Anna giggled and, adjusting her make-up once again, hurried to the exit.
"Ready!" she reported to her friend, making a comic soldier's gesture.
Lara beamed and caught her by the arm. "I have so much to tell you!" she exclaimed but the club music practically muffled her voice.
Girls rushed to the dance hall, asking each other every phrase on the move and endlessly exchanging friendly jokes.
It was a magnificent night. Dances till the morning. A flow of constantly changing new acquaintances. Unintelligible meaningless dialogues. Anna loved those nights when you could forget about studying, endless exams, work... Mark...
Anna shook her head as if trying to shake off the surging memories but it did not help much.
"One more dance?" she called out to her friend.
"What?" all attention of Lara was occupied by the tall blonde lad, already for a couple of hours assuring of loving her, under his assumption, forever.
"I will dance again!" Anna shouted.
"Ah! Good! I'll be right here!"
"OK!" Anna hurried to the dance floor which was now for her a magic circle where among the avant-garde sounds of contemporary electronic music you could forget how bad you feel.
It was only one of a huge number of revelry nights which became an obligatory part of a new rhythm of life of the girl, a peculiar method of suppression of obsessive depressive states through dances and parties - a method popular among youth, effective and actual. Restoration through degradation. A peculiar and universal solution all over the world.
You cannot forget but you can ignore, it won't hurt you less just as won't hurt you more.
Chapter 8
Pip pip pip pip! the alarm clock would just not appease.
"Oh, no, not that, please!" Anna beseeched.
Her head was pounding, and though she never drank, the loud music, dancing, and impressions did not make her different from the most inveterate drunks in the morning. It was a sober hangover.
Anna tossed the phone on the floor and it shattered into pieces.
"I warned you." she mumbled, looking towards the crashed parts of the device but forced herself to get out of bed, feeling all charm of terrible morning mood and the forthcoming study and work after it. The day promised to be intolerably long.
Anna sighed and began to dress lazily. She collected the phone in parts, confident that the device would still work fine and wandered into the kitchen. The screen lit up and one by one the notifications of missed calls and messages flooded the screen.
Chapter 9
Work took up all of Anna's time, she focused on career and only money was her only motivation for any effort. All dreams of quiet family life, a bunch of kids and a caring husband scattered like a fog, giving way to travel plans and purchasing material goods.
For herself, she decided that it would be if not better but definitely easier. She considered such a way of living an impenetrable shield and the chances to end up being hurt were close to zero.
She stopped filling her head with novels and focused on making money, not caring how much she had to earn - the process itself gave her a strange pleasure. There was something about it that gave confidence in the future, friends and family could always ask her for a financial support (often just using her, which still was unimportant), self-esteem from the munificent wages rose beyond the heavens but Anna did not tell anyone about it. She just kept on toiling hard and her success was proportionate to efforts.
She used to come back home late at night and instead of rest, went to meet friends, sometimes until the morning. This was not a very correct distribution of time allocated to sleep but Anna was sure that if she'd give vent to her inner introvert, she would spend all the evenings at home locked up, losing the last skills of socialization.
She always felt comfortable alone and people complaining about the lack of a soul mate caused her only irritation. She did not consider herself neither the "second half" of someone anymore nor needed the special "best" friends, understanding that one does not live on the island and people must communicate with each other by some unspoken rules and play all sorts of collective games like "boss-subordinate", "you and I are friends", "polite neighbors in the hood", "this is me, and this is me in social networks".
Deep down, she wanted to fall in love. To fall in love so that all these stupid role-playings would make sense, that she was someone's if not second half but the love of life at least. That there was this man for whose sake all this worthless routine of life would make sense. But she always swept those thoughts away, trying to destroy them as soon as they appeared on the horizon of consciousness, until one day...
Chapter 10
"My God, who is he??" Anna couldn't tear herself away from the picture of the guy in the news feed on her friend's PC.
"Who? Ah, that's Randall. My buddy." replied Puck without the slightest interest. "He just left. Lives in Italy."
"Left!" Anna could not camouflage her dismay. "He was here for a long time?"
"Yep, a few months. He is an excellent guy - very religious, but without fanaticism, kind and always ready to come to the rescue. He was everyone's favorite."
"No wonder ..." the girl sighed.
For many years she did not meet anyone whose appearance could capture her that much. In the photos that Anna scrolled rapidly, Randall looked unreal - he was naturally striking, tall, tanned and even in the pictures surrounded by ladies. His broad smile betrayed great charisma and openness of character.
God, he was handsome. It was impossible to describe even for one's own mind. Anna could not believe that all this time they talked with the same people but at different times, walked the same streets, but never met.
"What an eye-catching man!" Anna blurted out, not keeping her overwhelming admiration.
