Love is Easy 01: Dresden Problems

"How is Maggie allowed to put revenge ahead the company's best interest?"

"Because she's a good sales manager," Kate said. "There is an idiom in China. You have to kill the chicken to scare the monkey. A strong reputation is a useful tool."

Kate was very matter of fact about a very crazy situation, like this toxic culture was normal, maybe even...

"Sounds like you admire her," Clark said.

Kate kept her eyes on the road.

"Don't worry," she said. "I'm not like her. And she gets away with it because she's careful, not leaving enough evidence to ever get caught."

Was there a silent "yet" on the end?

Kate concentrated on driving, her Audi screaming down the autobahn.

He had never been set up for failure before. The biggest failures in Clark's life had been accomplished all on his own. There had to be a way to patch up his relationship with Maggie.

"So what can I do?" Clark asked.

"Tonight? Nothing," she said, "Relax, have a nice dinner. You like sports?"

"Excuse me?"

"Sports, like badminton?"

"Why?" he asked.

"We can play something," Kate said. "After dinner."

"Do you like badminton?"

"Of course," she said.

"You any good?" he asked.

"I don't have to be good. I only have to be better than you," she said.

"You sound like my brother," Clark said.

"What sport does he play?"

"Wrestling."

Kate shifted her focus from the road to Clark. "I don't think we should do that after dinner. We only just met."

She flashed a flirty smile, the kind of look that said it was obviously wrong to have sex, but...He looked away, not trusting his eyes to avoid her body, the way her white top was so tight he could see it expand while she breathed, or how her khaki shorts were so loose he could see the moment her flat stomach met dark panties.

"Unless... are you any good?" Kate asked. There was a twinkle in her dark eyes.

Who was this woman? Only words, but not innocent. Clark tried not to imagine her naked, long legs wrapped around him, lips against her neck.

Think less. Banter more.

I only have to be better than you. That... did not sound good. Say something else.

"I used to be," he said instead. Fuck.

Was he talking about Elise or his father? One metaphor for two different kinds of failure.

"Well that's a shame," she said. "Not enough practice?"

"Apparently not."

Clark sighed. Kate was just trying to banter, to keep a thread of a conversation going, but it had ceased being fun. Kate focused back on the road, stymied.

"Maybe if you were better at wrestling," Kate lifted her eyebrows suggestively, "the girls might--"

"Stop!" Clark said, too stern. Kate jumped.

She went back to driving. Clark felt like an ass. How could she have known?

He watched her face, trying to pull together the words of an apology. Kate didn't look upset, she looked...happy? What was that smirk?

"I'm sorry," Clark said. He didn't want to tell this story, but he wanted Kate to know he wasn't a prick. "I owned a business, co-owned it, with a woman...a French woman."

When he mentioned running a business, Kate perked up.

"During the pandemic, times got tough, and when we couldn't travel, couldn't see each other..." Clark trailed off. Flashes of Elise, love and frustration, happiness and jealousy. Content moments and extreme sadness. "The relationship failed first. The business shortly after."

"Sorry," Kate said.

"It's my fault," Clark said. "Being back in Europe reminds me of her. I didn't expect to still feel something."

"Maybe you're better off staying in America?"

"No," Clark said. He thought of his father. His wanderlust may have started as a protest against his old man, but the origin didn't matter anymore.

"I can't stay in America," he said. "This meeting is my opportunity to earn Mr. Baker's trust. If it goes well..."

"You know," Kate said, "even if the meeting goes... poor, you can come back for holiday."

Clark thought of his dad, eighteen months of "I told you so." This wasn't just about visiting Europe.

"The how matters just as much as the where," Clark said. "I have to earn my way. Prove something... Stupid right?"

His words must have resonated with Kate. She took a noisy sharp breath.

"Not stupid," she said. Her voice was small. "I'm trying to earn my way somewhere too."

There was a crack in Kate's happy-go-lucky persona.

"So that's why you're here," Clark said. It wasn't just to spite Maggie Zhang. Kate also had something to prove.

--

Dresden was the "Silicon Valley" of Germany. Since reunification in 1989, the government had made massive investments in the city and the surrounding areas. Silicon foundries and photo-lithography fabs crowded around outside the city, nestled in between the trees.

