In the darkness of my room, I looked out the window, then at the ceiling, then at the table on which my half-drunk cup of tea stood. I was very thirsty, but didn’t want to get out of bed. It was a very significant reaction. I thought: “What if happiness and a carefree life are also within walking distance, like this cup, and I’m just too lazy to get up and go to it?” After all, I could die of thirst and never quench it. I had to get up and go to her. For a mental kick, to speed up, I took my phone, which was lying next to me, and found a message where my school friend recommended me a hotel for the poor, because I simply couldn’t afford another one.
“Well, my dear Virginia,” I mentally addressed her, “I will really relax this summer, have a blast, but not in a hotel for the poor,” I said with bravado.“Your nerd puts aside his textbooks, goes to work, and goes all out. Walk like that!”
On this ecstatic note, I jumped out of bed with the coolness of a mountain deer to finish my cup of tea and proudly fell into sleep. I needed a good rest before starting my new life. I didn’t know where I got the confidence, this wild confidence that everything would work out. But I felt that it couldn’t be any other way. I didn’t know in what ways this would be achieved, but I had the feeling that I had learned all the tickets and was now going to the exam. How did I feel? Excitement, as if luck was already in my pocket.
Chapter Two
You can’t deceive the faint-hearted: they’ll lose right away, give themselves away, expose themselves. So I decided not to deceive. I decided that I should, like a good actress, get into the character of this fashion designer from Great Britain and become her. I decided to become Melissa Abran. I want to live well, at least a little. Perhaps this was no longer a deception, it was theft, as if I stole someone else’s fate, pocketed it… Cool! Now that was on a grand scale. When you steal on a grand scale, it’s not so scary, even if you get caught. Well, at least there’s something to be afraid of…
In general, with this thought in mind, I was going to rush to Undina Karpova’s house, to the very house where I was supposed to work as a housekeeper. Initially, it was assumed that as a housekeeper I would enter there from the back entrance, but I decided to make a knight’s move and enter from the central one!
It was easier to get into this house than into the image of Melissa. To get into the image, I needed to clearly imagine Melissa Abran, what her character was like, I needed to understand how she dressed, but I had never seen her. And this was a problem, a big problem. Even my classmates who could have advised me on something had gone away for the summer holidays, and there was no one to help me with this issue. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t understand anything about style and fashion, I always had one style called “preferably clean, unironed is possible”. How could I know what was fashionable in Great Britain now, if I didn’t know what was fashionable here in Russia? Only one thing warmed my heart: Greta Abran said that I looked like her daughter, which meant that my chances were good. Of my clothes, I only had jeans and blouses, but several of each. When one dried, I wore another, exactly the same. I never had money for different clothes; I spent everything on food, study and additional courses. And why bother so much about clothes, after all, life is short, and I thought it was disgusting to spend at least part of it on clothes.
And now I had to imagine how this same Melissa Abran dresses. An image stuck in my head that I had glimpsed in a photograph that stood on Greta Aban’s desk. This photo was of a young girl wearing a straw hat and an off-the-shoulder pink dress. She stood in the middle of a wheat field. I didn’t know whether it was Melissa or not, but I liked the image. Therefore, I decided to work in this direction and, well, how should I put it… to borrow clothes from my classmates without asking. Okay, okay, I decided to temporarily steal these clothes. But what difference does it make if I was still a sinner now?
***
Katya and Lira left me the keys to their room so that I could water the flowers, since I was staying in the student dormitory for the summer. Now I went to water the flowers with it, but not for the sake of the flowers.
I opened the door with the key and entered Katya and Lyra’s room with a bottle of water; there were violets and cacti on the windowsill. Katya loved cacti, and Lyra loved violets. I knew for sure that Katya loved to pet them, like petting hedgehogs, in order to do better in exams. She started a whole ritual for herself, to which she introduced some of the girls in the dorm. Katya passed everything with an A and said that it was the cacti that helped her. In fact, the cacti had nothing to do with it. Katya herself crammed everything until she turned green, so the result was obvious. Nevertheless, the girls still came to her on the eve of the exam to pet her cacti, because no one canceled the freebie. The thirst for freebies makes you believe in miracles, even those with thorns – what if?!
