– Wow, so you must be in the wrong place – joked her showing a beautiful smile that Armando thought it was strange when he noticed it.
– But how do you know my name?
– Are you sure you want to know?
No, he wasn't sure about anything.
– Yes, please. – He lied.
– I'm the person you're looking for, but I'm not who you wanted to meet.
Armando shacked his body, leaned on the iron bar and looked down, he lost his breath, he felt like his head turned 360° degrees without move.
– What did you say?
– That's it, you're looking for James Fel, but he didn't exist anymore.
He got dizzy and Armando felt like he will have a heart attack, how that girl knew about James, how did she know he was looking for James, who was her and why did she say that James didn't exist anymore?
It took a long time to Armando noticed that his lungs weren't without air, but it took more time to look in those green eyes which stared at him waiting more things.
– I'm not understanding – told him recovering from that.
– I know, nobody understands me.
– How do you know about James? – Why did you say it?
– I'm sure here isn't the right place for it. Do you want some coffee? Or some water to recover?
– First say to me who you're – he wasn't sure if he really wanted to know.
– I'm James, Armando, but I'm not that James anymore, aren't you see? – this time the lady didn't smile.
– It can't be truth....
– I knew you would come, it's time to tell the truth, please, let's get out from here to talk.
– Are you James? – asked Armando feeling himself strange.
– James Fel from Three Forks, deserted from his only friend more than fourteen years ago. Yeah, I think it' me, it means, it was me.
CHAPTER 17
The girl that said it were James, chose a restaurant close to the park to go with Armando. They walked together and Armando didn't ask any question during it. He didn't know what was happening and the only thing it was in his mind was it could be a joke a James' joke or the little Andy's one, but that wasn't real.
Arriving at the local, he thought he could look for cameras, but there were only cameras for the local's security. She chose a place or James did it that was a kind of open air, far from the others tables and it was very confortable to have any kind of conversations. He sat down and waited the waiter serve them, a young guy who wasn't interested either the girl's beauty, neither in his own service, and waited for he or she said something.
– Don't look at me like an aberration – it was what she said. – I know it's very strange and uncommon, but that's it, and you must accept it.
– How? You say that you're my friend who I haven't seen for fourteen years, but after all this time you meet me and you're with breasts and I don't know what more, and are you saying that I have to accept it?
– Why was you looking form me Armando, after so long?
– I was not looking for you –answered Armando feeling himself cornered. – I'm looking for my friend James.
– It doesn't matter, when I tell you what happened... – she hesitated for a moment and continued. – I'm sure you was looking for me and not for a little boy like I were fourteen years ago.
– Please, tell me what you did with him.
The pretty blond girl looked around like she was looking for something, but soon she saw the waiter who served some coffee and made a dish when he came where we were, the guy took note in a Palmer Top and got out coming back later with we had desired.
– Do you drink vodka at 08h15min a.m.? – Armando said it at loud.
– It's not easy to tell this history, I think you must do the same thing for you don't faint – joked the girl smiling. This moment Armando considered the possibility it wasn't a joke or something like it. That James' smile was the same one he had in his memory, a clean and cheerful smile which Armando missed. The green eyes staring at him like it were an eagle which couldn't look away, everything seemed to his friend, everything in a girl and sweet way like a child.
Was the Armando's mind doing this comparison, or that pretty girl would be, his friend James who he hasn't seen for fourteen years ago? Looking at the girl's gestures he remembered of that photo that Melanie gave him before he came back to Brazil, and if it was truth that the girl was James...
Yeah, everything now was making sense. If that photo that Melanie gave to him, was James, hoe the photo of James' burned face, would be closer to the date of his burning? Maybe, James hadn't had that burn in his face, but how did James lied to the police? More questions showed in his mind.
Armando wouldn't know anything before to listen to the girl or to James, had to say about the fourteen years they didn't see each other.
– Are you ready for what I'm going to tell you?
– Yeah, it's all I want to hear this moment – lied him when he thought to the questions.
– Right, please, make questions just before I finish.
– All right.
– First of all I must say that it wasn't easy to be there alone and you know the reason or, the reasons. I want you know that only many years after I understood that the it wasn't your chose to go away, but I also understood that it wasn't your parent's guilty for you didn't send me news. It was bad times after you went away from Three Forks.
CHAPTER 18
– Mom got sick very fast and knew I would lost more another person– the girl was telling the history looking at Armando, it seemed that she was analyzing him. – God wasn't fair with me that time. Before mom died, she told me to be who I am inside, even if people didn't accept the way I am or that I suffered. Nobody understood me after her death. I thought that it was my fault or because I'm this way. You should listen to many things about my life in Three Forks, but nobody told the truth...