The investment had been to spur industry and rebuild the city after the devastation of the Allies' fire bombing followed by decades of communist rule. From what Clark could see, the investment had paid off.

They drove toward downtown. Their hotel was deep in a gentrified area of shops and restaurants. They paced along the Elba River, among the marvelous skyline of Baroque architecture and exquisite palaces.

Clark saw a mass of people crowded on the vibrant green banks on the other side of the river.

"What's that?" Clark asked. "A concert?"

Kate sighed. "No, unfortunately. It's an anti-immigrant, right wing protest. For whatever reason, they gather in Dresden."

Polite euphemisms for hate. From far away, it looked like a music festival.

"Is it... are you okay here?"

"Me?" She sighed. "Yeah, but ever since Covid, Chinese people are... on the radar. Safe and comfortable aren't the same thing. One more reason to leave."

Her flirty energy seemed to be drying up. Was it the way he had yelled at her earlier, racism in Europe, or...

"You said you were earning your way to... Where?"

"Home."

"Where's that?" he asked.

"Chongqing, but I would settle for Shanghai."

Clark heard a sadness in her voice that he understood. They were both trapped, Clark in America and Kate in Europe, both with an opportunity, a meeting that could change everything. He wanted to say something to help, something comforting. Clark forced a confidence he didn't quite feel.

"We're both going to earn it," Clark said, trying to convince himself as much as Kate. "All we need is an opportunity to tell the truth."

He turned and smiled at Kate. She averted her eyes and went back to driving. Clark waited for her to respond. She didn't.

Clark studied her as she navigated toward the city, worried eyes on a narrow face, uncomfortable.

"You alright?"

Kate jumped. "Yeah. Fine. Just thinking of home."

She took a deep breath and forced a smile. "You were right before. That is why I'm here. I couldn't leave this meeting to chance."

--

Kate drove them through narrow city streets, through new commercial developments and throngs of pedestrians, eventually reaching their hotel, a boutique with no air conditioning. They met up in late afternoon, before sunset, for a walk downtown and dinner.

Kate led him through a commercial hub of restaurants and shopping, toward the river, through plazas and multi-story row houses, the city growing older as they walked.

They stopped in a large outdoor plaza for dinner. Bench seating from restaurants spilled in to a common area, out among the tourists and buscars, among old couples and single people walking dogs. As the sun set, orange light poked through the surrounding buildings, throwing long shadows across the courtyard.

Kate was... heartbroken seemed like a strong word, but Clark didn't know how else to describe her. He could see her force enthusiasm and a smile, but in the quiet moments, she seemed sad, always looking away, never making eye contact.

Maybe she missed Chongqing like he missed Elise. Clark had no idea if talking about it would make her feel better or worse.

They sat for dinner outside. Kate ordered a round, and Clark asked for the "most German" meal possible.

"So how'd you end up in London?" Clark asked.

"School."

"And?"

"A good school?"

Clark gave her his best annoyed expression. She got the hint.

"I think... at the time, maybe I wanted space. Get away from my dad," her tone shifted, like she was trying to justify breaking away, "just for a moment. I always planned to go back."

"You don't have to explain it to me," Clark said, "My dad is an asshole--"

"Mine's not!" Kate said, over correcting so hard even she noticed. "He loves me. My dad came around, eventually. He paid for school in London on one condition."

"What was it?"

She blushed and looked away. "Nothing worth mentioning."

They drank pale ales and caught the last warm rays of the setting sun. The older couples and families thinned out, replaced by young men or women in small groups.

"After dinner, we should just go back to the hotel," she said.

Something was definitely wrong. Kate had been so excited to play badminton just a few hours before. Clark didn't want to go out either, but he did want to cheer her up.

"Tell me about Chongqing," Clark said.

Kate eyed him with suspicion. "Why?"

"Sounds like you love it," Clark said. "What makes it so special?"

Kate turned dark eyes from her beer up to Clark. She took a deep breath. He watched Kate decide how much of herself to share.

"Probably the food. Szechuan food is the best. You can barely get good Chinese food here at all, much less Szechuan food. And the mountains. The mountains in Europe are... I don't know, dry maybe. Too convenient. They lack heart."

Clark drank his beer and listened to Kate talk about a place she loved, revealing layers underneath her flirty bravado. When she talked about her home, Kate had a different kind of unguarded smile, a little vulnerable, revealing a tooth that was only almost perfect.

