THE CRYSTAL CUP - chapter fourteen

THE CRYSTAL CUP

chapter fourteen

While the bus was moving, Roseli tried to balance inside it. It was pretty full, as usual for the time of day. She would have to take one more bus, after arriving at the end of this one. But since she was picking up the other one at the terminal, the chances of getting a seat were good. Anyway, she wasn't worried about that at the moment. In fact, she couldn't stop thinking about the conversation she'd had with Ricardo. How could he quarrel with his wife? All right, it would be nice if he ended his relationship with Cecilia and moved in with her, but for nothing in the world would she want the two of them to come to blows. Even because, if he was fighting with his current wife, what would prevent him, if there was any disagreement between the two, from resorting to violence against her? It wasn't a very pleasant idea… well, one thing she was sure of… if that situation ever came to that, it would be their two biggest fights in their life… the first and the last. Yes, because if there was one thing she wouldn't accept, it would be aggression from her lover. Surely, she would do the same thing as Cecilia…but… was he telling the truth about what happened? And why did it take so long to report her missing to the authorities? It wasn't totally unreasonable to suspect her version of the girl's disappearance...

She was so deep in her thoughts that she didn't even realize that she had already reached the end of the path. She quickly got off and headed for the platform where she would board the next bus. She sighed in relief… the car was almost empty, with several empty seats. She chose one close to the door, because she knew that during the journey it would also be crowded, and if it wasn't in a good place, she would have problems when it came to getting off. She watched the landscape through the window, enchanted by how the world seemed to fly around her. As they exited the terminal everything was absolutely uniform. But as she moved away from the starting point, the landscape began to change. And sometimes the view was beautiful, at other times it was just plain monotonous... and so she went on, always absorbed in her thoughts. After an hour or so of travel, she arrived at her destination. She worked in an industrial laundry, as a treadmill. And although she didn't like her job all that much, the pay was reasonable. And so she had been with them for a good couple of years. From the bus stop to the company, she still had to walk a few minutes. The streets were quite busy, so she didn't worry too much about the walk. Even she liked it, because she ended up doing exercises unintentionally… she didn't need to join a gym to keep herself in shape. The iron she worked with weighed about ten pounds. So, the back and forth movement she made to iron the clothes was as if she were ironing, for example. When she worked with the dummy she was in a way in a Turkish bath, so hot that the place was…

Roseli started at the company as an assistant, in the customer's merchandise identification section. It was a relatively easy job, but one that required a lot of attention. After all, if he didn't correctly identify the items they received, the customers would surely lose their clothes, as it was simply impossible to find out who the item belonged to... in fact, it was said that the owner of the laundry, when he started the business, lost a big customer potential just for making that mistake... due to inexperience, he ended up mixing up the customers' clothes and suffered a loss that almost killed his new venture... he himself told this story to his employees, so that they would understand that no service there could be seen as not essential. Every position within the company was important for it to grow, from the caretaker at the store door to delivering parts when they were ready. So, he asked everyone to be aware of the slightest mistake that could happen... and at the end of the month, he tried to reward the best employees, those who had stood out in their work during the whole month, and it didn't matter what function they performed, what counted was his dedication...

Yes, the company valued its employees. As far as possible, he sought to pay a salary that reflected this concern on the part of the board. And that was the main reason Roseli had been with the company for so long. Her dedication to her work earned her several promotions, and her next step would be to be in charge of one of the laundry departments. And she was sure she would. She was working on it.

Well, but that day she really wasn't thinking straight. Her thoughts were far away from there, and only her body was present. She was so disconnected from real life that several times her colleagues tried to talk to her and all they got was a dead fish look back, so absorbed was she. His thoughts flew to his little Letícia, who was at the nursery at that time. She didn't like to leave the girl there, but she didn't have much choice, since she had to work to support both of them and she had lived alone for a long time... this was perhaps the main reason she wanted Ricardo to leave his wife and move in with her. . After all, it would be nice to have someone to share your life with. For all hours, and not for a few minutes stolen from someone else's life…okay, when they got into their romance she knew her boyfriend was married, he never tried to hide that fact from her. And when they started to have more intimate contact, she warned her several times to take care of her, as she would not be able to support her if she became pregnant. It ended up happening… she couldn't complain, because he registered the girl as her daughter… that's right, it was his moral obligation to register the girl, but how many don't run away from that obligation?