Lyra was simpler; she got herself violets on the windowsill as opposed to Katya’s cacti, so that Katya wouldn’t occupy the entire window sill. And thanks to the violets, half of the window sill was assigned to Lyra. By the way, no one stroked her violets; she didn’t allow them. “Don’t crush the flowers,” said Lyra, if someone’s impatient hand hovered over her flowers. “They are not ritual,” she added in a stern voice.
***
When I opened the closet that belonged to Lyra, I saw only a couple of T-shirts and jeans. I carefully examined the shelves and things on the hangers. Looking closer, I saw something colorful in the corner. I reached out with my hand; it was a silk handkerchief. As luck would have it, I didn’t understand fashion or styles. But then I remembered that stylists don’t understand them either. Sometimes you look at some stylist or fashion designer and think that this is a homeless person who has just escaped from a landfill. Or you look at photos from a film premiere on the Internet, and there is some kind of tastelessly dressed party, and then you take a closer look – and it turns out that these are our celebrities, led by a socialite, who often changes lion. In general, everything is relative. This thought calmed me and reconciled me with reality. That’s why I adopted the handkerchief, because women usually disarm men with their femininity. I also took a light, summer, pink dress from Katya’s closet; it looked like the dress from the very photograph that I saw on Greta Abran’s table. Katya had a lot of dresses.
I also really needed a straw hat, like the girl in the photo, but I didn’t have one, but I did have sandals. They matched the dress, and that made me endlessly happy. I think that if I had asked for these things, the girls would have lent them to me, although without much joy. But I didn’t want to tell them this, even over the phone, so as not to scare away my luck. Well, so that they don’t pawn me if something happens. Of course, I also borrowed a suitcase from the girls and put the things I liked in there. This was mainly Katya’s wardrobe. Mentally I conveyed my gratitude to her for the clothes shopping, it was now in my favor… and on my leg, and on my head, and there was also a suitcase, well, why not a holiday?
***
Ondine Karpova gave me her address on the phone, and now I had to rush to her. I understood that a lot depends on the first impression, and I probably needed to take a taxi to go out like a king. But Ondine lived outside the city, and I didn’t have money for a taxi. Therefore, I decided to get to her house first by metro, and then by buses with transfers. It wasn’t easy given the heat.
When I was traveling on a subway train, I carefully examined my reflection in the glass door of the car. I really was dressed awkwardly, and the checkered suitcase only added disharmony to my outfit. But there was also a positive aspect: I stood out, which means everyone will think it’s just my style. In fact, there was no specific plan in my head, or rather the plan was to get there and say hello to the hostess of the house the way Melissa Abran, a fashion designer from the UK, would say hello. I simply didn’t know what would happen next and was afraid to guess. I didn’t want to be punished for cheating, but I also didn’t want to return empty-handed.
***
The house in which Ondine Karpova lived was located outside the city in the picturesque area of K**. I heard that only rich people live there. For some reason, I thought that if I told my neighbors in the hostel that I was going to work there as a housekeeper, they would tell me: “Oh, how lucky you are, you can at least see how people live! Touch the beauty! When you wipe off the dust, of course.” In fact, I wasn’t going to serve there and I wasn’t going to wipe off the dust. I didn’t know at all what I was going to do there, and at some point it seemed to me that I wouldn’t even know, because the bus stopped at the edge of the forest and the driver announced that this was the end.
I was confused because the area where Ondine Karpova lived was located much further away. Sitting next to me on the bus was a small, elderly woman in colorful clothes and a purple cap. She looked like an overseas bird with bright plumage. When she was getting ready to go out, I asked her what bus could I take to get to the K** area. She looked at me the way they look at someone who is not the smartest woman, and said:
– What are you saying, baby, only rich people live there. Nobody goes there by bus. Only on expensive jalopies,” she nodded. -What should you do there? – she asked with a sly smile.
“I’m going to steal something,” I answered boldly. “Maybe even someone’s heart,” I added, winking cheerfully at the old woman.
– Oh-oh-oh, what a joker! – the creative woman in the purple cap laughed.
But I wasn’t laughing. I thought angrily about Greta Abran, who had not warned me that there was no public transport there.She probably didn’t even know that she couldn’t get there by bus, because she herself always drove only expensive cars.
