Читать книгу Maitreya. The Connection the Visible and the Invisible - Elah - Страница 5

At 8 in the morning, the alarm rang on the phone. I didn’t want to wake up, put my head under the covers and tried to continue to sleep. “You’ll be late!” suddenly a thought in my head arose. I woke up and sat up in bed. The dream has passed, giving way to the reality of the day. It was time to get up and get ready for work.

The day promised to be sunny. I got up, made my bed, threw on a robe and opened the window, enjoying the first rays of the sun and fresh air. Turning from the window, I looked at a picture that hung above my bed on the wall. It is one of my drawings. I painted a castle on a lake, and mom and dad as they were walking together near the castle.

My parents wanted me to after graduation went to study in St. Petersburg Academy of arts (Institute of painting, sculpture, and architecture named after I. E. Repin). I wanted the same, but two years ago, mom and dad died in a car accident. Instead of entrance exams, I buried mom and dad.

The photo is on my desk: my parents and I are standing in front of the castle from my drawing. We are smiling and happy. It was our last joint trip. There we were together. I drew mom and dad in the background of the castle. I showed them in the clothing which people wore in the Middle Ages. A few months later I was left alone….

I looked at the clock on the wall: I still have half an hour to get ready. I quickly washed in the bathroom, then went into the kitchen and cooked for myself as I love coffee, adding a pinch of cocoa and a few grains of salt. I pulled out cream yogurt and cheese from the fridge. I usually have breakfast satisfying. Then I drink still instant coffee at work.

After breakfast, I went to dress in my room. Today I chose a shirt with thin vertical blue stripes and my favorite bright skinny jeans. When finished with the clothes, I curled the ends of my hair with the tongs, made a high ponytail and put on some makeup on eyes and lips. Taking my bag, I went into the hall, put on my jacket and sneakers and left the apartment.

I was lucky: the shoe store where I work is near my home. The way to work takes me only ten minutes. I slowly approached the shop. Ruslan and Katya were already in place. Ruslan was showing something Katya on his phone. He worked as a store manager. Katya, as I was a saleswoman. They were both dark-haired and with brown eyes. Ruslan was almost a head taller than Katya, and he had to lean over to Katya could get a good look at his phone. Seeing me, he leaned even closer to her so that his lips touched her cheek, hugged her. He wanted to hurt me.

Ruslan – my ex-boyfriend. When Roxanne, the shop owner gave me a job, I had no experience as a seller. Ruslan immediately began to take care of me, taught me how to work. So he became my boyfriend. Ruslan even introduced me his parents as his fiancee and asked me to marry him. Exactly then I realized that I didn’t love him, was just trying to fill the void of loneliness. The attempt failed. I told him about it two weeks ago. We broke up. To spite me he started dating Katya.

“Hi,” I said, passing by Ruslan and Katya. There was no answer, alas. Due to the fact that Ruslan is angry with me, we stopped talking, not only after work, at work too almost never saying. Katya is also not talking to me since she became his girlfriend. Until recently we were friends. I can now only communicate with Irina. She is a cashier at the store.

I quickly checked whether it is worth the shoes on the shelves, rearranged a few pairs in a women’s section. Then I went to leave my jacket and bag into the back room. There was possible also make instant coffee. Irina was already here.

“Hi.”

“Hi. Do you want a coffee?”

“Yes. Let’s go out on the porch and there we’ll drink it. Today the sun is shining.”

Together we walked out of the store on the porch, with coffee in hand, breathing in the fresh air as long as there are no buyers.

Irina complained of husband’s mother, as usual. Yesterday they had another fight at home. A year ago Irina got married. She and her husband live with his mother. There was a time when we could go somewhere to relax and have fun together. After her marriage, she goes home from work and spends all evenings at home with family.

Mom husband always unhappy with her, Irina had to “remove” jeans, now she goes only in dresses and skirts knee length and below, above there should be no a provocative neckline. Today she wore a purple dress knee-length, long curly black hair gathered in a ponytail, no makeup, and just a little lip gloss – everything to please the mother in law. How much more she can take?

I sympathized with her, told that I with friends was in a nightclub last night – except that I danced with the pleasure, none of the guys there not attracted to me.

“Why did you break up with Ruslan? Now you’re single, without a boyfriend. Don’t you want to go back to him?” Irina asked.

“I will not return to Ruslan: he saw me as his property. I’ll find another boyfriend. How do you like the one with the yellow bag?” I said and pointed to the side of the car in the parking lot near the store. From it came the guy with the yellow bag.

Suddenly the guy went straight to our store. Irina and I had quickly to get back to the shop, interrupting the conversation. He entered the store after us, looked around and went to the section with men’s shoes.

Watching for a while as the guy looking shoes, I approached him and offered my help. He looked from the shoes at me and asked,

“How do you think what kind of shoes I should buy in combination with this bag?”

“Are you kidding?” I couldn’t stay serious and smiled.

The guy smiled at me in response.

“Arthur.”

“Alexandra.”

“I just need black dress shoes size 27. Will you help me choose?”

