She herself went without knowing where to along an almost unfamiliar foreign city. Here all her scarecrow - unfamiliar faces, the unusual noisy sounds of transport, the unusual pace of the millionth regional center. At first glance, the usual provincial ...

Somewhere far away she had a family - a husband and daughter, an unloved but familiar and terribly responsible work with something already. There, at work, there was honor and respect, the envious glances of acquaintances and the agreeable postures of subordinates. She was so used to this: that she had no idea of ​​another life. Once the beloved spouse already thoroughly fed up, but for more than a decade of impeccable life together, something meant something. A daughter was growing up - she was already dressing in fashion and becoming an object of more and more attention of the guys. Here are some other years, she thought, and the daughter will marry (now they leave early), and then, you see, and the grandchildren will go. You go along with your grandchildren — by itself retired — and then there’s the end of life ... But now she’s only 31. As a current, a terrible thought stung.

After all, every year the life of her daughter, her Ksanochka, she is getting closer to the grave. She remembered the full to the brim of pain in childbirth in the district hospital. The doctors even then did something wrong or did it wrong, but after that the kidneys hurt terribly, you just have to drink something wrong. And they did not advise giving birth anymore - you will not stand it, the mustached handsome doctor once said a long time ago, smelling onion with potatoes and aromatic Bessarabian wine.

If it were not for this trip to the regional center, if it were not for these elections, as a natural disaster advancing on the country every five years, nothing would have happened in its monotonous life in the next many years ...

She could still go to study, make a career, rise even higher up the career ladder, become a mayor or chairman of the administration - but she was sorry to waste time and energy on studies that had once been terribly disgusted. Yes, and these forces, by and large, was no longer there. Whether the family sucked everything out, or the work, or they together with each other.

The seaside metropolis was striking in its volumes - it seemed that it stretched along the sea in an endless canvas - the same as in its native district center, but this unexpectedly untidy and dirty. The sea here was clearly sick - she didn’t even allow herself to bathe.

She was summoned to refresher courses completely unexpectedly. As a matter of fact, these were not even specialty courses, but an important stage in the training of the electoral structures of the current President.

She would have been happy and would not have dealt with the elections, but the categorical instructions of the administration’s head, the favorite of many in this southern capital, and the hater too many and not only here, but also her immediate superior threw her into the whirlpool of election events. Of course, it became tangibly better materially. Now whatever you ask - on a silver platter. But a lot of additional responsibilities and problems appeared at once. She struggled to rake all the time piled up debris. But every day there were new ones and it seemed that they would never have the end of the world. She made sure that such work should be done only by professionals and, preferably, by men.

When I went to the courses I really hoped that something important would be explained to her, and everything would clear up on its own. But after the courses it became even more incomprehensible.

Courses, unfortunately, turned out to be some kind of vague. Whether the teachers in the capital were afraid to share the secrets of their high art, or they themselves were just as ignorant as the students.

Today, she felt especially tired. Fatigue rolled over like a rock, compressing the chest, not giving a sigh. It seemed that the air thickened so much that it was no longer able to pass it through the crowd ...

- Girl, you feel bad? Natasha, is that you? - she heard a firm and at the same time affectionate male voice.

She sat on a bench, leaning against a man with a tired, exhausted body. A young man was holding her tightly in his hands and looked at her eyes carefully, a little wary. His face seemed familiar to Natasha ... Yes, she saw those eyes on the courses. It was good for him, she thought then, she lives in the regional center, the authorities are close by - they will always help and instruct ...

He also looked at her with such eyes, as if in front of him was not a modest regional official by regional standards, but a goddess who had descended from heaven.

She suddenly felt like a girl again. Little inexperienced virgin of fifteen years. She wanted to dance, and if he felt her desire and brought Natasha to the dance floor in the seaside park and they danced until midnight. She wanted to sing at the top of her voice the beautiful melodies of her youth and they walked along a dark night park along the sea and sang loudly in two voices. For the first time in many years, she felt really happy.

He seemed to her quite extraordinary. He seemed to her the only one in the whole world. She was always just sure that there is no one like him. It seemed to her that she was ready for all eternity to look into his bewitching eyes, to listen to his gentle magic words. She was so good for the first time in her life. It seemed to Natasha that she had never heard such words before and would never hear them again, even though the words were very ordinary, even slightly gray, because she had not heard a word about love.

Then there was a night spent in a small hotel by the sea. She never in her life has betrayed her husband. Until this night. Then it seemed to her that this was all her previous life she had changed that night ...

It has been nine months. Natasha gave birth to a daughter.

She was young again and felt the most beautiful in the world. She was unusually happy. And she didn’t care at all on which island in the Pacific Ocean the ship with her husband was arrested, and who won the damn election ... Life was just beginning and that was enough for happiness!