[high-tower]

27 of September
Monday

Julya is back from her vacation.

On her departure day she sent an e-mail to all the departments informing about the dates of her vacation so that everyone knew. I got one, as well, on the operator's mail box. The date of her arrival back was 25 of September.

"You're going to be back only on twenty fifth?" I asked Julya when she was saying her good-bye.

"No! Actually, I'm coming on twenty seventh. I'm not gonna come on a weekend, am I?"

Her statement made me realize that twenty fifth of September was Saturday. Seriously, it was a smart thing to do: to say you are going to be back on twenty fifth whereas the actual date of your arrival is two days later. It made the people think as if Julya's vacation wasn't so long, after all. It was smart, but at the same time it made me sad, for when you do such things it means you don't trust your colleagues. Julya understands very good how these people she's working with, are. They will be envy just because someone goes on vacation. It doesn't matter that they themselves have vacation as well. At this very moment they have to work when someone is going to enjoy herself, and they just can't bear it.

So, I was expecting Julya to come back on Monday, twenty seventh of September.

Usually Julya makes our Front Office schedule but when she was on vacation Lena K. was responsible for it. In the middle of the month, on Friday (the day when we have a new schedule for the next two weeks) I got an e-mail on the operator's mail box. It was from LaneK who was in Moscow on business. She made a new schedule but physically wasn't able to print it out and hung on the desk. She asked to do it ourselves or wait till her arrival, so that she could do it herself. I decided to help and print the schedule. Firstly, I found out my days off and on and I was quite pleased. Secondly, I looked at the column in front of Julya's name and wasn't pleased at all. It said that she was going to come back not on Monday but on Tuesday. Well, one day is not a big deal but it was so for me, for it meant I was to wait one more day whereas it was bad enough to wait all twenty of them. Besides, I trusted Julya enough to believe her every word. It hurt that she said me the date that turned out to be false. The only soothing thing was to pretend that she changed her mind and informed just LenaK about it.

On Tuesday I was to work in the evening, so it was three-four hours to spend with Julya. I wanted Julya to feel welcomed and good and decided to cook something and take it with me to the hotel. I couldn't, of course, present it to her personally, I had to pretend that it was for all the guys who worked that day. The reason of this 'generosity' had to die with me. And when I was contemplating the exact thing I could cook for Julya, I realized that Tuesday was going to be the day of celebrating Lisa's past birthday. My cake (I had decided to bake a cake) could be mistaken as Lisa's present and I wasn't going to do such a thing. So, I had to leave all the thoughts about Julya's 'welcome back' present behind.

Today, preparing for an evening shift, I was thinking about Julya all the time. I knew she had to be in St. Petersburg already. I was imagining the things she could be doing at the moment. My imagination was as good as always, so I imagined that Julya might come to the hotel to visit us. It was such a stupid thing to think about. What kind of sane person would come to work on her last vacation day? Well, I would, but we all know I am not a sane person.

Coming in Back Office my eyes were riveted to the Julya's desk for here Julya was, sitting there and waving at me. Because of my bad eyes I couldn't see her exactly, but I knew it was her immediately. I came closer and closer looking at the beloved face all the time. She said to me 'Hi, Polya' several times but I couldn't speak. I was totally shocked. I wasn't even sure I could breathe.

Unfortunately, there were Natasha and Vova and Sasha from Sales department, so I couldn't even say the words I wanted to say when I felt I could speak again. I was staring at Julya, watching her over, trying to familiarize myself with her again. I honestly didn't expect her to be there. I hoped so much to see her as soon as possible, but I didn't want to have my hopes too high and then see them falling down. That's why seeing Julya a day earlier made it some sort of miracle. That's why I was behaving like a robot and everybody was staring at me when I was staring at Julya.

My heart was pounding in my chest and I was almost panting, so I turned around and went to the nearest board as if to put my purse down, although my real purpose was to calm down a little bit.

Next twenty minutes the guys were shifting each other and I just stood and sat here and there for I was a trainee once again and there was nobody for me to shift with.

Then we had a long meeting. Usually these meetings are daily and short — we discuss all the important things that happened or are going to happen any time soon. This time it was much longer because Julya was back and there were a lot of things to share with each other. Actually, when Julya was absent, we didn't have meetings at all, and I didn't think it was good. I missed them. They are my constant reminder of the things going on in the hotel. We discuss mistakes and good deals, how to deal with a difficult situation, how to calm a hysterical guest, all the things we may come across with.

When the meeting ended, the morning shift left and we began to work.

