Right one at the wrong time

After the museum

That evening, when Konstrakta fell exhausted on to her bed in her room after the trip to the museum, she was able to enjoy complete silence for the first time that day. She let her head fall into her pillows and took a few deep breaths. It was strange how on the one hand she enjoyed the life as an artist and found this Eurovision song contest incredibly exciting. After all, she had applied for it voluntarily and had known what was in store for her. But on the other hand she loved to be alone and to have her peace and sometimes secretly asked herself whether she would want a life in the big spotlight in the long run. And if she had known what the ESC would really entail, she might have reconsidered. But also only almost.

She let her thoughts wander and thought again about the museum. Whether she wanted it or not, her thoughts then circled back to the encounter with the naive Swedish girl.  She was certainly the kind of person who believed in love at first sight and cheesy pining. I mean she had a boyfriend and seemed to be happy with him. So of course she believed in it then. And she was young and certainly hadn’t experienced that much yet. At least not as much as Konstrakta. That was clear.

How old she must be.. Probably not yet thirty. One of the good things about being famous was that you could simply google people and find out things about them without having to talk to them. And Konstrakta definitely didn’t want to talk to her again. At least not more than it was necessary. She was just curious, that was all. With her left hand she reached to her nightstand where her phone was.

‘Aha. So she is already thirty after all. But just turned thirty.’ Konstrakta thought while she had typed the blonde’s name into the search bar and immediately found her date of birth. So Cornelia was a whole 13 years younger than her. Almost still a baby.

After her eyes flew over the first line of the Wikipedia article, her fingers instinctively shot to the cross at the bottom right to close the tab and clear her search history.
She immediately regretted Googling her and suddenly felt incredibly silly.

The Serbian got up from her bed and forced herself to stop getting upset about this foreign woman.

Still holding the phone, she decided to finally call home. Before she typed the number, the queasy feeling from the night before threatened to spread through her stomach again. She stared at the display now until her head started to hurt. She knew her husband almost as well as she knew herself. At least it had been that way once. Whether it was still like that today she could not say. Things had changed in the last few years. And she could tell when things were off. Of course she still loved him. No question about it. And he loved her too. Of course he did. And yet...

Konstrakta’s thoughts started to circle again. Actually, she was not the kind of person who worried and racked her brains about everything. On the contrary. But for a long time now, she subconsciously felt and deep down knew that something was wrong.

A soft beeping sound came from the loudspeaker and filled the until now silent room. Without noticing it, she held her breath slightly. The beeping stopped, rustling, then, a young voice.

“Mama?”

“Hi honey!” Konstrakta breathed a sigh of relief and a warm smile spread on her lips.

“How are you? And your brother? Is your dad there too?”

Her daughter’s bright voice answered, “Yes we are fine. And you? When is the semifinal? When are you performing? We are so excited. Everyone here is cheering for you.”

Her daughter was already a teenager and usually not so enthusiastic about her mother’s work. But she was still aware that this event was something big. And she was actually a little proud of her mom, too.

“Next week it’s my turn in the second semifinal. But before that, there’s also the turquoise carpet. But didn’t Dad tell you? I spoke to him yesterday.”

There it was again, that feeling. Actually, the original plan had been for her whole family to come with her to Turin to support her. Most of the candidates had their family and friends with them. But because of her children’s school, that didn’t work out and her husband stayed home with them. Since he was generally not so keen on life in the limelight, this came in handy.

“Um, no, he didn’t. He probably forgot.”

The feeling intensified and her throat went a little dry. But she didn’t want to let on in front of her daughter.

“We’re about to eat. I’ve got to go. Do you still want to talk to Dad?” 

“No. There’s no hurry. You can tell him he’s welcome to call me back after dinner.”

“Okay.”

“I love you, sweetheart.”

“Yeah, I love you too, Mama. Byeee!” She dragged out the last word as she always did when she said goodbye and hung up. The room was silent again.

Konstrakta decided to stay awake a little longer and rest. She turned on the TV and forced herself to listen to some program, but she couldn’t pick up a single word and couldn’t even tell what it was about.
A few hours later she got ready for bed and tried to sleep. She picked up her phone again and checked her lock screen. Her husband had not tried to call.