The free will ( eng)

19. Cinderella

During autumn I have felt great. No sickness and slept like a princess for the first time in my life after I met Richard. It had been a wise decision to limit the opening hours for the shop. I got calmer and more effective in everything. The summer had been tough when I got an infection after my trip to Bulgaria. My stomach and intestines had been like a balloon with gas, not working at all. I had lived on fluids. Don't know what pathogen I picked up? If it was local or the airplane food? Apparently it can be very old and pilots even get their own after some very severe incidents of food poisoning. I had hardly been able to exercise or dance at all, just work. For a month I had done nothing but rake and pick up heavy stones from the mud. The year before I had damaged my shoulder trying to lift a huge stone that was stuck. All the raking wasn't excatly what my shoulder needed. When I had finished and the soil was like a ballroom floor and had grass, I had to do huge parts all over again when it got ruined. A caterpillar dug up a lot for the water pipes installation. I almost cried when I saw it. That was not what I had planned. They were supposed to be at the other end of the house. How many hours? At what cost? When the grass finally was sawn, the raining stopped. The mud I had been walking around in dried up like cement in the heat wave that followed. I had to water all the time. Why couldn't it have been the other way around? When the water pump died the grass did not grow very well. The weed grew. I cursed my self once again for not spending a fortune, I didn't have, on a premade lawn. The yard would have been like a golf course.

After my days as a "working convict" I began tearing down the damaged roof of my guesthouse. It didn't take many weeks until the heavy rain started again. And then we had the typical "Swedish summer", sunshine one minute and rain the next. Sometimes I could feel the raindrops almost immediately after removing the huge cover. Half of my time consisted of putting it on or taking it off.

When I opened my shop and limited the hours I could feel all I ever did was riding the bus, cleaning the shop and preparing it or closing it. I began to be fed up and decided to give it up and sell it. I could try to focus more on marketing the web shop.

Olof and I started to see each other more and more after bumping in to each other again at the nightclub, " our" place where the others didn't go. I had tried taking a few there but It wasn't half the fun as with Olof. We had something special. Our Fridays extended to Wednesdays too for salsa, and Saturday afternoons when he picked me up after tango and we went for dinner, or any other day all.

Tonight was the night we had been waiting for, New Years at the Grand Hotel. I m all dressed for party and he picks me up in a tuxedo in the shop. We take the bus the short ride that stops just outside the magnificent building by the sea. After leaving our coats we take a seat in the beautiful bar.

- Cheers Olof! I'm so glad we've become close friends again!

- Me too! I enjoy being with you!

- What's your best memory from the past year?

- Our night at the Country club.

- Yes, that was a really nice evening. I love that place. The atmosphere and environment is magic. I wonder what the staff thought about us? They must have believed I was high on drugs?

- Ha ha, yes, probably, Olof laughed.

- It was hilarious that we were all alone on the dance floor with a "personal" DJ and no other " kids" in sight. I could hardly dancew ith my knees in cross not to pee on my self. It felt like I was druged too. Actually I have noticed that several times lately? The pupils in my eyes can by large as a saucer or small as a needle pin?

- We better go up to the Opera now; Olof said and watched the time.

- Okay.

We went upstairs to "The hall of Mirrors" inspired by the castle in Versailles. It was decorated as a palace in gold with mirrors everywhere and a giant chandelier. The roof was painted like the Sixteenth Chapel. The ensemble began singing classics from the Opera history and I felt like Cinderella. In a good way. When I lived with Richard I also felt like Cinderella, lying on the floor scrubbing it, always working day and night, for people that could not be pleased,wishing to be at the ball meeting "the prins ".