What Happens in Deutschland STAYS in Deutschland

ZWEI

Water sprouted from the mouths and nostrils of the stone animals that circled a geyser in which children were laughing and playing. Dagmar, Brigitte, and Wiebke chatted amongst each other as they watched the children’s sport of seeing how long they could handle the pressure of the blast of water.
“So, are we going to ride the carousel?” Wiebke asked hopefully.
“Eh, why not?” Brigitte shrugged. She was always one to participate in childish activities.
“Because we’re waiting for Shane? He’s supposed to be here any minute,” Dagmar replied.
Brigitte raised one of her crudely manicured eyebrows at Dagmar.
“He was supposed to be here an hour ago.”
“So? He may still come. You guys just go on ahead. I’ll catch up.”
The sisters met each other’s gaze and shrugged. Dagmar watched as they began to head to the big, blue pavilion that held the carousel. She felt very left out, but she wanted to be there when Shane arrived. She took Brigitte’s cell phone out of her abandoned tote bag and dialed his number, and the Final Fantasy theme played once more. After a moment, she could hear his deep, resonant voice on the other end of the receiver.
“Hey, Dagmar! Hold on a sec…DIE! DIE! DIE! Ok, there we go. So what’s up?”
Dagmar felt rage burning in her throat at his ignorance. She heard sounds of video games and people laughing in the background, and she just new where he was.
“WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING THERE?” she cried.
“Uh, playing Final Fantasy? Hanging out with Zehra, Bea, and Tyler?”
“YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO BE HERE WITH ME!”
“Where’s here?”
“COOLIGE PARK!”
“I don’t recall that.”
“YOU PROMISED ME TWO HOURS AGO!”
“I did?”
Dagmar smacked her palm to her face. She felt completely stressed out from wasting so much of her day waiting on somebody.
“Yes, you did! I’ve been gone for the past two months and when I come back, all you care about is a stupid video game! You said when I came back you were going to marry me and we’d have a family! Have the video games have eaten your brain!”
“Well, first of all, it’s Final Fantasy XII, not just some stupid game. Second of all, people change, OK? I’ve grown up enough to realize I’m not ready for marriage.”
“Grown up? Grown up? You haven’t matured, you’ve immatured! You have responsibilities now! You promised me! I gave myself to you because you promised me!”
Dagmar shrill voice was magnified, and her sobs could be heard over the sound of the gushing waters. Children looked up and watched her as she curled into a fetal position and bawled like a spoiled child.
“I’m sorry Dagmar, but I’m breaking my promise. You have to move on.”
“But you can’t leave me!”
“I am.”
“I’m pregnant!”
At this moment, Brigitte and Wiebke had walked back up. They looked at Dagmar in shock upon hearing this revelation. Dagmar noticed their presence, but took no heed to their surprised expressions.
“You can’t leave this child without a father.”
Shane was quiet.
“TALK TO ME!”
“Are you sure it’s mine?”
Dagmar scoffed.
“Of course it’s yours, you twit.”
Once again, Shane was silent. Dagmar’s tears fell into her lap, and the summer breeze made their trail feel like icy rivers on her cheeks. No one spoke, and all that one could hear was the giggles of the children and the music emitting from the carousel pavilion.
“Well,” Shane whispered finally in a hoarse voice. “I guess I’m going to be a father.”
Dagmar sobbed a laugh, and she replied, “Yes! And I’m going to be a mother. Are you not happy at all?”
“No, but seeing how I have no choice, I guess we ought to give our relationship another shot.”
“Great!” Dagmar cried. “But do you still love me?”
“No.”
“Then what’s the point?” she wailed. “We can’t have a relationship if you don’t love me!”
“That’s the point I was trying to make!”

