By the summer everything was not the way we dreamed. Money did not suffice not so much to rest in Europe, but even to the Crimea. Mishka and I were silently examining our holiday photographs, piled in one hand on the table. Then I remembered my school friend. - Listen, Mishka, but let's move to Lizka? She invited us in the winter ...
- So, maybe she was inviting for the winter period, - tried to joke husband. - Imagine, we are on skates cheshem to the Sea of Azov ...
- Come on, - I was offended. "We were like sisters at school with her." Not in vain did she flood us with the whole family in the winter. I'll call her back. How are you?
"Try it," Mishka agreed. He too was tired this year and dreamed of lying on hot sand no less than I. That evening I contacted a school friend. Either the connection was bad, or Lizka rushed to the phone, overcoming the barriers, but her voice was nervous.
- Yes, I remember how! She was saying.
- Come, I'll arrange everything! Tell me exactly, what number to prepare a house for?
Is it a house for us? I already shone with joy. She put down the phone and said to her husband: "You see!" Old love does not rust, like school friendship. Lizka awaits us on the twentieth and will specially prepare the house. Look, the capitalist has found herself! About the fact that my former classmate Lizaveta became the owner of a boarding house on the shore of the Azov Sea, on the Arabat's arrow, I learned six months ago.
Money was not enough not just to rest somewhere in Europe, but even to the southern resorts of the country.
We remembered one promise.
We have not seen each other for fifteen years, but in the winter she reminded herself of herself. I called and upset me saying that I urgently need to bring my son to Kiev for a consultation, and asked if they could stop for a couple of days with us.
- Yes, what are we talking about, Lizka! - I was really happy, but speaking with her, I glanced at my two-room "mansions", on which, with my husband, two of our offspring, the good-natured basset-hound of Dazi and the arrogant red cat Bergamot.
"We are for a couple of days," Lizka said when we finally stopped hugging, remembering the school, the childhood friends, whom life had scattered.
"Yes, as much as necessary, so much and live," I snorted and looked at my husband. Mishka just returned from a responsible task on temporary evacuation of the main part of our family to my grandmother.
Her mother-in-law hardly missed a blow when she saw a son with suitcases, two smiling and simultaneously fighting grandchildren, Daisy on a leash and Bergamot in a basket. "Did Nata drive you out?" Her mother-in-law asked, her voice falling. "Datychto, Mom! Exclaimed Misha. - We just have guests, they have nowhere to place. Can you, the children and Dusya with Bergamot have a couple of days to take a break? "So the problem of sleeping places for Lisa and her little son was solved. Mishka and I moved to the two armchairs-beds, in which our guys slept, and the guests were given their bedroom at their disposal. Lizka has changed a lot during those twenty years. No, it's not that she is stout and very bright, even defiantly dyed. I thought with regret that my friend had become somehow envious. In free from medical consultations, she stroked the fur of my coat with her hand, carefully felt the soft jersey of sweaters, sniffed every thing in the house and sighed:
"This is how people live in the capital!"
"Tell me about yourself," I said.
- And what to tell? She sighed. "We plow from morning till night, like the damned." We bought an old collective farm holiday house on the beach, we are repairing it, we want to make a private boarding house. Work - above the roof.
- So you have your own boarding house? - I could not understand why she is so frankly jealous of us. "Lizka, you're a burger!" And she, as though she had been drenched with oil on the wound: she smiled and said:
- Come anytime! For old friends, of course, everything is free! Instead of a couple of days, Lisa lived with us for two weeks, and every day, returning home, I feverishly thought, what else would such a capital surprise guests, than feed, where to reduce. Misha and I arranged a real entertainment program for them, which included a concert in the "Ukraine" palace, a circus, a Chinese restaurant, a Franco theater, and walks along the Andreevsky slope. When we escorted the guests to the station, I was only worried about how to patch up the hole in the family budget after our broad gestures. Lizka said goodbye:
- Natasha, now I'm waiting for you on a visit ... So on the nineteenth of July we loaded the trunk of the car with gifts ("We are going to free rest," I said to Misha.) "We should bring at least some gifts from the capital") and left early in the morning towards the south. To the destination with different road adventures we got after midnight. Lizkin boarding house was a dozen rickety wooden houses surrounded by a prickly fence. At the entrance, which is a creaking wooden gate, there was a lodge in which the half-drunk grandfather peacefully snored. We forcibly awakened him from hibernation and began to explain who we are and why we came.
- No seats! - he explained with competence and already wanted to fall asleep again, but Misha grabbed him by the sleeve and began to ask persistently where to find us the hostess of the boarding house.
- Lizaveta? - Our grandfather was surprised at our knowledge. - They are with her husband in Greece. Weeks after two will be, when the next batch will be knocked down and it will be necessary to knock out the grandmother. And now there are no places! And, it seems, he did not lie.
Despite the deep night , the windows of the houses were lit, and out of everyone, as if competing with each other, dazed drunken cries were heard. The people broke away to their fullest ... The watchman waved his hand and said: "Go to the city! There you can rent an angle inexpensively. " And where would the forces after this news move? We turned back along the Arabat's arrow and sat down for the night near a camp of savages. Twisted rollers in the car, all through the night, shuddering from the howling of stray dogs, panning in tents, powerful snoring and choral drunken chants. When the sun was just scrambling to the sky, we, angry and not getting enough sleep, sat down on the sand, and Mishka gloomily said: "Maybe, really, we went to Genichesk, we'll take a corner for a couple of days." Knowingly we have rewound a thousand kilometers ?! We shall plunge into the sea, and then - home. I cried for offense: in the trunk completely melted away and flowed our metropolitan gostinitsy: Kiev cakes, sweets "Evening Kiev". Mishka unloaded this chocolate porridge under the nearest bush, and she was immediately surrounded by a dense ring of stray dogs and cats. We got into the car and drove to Genichesk. After spending half a day looking for and bidding, we paid a fat woman $ 5 per nose per night in a room without windows. "So they do not even wince!"
- Me and Mishka decided not to drive the car , but to go slowly. Dined in fragrant steppes, ate shish kebabs in cafes, Misha was indignant at night in campsites. "What do you want? - the woman was surprised. "We have a sea of healing!" Dirt, estuary! "Finally they stuck to the sea. This supposedly "healing sea" near the city was a dirty-brown water surface with beautiful rainbow oil stains. We stood, admired the scenery, but did not dare to swim. Falled ashore on towels and slept until evening: fatigue affected. Early the next morning we went home. I was in a worse mood, but my husband, trying to cheer us up, chattered incessantly. "Nata, it's good that we took all the money with us!" He said, when they decided not to drive, but to go slowly, surveying the wonderful expanses of our country, and to stop in places that they like.
They had dinner in the open air in fragrant steppes, had supper in roadside cafes, spent the night in camping grounds, wandered through unfamiliar cities, and when a week later they returned home, they quite honestly assured Misha's mother:
- If you do not count the rest by the sea, then we can say that the vacation was a success! Two weeks later, Lizka called and in an offended voice chided me:
- Well, Natasha! Who does this? We agreed on the twentieth of August, and you rushed the twentieth of July! Girlfriend, yes, I just did not have time ...
- Come on, Lizka! I said, and for some reason flushed. - Everything is fine.
"That's how you always carry water on you," Misha said, offended.
"We'll see," I answered blithely. - Life is an unpredictable thing ...