. He was fourteen, she said, a sweet boy, at least most of the time. His father? After Johnny was born, she’d never seen the guy again. “Men,” said Femke. “They can be such assholes, don’t you think?”
Gita didn’t say a word about Johnny’s condition.
Femke explained in turn that she was an independent financial consultant. She’d had an office in Utrecht for a while, but had recently relocated to Amsterdam: a month ago, she’d moved into one of the new apartment blocks by the water, and now she was eager to make some friends in the neighborhood... which answered a question Gita hadn’t dared to ask.
Over the next few weeks, Femke was a lunchtime regular at Café Mosplein. She usually hung out at the bar, chatting about the book she was reading or a movie Gita had to see, and more and more often about new clients she’d taken on, like the woman who kept fiddling with her phone during a consultation. “She was adjusting and readjusting the temperature in her house,” Femke laughed, “so her Bouvier wouldn’t be too cold — can you beat that?” Those were afternoons when, for the first time, Gita found herself glad that the café attracted so few customers.
One Thursday, Gita called in sick so she and Femke could take the ferry across the IJ to go shopping. That was one of the few times they left Amsterdam-North together. From the boat deck, Femke pointed out her apartment building as, giggling like schoolgirls, they brushed the windblown hair out of each other’s faces. In the city center, Femke steered Gita to stores she’d never even heard of. Femke decided on a long red evening gown that Gita thought suited her perfectly, and Gita bought a jacket Femke pulled off the rack for her. It’s on sale, she rationalized, handing her debit card to the sales clerk, a steal at this price. Tapping in her PIN, she felt a deep connection to Femke, who had just done the same thing herself. Pressing those little numbered keys was like sealing their friendship.
“Where’d you get the jacket?” asked Mireille that afternoon.
“Ordered it online,” said Gita, tugging Johnny away from the TV. “It was on clearance.”
She had by then told Mireille about Femke, there’d been no way to avoid it. “I think I’ve made a new friend,” she’d said. Talking about Femke gave her almost as much pleasure as talking with Femke. When she brought Johnny over to Mireille’s one Saturday evening, she’d explained away the almost-unheard-of occurrence by saying that she and Femke were going out.
“You look chic,” Mireille had said, admiring Gita’s black velvet sweater. Gita didn’t know if that was a compliment or a reproach, but she understood that she’d better not ask Mireille to take Johnny again on a weekend night.
The next week, when Femke mentioned a new restaurant she wanted to try, Gita suggested they wait till after Johnny’s bedtime.
That evening, Gita rummaged through the plastic crate in the bathroom for the nylon straps and metal leg braces Johnny’d worn to bed as a child — well, as a younger child. Back then, he’d sometimes had epileptic seizures during the night, and the straps and braces protected him from hurting himself. Over the years, the frequency and intensity of the attacks had abated, until the risk of an episode was outweighed by the discomfort the restraints caused the boy, not to mention the struggle it took to tie him down.