Chapter 5 - Breakup

WITH SIX MONTHS OF DATING, I had already introduced Shanaya to my family, she knew every one of my best friends and was practically comfortable with the people who worked with me at the travel agency, but every time I mentioned her father and her stepmother, as well as my desire to introduce myself to them to make the relationship official once and for all, the girl managed to change the focus of the subject.

I went to meet Judge Pedro Luís Villas Boas on a Saturday afternoon, when his daughter and I had already been together for seven months and I can hardly describe how indigestible that experience was.

He lived in Vila Olímpia in São Paulo, in a mansion with high walls, a wide front, a vast garden and bold architecture. I parked the Ford that I had at the time next to the Volvo that the man had in the garage and beside it, there was also a white BMW Z4 convertible — whose market value could pay for at least ten cars like mine — and a lead Mercedes C180 , that, according to his daughter, the old man used to go to work at the Court of Auditors on Tuesdays and Thursdays due to the rotation of license plates in São Paulo.

That day, the Villas Boas had prepared a special dinner for the occasion and Shanaya looked beautiful at the table, wearing a dress with ivory straps, light lipstick on her lips and mascara on her eyes. I had just been introduced to Pedro Luís and his wife Veruska, but I felt that I was being “judged” by the man's incisive gaze ever since I set foot inside their living room.

So as not to look bad in front of my girlfriend's excellent father, I had given myself a shop shower and had shown up for dinner dressed in Hugo Boss, as well as a discreet Saint Laurent perfume. I didn't want to look like a complete idiot when matters about legislation started at the table and I even studied some technical terms during the week, so I wouldn't just be on “data venia”. I wish knowing about laws were my only concern!

It didn't take me long to realize, during dinner, that no matter what I said, I would never be able to convince those two that Shanaya and I were truly in love and that, despite socioeconomic differences, we could be happy together. I was still a college student, my company, despite being successful, was still in its infancy in the business world and what I earned per year was still little compared to what that almost sixty-year-old man with a consolidated career accumulated in power. purchasing. For some reason, he was already determined not to like me from the moment he found out what I did for a living, and even though I filed an appeal and an appeal, I had already been condemned in the first instance not to be a good candidate for your daughter's boyfriend.

I hadn't committed any crime, yet that dinner looked more and more like an interrogation by the Federal Police. It was as if I were a highly dangerous drug dealer and Pedro Luís was the police chief questioning me handcuffed in his office at the police station.

— And do you think it's possible to survive with a travel agency in São Paulo? — He questioned me at a certain point during dinner, close to the employees starting to clear the table to serve dessert.

His tone of voice was soft, but his bass sounded like he was speaking into a microphone, and his Tijucano accent sounded as if his every word was laden with mockery.

“Actually, the Vecchio Tour has been doing well over the last few months. We were featured in the Sunday newspaper, in the tourism section, as one of the best rising agencies in São Paulo.

Shanaya seemed to swell with pride every time I demonstrated that I was successful with my explanations about the agency, but Veruska could only look at me with disdain, as if I had just said “I am begging at the lighthouse and I am always begging in the streets". Pedro Luís looked like a marble statue. Cold and impassive. His face revealed absolutely nothing beneath the gray hair and mostly white beard, but I knew his court of value judgment had already reached its verdict and he was against me.

It took a little while after that dinner for me to feel that my relationship with Shanaya was falling apart and a month later, she started finding silly reasons to argue, which made our relationship quite complicated. In order to wear the company's shirt at once, Celso and I started to go out more and more with our travel teams to every corner of Brazil and even my work started to irritate her.

— You own the company. No need to accompany clients during excursions.

During the conversation, I tried to explain to her that that was our differential, that being close to travel agents to monitor the entire process closely — from boarding to accommodation — gave customers confidence, but she didn't understand.

“It's important that I go with them. It's a way to build customer loyalty, to make them feel important...

She became mute and stopped responding when discussions were over the phone. I hated it.

Our differences in goals ended up becoming greater than anything else and some time later, being greatly influenced by my stepmother and her prejudiced opinions about my work as a tourismologist — which both she and her husband thought was inferior to the law, which the whole family exercised — Shanaya decided to end the relationship.

It's not to say that I didn't suffer from the breakup — the first one I'd been dumped in — but I ended up using my job to stop thinking about her, which in a way ended up doing me good. Package sales to all corners of the country were going from strength to strength and it wasn't long before I was accompanying the travel teams abroad as well, especially on short routes through South, North and Central America. It was a very profitable period for the agency, with me focused on work and with that, I made Shanaya just a turned page in my life.