Korridorium

♫ Kor­saren­stück ♫

---

92/398

I enter the cor­ri­dor at pre­cisely eleven. Nicole is com­ing down the hall­way. It’s our rit­ual: at eleven, we head to the smok­ing bal­cony, just the two of us, for a smoke and world-alter­ing con­ver­sa­tions for the dura­tion of a cig­a­rette, before retreat­ing to our respec­tive offices.

“How’s it going?” I ask as I reach for a pack of cig­a­rettes. She smokes roll-ups.

“If only it were the week­end already,” she sighs.

“You’ve been say­ing that since Mon­day. But you’re right, of course. Got plans? A date?” I ask, teas­ing.

The small smok­ing bal­cony is occu­pied. Out­ra­geous! Every­one in the office knows it belongs to us at eleven. The guy promptly clears out. It’s the tech­ni­cian respon­si­ble for the copiers.

“Nice butt,” I say with a melt­ing look as he dis­ap­pears around the cor­ner.

“Way too young and inex­pe­ri­enced.”

“Maybe for you. You’re twenty years older than me.”

Nicole groans. “Don’t remind me. You still have all the typ—uh, doors open. For me, the ship has sailed. All the good men are taken.”

“Oh, come on, the right one will come along.”

“My moth­er’s been say­ing that for what feels like half a cen­tury.”

We laugh and take a drag from our cig­a­rettes. Men. Our favorite topic num­ber one.

“Have you actu­ally booked yet?” I ask her. Vaca­tion. Our favorite topic num­ber two.

“Two weeks on the Appalachian Trail. Hik­ing away the frus­tra­tion and a few pounds.”

“That does­n’t exactly sound like a four-star hotel…”

Nicole grins. “More like zero stars. It’s like with snails. You carry your home on your back.”

“Home on your back?” I must look a lit­tle con­fused, because Nicole laughs. “Well, the tent, of course.”

“And you want to meet an Amer­i­can mil­lion­aire out there?”

“Why a mil­lion­aire? I’m not after money. That phase is over. I’m look­ing for an adven­turer, a pirate, or some­thing.”

I roll my eyes. “Some rum-lov­ing sleaze­ball from the Caribbean?”

Nicole laughs again. It’s too sweet when she gig­gles and shakes all over. “No,” she says, once she’s caught her breath, “some­one who’s actu­ally dar­ing.”

“Uh-huh,” I say with­out much con­vic­tion.

“Like, make a move on me, for exam­ple.” It takes me a moment to catch on, and then we both cackle. “Do you actu­ally believe,” she asks me next, “in love at first sight?”

“Sure,” I say, “I’ve expe­ri­enced it. More than once.”

“What?” Nicole seems sur­prised.

“Kel­lan Lutz,” I say. Nicole fur­rows her brow and shakes her head: never heard of him. “Twi­light,” I add, and then again “The movie.” Nicole’s eyes widen in hor­ror. Before she can say any­thing, I drop “Jörn Schlön­voigt” on her. Once again, she looks sur­prised. “Aha. Have you been hid­ing some­thing from me? That sounds more like a guy in your league…”

I wrin­kle my nose briefly to let her know she can skip the league talk—feeling quite capa­ble of han­dling Kel­lan Lutz myself—and explain: “GZSZ, my favorite soap.” Nicole’s face falls com­pletely. That alone made it worth it. We laugh.

“I’m not talk­ing about actors, Lisa,” she puts on record, “and not about star­ing at a screen or gaz­ing into the idiot box…”

“He sings, too,” I inter­rupt.

Nicole groans. Even worse! “I’m talk­ing about run­ning into a total stranger some­where, for just a sin­gle moment, and there’s a spark. And it’s so pow­er­ful that all your fuses blow—and his, too!”

“Sup­posed to hap­pen, yeah,” I say as Nicole looks at me expec­tantly. “Why do you ask? Has that ever hap­pened to you?”

Nicole nods. “It was in the the­ater lobby. I was drunk, to put it mildly—pretty plas­tered,” she says, grin­ning. We extin­guish our cig­a­rettes in uni­son. Part of the rit­ual.

“Drunk? And him?” I ask.

“He was a life-size card­board cutout of Bruce Willis.”

Again, it takes me a sec­ond to process. As we part ways in front of my office to head back to work, we are still howl­ing with laugh­ter.