Goddamn it, who wants something from me right now, it went through my head. I had just gone in the house to have a drink. It was mercilessly hot, I was totally sweaty from splitting wood, the sweat ran down on me in real streams and so I reluctantly opened the front door. Vanessa stood opposite me. At first she stared at me in complete astonishment, only to scan me from top to bottom after a brief moment of shock. I was terribly uncomfortable to face her like that, but she didn't seem to mind at all, the opposite seemed to be the case, like with the girls in the Coke advertisement. We had met at the last wine festival. Maria, my wife and I were already quite late and the hope for a free seat was just above zero. After some searching I discovered two free seats and was about to fall on them when Maria held me back. «Not there, not to the Schröders, then I would rather stand. When we sit there he texts me the whole evening how he saves the company from ruin every day». But too late. Schröder had discovered us. With one hand he held the mobile phone to his ear. He rowed and waved over to us like a propeller with his other free arm. «It's a good thing he has to hold on to his showy bone with one hand. If he swirls like that with both arms, he'll take off straight away,» Maria mocked. Both knew each other from the company. As an «important» project manager, he often had to deal with Maria from the personnel department. I didn't know either of the Schröders at all. He was well-built, tall, had a business haircut, an open, uninhibited smile on his face and was not at all unsympathetic. She was a doll. At most sixty-one tall, very narrowly built, dark shoulder-length hair and a discreetly made-up, warmly smiling face. What did Maria have? Perhaps it was because both women looked almost like siblings?