I offered him the first one pair, then another, a third, a fourth. Arthur liked the last pair of shoes. Ruslan came up to us and was overhearing our conversation.

Arthur said that buys shoes that he liked, and asked if to invite me to coffee one evening. I felt Ruslan tense and decided to piss him off. I told Arthur that we could go to the cafe right now. Arthur asked,

“You can do it?”

“I can if we go on a little time.”

“Is there a cafe nearby?”

“Yes, there is. Are we going?”

“Yes, let’s go.”

We went to the checkout. I left Arthur to pay for the shoes and asked him to wait for me after the payment. I went into the back room put on my jacket I redid my lipstick and returned. Arthur was already waiting for me near the store.

“I’ll be back soon,” I just said to Ruslan, heading to the exit. Ruslan looked at me, and I felt how much I pissed him off.

Sitting over a cup of coffee in a cafe, I looked closely at Arthur. I noticed that his deep-set gray eyes radiated inner strength. It was a look strong-willed, confident person. He had thick eyebrows, a straight nose, not full, but not thin lips, and a square chin. The face looked masculine and was clean-shaven. Chestnut hair cut short and combed parted in the middle.

Perhaps Arthur was engaged in sports; he’s got a great figure. His clothes were unremarkable blue jeans gray shirt and darker tone shirt jacket black leather shoes. Arthur liked me. Only his yellow bag seemed ridiculous.

“I noticed you when you were standing at the door to the shop.”

“And I noticed you and your yellow bag too.”

“Yes, this bag catches someone’s eye. But it does not belong to me. Our office manager bought it for our company to carry spares. Earlier, for this purpose, we used an ordinary black bag but once mixed up our bag, and someone else’s the same. Thus we lost an important details order for a customer. By the way, I work at company Absolute. I deal with security systems.”

Arthur drew from his pocket a business card holder opened it took out and handed me his business card. I read the text on the card: Arthur Goryanov; Executive Director of the company Absolute; integrated security system.

“My mobile phone number is on the card. And can I get your number?”

“Yes, of course,” I told him my phone number.

“I’ll call you to invite you to dinner if you agree.”

“Okay. I have to get back to work. Thanks for the coffee, Arthur,” I thanked.

Arthur paid the bill, and we left the cafe. We said goodbye to each other. I went back to a shoe store, and he got in his car and drove away.

Entering the shop, I saw the hostess Roxanne. It was necessary so to happen that she came when I wasn’t in the workplace. Roxanne is a striking blonde with her dyed hair. She’s almost fifty, but she’s trying to seem younger, always elegantly dressed and made up. She has a grown daughter who lives abroad. Husband of Roxana, according to rumors, left her for a young mistress. For all her outward gloss she is lonely and unhappy.

Roxanne was in a bad mood today, and I was expecting thrash.

“Alexandra, why aren’t you at work?”

“Good afternoon, Roxanne Viktorovna. I had to leave work for a while”.

“Ruslan said that you didn’t ask permission to take time off from work; he would not have let you leave the store. You became selling shoes worse, and do nothing to increase sales. What am I paying you? Do you remember how two years ago I took pity on you and you got the job, although you had no experience?”

“I remember Roxanne Viktorovna. It won’t happen again,” I replied.

Just think! Ruslan said that I didn’t ask his permission to leave work. Any of us could leave the store briefly without any special permission. Ruslan took me to revenge, and I didn’t expect this.

“Alexandra, your promises mean nothing. Ruslan and Katya say that they have to work without you is not the first time. I don’t want to see you in the store. You fired. Tomorrow you will receive final payment.”

This turn of events was totally unexpected for me.

“Am I fired?”

“You are free right now. And tomorrow I’ll replace you; many will be happy to work in my store and even for less money than you.”

The blood rushed to my head; cheeks flushed.

“But it’s not true that I’m a bad worker! I’m not skipping work!”

“Alexandra, it’s true. And Katya thinks so too. Isn’t it, Katya?” Ruslan said.

Katya nodded her head in agreement.

I thought, “Kate and I supported each other before and Ruslan told me that he loves me until recently ….”

I looked at Irina she shrugged as if to say, “What can I do? I can’t do anything.”

At one point we became for each other, strangers: I for them, and they for me. I felt that it was already not “to glue” and slowly went to the back room took my bag and went home without saying goodbye.

How it was disgusting. I felt betrayed, and I lost my job. It was a terrible day.

In a sort of stupor, I sat on a bench in front of a children’s playground in the yard of the house where I lived. The kids played, but I was sitting, not noticing anything around. Don’t know how long it lasted. A little girl came up to me and said something, holding out the toy.

I realized that I ready to cry. I got up from the bench and ran to the entrance to my house and then up the stairs to my apartment. At home, in my room, I burst into tears. I cried inconsolably from the fact that the world is not fair, from meanness, which I didn’t expect. I felt sorry for myself, my life. I was crying from the fact that the parents died and I was alone my childhood is gone because I did not study at the Academy of fine arts and I don’t know why yet ….

In tears, I fell asleep.