...I didn't kill anybody to be here today, they blamed me for that motorcyclists' death because they were in the railroad vehicle I used to stay. I used drugs everyday an all the time in that sucker fucking railroad vehicle. Do you remember Takaso? He was my boyfriend, yeah, he looked for me to satisfice him sexually then he satisficed me with drugs which his family sold. When I said that I didn't want to live that way anymore, he didn't like, he threatened to kill me and I promised I would tell to everybody about us.
When she saw that her drink ends, the pretty girl asked more one cup an this time Armando, decided to ask something to drink too while he was listening at everything without say a word.
– That day, we were having fun in a party, he and sucker man showed in the motorcycle shooting at everybody were there. I met him in the same day, to end that history. He knew that I would be in the railroad vehicle, but he didn't know I told everything to his family. His brother stayed with me there to be sure of my history, many dealers were waiting for him and he got that the same sucker guy who was with him in that motorcycle. His talk with his brother was fast, she shot at Mark Takaso without listened at his own brother.
...After it many dealers started to show and they were afraid of Mark, then the Takaso's family, thought it was better to leave Three Forks, before others dealers showed and it was in this time that I knew the new Three Forks police chief, he had some relatives and friends here in Brazil and he decided to help me after some intimate nights that we had. With his Brazilian friends, he helps to protect me, nobody knew where Takaso was and he thought that they could come look for me. It was through his contacts I found where you and everything you have done were. I always was close to you Armando, but I couldn't get closer and say what I was doing.
...When I decided to have my own life and don't ask for help to John anymore, I decided to came back to Three Forks, but before it I had to get married with someone , because if I came back to Brazil, everything would be easier if I had a relative...
CHAPTER 19
Armando felt in his heart the possibilities
for something happens in someone's life who didn't have anybody to share the life.
- If the surgeries got wrong. – She continued after letting the silence complete the phrase. – When I left Brazil, I went to Vaimea, I have had some contacts there and I got married with Melanie, she knew I wasn't a “man” and the money she got, made her accepted the idea.
– She sent you a message – said Armando noticing that he didn't talk during all the time.
– Fuck it that addicted – asked the lady drinking more Vodka. –Let me continue... When I got married with Melanie, I knew Doctor Dan, he is the best surgeon in Brazil and maybe in the world. I knew him in a nightclub in Vaimea; he understood very fast what I wanted and accepted to make the surgeries but I should came to live in Brazil. He had been the father I have never had since that. To summarize Armando, I want you know that I'm not James Fel anymore, neither in body, soul or documents. Now I'm who I always wanted to be.... This is me.
– And what's your name?
– I registered me like Taieny Levinsky – said her smiling.
– Taieny Levinsky – Armando repeated to himself.
– Now answer me Armando. Why did you come look for me even after everything have you already know and everything have you already done? Why after fourteen years you still remember a childhood's friend?
Armando knew that it was the right time to say the truth, everything he thought and everything he felt, but the “and if” didn't let him do it again.
– I'm not sure – he lied.
– I say for you Armando. Do you still remember your first kiss? – She asked staring at him in the same way she did fourteen years ago.
– Yeah....
Armando stopped to think in the answer, but his mind was busy with the new information, then everything made sense, the reason his mom didn't talk anything about his friend was a signal of she had already saw James as a woman, and Andy that promised to his friend that wouldn't tell anything about what he would do, it could be about the surgery which James became a woman. Everybody knew that James wasn't himself anymore and he became in that pretty woman in front of him asking if he remembered his first kiss...
EPILOGUE
It was just in that moment Armando noticed was happening, it was just in that moment Armando could see in his friend's eyes that he had never been James Fel, his eyes showed that James always was Taieny and Armando had fighter for years to understand what moved this feeling about his friend, Armando felt that James was a girl in a boy's body.
– Then, do you know why did come to look for me? – She asked again, now with her hand on Armando's arm.
– Our first kiss... – he answered losing his breath.
– Yeah Armando, it was there I found who I really was, and it was there we find together what its love.
When he heard the word Love, his thought got way for a long seconds and his actions did the same, getting closer to the chair that Taieny was; he put his hand in the lady's neck and staring at her sincere eyes one more time, he came back to fourteen years and kissed her like it was the first time, like in fourteen years ago, where the sun was shining brightly in their faces, where flowers and the green made that place unreal. Kissed her like he wanted to kiss during the fourteen years they were far from the Three Forks railroads vehicles.
The end.
INTERVIEW
The author tells how he created this book:
1 – Why, “No Trace”?
— As a matter of fact the book had this name, a long time after its publication; in the beginning it was called only "14", only the number.
2 – Why did you change the name?
— 14 was an empty name and it didn't show the book's message. It was like a book about gambling, or something like it.
3 – How did you have the idea to write this book?
— In the matter of fact, I didn't have the idea to write “this” book. No Trace would be a short Police Thriller story. In the beginning I wrote some strong and full of actions, but I have never concluded the chapters, I erased it and started everything again, it was when James appeared and changed everything.
