“Oh, now suddenly those seven minutes don’t matter? You usually hold them over me any chance you get.”

“Girls,” their mother drawled. “No arguing on New Year’s Eve.”

“We’re not arguing,” Susanne said. “We’re just—”

“You still haven’t answered my question.”

Damn. She had hoped her mother would let herself be distracted. No such luck. Lying to her was out; she would find out sooner or later, and Susanne didn’t want to face her mother’s disappointment when she realized she had been lied to on top of everything else.

The smoke that hung over the courtyard was so thick that Susanne could barely make out the familiar contours of the one-hundred-and-fifty-year-old buildings on the other side. But for her, there was no hiding behind the gray haze.

Oh, come on. Since when are you such a chickenshit? Normally, she didn’t lack in confidence. Just a couple of days ago, she had marched into her boss’s office and had tossed her resignation letter on his desk without hesitation. But telling her mother was different.

Franzi stepped next to her until their arms brushed, as if sensing that she needed the support.

“I only have one resolution this year,” Susanne said.

Her mother waved her fingers in a let’s-hear-it gesture.

Susanne took a steadying breath. “I, um, I’m going to start looking for a new job tomorrow.”

Her mother put down her glass of champagne, while Susanne white-knuckled her own. “Don’t tell me you got fired.”

“No. I… I quit.”

That might actually be worse in their mother’s eyes. Job-hopping was what their father had done, moving from business to business, from failure to failure.

The firecrackers that had still been going off in the neighborhood stopped, and the silence was deafening.

“Yeah, well, your boss was a chauvinistic pig.” Franzi tried a casual shrug but couldn’t quite pull it off. “I would have quit a long time ago. Plus maybe now you can find a job where you don’t have to travel so much and can stick closer to home most of the time.”

Susanne gave her a grateful look but doubted their mother would see it that way. Would she think Susanne was like her father?

“Well, that’s…” Her mother blindly reached for her glass and drained it in one big gulp. “…really good, actually.”

Susanne shook her head as if something had stuck in her ears, affecting her hearing. Oookay. Who are you, and what have you done with my mother? “It is?” she asked with a tentative smile.

“Yes. And you don’t even have to look for a new job. I already have one for you.”

Uh-oh. Susanne traded glances with her sister. Why did she have the feeling she wouldn’t like whatever her mother was about to say?

“Your uncle needs a little help with his business.”