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Day 2 - Part 3

-Are you hungry? she asks and that’s when I notice how still she can be. Like now, waiting for me to answer. Her head is tilted little to the left so that bangs don’t hide her eyes that have questioning look. For the first time I read or want to read something human in those, like she’d be getting interested on me. Like I wasn’t just someone listening to her story.
I try to hold the moment as long as I can but finally I have to answer.
-A little.
-Fine.
She now moves, gently and without corners she stands up and waits me to do the same.
-There’s a good diner just in the neighborhood, she tells.
-So you mean you can have decent food somewhere around here? I have to ask and to my astonishment she laughs warmly.
-This isn’t that bad place to be.
-I guess you’ve been in lot worse, I joke.
-I have, she gets serious. –I have.
And as we walk to the diner in silence I would like to kick myself up to my ass.

She orders salad and fiddles it.
-You are not hungry? I ask.
-Not much, she pushes plate away from her. –I had a large breakfast.
-Uh-huh. You should try hotel’s breakfast. It was awful.
-I know.
She makes me wanting to ask so many questions. But place is too full, too noisy, too public to share things like that. I make every effort to eat fast. And finally my plate is empty and hers almost as full as it was when they served it.
-So what now? I enquire while wiping my face.
-Do you have TV and videos in your hotel room?
-Yes.
-Can we go there?
Even if I know it’s not a proposition, it leaves me speechless for a while.
-Hmmm... Of course.
-Good. I have to pick some stuff on our way.

Day has turned out to be very nice winter day. At least for the few hours when it’s light. I try to offer a cab for her but she insists to walk. She doesn’t say anything on our way to the bus station. There she takes a large suitcase from a locker. She places it on the floor and asks me to take few steps back as she opens it. I try to see what’s in it, but she moves something from there to her bag, then locks the suitcase, puts it back to locker and locks it too. I can’t catch on where she puts the key.

We go back out and start to walk to the hotel. She chooses another way I’ve been using. It goes trough silent alleys and parks. Now she feels like talking.
-Christmas was just... another day. Another day in that misty month.
-You were in Orlando?
-Yes. Place was luxurious. It still is the head of the headquarters. It’s a house with five floors. Basement is “Get yourself clean” –area. Sometimes you can get very dirty on the road. Everyone coming to the house after even three days break has to go to the cellar. There they take your clothes off, wash them or replace them with new. Then you are taken to the shower. Later you can swim in a huge pool. After that your hair is cut if needed, you get a basic kit you for your stay in the house, like towel, sheets, toothbrush etc. Then you can go to the first floor where are rooms that we call offices. There is dozens of computers and rarely you see any of those unused. Kitchen and dining room are in the second floor. There is also huge living room and terrace where you can get to the backyard where’s second pool and other activities. Your place to sleep you can choose from one of the 50 rooms in two upper floors. In the addict is small dance studio as well as recording studio.
-What is that place? A mansion?
-You wouldn’t ever find it, she claimed. –It’s well hidden. I mean, it’s visible, right under your eyes, but you just can’t understand what it really is.
-Proud of being fan, ha?
She gives me a glance.
-Very much. But if you want to know, we didn’t use any outer marks of being fan. No t-shirts, no mugs, no logos. All we had was a little pin. At the same time it told two strangers that they are in the same league. For outsiders it doesn’t mean anything.
-How do you know?
-You haven’t noticed it either.
I stop her and research her with my eyes. In her lapel is a small bluebird. I wonder why he spoke in past if she still wears it.
-Is that it?
-Newest. After their last hit.
-Clever. Well organized.
-Scarily well. You know, we are just fans. But the way it works... You could do anything.
-Maybe so.
-You don’t believe?
She starts to walk again.
-We knew all the time where they were. Or almost. I guess it’s impossible to follow five different people when they’re apart. But if they were together, we knew where they were, with whom and what they were doing. Usually some of use was with them. I could give you some unpleasant facts of so called gossips and tell truth behind some very false information. But it wouldn’t help, would it?
-I don’t know. Maybe you should try.
-I have some material with me.
-More?
-Those few prints are just a start, she sneers.
-Oh?
I can’t help myself from not being sarcastic.
-You’ll see.
And at the same time I’d like to stop her and tell that I’m scared of seeing. That maybe I don’t want to know. Maybe I want to keep some illusions of this world. But she’s taking me deeper and deeper to the world of fanatics.

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