Anja opened her eyes comically wide. “It is. I was invited for Christmas dinner one year, and it took me until the middle of January to recover.”

Miriam reached across the table and patted her arm. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“You did.” Anja squeezed Miriam’s hand. “My imagination just didn’t live up to the real thing.”

Susanne observed their interaction. Had these two ever been a couple? But asking something like that crossed a line that she didn’t want to cross with someone she worked with. “What about you? Do you have any siblings?”

“No, I don’t. My family tree is more like a bonsai.” Anja indicated the size of a miniature tree with her hands. “No siblings, no cousins, and not many kids my age in the tiny town where I grew up. By the time I was six, I sounded like an adult.”

“And if she says tiny, she means tiny,” Miriam threw in. “I think there are more cows in that town than there are people.”

Anja rolled her eyes. “There are no cows. Most families there used to grow grapes, not cattle.” She glanced at Susanne. “I grew up in a wine-producing region about thirty kilometers from here.”

Since she had lived in Berlin for most of her life, Susanne couldn’t imagine what it must have been like to grow up in such a tiny village. “Weren’t you bored to death as a teenager?”

“No, not really.” Anja’s tone softened and a bit of dialect came through when she talked about her hometown. Susanne found it charming. “I was used to keeping myself entertained, and I was never one for wild parties.”

“No parties?” Miriam huffed and nudged her. “Excuse me, but that’s not how I remember the stories about your childhood. What about the time you snuck out at night and rode your bike to a party several kilometers away?”

“It wasn’t a party,” Anja protested, but her cheeks flushed scarlet. “A couple of friends from school went to see a movie, and I didn’t want to miss it.”

“The movie. Suuuure, that’s why you risked being grounded until graduation.”

Anja covered her face with both hands. “Why on earth did I ever tell you that?”

Miriam pulled her hands down and grinned. “Because you can’t resist this beautiful face. Just like you couldn’t resist kissing M—”

“Enough,” Anja said. “Frau Wolff doesn’t want to hear that.”

“Susanne,” Miriam corrected. “First names, remember? And maybe she does want to hear about your adventures in the movie theater.”