Dagmar couldn’t take it anymore. Once again, her mood changed.
“YOU WILL NEVER HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH YOUR CHILD!” She hung up the phone, and threw it with all her strength into the gushing fountain. The children surrounding the spouting water scattered and screamed as it fell right into the center of the geyser. Mothers supervising the children scowled, and a nearby policeman shouted a warning at her. Her two buddies’ faces were filled with fear, so she eased her infuriated expression for them.
“Dagmar, why didn’t you tell me this?” Brigitte asked, draping an arm across her friend’s sobbing shoulders.
“Because it’s none of your business!” Dagmar flung Brigitte’s arm violently from her shoulders and stood up from the brick ledge on which they sat.
Brigitte’s eyes narrowed.
“Was ist los mit dir?” What’s wrong with you? “Here I am trying to be a good friend and console you, and you’re pushing me away! I let you come into my home, and I trust you with every part of my life, and look at what you do! You keep stuff from me! Best friends don’t do that, Dagmar! Nor do they treat the other so cruelly! You do this all the time. It’s like I’m only your friend when it’s convenient for you!”
Dagmar’s lips whitened as they tightened in anger. She cast Brigitte a cold look, and her brown eyes became serpentine slits that sent the same hateful emotions through Brigitte.
“Take us home, Dagmar, and I want you out of my house. If you ever darken my doorway again, I’ll kick you clear off the balcony. I’m ashamed you would act such a way towards me in front of my sister and everyone else in Chattanooga! After all the good stuff about you that I told her, you’re just going to show her the snake in you! I don’t care how angry Shane makes you! I am NOT Shane, and I will NOT tolerate you taking your anger out on me!”
Dagmar cried out in agitation, punching the concrete ledge.
“You don’t understand! I can’t help it!”
“I don’t want to hear it! TAKE US HOME!”
Dagmar led the way to her grandpa’s jeep. Brigitte and Wiebke followed her, and Brigitte fumed while Wiebke cast uneasy glances at her. Wiebke had expected a very fun day with her sister, but the whole thing turned out to be a nightmare. The day that was so pretty became dull and gray, and the chattering songbirds became squawking crows. The tension between the two girls was enough to siphon the beauty from all the beautiful things surrounding them. The girls finally made it to the jeep and climbed in, not breathing a word.