Puck chuckled.
"I knew you'd say that!" he shook her shoulder. "Add him as a friend, you won't regret it. Maybe one day he will come again and you'd meet him, he travels often, this is his passion."
Anna reddened.
"Balderdash." she tried to parry but added, "I'll think about it."
Puck laughed again, he knew that his friend was already mentally writing Randall millions of messages.
Chapter 11
To write or not to write—that is the question.
Anna looked thoughtlessly at the monitor of her laptop, not daring to send a request to add to friends.
"Randall Parleo, Randall Parleo." she muttered. "Silly me. Randall Parleo. Randall Parleo."
Click.
A request was sent.
"Why did I do that?" the girl squeaked.
It was not just a request, as she later believed, but in the additional note she wrote the lamest intro about who she was and what she wanted from him.
"Randall, you're so adorable I already love you and want a billion children from you." she tried to modestly translate into the language of polite strangers talk as "Hi Randall, my name is Anna, I'm a friend of Puck and accidentally saw your profile, Puck told so many amazing things about you, I just consider it an honor to get to know you."
Anna gulped because it wasn't a minute later, the request was approved and an introductory "Hello" with an emoji from Randall Parleo popped up.
She felt sick. Not from the fact that he responded so quickly and added her but from how stupid and naïve she began to feel from the moment she saw his photo in the social network.
She knew this mind-numbing feeling of infatuation based on a physical attraction and it absolutely did not please her. Prudent, usually calm Anna reread the word "Hello" for the tenth time, believing that this short message connected her with almost the love of all her life.
Well.
"Hi! I am Anna!" she typed again.
With the love of all her life?...
Chapter 12
Randall was surprised by this new acquaintance but interest in Anna immediately took over. They began to correspond endlessly on countless topics and both really
enjoyed the chatting.
He was even more charming than in the pictures. Polite messages, pertinent jokes, funny short videos he sent trying to show Milan to a girl–it was all so adorable and yet profound that Anna just couldn’t believe that such an interesting, unique guy lived on the same planet as her.
Every day she grew sadder that they were far apart and could not get to know each other in real life but Randall took it more optimistic, saying that either he would one day fly to her or she would fly to see Italy.
Anna’s changed. Her usual cold mood, set only for work, dissipated and it was very difficult to concentrate on this very work. The Italian occupied all her thoughts, and she checked her phone every few minutes, ignoring the fact that the notifications vibrated in case of messages.
Anna stretched out on the bed and got up to make some coffee. The phone rang. She answered mechanically, barely taking a breath:
“Randall?”
“Em... Hi, Anna.”
The girl coughed.
“Mark! Hi, Mark. I didn’t expect a call from you.”
“That I noticed.” the velvet voice in a tube laughed. “Randall, huh?”
“The acquaintance.” Anna hurried to cover up. “Nonsense, nothing serious. What’re you up to? It’s been a while. About three months, to be exact. Three months and f...”
“Three months and four days, right.” Mark giggled.
“Are you.. counting?”
“Certainly. I miss you, Anna.”
There was an awkward pause. Anna took control of the situation.
“How is the capital? How’s work?”
The second line rang. It was Randall. The girl shivered but focused on Mark’s answer.
“Oh, everything is great! Did I mention they promoted me?”
He didn’t.
“Congrats!” Anna’s voice came out somehow fake, and she gulped.
“Thank you! Come for a visit?”
“What? A visit?” Anna choked on his words. “To you? Oh, no, I can’t. I have work.”
“Is there never a weekend? We’d spend a wonderful time. I’d show you the whole Mining Great from start to finish.”
“No, I made sure I never had a day off.” Anna felt a sudden resentment. The memory of every day she’d gone to work to keep from thinking Mark had left her came flooding back.
“This can’t be. You are a teacher. You will have an obligatory Christmas holiday. Come, Anna. I want to see you. You know nothing’s changed. I still miss you. I dream of your body, of your...”
“I already have plans for Christmas holidays.” suddenly blurted out Anna, not understanding herself what she plans to say.
“Plans?” Mark didn’t expect that answer. “What sort of plans?”
“I’m flying to Italy.”
“Italy!”
“Yes, to see a friend. See Milan.”
There was a silence that Anna did not even notice because of a swarm of her thoughts in the chorus asking What the heck was that? drowned out everything. Why would she say that? No such plans existed but a sudden desire to hurt Mark got over everything else.
“Oh..” Mark finally reacted. “Well, that’s too bad...”
Anna heard some pain in his response. Wasn’t that what she wanted? Now she was sorry about what she said.
She wanted to see Mark. She really did. But the resentment of the way they broke up just kept her from breathing, trampled on her pride every day and even after she forced herself to be friends with Mark and communicate regularly, she didn’t feel any better.
