Thanks to mom in the sixth grade I began doing Latin American dances. In seventh grade I had a guy Yuri; he studied in a parallel class. Yuri was interested in Eastern philosophy and practiced Aikido. I ended going from dance classes and started Aikido with Yuri in a sports club. Two years later, we broke up, and I stopped my Aikido training.
But at art school, I studied all the years of pleasure and graduated school very well. I loved to draw since childhood; it was my passion. If my parents hadn’t died in a car crash, I’d have continued studying at the St. Petersburg Academy of fine arts.
While I was watching my pictures, remembering the past, it’s time for lunch. I warmed frozen vegetables, fried fish, had lunch, and then went to the park, taking brushes, paint and everything else to draw.
People walked and rode on the rides in the park. I sat on a bench near the attraction Swing-boats. A guy and a girl were riding on one of the boats. They were flying in one direction and then in the opposite, laughing and rocking the boat even more.
The guy was about fifteen years old. He had a wide face with a little snub nose and a square chin, eyes, probably brown, thick dark eyebrows, full lips, blond mustache above them; curly brown hair framed the face nicely, covering the forehead and ears. A figure the guy was a little ungainly: proportions of the body were not yet fully formed, and his hands seemed disproportionately large. He was wearing a white-and-orange sports jacket, a grey cardigan with a printed pattern and blue jeans, legs white sneakers.
The girl had long wavy bright red hair without bangs. They fluttered on the fly. Her skin was very light matte. Eyebrow on her face, I could hardly see. The face had high cheekbones, large, bright, close-set eyes, small nose, neat, bright red painted lips, the lower lip fuller than the top. The girl laughed, and dimples were visible on her cheeks.
Her features could not be called proper, but they had something fatal and very attractive. She was well built. Long flared light-gray skirt made of thick fabric, black turtleneck, black short fitted jacket and black high laced boots flat shoes supplemented a fatal image.
The boat with the boy and girl soared as high as was possible for this swing. I watched their flight, trying to grasp the image as a whole to feel what they felt and to convey all this in the picture. The time was passing quickly for a favorite pastime. The guy and the girl are gone, but I managed to “catch” their images, and I continued to draw.
My cell phone rang. It turned out that it was Arthur. He offered me to meet in the evening. Arthur also said that he could pick me up from the shoe store after work. When he found out that I was drawing and not at the shop, he was surprised and asked where we would meet. I am also surprised that Arthur had called me, and that the evening has already arrived. We agreed that Arthur would come to the park and there he would find me near the attraction Swing-boats.
When Arthur found me in the park, I was already finishing a sketch. It seemed to me that Arthur liked the fact that I had such a hobby. He watched with interest for my work and said that he had not yet seen, as he put it, the artist at work. Arthur praised my drawing. Or maybe he just flattered me.
We went to dinner at the pizzeria in the park. I did not expect that so quickly and easily we “find a common language.” We remembered a childhood, telling each other a lot: what we were fond of who were our friends in whom we have fallen in love. I found that Arthur was from a family of soldiers and was the only child of their parents. His father was often transferred to work in other cities, and his family traveled the country a lot. Arthur went to a new school after every move.
In sixth grade, he experienced his first tragedy when he had to break up with a girl he was in love. The girl called Vika; they corresponded for some time after his moving. Arthur changed schools six times during the study, so he studied not very well. But he did a lot of sports; his father had always supported him and was his coach in hand-to-hand combat.
While training in high school, Arthur became friends with a classmate named Maxim. Arthur knew how to fight. Maxim was no expert in fighting, but he knew a lot, did well in school and was an inexhaustible generator of ideas. They complemented each other and helped each other. Maxim helped Arthur with his studies, so Arthur graduated from high school with good grades. After school, they came together in one Institute, graduated, and now worked together at the firm absolute. Arthur and Maxim were each other as brothers.
I could not boast of such friends, that Maxim was for Arthur. Maybe it’s because my mom was my best friend. I met with friends but did not share with them my innermost. Yuri, although we were friends for about two years in school, he didn’t know what was inside me and what I thought. He shared with me his thoughts and passions; I didn’t do the same thing. After school, when I worked in the shoe store Ruslan was my boyfriend. Work brought us together with Ruslan, but when we started to plan a life together, I realized that we are far from each other.
Unexpectedly for myself, I told Arthur a lot about my life, about my thoughts, my feelings this evening. With him it was easy – he listened to me carefully, and he in the answer was honest with me, talking about him life. We talked until the closing of the pizzeria, and then Arthur offered to drive me home.
While we were driving in the car, he asked me why I wasn’t at work. I told Arthur in response how I got fired the hostess. My voice sometimes trembled when I spoke, but I did not cry.
“So, you have nothing more to do in this store. Do you mind working in the Absolute?” he asked suddenly.
“I do need a job, but I have no idea who I will be able to work there?”
“We’ll figure something out.”
We drove up to my house. He walked me to the entrance. At the door he turned me, hugged by the shoulders and looked into my eyes.
“Tomorrow I’ll call you, you wait.”
He leaned over and kissed me on the lips. I felt dizzy from the kiss. And suddenly I had the feeling of “deja vu” as if I had known that today something would happen someone told me about it.
“See you tomorrow.”
I nodded in response without saying anything. He went to his car; I went up to my apartment. I dreamed night that Arthur and I were riding on a Swing-boat….
Chapter 6. Absolute. Mansion
The next day I barely had time to eat breakfast, and Arthur called immediately. He said he would come to my house at twelve o’clock and I should be ready to go to work. Wow! I even jumped for joy. I was full of energy and didn’t know how to use it.
I cleaned my apartment, got dressed, preparing for a meeting, and the clock on the wall showed only eleven o’clock in the morning. Time passed very slowly; I changed clothes a few times, even found a dress suitable for the office in my wardrobe. In the end, I decided not to experiment with my look, and wear jeans and a shirt. Arthur saw me like this, and he liked it.
Finally, Arthur arrived and called me on my cell phone. He waited for me in the yard, I went downstairs, got in the car and we went to work. My new life! How quickly things changed. The day before yesterday I thought that everything in my life worse than ever, and today I feel so happy!
The ride was close, only three blocks from my house to the business center, which housed the office of the company Absolute. We arrived and climbed to the fourth floor, in the company Absolute. Once inside, I saw an attractive girl behind the reception.
“This is Irina, our administrator. And this is Alexandra she will work for us,” so Arthur introduced us to each other.
In appearance she was