When Robert noticed Amalia entering the sun-bathed restaurant, he suddenly became aware that he was hoping she would be the woman he was supposed to meet. He was expecting a girl, but something about her made you think “woman”, in spite of the youthful features of her face. And he realised exactly what it was – she looked cold, on the torrid summer day, she looked cold. The clinging noise of her heals on the wooden floor became louder as she was heading towards his table and he felt he had to find a way to keep her close, at least until he could decipher whatever accounted for that cold layer and what was hidden by the elegant, well-organized, attractive look. The long legs, the slim figure, the poised posture and the beautiful face were an additional incitement, if any such thing was still necessary, and as he stood up to offer her a chair when she was only centimetres away from the table, he could sense her perfume and her cold, silky hand shaking his after the quick, polite introduction. “Expensive” was what came to his mind, and before he had any chance to decipher the implications of that thought, she was speaking to him about the reason why she decided to meet him; but the words he was more focused on were her very first ones.
“Hello, I’m Amalia. I assume our mutual friend already told you a few things about me and my educational background.”
But he was no longer interested in her educational background or in the fact that he had set that meeting to find a girl who would be willing to be his assistant for a few hours a week, for the rest of the summer. Yes, actually, he did want to know things about her background, he thought, but he wanted to know everything about what made her tick. His old, perverted curiosity took over and he realised he wanted to break her down into little bits of information and figure out whether there was indeed something different about her or she was just one of the many who managed to put on a nicely carved facade. She was now talking about her BA and the thesis she was preparing and she suddenly became full of life, so he felt contagiously alive too, like he was back in time, back in his student days, in that far away, quaint university town, where – as it turned out – they had both spent years of their lives, not knowing of each other’s existence, probably not even at the same time. The urge to ask her when exactly she lived there was immediately repressed though, he had no intention of feeling old again, he would hold on to that surge of youth for as long as possible.
If you want to read Parallel Lives, click on any of the following links:
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/396169
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/parallel-lives-ana-linden/1118140770?ean=2940045563567
https://store.kobobooks.com/en-us/ebook/parallel-lives-7
https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=node%3D154606011&field-keywords=ana+linden
…. and iBooks, of course. 🙂
Ana Linden 