Chapter 1

1: Silke

“Chicken or pasta?”

Ow!Silke pulled the elbow back in that had strayed into the airplane aisle and blinked groggily.

“Chicken or pasta?”

“Chicken,” mumbled the young man by the window. “Chicken,” echoed the large guy in shorts next to her, the main reason she was hanging as far to the left in her cramped seat as she possibly could.

“Chicken. Please.” She rubbed her elbow vigorously. “And one of those little bottles of red wine to go with it.”

Silke waited until the flight attendant had moved on before she unscrewed the Cabernet and poured some into a flimsy plastic cup. Ignoring her food, she took a good sip. Ahh.No Bardolino or Valpolicella and even further removed from her favorite Montepulciano, but it would do.

Wine sloshed out of her cup onto the gold foil that still covered her chicken as the guy next to her tore open his package of salad dressing.

Shit.

Hastily she fumbled her napkin out of its holder and dabbed up the wine before it could ruin her third-favorite pair of jeans. Oh, but to have money and fly business or even first class! Instead, she was sitting here crammed next to Hank—as he had introduced himself—Hank, the man of thick, overly hairy legs, arms and neck, and of the many bulges that overflowed onto her seat and forced her to tuck herself into the corner. At least she was thin, well, not thinexactly, but the stress of the last ten weeks had made her drop enough pounds to put her at her power weight of 140, the same weight she had been when she first met Alex almost seven years ago. The thought of her made Silke take another sip. Alex. Thirty-six and good-looking in a hip way, with her lean body usually decked out stylishly in all black, as befitted a woman making money by selling style to others. Only last year she had become her own boss, running a graphic design studio in Munich that employed two and had made her put in ever longer hours.

“Aren’t you going to eat?” Hairy Hank was shoveling his food in like there was no tomorrow.

Didn’t your mother teach you to chew with your mouth shut?

Disdainfully, Silke eyed first him then the limp salad before she peeled back the foil from the chicken. Knife in the right hand and fork in the left, she cut a small piece as properly as if she was in a gourmet restaurant, and paired it with a miniscule amount of mashed potato.

Ick. Rubbery and tasteless, and the slice of carrot she attempted next was overcooked and just as bland. With a sigh she put the plastic silverware down and reached for the roll. Having been warm once, it was stale now and somewhere between dried out and chewy. Fortified by another swallow of Cabernet, she nibbled on her crackers and cheese as she replayed the scene in her head. It seemed a lifetime ago, but in fact had been a mere ten weeks.

* * * *

“Frau Williams? Herr Wei?müller will see you now.”

Paula, the secretary, had ushered her in to see Franz Wei?müller, head of technical support and her boss of five years. The minute she had seen normally jovial Franz hiding behind his massive desk, barely meeting her eyes, Silke knew something was seriously wrong.

“As you know, we lost the Schottdorf account,” he stated after a perfunctory greeting.

Boy and how she knew! She slunk out of said specialty laboratory only last week with hanging shoulders upon hearing that they had finally decided not to renew their contract and gone with the competitors instead.

“Anyway, we knew it was coming…”

Shehadn’t known. She had tried and tried until the last minute to convince them of the superior quality and efficiency of their architects, especially the ci8200 which, in her opinion, was way better than the Beckman instruments. But, of course, money had spoken. Those sleazy guys from Beckman must have underbid them and there they were.

“…and headquarters is closing our Munich office.”

“No!” She stared at him, openmouthed.

“Some of us are going to Mainz or Berlin. I, myself, am taking over the Wiesbaden office.” He sat back in his chair.

Mainz, Berlin, Wiesbaden?Silke forced herself to swallow the saliva that had collected in her mouth. All three were too far from Munich to drive to a customer location and come home to Alex at night, especially the first two. “And me? Are you taking me with you to Wiesbaden then?”

“I’m sorry…” Again Franz didn’t meet her eyes. “Apart from Toni, I’m the only one headquarters wants there.”

Of course they would keep Toni, the engineering whiz, on, or rather Franz would, since he was the only one that could solve, singlehandedly, alltechnical issues the machines ever had and ever would have. “What then?” Silke demanded stubbornly. “Mainz?”

“No, Silke. Our higher-ups decided, what with losing the Schottdorf contract and all, we don’t need as many reps. Rudi, Sabine, Rüdiger and you being the newest on the team are being let go. Unless—”

“No!” Silke clamped her suddenly damp fingers around the armrests of her chair. “But Franz, how can you say I’m new? I have worked for Abbott for five years.”

“Indeed you have, but—”

“Please, Franz,” Silke wailed. “I love my job, I will do anything—”

“I am truly sorry. Believe me, it wasn’t my decision.” At least he had the grace to look pained. “I wish I could keep you all on, but it simply won’t work. Headquarters won’t go for it, not without the money coming in from Schottdorf.”

“Those greedy penny pinchers! What am I supposed to do? And I just bought my BMW, too…” Her dream car, brand new to boot—she had splurged on it by investing literally all her savings and the monthly payments were hefty still.