Almost every weekend he was off, he tried to spend time with the girl. Roseli saw in his eyes the love he had for the child. She knew that if he hadn't admitted the child in front of everyone, it was because he didn't have the courage to tell his wife the whole truth. Sometimes she even wanted to do that... she even passed in front of the boy's house, but when she saw Cecília, she lost courage. What she didn't want for herself she couldn't provide for another, she thought. And so she ended up accepting the situation, contenting herself with the time that Ricardo had for her and the child...

Why did Roseli accept this situation? As much as she tried to understand, she couldn't… okay, Richard was handsome… but he was no Apollo. She also had no possessions, which she ruled out being with him out of interest. Even because, as a bus driver, his salary wasn't that good... and his workload... although it was thanks to that that they could meet without his wife suspecting. After all, if he took a long time to go home, it was because he had to cover the time of the colleague who was absent or had to cover the line where one of the stopover cars broke down… he had plenty of excuses to justify his absences…

What bothered her was the fact that her daughter's father had acquired the habit of drinking lately. She started out slowly, one hit after work… until she got to the point where she got drunk every day. Of course, he wasn't going to her house, he was going to his…but the fact was, he was drinking too much. And she had warned him several times. But did he listen to her? Of course not... and she began to feel sorry for her love rival...

Well, she'd never dreamed the two fought as much as he'd told her. Okay, she knew things weren't going well between the two of them, but she didn't think they were so… how shall we say… on a tightrope. And, if the situation between him and Cecília was at the point where she told him, it was time for her to review with great affection her situation beside him. For if he couldn't control himself with his wife, what guarantee did he have that it would be any different with her? And she had no vocation to be anyone's "Amelia"...

Someone called her more vigorously, and brought her to the mortal world. It was Martinha, her friend. She called her to go to lunch, it was time to stop for an hour, at least. The friend asked what was going on, why had she been so quiet that morning, just because she was so talkative... Roseli stopped talking. He thought it better not to bring personal problems into the firm... even if these problems weren't his directly, of course they affected her, so it was better to keep everything to himself and wait for the next developments of the situation... He decided to talk about other things, such as the plans she had for her vacation, which would coincide with the baby's vacation at the nursery… she intended to go visit her parents, as it had been a long time since she had seen them. And so she could introduce her daughter to them. It had been a long time since she had come to the city from her parents' home. She was always a restless person, and when her parents started arguing with her for wanting to be too independent (I'm not sure what it would be like to be too independent, but...), she decided to gather her things and go far away, in search of her dreams. Of course, the beginning was difficult, she didn't know anyone and life is cruel to those who don't have someone to support them. But the cruelty of life is nothing more than testing a person to find out what steel he was forged from, and then rewarding him according to his ability... and Roseli managed, with great difficulty, to settle down and get a job... the laundry where she worked until the present day. But that didn't mean that the homesickness of her parents didn't attack her, from time to time... not just the home but the two "old men". Although they fought a lot, she liked her parents. She just didn't know how to show it, which, by the way, is most people's problem. They hide their feelings so much that they end up not knowing how to show how much they love someone, until it's too late... His parents were farmers, they worked in the fields since they were children, and they wanted their children to remain in the countryside. But Roseli had other ideas swarming in her head. Working the land of others and always staying in pindaíba? No, a thousand times no. She had dreams, she wanted to study, to be someone important in life. And there where they lived, a little town lost in the interior of São Paulo, she would never fulfill her dream, she would never rise from the status of “pawn” on the farm… the most she could achieve was to become a caretaker of a farm, if she was lucky. But that's not what she wanted for her life...

This year, if all went well, she would see her parents again. It was her plan and, if nothing went wrong, she would complete it. She would take little Leticia to meet her grandparents... because it would be difficult for Leticia to meet her father's parents. Ricardo, even giving all the attention in the world to the girl, never considered introducing her to her parents... so that they wouldn't talk about her to Cecília, who they liked very much. Yes, Roseli knew that she was an intruder in the couple's life. But… she hadn't asked for it, it all happened suddenly… as if it was a bad joke. It just happened... and now she didn't know how to break that bond that, if at some moments it was wonderful, at others it was suffocating in the extreme. Sometimes she wanted to just finish everything and move on to another, restart her life. But things weren't that simple. She was in love with Ricardo and, as much as she wanted to, she couldn't imagine her life without him... and now... what would happen? She didn't know, but she was sure that everything would change, from now on...