Sapphire Moonlight

Chapter 12

Chapter 12

Dreamy's, the icecream shop, was almost empty at that hour. Only three tables were taken. Inside the place was the sweet unmistakable aroma of different icecream flavours and the cool ambience that are common in icecream shops. Polite waitresses stood by, some of them talking to each other.  

Roberto and Sandra were at one of the tables, eating icecream. 

'Hi, Marcelo,' a waitress said to Marcelo as he entered the place. She smiled. 

'Hi, Brenda. How are you?' 

'I'm fine.' 

'Well,' he waited a moment, watching her, his eyes smiling friendly. 

'Would you please say hello to your mother from me?' she said. 'Send her my regards?' 

'Sure, Brenda, of course I will. Thank you very much.'  

Marcelo said goodbye to Brenda with a quick nod and walked up to where Roberto and Sandra were. He was glad to have found them.  

As Marcelo said he was sorry to interrupt them, the other two waited, holding their spoons. Sandra was having strawberry and plum icecream. Roberto was having chocolate and cream. 

'I was thinking of going to Dejanira, and I was wondering would you like to join me,' Marcelo said. 

'Sit down and have some icecream,' Roberto invited him. 

'No, thanks, not now.' 

'What are you going there for?' Roberto asked. 

'Nothing special. To do something different.' 

Roberto just stared at him. 

'If Elaine Sampaio wants to come, that is. I intend to invite her.' 

'Let me try to understand: if she doesn't want to go, or cannot, then we're not going?' 

'Ah... no.' 

'Ah.'  

'Well, we might.' 

'Ah,' said Roberto, 'I see. Now I sense the reason for the trip to Dejanira. Something different, you said?' He didn't know there was something going on between his friend and Elaine Sampaio. 

'Oh, man. You're a friend. Just do me this favour.' 

'So now we get down to brass tacks. You know, it's a sight to see you humble like that,' Roberto teased him. 'To see you begging.' Turning to his girlfriend he said, 'What do you think of it, Sandra?'  

With the facility you have when you are seventeen, to grab an opportunity for a new adventure on the spot, Sandra immediately accepted. 'It's OK by me,' she said. 'I just love the idea.' 

'Don't forget there's the party tonight,' Roberto sent out a pro forma warning to his friend. He was in the same mood as Sandra's. 

'There's plenty of time,' Marcelo said. 

'Well, in this case. OK, brother, let's go.' 

'Thank you, man,' Marcelo said. 'And you too, Sandra.' 

They finished off their icecream quickly and paid the bill.  

A few minutes later they drove into a tree-lined alley, treetops meeting to form a canopy. It made a shadow with a pattern of different tones of green and dark. The air was as fresh as the air in any bower would.  

Marcelo parked the car and they walked between two rows of quiet, very elegant houses. They stopped at one of the houses on the left, a single-storey one occupying a large area. In front of it, was a lawn. Beyond the lawn was a wide veranda, to the right of which a driveway led to a garage and to the backyard, hundreds of metres away back. That was the Sampaio Ferreira's house. They owned the Sampaio Ferreira Supermarket, a booming business in town. Elaine came to receive them.