for long seconds she warmed her palms on a cooling plastic cup, then began to drink tea in small sips, sometimes looking at me. The bun was sticking out of her pocket, like I had before - the apparent cold overpowered the hunger hidden before. I looked away, then turned away to the side of the road and began to look hard for a minibus.

To my luck, she arrived quickly enough - the girl just had time to finish her tea and throw a glass in the urn on the opposite side of the road. As usual on Fridays, she was packed to capacity - today the students went home for the weekend - many girls were sitting on the lap of fellow villagers, having fun talking and exchanging jokes; those who did not get the seats, stood in two rows in a narrow aisle, sticking hard on the handrails. After a loud driver shout “Go through the cabin, everybody needs to go!” I heard a stifled chuckle - obviously as a reaction to the word “go through” - then someone grunted, someone moved, someone screamed, someone's voice yelled "Be careful! ..." - in general, the girl and I got into the salon. The bus has started. I sighed with relief.

In the first village, many came out, it became a little freer, thanks to which the girl even got a place in the first row. I stood at the entrance - I had to go out at the next stop. And again, several times, until I came out, I caught her eyes on me. What was and was there something in them? - I do not know: we were driving in the cabin, where the only source of light was the dashboard of the driver mysteriously flickering with the lights of a “flying saucer”. Besides, it could seem to me ...

Right from the door, I once again plunged into the hospitable, wide-open emptiness of a house that had cooled slightly in a day. It was as quiet as in a temple, and any excess movement carried with it a truly sacrilegious echo. However, I have become accustomed to this silence for a month, and in the end, we have established almost neighborly relations with her, like our roommates in a dormitory.

Without taking off my clothes and just throwing off my jacket, I went to the kitchen and turned on the electric kettle, then sat down at the table and, taking the purchased hot dogs out of the bag, laid them on the table and looked at them thoughtfully. Shadow flashed regret that you can not separate them ... but at least with that thin one from a stop. "I wonder how she is there?" Did you normally get there? ... Yes, of course it’s normal that with her in a minibus, something will turn out! ”- I dismissed my own strange thoughts and, having turned off the kettle that was already boiling, began to prepare myself a bachelor dinner.

***

The next day I plunged into current problems, completely forgetting about my evening adventure. As a matter of fact, it didn’t seem to me to be so worth of attention: well, think, an unfamiliar girl watered tea ... what is there about such and such? Of course, I do not run around the city every day, looking for such frozen babies to warm them with tea, and this is not included in my list of hobbies, but I too often remember this ... but there was nothing to remember. Especially since I had to spend this weekend with maximum benefit: buy food for a week, cook myself a meal for a few days so as not to have a dry meal, take firewood (my house was not gasified) - they promised a cold snap and even snow ... Everything These domestic issues seemed to me much more significant and important than my random don-quixote.

However, apparently, this un-hippie Coelho was in some way right about his “alchemical” signs. At least he remembered me again about three weeks later, when at the same stop I again ran into the same girl. Strictly speaking, this was not some kind of supernatural coincidence: one does not have to be a rocket scientist to predict the greater likelihood of our next meeting on the basis of the fact that her mother lives eight kilometers from my village.But hardly anyone would have imagined that when she saw me, she would joyfully and at the same time smile a little embarrassed and say hello. After all, she didn’t have to do it at all, for that matter ...

But it happened. In me, the upbringing instilled as a child has not yet been completely lost in childhood, so in response to a smile, I also smiled a little and said: “Hi.” Until now, it is not clear to me why I turned to her again on “you”: “poking” to unfamiliar girls was absolutely not in my style. Maybe it was the fact that after the first such appeal, it would even be funny to switch back to “you” ...

- How did you get then? - I asked more for the sake of decency. - Do not get sick?

“No, everything was fine,” she glittered merrily with a blue look, which made her, in combination with a somewhat sly smile, simply irresistible.

This time I was able to look at it better, and I clearly liked what I saw. What I took for being thin actually turned out to be slim, which, combined with the short stature, made the girl look like a nice graceful statuette that brides photographers like to take in wedding photos when they are placed in the palm of the groom. Involuntarily I remembered the usual expression about a small dog, to old age, remaining a puppy. She was already dressed for the weather (snow still fell): fluffy boots with thick soles, a warm jacket, trimmed with fur, a flirty hat with a pompon ... The girl looked like a warm, warm little holiday. I could not resist and said:

- In, now dressed normally. Not that then ...

The girl waved a hand in a mitten embroidered with beads:

“I haven't been to my mother for two weeks.” To go to study expensively. And here on the spot ...

- And who do you live here? - I involuntarily asked. In a strange way, I began to attract the identity of this girl.

“At the father,” she replied. - My divorced. Mom in the village with a new husband. And I am there, there ... And I can’t decide on things in any way. Yes, I rarely come to her.

- Why? Any problems?

- Well, what ... - the girl shrugged her shoulders and was silent. I tried to say something several times, but I couldn’t find the words, or thought that I could speak to a random fellow traveler, but what I couldn’t ... I never found out because our minibus arrived, and in another once barely squeezing in, we went to our homes. But this time I was ready to swear that I caught her eye several times in myself, in which even something was read: either attention, or curiosity, or mischief, or all together ...

And this time, having dinner in a house that was slowly warming up from the heater, I stopped by thoughts on this girl several times. Once she even mentally stood in front of my eyes, so clearly that I had to turn on the TV so that the image dissipated. It helped: the latest news, and then the film completely weathered it from the memories. Others came up from the upper layers of the recent past ... but this was already my personal war.

***

- Rita? ... Rita, are you at home? ..

To re-ask a question when you have not been answered for the first time is a silly exercise. Especially if it happens in a not fully renovated house of three rooms arranged with the letter “P”, two of which are adjacent and go out to the third - the hall-living room - and the kitchen room “appendicitis” attached to the side of the hall. This seriously think, that you not heard. But nevertheless ...

I slowly undressed, went into the bedroom, threw my bag off my shoulder, then went to the kitchen, listening to the sound of footsteps, opened the refrigerator and studied its contents. Kharcho soup ... cooked yesterday - I knew that for sure. So she didn't cook anything today. In general, there was no need for this - I am extremely unpretentious in food and do not belong to the men who serve something fresh every day. Besides, we do not earn it this way, and the time is not so ... I took out a saucepan, then a bowl, poured out some of the riflemen and, putting on slow gas, sat down at the table facing the gas stove.

But still wondering, where is she? And what did you do all day if not home? ..

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