She was around 13, when she first start dreaming about her love. The man that would hold her hand, hug her and she would even dare dreaming about being kissed by this love.
She couldn’t tell any of her friends that she thought those things, she was from a small city in the northeast of Brazil, where people were very traditional and everyone in the city knew about everybody else’s lives. She didn’t care she could imagine whatever she wanted.
It was around in the middle of her school holidays, summer holidays, middle of January in 1978, one of her friends invited her for a party at her house. She was all excited, this friend had 5 brothers and the boys would invite their friends. She was always very shy to dance with the boys, and she wished she could be a bit less well behaved and kiss boys like other girls would.
Her mum took her to the party and told her that at 11 o’clock she would come and pick her up. She wanted to stay longer, but didn’t say anything because it was hard for her to be allowed to go, her sisters didn’t know her friend and it was going to be the first time she was going to a party without her sisters, she was loving it.
She was all dressed up, just a flowing dress and sandals, quite a pretty girl, but she didn’t feel like that, she felt that being little wasn’t good, she wanted to be a big girl.
She found her friend said hello and she got her a juice and left her there to greet other guests. Little by little her house was full of kids. Her parents around but very discreet to no embarrass their kids. Because she didn’t think she was going to be asked to dance by any boy, she found herself a sit on the sofa and start watching what everyone was doing around her. Daydream was her speciality. Suddenly someone was talking to her, asking something, and she froze for a bit, he spoke to her again, and she pretended she hadn’t heard him because of the music. First thing she noticed was that she never seen him before and that he had an accent from someone that comes from Rio. She answered his questions and he kept talking to her, maybe getting the courage to ask her to dance, and when he finally got the courage she followed him to have a dance.
That was the first time she felt that. It was like fireworks inside of her. He was cute and he knew how to dance, and he chose her to dance with. It was the best party ever and she was in love!
At 11 her mom came to pick her up, she said good bye to her friend, and to the ‘love of her life’ as she started call him in her head and arrange to meet next day on the beach where all the kids use to go in the summer.
Next morning she was the first to get ready to go to the beach with her sisters, who were very surprised because she never liked that beach before. The sisters started to tease her, but she kept quite about him, she didn’t need them teasing her because she was in love.
When she got there, he was already there. He went with his brother and his cousin that was her friend from her ballet classes, actually, all her friends on the beach were friends from the ballet classes, something that she loved doing.
All the gossip that morning was the party the night before and she kept quite because she didn’t want anyone teasing her about dancing with the boy from Rio. Nobody said anything about it, but his cousin sat next to her and said to her that he asked loads of things about her. And inside her she could feel her heart jumping happily and saying: he likes me!
That was the beginning when her imagination became her other life!
How it all begun