But it was different now. Only a new love could help let go of an old one. Anna remembered Randall’s perfect features the last time she saw him on video chat and suddenly she beamed. Or maybe it was not a ridiculous remark? Maybe this was her Christmas holiday plan indeed.
“Yeah. Sorry. Maybe some other time we’ll see each other.”
“Sure.” Mark’s voice was low, and he hurried to finish the conversation. “Look, I have to go, okay? Was happy to chat. We’ll text later, right?”
“Of course.” Anna answered. “Bye!”
The girl threw the phone on the bed and walked over to the PC. On the screen, the messages from Randall were flashing. “Are you busy?” he asked.
“Now, yes I am. But absolutely free on Christmas holidays and flying to you.” Anna wrote and giggled, expecting his reaction.
It followed immediately with a series of surprised texts.
“What?”
“You serious?”
“When?”
“Wow! Anna, I’m so happy!”
“Anna!”
“Hey, are you there!!!”
Anna burst out laughing and hurried to explain to him that the idea had just occurred to her, but she determined to make it a reality and all the last part of the evening they talked about how amazing she would spend time with this handsome man in sunny Italy.
Chapter 13
All the last week before the holidays Anna hated herself and was amazed at the same time. Inside her fought both common sense, literally screaming that to fly to another country for two weeks to a guy she never saw, was not right plus it was dangerous; and the conscience, adding on top that it was also somehow impudent and dishonorable.
Another two fought with them- the adventurism considering that the idea was just excellent and would bring many new experiences, and blind love, which had little in common with anything sensible. But the latter was the real argument, which was the reason for the trip.
Anna really felt a strange feeling of infatuation. This had little logic because she never met Randall in real life, but she saw him in video chats, knew his manner of speaking, his tastes and habits – in a short time of cyber-dating they talked over absolutely everything.
Every morning she woke up from a short text message "Good morning, beauty" and finished the day with "Goodnight, Anna, waiting for tomorrow's communication." She devoted all her free time to Randall and it felt like she had known him for many years.
Doubts and fears changed her mind about the upcoming trip several times a day but still every time she saw a message from Randall, she succumbed to the temptation to get to know him in real life, and her decision again became in favor of the trip.
Whatever it was, there came a day when it was necessary to hesitate for the last time, to fly or not to fly. Already with tickets bought and dozens of happy messages from Randall on her phone, Anna decided. She gathered her luggage and looked around the apartment again. Then she grabbed the documents from the table, hurried down where the taxi was already expecting.
The flight was pleasant, but the subsequent events made Anna regret that she had arrived at all.
Chapter 14
"Damn phone!" cursed the girl, accompanied by a bunch of stares. "No communication at this airport! And the battery goes... off!"
Some kind of disaster. It's been three hours since she landed. All possible friends and relatives already met all passengers taking the same flight with Anna and here she was, standing like a complete fool at the departure board, trying in vain to find Randall in the crowd.
The despair began to creep on her. What if he wouldn't meet her? What if something bad happened? Or did he just lie to her and not even considering meeting her at all? What if it was all a game?
Anna shook her head, trying to drive away from the ridiculous guesses but fatigue, indignation, and panic began to overcome all. What must she do now? To fly back? Stay in a hotel? Some taxi drivers were constantly trying to offer their service in Italian, actively gesticulating.
A few times passersby approached, having seen that she began to cry. They must have asked if she was all right but Anna could only guess as she didn't know a single word of Italian. She was just thanking them and saying it was okay.
The employee of the airport approached her and spoke in English, trying to find out what had happened and if she needed help. Anna's face lightened up, and she was ready to embrace him.
She stamme
red to explain that she was expecting a friend, but he didn't show up, that her phone was dead, that she did not know what to do and where to go, that she would be glad for any advice.
The young man listened carefully and offered to call her friend using his phone if she remembered the number.
"You're amazing!" Anna cried, wiping her tears. "Yes, I remember the number by heart."
"Dictate." the guy smiled.
Anna uttered the number rapidly and stiffened, trying to read the emotions on Vizzo's face - so was written on the worker's badge - when he began to call.
After several rings, there was a resounding answer. Anna heard Randall's voice from afar and exhaled. Vizzo spoke loudly and emotionally in Italian, probably explaining the situation, and then just shook his head for some minutes. It was impossible to keep up whether he was shaking it in approval or censure.
When they finished talking, Anna blurted out:
"What did he say??"
The airport worker shook his head again.
"Your friend is late. He will be soon, he will arrive by train. I'll take you to the platform so you don't get lost."
"Late!" Anna didn't know if it was good news or bad. The delay of a few hours did not fit in her head.
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