About six PM Julya came over to the first desk and approached LenaK.

"Polya and I will go to the canteen, all right?"

"I'll go with you."

Then a guest demanded LenaK's attention and Julya added that she would go and we would follow her later.

"But take her with you, okay? She won't go on her own." Julya was talking about me and I was smirking in my mind: Julya was back and I wasn't going to loose an opportunity to be with her. All the time she was gone I hadn't visited the canteen. There was no need to do it. I could have a cup of tea in BO if I wanted to. The canteen for me is to be with Julya a little longer than usually is possible, not to have tea.

There were three of us in the canteen. The girls were having some dinner but I couldn't even drink a cup of tea. I was too excited to consume anything.

I asked Julya about her vacation and she said she loved it.

"It was so good to be off. I'd love to enjoy myself a little longer than that. It's so hard to get up and go to work again. Don't want to do it at all."

I knew that Julya was in Croatia. I guess, it wasn't the only country she visited. From St. Petersburg she had flighted to Germany to meet with her friend. Then they were going to take a car and travel about Europe.

"Did you manage to visit all the places you had in mind?"

"Yeah! Well, almost. It took us longer than we thought and there were some cities we weren't able to reach. Besides, it makes you tired traveling in a car all the time."

Julya admitted that the most beautiful city was Salzburg, Austria. It was quite historical.

I didn't know what to ask next and Julya didn't look like she was willing to share the details of her trip with us. I let it be.

Later we had a conversation about how stupid men are sometimes. I didn't participate, exactly, because of my lack of experience. I was listening and asking questions when I had them.

"Polya, do you think it's wise to laundry blue jeans with a white shirt together? Everybody knows that clothes have to be of the same material and color to laundry it together in a washing machine. Otherwise you'll have a mess instead of your clothes. But he just doesn't understand it!" Julya was talking about her friend. She said the last weekend, already in St. Petersburg, they were washing their dirty clothes and it was hell. "Well, he washed his jeans and the shirt together, then looked at them and was surprised to find that the shirt was blue instead of white. 'Why is it so? How come?' he was exclaiming."

"Indeed! How could it be?" LenaK and I were laughing.

"He just doesn't understand the difference." Julya continued. "I tried to explain it to him but he wasn't listening. He washed his another pair of pants and some white T-shirt and it was the same — the clothes were stained! And he was surprised once again!"

LenaK decided to say something about her friend as well. As far as I know she's dating a German guy but they don't live together yet.

"He has a kink to go shoeless after a bath. Once in my apartment he took a shower, didn't take slippers on and had something glued to his foot. He was furious! Although I clean my apartment every day there is always a possibility to find some dust or whatever, don't you agree? Well, some time later we were in a hotel, and he took a shower and was barefoot again. I said it was too dangerous to go shoeless around a hotel room. You don't know whether it was cleaned after the last guests or not. You have no guarantees. But he was sure it was safer to be barefoot on a hotel room's floor than on my apartment's one! How stupid is that?"

I realized that LenaK wasn't upset that her friend preferred hotel's floor her apartment's. She just couldn't understand the nature of his thoughts to be sure that a hotel's room is always clean. She works in a hotel, she knows how the things are in there. That's why it was so hard for her to understand it.

"Well, men are just stupid." Julya said once again. "They don't want to understand simple things."

I sat in there listening to them. I became very amused with every minute. Though, it was confusing as well as amusing.

How can they say these things about men and continue to love them anyway? Actually, they were not even talking about men in general, they were talking about their boyfriends, the men they loved, as I assumed. And they gave an impression that they honestly couldn't understand their boyfriends' behavior, preferring to laugh at them than trying to find a solution. Although I don't have an experience about a relationship with men, I always thought that every relationship is about understanding and compassion. No matter how different you are, no matter how different your points of view. If you love each other, than there is always a possibility to find a way to fix everything. Even if you are not agree with your beloved, you try to understand his reasons as much as possible. Even if you don't understand him at all, you respect him no matter what. And it means you don't go and gossip about him in such an ungraceful way.

I didn't say a word about my thoughts but it gave me something to muse about.


That day I was looking at Julya every time she was in my eye's way. I couldn't get enough of her.

She didn't treat me any different than other girls and boys. She touched my arm just once, in the canteen, telling something. There were no special words to me.

Julys left without saying good-bye. Well, maybe we were busy with guests and she didn't want to bother us. But it hurt nevertheless.

The day of Julya's coming back went absolutely not the way I wanted it to be.