A young man walked by, his eyes locked on her. If she noticed, Kate didn't care.

Clark understood the looks. Kate was a study in contrast, sharp elbows and collarbones against soft brown eyes. Overconfidence wrapped in fragile beauty, something vibrant bouncing back and forth between those extremes.

"It was the capital of China during the war," Kate said. She nodded at Dresden, everything around them so fundamentally shaped by devastation and violence, rendered invisible unless you knew how to look. "When the Japanese invaded... It didn't go well. Chongqing is where the people rallied. Those mountains saved China. The mountains in Europe are... just snow."

Her brown eyes stared off into nothing.

"Why can't you go back?"

"I can go back," she said. "Any time I want. I just have to quit Helios."

"Why don't you? Money?"

Kate chuckled at the idea of money. "No. I have to prove something first."

There it was again. Maybe Kate had a "Chuck Miller" of her own. Her exile seemed self imposed, like being stuck in Europe was a proxy for something else.

Clark left to wash up before the food arrived. The interior of the restaurant was narrow and crowded. He had to snake past dozens of people to find the line to the bathroom.

Kate was mysterious. Bubbly one moment, melancholy the next. She had the money and desire to go home, but too much pride. It seemed like a lot of baggage for someone under thirty.

You're one to talk.

Clark eventually stepped back out of the restaurant and looked the short distance over to Kate. A young man perched on the bench across from her. He had sandy brown hair and looked young, maybe twenty. Three or four other young men lingered close, looking embarrassed.

Clark wandered near. The kids looked American, maybe Freshmen or Sophomores in college. They had a kind of athletic bravado seen in men good enough to ball in high school but not college. Maybe a Fraternity.

In any case, they were under-supervised with not enough alcohol tolerance. The kids weren't trouble, but on a long enough time line they would get into some.

Clark was close enough to see but not hear. The boy was chatting Kate up. She had on a polite grin, nodding along, but not saying much. The boy pointed to his group of friends. She shook her head.

Kate shooed him away with a refined flick of her wrist. He didn't move. Clark approached.

He arrived in time to see Kate drop her smile and say, "So give me a call after you get a job and grow six inches."

"I'm already 6'1'' and--"

"I didn't mean your height," Kate said. She cut her eyes down to his crotch.

The young man's face went crimson. One of his friends caught the line. "Oh shit!" The pack cackled and a buddy wandered near, arms grabbing at him. Frat Bro let himself be absorbed back into his pack of friends. Clark heard the appropriate amount of harassment for a friend who had just been so badly burned.

He smiled. Kids. And Kate. Jesus, that line was vicious.

"That kid may need therapy," Clark said as he sat down.

Kate shrugged. "Had it coming."

Dinner was slow, but arrived eventually. Clark ended up with something similar in consistency to pot roast, with a rich brown gravy on top and dark purple cabbage to the side. The food tasted fantastic.

Kate's mood was improving. A nice dinner and a beer seemed to help. Or maybe it was the complete emasculation of that frat boy. Kate's sharp tongue only made Clark like her more.

He tried to keep the conversation light as they ate, willingly stepping into her innuendo filled verbal traps.

As Clark soaked his last bit of cabbage in brown gravy, he spotted a pair of young men walking through the courtyard. Something about them seemed... off. Familiar maybe. They were short, one with greasy dark hair and the other with barely any hair at all. Young, maybe mid-twenties. German. Probably.

"Right Clark?" Kate was saying something, wanting his attention.

Why was his skin crawling? It was the walk, the same agile swagger he saw in his brother. Or his dad. Those men were dangerous, or had the ability to be.

A hate rally was occurring across the river. What were the chances they were skin heads? Not zero. Clark could see his own unreasonable paranoia. Whether they were skinheads or not, it wasn't like they would walk down the street punching random women, even if they were Chinese.

The greasy haired one kept his eyes on Kate as they walked by, a different intensity than the other young men who couldn't look away.

Kate had the right idea. Better to call it a night early.

They walked back toward their hotel, out of the plaza, back through the commercial area. Previously shuttered bars were open, a steady stream of young people starting to collect.

Clark heard a shout across the street.

"I said get out of here!"

