26

Several months had passed.

About the appearance of my late grandfather in the night I tried not to think or tell anyone. Even Sue despite her being my closest friend ever. Although, maybe I did tell her in passing; but we cared little of such things back those days, for we had different things to do, a lot more exciting.

Every weekend we partied at Alexis' or had fun riding random buses to unknown destinations - as stowaways, of course. We would get off in the middle of nowhere and either roamed the streets picking up local guys we came across, or crashed at a nightclub - for the same purpose. Our flirting was rather childish - we hung out with guys just for fun, to have a good evening, and, surprisingly, without consequences such as invitations "to a cup of coffee" and the following. I never spent Saturday nights at home - I would stay the night either at Sue's or Alexis' - or we would both crash at the place of some new 'boyfriend', not even fearing to be raped which Sue's grandmother regularly warned us about.

"Oh girls, you're going to get yourself into trouble someday" said her grandmother every time we turned up at her place past midnight.

Her prophecy got half-fulfilled eventually. The very next summer Sue got brutally molested in a ravine. After that she threw her whole life away, got addicted to drugs and alcohol. Her future was eventually driven into the ground; and so was mine.

But meanwhile, silly teenage schoolgirls as we were, we never thought of such things and we tried to live our life to the fullest. Luckily for us, our folks mostly looked the other way, and just grumbled sometimes which didn't really stop us.

One fine night we had just came to Sue's grandads' place from a nightclub when a phone rang.

"Who is it so late?" I asked in surprise.

"Sasha! You are wanted on the phone!" her grandmother called out, knocking at the door and handing Sue a cordless phone.

I don't know how but I guessed straight away WHO was calling. Sue changed her countenance at once and she ended the conversation very soon.

"Okay,  let's meet up at the metro station tomorrow. Sorry, but I can't talk to you right now. I'll explain later."

"Well?" I said peering closely into her eyes once she had hung up on him.

She got nervous.

"Let me explain... It's not exactly what you're thinking..."

"So it was Shurik, right?"

She nodded.

"How interesting... So it's all behind my back..."

"No, it's not!" she cried heatedly, "We just have a little phone talk sometimes, just like friends do."

"Why doesn't he call ME, then?"

Sue sighed a sigh.

"But he did, back then, on the New Year's eve, at my request"

Oh yes, of course he did. He did me a favor, so to say. After me begging Sue all night to ask him to call me, mentioning my severe depression and my need of his attention. I really had had a depression - if my then obsession with Shurik or, rather, his complete indifference to my person could be called so.

And he called me. At her request. I can't perfectly remember our conversation back then - there was some problem with the line, and Shurik was speaking very fast and quietly; and I was being too shy to interrupt him and keep saying "come again".

"Don't be upset... You're gonna be all good... You'll definitely meet someone special, I'm sure..."

"Will you call me again?" I blurted quite inaptly, when he had ran out of his scarce arguments and, not knowing what else to say, he fell silent.

"Will you?"

He paused.

"Why?"

"Oh well... Just..."

Shurik didn't reply. And I took his silence as a "yes".

"Or I will call you one of these days" I said.

"We'll see," he answered. "I gotta go now"

Of course, he never called me again. On the Christmas holiday I got up enough courage and called him as I had promised. But Shurik was not in the mood to talk to me.

"Let me introduce you to a more talkative guy" he suggested, and, not even waiting for me to say yes, he passed the phone to some mate of his, who was present at his place that moment.

"Who are you?" I asked as I heard a strange male voice on the line.

"I am Nikitos"

"What the heck Nikitos?"

"A cute brunette guy"

"I don't like brunettes" I muttered impolitely.

"That's too bad"

So, long story short, my conversation with Nikitos didn't last long either.

And now it turns out that while I was suffering from Shurik's emotional neglect for myself - he was hitting on Sue, my best friend!

"Are you going on a date with him tomorrow? Right?"

Sue averted her eyes.

"Well, I made a promise..."

"I'm going with you!"

Sue turned away from me.

"How on Earth do you imagine this?"

"Oh well..." I paused for a while, "Let's make it this way: you'll tell him you are going out on a date, but it will be me instead of you..."

"What next!"

"Or, no, it's better this way: you will go on a date, and I'll follow you two... I'll be watching you for a while, and then I'll show up quite unexpectedly!"

She burst out laughing.

"He'll recognize you a lot earlier, on the train!"

"I'll be watching you from the next car, wearing sunglasses lest he should not recognize me!"

"You'll look even more suspicious that way"

"Why?"

"Come on, use your brain!" she said angrily,  "Wearing sunglasses. In the subway. In winter!"

"What's wrong with it?"

"You are an idiot".

I took offense and rolled to the wall.

"Then you're not going anywhere" I muttered in the pillow.

"You can't forbid me -"

"You choose. Him or myself. If you go, you're no longer my friend".

Sue mused.

"Alright. I'll call him and cancel the date".

"Good idea" I replied coldly.