The trees and other foliage on the side of the freeway were a blur as the jeep sped past. Dagmar’s face was still tight with a venomous glare, and Brigitte remained speechless as she gazed out the window. Wiebke sat behind her sister, and she stared sadly at her hands folded in her lap. Brigitte’s phone suddenly went off, playing Green Day’s “Minority” as it vibrated.
“Hello?” she said as she flipped it open and put it to her ear. “Yeah, we’re on our way back to my apartment. Mmhmm. Yeah, she can stay with me. It’s fine. Don’t worry about it. Yeah, we’ll come by your house to pick up her stuff. All right. Tchüssi!”
“Who was that?” Wiebke asked.
“Your mom. She has something to do tonight and she wanted to know if you could stay over at my place.”
“Oh, fun!”
For a few more minutes, there was silence. Dagmar’s face loosened into an indifferent gaze, and Brigitte’s countenance bore a much cheerful expression. Without warning, Dagmar began to snivel. She was crying, and as they moved down the road, her sobs crescendoed. The passengers watched her in surprise, not anticipating such a sudden outburst. The car began to swerve as the spiky-haired girl lost control, and Brigitte cried out.
“Please! If you’re going to have an emotional breakdown, please pull over so you don’t kill us!”
Dagmar made her way to an exit, and not but a few minutes after they pulled off, they found themselves at a gas station. She pulled the jeep into a parking spot, and then turned the key to shut off the ignition. For a moment, she just sat there, sobbing in her lap. Brigitte’s face became sympathetic, and she dropped her anger to put a consoling arm across her friend’s shoulders.
“Come on, let’s go in and take you to the bathroom to cool you off with a splash of water.”
Dagmar swung open her door extremely hard in frustration as the trio hopped out of the jeep. The door went flying off its hinges and landed in the parking space next to them.
“WHY ME?” Dagmar screamed.
“Just calm down,” Brigitte comforted. “It’ll all be alright. We’ll see if someone inside can help. “
The girls walked in the convenience store, and odd glances from pedant southerners greeted them. The hillbillies that owned the place probably thought the two older girls were a strange sight; Brigitte having purple hair and Dagmar having green spikes. Both were also heavily tattooed with multiple facial piercings, so the southerner’s judgment was very predictable. The girls were used to it, however, so they continued to walk to the bathroom, leaving the job of asking help of the people to Wiebke, her being the most normal looking.
The bathroom was not very big; however, the two squeezed inside and began to run cold water in the sink. Brigitte pulled the lever on the paper towel dispenser and ripped the coarse, brown paper on the metal teeth built into the dispenser. Dagmar took it from her and let the water in the sink soak it. She, then, placed it on her face and let the cool water absorb the hot pain from her cheeks and forehead.
“Better?” Brigitte asked, turning the faucet off.
“Not really. I mean, a little bit. I’m still very disappointed.”
“I’m sorry I was so rough on you. Of course you can stay with me longer. I just was having trouble understanding. If I was left in the lurch, I’d be too embarrassed to tell anyone.”
“Yeah, well, you’ll never know what it’s like. You’re straight edge, abstinent, above the influence: all those things. You’ll never fall to this low. You know, I always thought you didn’t smoke weed and do drugs just to make those that did look bad, but now, I see you were just keeping your life straight. I’m sorry I thought badly of your good morals.”
“Hey, don’t worry about it! I get it a lot, especially with Mercedes and Millie. Now let’s go see if Wiebke found us some assistance.”
When the girls came back in the convenience store, Wiebke was standing next to a tall, eighteen-year-old boy wearing overalls without a shirt and a tool belt around his waist. Though he looked like a red neck, he was cute with his brown eyes and crooked smile. He was talking to Wiebke with a thick, Southern drawl that was difficult to understand, but it brought a smile to Brigitte’s little sister’s face.
“Hey thare ye purdy lil’ thang! Of course, I can help ye with yer car! The name’s Leroy! So what are the symptoms?”
“It’s nothing like that,” Wiebke replied. “The door flew off the hinges. We were hoping you could put it back on.”
“Aw, shore thang! But my folks’ll only let me help ye if ye buy sumthang!”
“Well…uh…I have no money…” she stammered, looking toward her sister and Dagmar.
“I’ll get something. It is my responsibility,” Dagmar said.
Leroy smiled.
“So, whad’ll be?”
“Um,” Dagmar thought. “I guess I’ll take a lotto five ticket. I had Chinese for lunch yesterday and I think I’ll try out my lucky numbers.”
She went up to the counter and took a form for the ticket from the overweight mother of the family. The woman cast horrified looks at Dagmar’s features, but spoke kindly to her nonetheless.
“Here’s yer ticket, daere! Good luck!”
Leroy went outside and began to tinker with the jeep, and the three amigas sat on a bench and flipped through magazines as they waited. The glossy pages of Brigitte’s Tiger Beat magazine showed images of Green Day, Fall Out Boy, and all sorts of actors and actresses that were popular in 2005. She contented herself with the page reading tour dates of Green Day’s 2005 world tour.
“Dude, we get, like, no concerts,” she whined.
“But Brigitte, right there it says they’re coming to Nashville on October 16th,” Wiebke pointed out.
“Yeah, and on October 16th, I’ll be in school!”
“Well, take off. I mean: it’s Green Day. You can make up the work.”
“Yeah, I suppose. Dude, Europe gets all the best shows. They’re playing in Germany umpteen times this year! Man! I wish I lived in Germany.”
The bell on the entrance door interrupted their conversation as Leroy came back in.
“Yep!” he said loudly. “I got ‘er all fixed, ‘n she’s a-ready to go!”
Dagmar smiled brightly in spite of her problems and ran outside to check on Leroy’s handiwork. Leroy followed behind her, his goofy smile triumphant. Wiebke and Brigitte trailed in the back of the line, and they joined their friend on the driver’s side of the jeep.
To their surprise, there was not an ounce of approval on Dagmar’s face. In fact, her normally tanned face had become pale and aghast.
Leroy became worried.
“What’s yer trouble, lil’ lady?”
“YOU IDIOT! HOW DOES SOMEBODY EVEN DO SOMETHING LIKE THAT?!”
“What’d I do?” he asked, his forehead wrinkled with confusion.
“YOU PUT THE DOOR ON BACKWARDS!”

