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Отрывок из рассказа “Amelia”

I’d never known some things until I met her, Amelia.

There was a big starry night my little moonlit bedroom was drown in and I felt Amelia’s cool fingers on my skin. The night was hot and the touch was giving me a lot of fever.

She held me and I felt her breast with mine. There were only her thin shirt and a lace of my nightdress between our nipples.

Amelia stroked my cheek and then she said:

“ I have a husband”.

“I know”, — I answered.

“Just reminding…”

“ Well, it wasn’t me who climbed in the window to wake me up with a kiss is a middle og the night! And you know, you could just knock the door and not do all these complicated things”.

She laughed.

“ But don’t you find it romantic?”

Oh.

It’s not the beginning of the story, it’s definitely not.

When we first met she told me:

”Sometimes I feel too anxious and I need to look at my teeth just to calm down a little…”

It was charming. I’d never heard such an explanation of asking a stranger for a mirror.

I said:

“ Well, maybe the one of three days in all my life when I have a mirror in my bag. Lucky you are!”

“Thank you so much! By the way, I am Amelia, and… oh, this is my husband Mark!”

She pointed at handsome guy came to her.

I didn’t want to do this but it seemed to be bigger than me so I said with that unique intonation:

-“Oh, hi, Mark!”

He laughed.

“ Hi…”

“Ambrosia”.

“ Wow. Hi, Ambrosia”.

I don’t know how and why they happened to me.

They both were too beautiful. I just couldn’t stand it.

She was a little blonde with big incredible eyes – left of light blue and right of black. I know the word, heterochromia. Amelia looked like a doll – pretty tiny nose, charming mouth, slim waist. I knew she is the one I should envy but I couldn’t. She was a pure art, I liked to contemplate.

He was tall black-haired grey-eyed man. He had an amazing face, a great combination of hard and soft lines, expressive eyebrows.

I was looking at these people and they were looking at me.

This is all Amelia. It seems she just asked me for a mirror cause it could reduce her worries. But in fact she chose me.

I told Jamie this story. He was concerned of it somehow.

He even said:

“But why she needed you and your mirror? What kind of reflection do you have in it?”

Oh, but it’s not the beginning, it’s definitely not.

We were sitting on a grass in a park. Mark were writing his everyday notes and Amelia was singing something in a low voice. Then she turned to me.

“May I call you Amie, sis?” – she asked.

I’d got confused for a moment.

“ Well, yeah… sounds pretty. Have you ever been called like this?”

“ No, I haven’t. Everybody always calls me Amelia so I got used to this. And I’m happy you’re ready to be Amie! C’est tres bien!”

I raised my eyebrow.

“Oh, excuzes-moi, you’re a French girl! Well, I draw a little, are you interested?”

Mark laughed.

“Mille pardons, Amie, sis, — he said imitating Amelia, — bur this joke is already mine!”

“ Come on! We can share it”.

“ Can we? – he smiled. – I think these words made her love me.”

Amelia shifted her gaze from me to Mark.

“Yes, you can”.

This is just ridiculous. They were my favorite names for dolls – Amely, Emily, Amelia…

When I was six I had this gorgeous toy lady with blond curls and blue eyes. Her name was Amelia, of course. One day I was bored as hell so the great idea came into my mind: this Amelia girl is too rational, she needs a little fire. I took a marker and painted her right eye black. I was satisfied with this decision then and I agree with my younger self today.

I feel it. Blue-eyed Amelia writes poetry, knows four languages and graduates summa cum laude. Black-eyed Amelia rides a motorcycle, screams and shouts in a rock concerts and drinks rum with a half-known weird philosopher too far away from home to be found.

And this one girl can’t exist without one another.

I accepted coincidences fulfilling my life. I can’t resist them. But the longer I think about my double-faced doll and my beautiful real Amelia the stronger it takes me…

Oh but it’s not the  beginning, it’s definitely not…

When I first came into her place she showed me a little pretty painted wooden box.

“ My treasure!”

“You mean you made a grand voyage for this and got it through fight with a pirates?”

“ I almost did, —  Amelia laughed, — it’s Mark’s mommy’s thing. She wasn’t ready to gift it to me so I took the decision without her. I just need it, you know. It matches perfectly to my…little things”.

It was so simple, so sincere… baby-like.

“ But was it a good do? – I asked cautiously”.

She shrugged her shoulders.

“We never know what is good…”

“Oh, don’t we?”

I was surprised.

It seems too obvious parents talk to their children of good and bad. I wouldn’t even tell this aloud.

And then Amelia surprised me one more time:

“You know, Amie, sis, when you look like a good woman you can be as bad as possible”.

She took a pause and then laughed lightly and merrily.

And I answered though I wasn’t going to:

“You don’t look like a good woman but like a perfect one”.

I felt this tension between us. It was like a tight rope becoming shorter and shorter every time we had seen each other. Maybe it was not a rope but a sparkling electric wire a one handshake length when we first met —  and a shirt and a nightdress thickness length that weird night she came into my bedroom.

Sometimes I played chess with Mark. I’m not such a good player but somehow he liked these games.

Talking to him was a pleasure for me and he enjoyed my company too.

I doubt Mark didn’t see Amelia’s attitude towards me. Once he told me:

“I understand you, Amelia can charm anybody. But I really advise to stay away from her”.

I raised my eyebrows.

“Are you jealous?”

He thought a little and then looked into my eyes.

“Well, you can name it like that”.

I’d never asked if he was jealous of Amelia or…

But it’s not the beginning, it’s definitely…

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