The Americans. The frat bros were standing around a patio table outside a bar. Four of them, agitated, chests out, arms loose. They were crowded together in an excited group, squaring off with... two Germans. One short hair. One long and greasy.

Fuck.

Not your problem.

He waited with Kate at the crosswalk. They were walking perpendicular to the confrontation, pathing closer, but never actually crossing. The light turned and he crossed the street with Kate.

Another round of shouting. Kate turned her eyes to watch.

"Do you see... it's those same Americans--"

"Keep walking," Clark said, but he watched too.

He heard the angry mutterings of a pack of drunk twenty year olds. The words were less important than the tone. A fight wasn't inevitable, but it felt close.

As they passed the group, Clark and Kate were positioned behind the Americans, able to see the faces of the two young German men.

The tone was escalating, but the German men didn't do much of anything. Mr. Greasy hair had a creeping smile. The other one was stoic.

Not good.

There is a spectrum of confidence among men of violence. Clark was overly familiar with it, having unsuccessfully navigated it as a young man, and then again watching his brother struggle through some of the same mistakes.

At the far extreme were men of absolute confidence, those who had nothing left to prove. They were polite, safe men who had the luxury of choosing kindness, always knowing they did so from a position of strength. His brother Marcus had eventually crafted himself into such a man.

As you went down the scale, the men got more dangerous, not less. There was an inflection point, a toxic moment when young men had ability but not confidence, armed with a suite of tools itching to try out, looking for an "unfair" fight, for any excuse to let loose.

"Stay here," he told Kate. He drifted toward the group, his eyes never leaving the young German men.

What are you doing?

The more he studied them, the more nervous Clark became. They had loose clothes that mostly hid wiry muscle. To the drunk Americans, they would just look small. He had no doubt that the frat bros had kicked up the trouble, but they had no idea of the danger. They were expecting maybe a cracked jaw, not broken limbs. Or worse.

Clark felt an echo of the night from a decade before, half a memory that made him queasy. He shrugged it off and kept approaching.

The sandy haired idiot jabbed his finger in Mr. Greasy's chest.

Fuck.

So the kids are about to take a beating. It happens. Walk away.

Clark didn't move. If he did something now, it wouldn't be an innocent bystander trying to break up a fight. It would be five Americans against two Germans.

That was when Clark saw something that sent chills down his spine. The man with the creeping smile took his eyes completely off of the Americans. He turned his head, saying something to his friend, not a care in the world.

It was the action of a man with absolutely zero fear. Either a complete lunatic or a man like his father. Or Both.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

He couldn't just let this happen, not again.

There was no time. Clark could get them out of this mess, but he had to move. He accelerated toward the confrontation.

Clark avoided the Germans altogether and bodied the sandy haired idiot. Not tackling him, moving him.

"The fuck!" he yelled. Clark dug his fingers into the young man's shoulder, hard enough to hurt. It needed to hurt. The kid batted him away out of instinct, but Clark didn't so much as flinch.

"Those men came here to kill you," Clark said. Hyperbole... hopefully. He twisted the muscle of the kid's shoulder to emphasize his point. "Do. You. Understand?"

The sandy haired idiot turned his eyes up to Clark. If he had any sense at all, he would see the fear in Clark's eyes.

He nodded.

The German men asked a question behind him. Clark had his back turned. Stupid.

"Don't say a fucking word and get your friends out of here," he said.

Clark turned. The German men looked past him. He heard a low hiss of angry words and mutters behind him, a pleading with friends to just get the fuck out.

The duo kept looking over Clark's shoulder, deciding what to do. The kids behind him were shuffling off, but not fast enough. Mr. Greasy took a step forward, ignoring Clark.

"Sprechen sie Englisch?" Clark tried.

The two men turned their attention to him.

Goddammit.

Clark was confident that his brother Marcus could have handled them. But Clark wasn't his brother. He had enough experience to know these men would tear through him and any frat boy that came within arms reach.

Clark took a step back. They stepped forward.

His heart was racing. He was no match for just one of these men. Two was...

Whatever happened next was outside of his control. The less he fought, the better it would go. They would hurt him maybe, but not kill him. It wasn't the first ass kicking in his life, just the first in a very, very long time.

He had a career defining meeting in the morning. What the fuck had he been thinking?