It was evening, and the trio was curled up on Brigitte’s eyesore of a couch waiting for the lotto five drawing. The jackpot was set at seventy-two million dollars, and Dagmar had no plan whatsoever on actually winning. She just thought it’d be fun to make an event out of it so if she loses, she wouldn’t have wasted any money.
“So what did your Grandpa say about his jeep?” Brigitte asked, taking a sip of her freshly brewed sweet tea.
Dagmar laughed. “He didn’t even notice.”
“Really? But didn’t he need it for work?”
“Well, yeah, but he simply opened the door, scratched his head for a moment in confusion, shrugged his shoulders, and climbed in.”
The girls broke out into a fit of giggles, and Wiebke nearly fell off the couch.
“Shh!” Dagmar hushed, still giggling quietly. “It’s about to start!”
They quieted down as the pretty, female anchor’s doll-like face filled the TV screen. She smiled primly before she began to speak in a joyful, game-show-host-like voice.
“Good evening, and welcome to the lotto five drawing! Remember that tonight’s winner that matches all the numbers will take home seventy-two million dollars! Remember, you must match all five numbers in order to win the jackpot, but matching other numbers could win you smaller cash prizes! Ok, here we go! The first number is…NINE!”
“Oh my gosh! I actually have it!”
The girls suddenly became tense upon this stroke of luck.
“The second winning number tonight is…ELEVEN!”
“Oh…my…gosh!” Dagmar squealed, her friends squealing with her.
“The third number is…EIGHTEEN!”
“EEP!”
“The fourth number is TWENTY-SEVEN!”
“EEEEEP!”
“And the final winning number tonight and our jackpot number is…”
The girls crossed their fingers and put their arms across each other’s shoulders.
“FORTY-TWO!”
Several things happened at once: Brigitte passed out, Dagmar wet herself, and Wiebke jumped up so hard, the bowl of popcorn on her lap tumbled to the floor, scattering the white puffs all over Brigitte’s navy blue carpet.
“DAGMAR WON THE LOTTERY!” she cried so loud, the neighbors turned on the lights.
The news anchor’s voice came back on the TV, and it was now fast and very excited.
“We just received word that someone actually used those numbers at a local gas station off of I-75! What luck! Somebody’s certainly now set for life!”
“Oh my gosh,” Dagmar whispered, her voice hoarse in disbelief. “I won the lottery! I’m rich!”

When the friends finally regained composure, Dagmar began to talk of all the things she was going to do with the money.
“Of course, I’m going to donate some to charity. I think I’ll donate to the Breast Cancer Foundation in honor of my grandmother and I’ll donate to the St. Jude’s Make-A-Wish foundation! I’m going to build a huge house for you and me, Brigitte, and I’m going to make it big enough for us to raise both of our families in it for years and years! However, the first thing I wanna do is take us to DEUTSCHLAND!”
Brigitte began to cry tears of joy.
“Oh, Dagmar! This is too much! Our dreams came true in the matter of seconds! We’re going to GERMANY! Du meine Gute!”
“I can’t wait to tell Herr Cates! He’ll be so pleased!”
“And Frau Claypool!”
Wiebke cut in.
“Who are they?”
“Oh, they’re our German teachers.”
“This is great! So what part of Germany do you think we should go to, Geeta?”
Brigitte did not hesitate. “Definitely Munich! They have the Hofbräuhaus!”
“OK! Sounds great to me!” Dagmar agreed happily. “I want to see the Englischer Garten myself!”
“When are we going? Can Wiebke come?”
Dagmar thought for a minute.
“Sure she can! I guess we’ll leave at the end of May, and we’ll be in Germany at the beginning of June. We’ll stay two weeks, how does that sound? We can also visit surrounding cities and countries.”
“Ah, sounds like too short of a stay, but the only length of time in Germany that would satisfy me is forever!”
“Indeed!” Dagmar agreed.
Wiebke yawned.
“Well, it’s getting late,” Brigitte stated. “If we’re going to be planning a trip to Germany, we gotta start tomorrow, even if June is months away. I’m afraid; however, I’ll have much trouble sleeping with all this ecstasy running through my veins!”
Dagmar’s brows drew together in confusion.
“I thought you didn’t do drugs!”
“Not that ecstasy, Silly. Excitement and anticipation.”
“Oh,” Dagmar giggled. “I knew that.”
“I’m sure you did,” Brigitte mumbled.
The girls rolled out their sleeping bags on the living room floor, and they zipped themselves snugly inside.
“Gute Nacht, meine Geschwister,” Brigitte yawned.
Good night, my siblings.
However, the other two girls were already snoozing next to her.

Dagmar awakened in the middle of the night from the sound of the telephone ringing. She turned beside her to alert Brigitte, and to her surprise, her friend was not there. The moment she noticed this, the phone had ceased to ring. Brigitte had picked up the kitchen phone, and Dagmar could hear every word of what her friend was saying to the person on the other line.
“Hey baby! Don’t worry. They’re asleep. I have great news! God has answered our prayers! I’ll soon be in your arms, love. Finances are, for sure, no trouble now. Anyway, between now and my arrival, we need to plan an incident to make things look like an accident. I don’t want them to know about us for now. I want to shock them!”
Brigitte was silent as she listened to the receiving end.
“Sounds great, dear! I’m so excited!”