“That’s right,” said Ondine, “it’s her birthday next month, her anniversary!” “How come I didn’t realize it before,” she laughed. “I’ll help in any way I can,” she said. “I promise that no one will learn anything from me, not even my own son.”
***
After talking with Ondine, I was overcome with euphoria. For the first time in my life I lied, and for the first time in my life they believed me. I had never lied before, I was raised that way, but even then they didn’t really believe me. Sometimes my sisters blamed everything on me for the mischief I had done myself, and my parents scolded me. It seemed to me that I was physically incapable of lying, as if I had already been born honest. But, as it turned out, anything can happen, that is, I am capable of lying. It’s strange, but I didn’t feel any guilt for this lie or, as they would say now, an innocent prank, I felt gloating, as if I was able to outwit fate. All you had to do was say the right words at the right time. For a few minutes, I really felt like that same Melissa from the UK, who is studying to become a fashion designer with Louis Ixon.It was cool because my name was actually Ilse Dalma and I was one of the simplest mortals. I was an ordinary poor student who dreamed of helping people by providing them with medical care.
“Why don’t I help myself now? – I thought, and this idea inspired me. “Once in a lifetime, it’s possible.” The only thing I didn’t understand was how to use this opportunity. But one thing was clear to me: fate itself was coming to meet me halfway, and I should not make a mistake in the battle for my interests.
I didn’t sleep all night, just staring at the ceiling, trying to imagine my future. The girls went home for the holidays, and only I stayed to earn some money for our daily bread. Who would have thought that my plans would change so much. “You are doing everything right,” I mentally told myself, “you are doing everything right. Stop serving, pleasing, counting pennies. How much is it possible already? After all, this is how your whole life will go.”
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