At six in the evening, he returned, asked how I was doing. I said I watched pages of websites and asked him to print me a page from the website Absolute, and several pages of other companies that I have selected for myself. Arthur printed out and gave me papers.
“You can go home. I’ll take you home and then come back here,” he was worried, apparently, at work.
After some ten minutes, we pulled up to my house. Arthur kissed me, said tomorrow he’s picking me up at quarter to nine and, maybe, give me a call later today. And he left.
I was glad to return home. At once, too much all changed with the advent of Arthur in my life. I was holding the printed sheets from the office of Absolute. If yesterday I was full of romantic feelings for Arthur, but today I didn’t felt a romance, just work. “It’s like on a swing,” I thought.
Dressed in my room, I went to the kitchen to have dinner. Here I warmed frozen vegetables and cooked eggs cut sausage. I did all this mechanically, but at this time my mind ran through the events of today. I realized that I wanted all my experiences of this day to put on paper. Dinner was ready; I ate what I had prepared, drank the juice and went into the living room.
In the living room, I turned on the TV, dimming the sound to a minimum. I wasn’t going to watch, but so it was the illusion that I was not alone in the room. I took blank sheets of paper, thick folder to put under the sheets, a pencil and comfortably settled on the couch. Yesterday I needed a brush and paint today – a simple pencil.
At first, I decided to draw Irina in front of the reception office of Absolute. I drew the strokes the contours of the room, its details, and the reception and moved to the figure of Irina, showing her a sideways. On my sketch, Irina was holding a folder, and when I drew her face, I allowed myself to paint glasses. They added to her solidity. “Irina on the job” became such.
For the next picture, I imagined Vasily and Yegor at the house, where we were the day. I wasn’t sure I remembered all the details of the mansion. I drew the main contours of the house that remained in my memory, and in front of the mansion, I portrayed Vasily and Yegor as they are doing something, opened the window.
The last picture I portrayed Maxim and Arthur in the office. I drew as Maxim sat at his desk, leaning back in the chair, holding hands behind a head and legs under the desk and looked at the laptop screen. Arthur, with a cup of coffee in his hands, stood behind him and also looked at something in the laptop Maxim.
Arthur called me when I finished the drawings, washed and went to bed. The clock on the wall showed almost midnight. He and Maxim left the office at ten in the evening. Then they drove to dinner. After dinner, back home, he decided to call me. He talked about himself and asked me how I spent my time in the evening. I intrigued him by telling about the pictures. He wanted to know what I depicted in the drawings, but I said that today let it be a mystery, and tomorrow he will see them himself.
“You’re a real woman with own mystery. I so want to hug and kiss you right now. I’ll wait for tomorrow impatiently.”
“And do you work late often?”
“Sometimes I have to work late. You are going to angry me for it?”
“In our family dad often didn’t happen at home, at his work he traveled a lot on business trips. But he loved my mom and me, and we felt his love even when he wasn’t with us.”
“Your dad was lucky that he met your mother. And I was lucky that I met you.”
Rather, it is lucky for me. My life was dull and boring until I met you. I even didn’t draw these two years after the death of my parents. And now I wanted again….
“My dear artist, you and me it is time to sleep. Sweet dreams.”
“Sweet dreams. See you tomorrow.”
“In the morning I’ll pick you up. Bye.”
I was tired for the day and fell asleep quickly.
Chapter 7. Sleep: Cafe-pub
It was dark and cold. I walked through the narrow streets of the city and searched for a cafe Near you. There was nobody to ask where I should go, but my legs brought me to a familiar street. It was here somewhere. Looking around, I saw a familiar sign and walked in.
The cafe appeared small. Bar, tables, chairs, ceiling beams, made of solid dark wood looked soundly impressive. Built-in ceiling lights shone dimly. It was a men’s cafe-pub. A large number of bottles of alcohol decorated the shelves on the wall behind the bartender. And where were the visitors? I looked around and noticed her, my double (?). She was sitting at a table by the window and smiling at me.
It was unusual to see a fragile girl in such a place. I approached her and sat down opposite. “Well, now two fragile girls will be here,” I thought.
“Hi!” she greeted first.
“Hi!” I answered and added. “What’s your name? I still don’t even know your name.”
“Is it important for you?”
“I’m not used to communicate with a person without knowing his name.”
“You can call me Alexa. I ordered us coffee, it was on the menu, with cream and chocolate. They’ll bring now.”
Indeed, the waitress approached us, carrying two cups of coffee and sugar bowl on a tray. While she put on the table the cups, I looked at the face of Alexa through the flame of a candle standing on the table in a clay candlestick. I remembered our conversation with her in my apartment and what happened after.
It was odd that I should have remembered our conversations only when she was around.
“I did not get upset because of the dismissal, but instead, I took out my paints brushes paper and was painting as you suggested. And Arthur, the same guy with the yellow bag called me. We met in the evening, it was great! Besides, He said he would help me with work. You told me about the new opportunities, prospects. It has opened! The next day I started working in his firm! So much has changed since our meeting.”
“You were able to deal with emotions, so now the new is coming into your life.”
“I was able to do it thanks to you.”
“That’s right I helped you a little bit. If you continued to feel sorry for yourself to be offended and to think that people were unfair to you, the events would have unfolded differently.”
“How would the events have unfolded in this case?”
“You would have felt a lack of energy and could get sick. Arthur wouldn’t have called and would soon just have forgotten about you.”
“Why Arthur wouldn’t have called me and forgot about me?”
“Because then you would not have passed your test and would have been thrown back. You wouldn’t have made a step forward, and you never more would have met with Arthur without this step. Later, you would have found a job, but similar to what you had in store. You again would have to undergo the same test. Next time it would have looked a little different, but the essence would have been the same – redirect the force of your emotions. You passed your test, and someone does not have enough life to get through it, although this is only one test.”
“What other tests are there?”
“You’ll find out later.”
The cafe was gone; darkness took its place….
Chapter 8. Absolute. Assignment
The alarm rang on my phone. I woke up with a feeling of something important