4 – James appeared only after many wrote chapters?
— Oh yeah, as I said, I didn't have the intention to write the No Trace, then everything I wrote was about power, crime, revenge, police. But the original part that I wanted always was to talk about a very strong friendship, that only made sense if the two parts get together, and it was because of it that James stepped in.
5 – So Armando wasn't the sweet guy who got “free” in time to look for his friend? Was he a “bad guy”?
— Well, this book is full of surprises more than my other book “O Vírus Mortal”, in fact, Armando wasn't this Armando, even in the name. He came as substitute character in the middle of the story because I noticed that the book wouldn't be the way I wanted to write. The O first character was Ramon Montez, a beautiful Latin, well structured, well-dressed, intelligent, philanderer and sure, very dangerous. I asked to myself how everything had changed the rhythm, the place, style and so on...
6 – Had James acted with Ramon Montez?
— Yeah, and very well, as I said, the idea was a police thriller, and James was Ramon's best friend, in the last version, the goal was the same, James' best friend in his childhood, went to looking for him after fourteen years, the difference was that in the beginning, Ramon looked for James to ask forgiveness to him because of he did with his friend before to become powerful in his job.
7 – When the story changed the way, what did you do with the text you wrote?
— It may not seem, but if you read the story “Sequestro do Medo”, you will know what exactly the idea of No Trace was. And everything was ready, and I separated what I used in “Sequestro do Medo” and I erased many chapters e wrote many things, including the Ramon's disappearance and the Armando's arrival, because of the differences, I was forced to rewrite the chapters that James, was really the Armando's best friend and not a Ramon Montez's one.
8 – How much time did you get to write this drama? And why is it a short book?
— I took just one month since the beginning with Ramon, until the "The End" in the text. The reason for the book is short is just a signal that I didn't want it. It didn't have horror, it didn't have enough action, then I decided to end it fast and start another one with my ideas and I really started another one just before it.
9 – You always say that it isn't his favorite book; do you say it because of the characters unrolls?
—No way, I don't have these kinds of prejudice, I just didn't want to extend a story about something I didn't know if will be accepted, even today, my reader rejects the end of this story (thankfully because they are few).
10 – You said that you wrote another book after No Trace, what is the title? And Ramon is in this book?
— Yeah, I believe that in the same week I finished No Trace, I started another title, stronger and it's for adults. In this book which the temporary title was “Projeto Magnólia - +18”, started with a famous player death, but he was killed in a prostitutes room, so everything starts when the last person was with the victim it's took to the police station give evidences. Magnólia, she was called this way when she was working as a prostitute, she has to do everything to prove she is innocent, even she was saying to the investigators she was with the player just some hours before his death and that she had gotten away after he used drugs, she is getting along with corrupts men who just want to shut up the media and arrested her as a murder of the star. And yeah, Ramon it's in this book, but I needed to get rid of him, he started this book as being the player who was killed around the prostitutes.
11 – This book seems to be the opposite of No Trace, have you already released this book? The title will be the same?
— It's the opposite just because it doesn't have a pure friendship and shows the reality about the prostitutes and the media world, but unfortunately I couldn't finish it. Even with 80% completed, m
any things happened in my life and the “Projeto Magnólia” projected is in a burned computer's HD But who knows I can recover it and finish this project revealing who killed the famous Ramon.
12 – When you released the No Trace in a independent form, with the title 14 yet, did your readers accept it?
— On the contrary, explicitly speaking, it was a failure. The synopsis let everybody interested to know about what was that cover red book with mild stripes and the beautiful number 14 in the middle of it, but telling about sales.... I didn't remember any sale of this book in the period it had this title.
13 – Then, was it the reason for you changed the cover and the title? Did it help on sales?
— Honestly speaking, I liked the 14 cover as much as the book. I had to change something, and as I didn't like the book so much, so at least it had have a decent cover and then I took the chance to change the title and the cover in its second edition to be something more acceptable and worthy to achieve my goal. It's funny, because in the matter of fact it hasn't changed anything on sales; it took a long time until people look for it and buy it.
14 – The cover's image was choose thoroughly or did you really want to express the book's story both the title as the cover?
— It was almost it, I look for something was pleasant for me in a sentimental way (since I didn't like my own book), then I created that cover but I only noticed in the end of my job, that it was perfect for the whole story.
15 – Nowadays this book called attention of all kinds of readers; do you associate it with something special?
— I published my own books on the internet since 2009, these were 4 long years of difficulties until I learn everything I known, alone and sometimes with unknown people I knew through the internet. Only last year, in 2012, I found the right way to edit my books, to create my covers and the right place to publish them. This year, 2013, I surrendered to the e-books world and each new day, I see more and more readers buying my books and incredibly, I didn't work in the No Trace like an e-book and it is one of the most book the electronic book's readers are looking for.
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