Mireya mentally grinned, studying the situation – she was in an expensive room with a double bed, three night lamps (it was strange, but Leandra was afraid of the dark, but didn’t like the light of the lamps on the ceiling), a red soft carpet, a Russian drink, probably from a Russian store (Leandra’s grandmother was from Siberia), several suitcases of stuff, and this awfully familiar smell of perfume that Mireya would recognize from a thousand. She turned to look at Leandra, who was staring into her miniature mirror, fingers running down her thin eyebrows.
“Well.” Mireya walked around, “Why am I here?”
“You as always, start the dialogue outside the box”, Leandra sat down in a wide chair, which almost merged with the colour of her jacket.
Mireya looked back and looked at herself in the reflection of the floor hotel mirror. A striped T-shirt, a black leather jacket, black jeans and gothic boots – Leandra must have thought she hadn’t changed in all this time. However, she would be right… in part.
“You probably wondered many times why I did it?” Leandra said, “Why did I so abruptly leave college, where I was so fanatically striving to get, but I thought it was all worth it.”
“Is your job in a casino hotel worth it? By the way, you still haven’t said what you were doing there?! Mireya looked at her suspiciously, “This is not… what is connected with…?”
“No, no.” Leandra waved her hand, “Nothing like that.”
Mireya breathed a sigh of relief, but her tension returned instantly. “But it was something illegal?”
“Why did you decide so?”
“Otherwise, why should you be silent about it?”
Leandra fell silent for a couple of seconds. “There were people who illegally worked as hackers for jealous guys or girlfriends. It was almost like a hobby.”
Mireya spread her arms, “Well, if you say so.” She suddenly caught herself thinking that she was almost not interested in everything that happened to… perhaps still her friend for the entire time of their remoteness.
“Do you want something to drink?” Leandra said, smiling too sweetly.
Mireya felt a slight irritation. “A water?”
While Leandra was pouring mineral water into a glass, Mireya distracted her cell phone, checking the message she had just received from her boss: “There was a technical error. Please, send me the results of your work over the past three days. Sorry for the inconvenience.”