***
The bus left, the people dispersed. I stood alone at the bus stop and didn’t know what to do. Occasionally cars passed by. I had a checkered suitcase with other people’s things. “Well,” I said to myself, “you’ve lived well. But only in dreams…” It became sad. I can’t go on foot. I might get lost. The thought flashed through my head that it would be better for me to stay in the hostel, cram textbooks and look for a job based on my abilities, that is, a job as a cleaner. I don’t know what happened to me at that moment, because a coffee-straw-colored car appeared from afar, and I instinctively raised my hand, saying, stop, comrade! And this had to happen, the car stopped, pulling off to the side of the road. I froze in surprise and indecision.
The driver was a fair-haired man, but when I looked closer at him, I realized that he was a young guy. I approached the car.
“Girl,” he said to me loudly, opening the door, “what happened to you?”
“Yes, basically, nothing,” I said, coming even closer to him and figuring out as I went what else I should say. “I need to get to…” I hesitated because I forgot the address, but immediately pulled out my phone and called it in full: “Lilac Valley, 48,” I looked up at the young man.
He looked at me questioningly and then smiled.
“I’m just on my way,” he said very sweetly. – Can I help you put your suitcase in the trunk? – He smiled at me again.
At first I wanted to answer as I usually answer: “Oh, no, I’ll stuff it myself.” This is exactly how Ilse Dalma, that is, I, answered throughout my twenty-six-year life. But then I remembered that I was already Melissa Abran, and she definitely wouldn’t say that.
“Yes, of course,” I smiled and paused, wanting not to say anything unnecessary and not start making excuses for I don’t know why.
“Be silent and smile,” I commanded myself. “Be silent and watch how they help you,” I ordered myself, keeping a smile on my lips smeared with someone else’s lipstick.
He quickly completed the task and got back behind the wheel. I sat down next to the driver and immediately felt like a queen. I was afraid to look at this handsome guy, but I liked driving in the car. Apparently it was very expensive because we were driving fast, but I didn’t feel the speed. The pictures changed very quickly outside the window. I didn’t know what to talk about with this guy, but I didn’t have to come up with a topic for conversation, because he started communicating himself.
– What is your name? – he asked politely.
Out of the corner of my eye I looked at his tanned hands that were on the steering wheel, and I liked them. I often fell in love with hands, although usually girls fall in love with eyes or a bank card. For some reason, I thought that I would certainly have fallen in love with him all over, if not for the current circumstances. I was even sorry that the road would soon end. It was for this reason that I relaxed a little and decided to make the most of our short meeting in this car, which, with the help of his skillful hands, rushed me into a new life.
“Let’s be on first-name terms,” I shortened the distance between us. “My name is Melissa, but you can call me Ilse,” I laughed.
– Great! Do you have a double name? – he asked, not experienced in lying.
“Yes, yes,” I answered, wanting to add that I now have not only a double name, but also a double life. – How are you?
“Arkhip,” he smiled with a white-toothed smile, and I turned to look at his handsome, young face in profile.
He was so handsome, with brown eyes and thick, straight eyebrows, as if drawn under a ruler. He had very tan skin that contrasted with his blond hair. My heart beat faster.
Chapter Three
It was cool to ride in the same car with a handsome guy, the road lasted about half an hour. I understood that now he would leave and I would not see him again. I looked at the road with rapidly changing landscapes, then at my knees covered by a pink dress, then at him, but only with my peripheral vision, so that he would not get scared. And then the road ended, my heart ached with melancholy. Is it possible to fall in love with the first person you meet in half an hour? Yes, it is! Especially if he is such a handsome guy with such hands, and also silent, which means that everything else can be thought up and attributed to his image without any obstacles.
The whole way I wanted to give him my phone number, but in the end I changed my mind. It was stupid, and I didn’t want to impose myself on the first person I met so much. I have always been unlucky in love, so it was not worth starting this obviously losing venture. Besides, I didn’t want to change my thieving plans, the goal of which was to live at least a little like a human being.
“Is it here?” I asked when he stopped the car near a large three-story huge house, surrounded by a large and beautiful fence.
“You gave me exactly this address,” he said, shrugging his shoulders.
“Well, yeah, it’s time,” I sighed. “Then goodbye,” I said, putting all my pain of separation into the last word.
I lightly touched his tanned hand with my pale hand, and then abruptly pulled it away, as if I had burned myself. It was nervous.
