a Line for my lover Ch. 2

Chapter two: resentment and regret

Michael Rudovik could hear his aunt’s shuffling, even behind the closed doors of her den. His room was right down the hall from hers, what used to be a guest bedroom; as clean and unfurnished as a hotel room. He liked it that way, with the sheets faint pastels, his pillows like hospital ones, all linen, and the walls decorated lightly with paintings of calm rivers and sunny flowerbeds. It was a far cry from the chaotic, real world. It was a comfort to know that, here—although it wasn’t really his home, he’d only been here less than a week—he could rely on the quiet, charming façade. At least it was something he could depend on.

The things Michael could depend on seemed to grow less and less, especially with his aunt becoming a ghost at night and even more so during the day. From the time of his mother’s inevitable departure, to his move into Andrea’s small yet comfortably rich flat, many things had changed for him. The changes were neither for better nor worse; even his mother’s escape to Spain hadn’t had any disadvantageous effects on him, at least not yet. He wasn’t living in denial—at least, he hoped not—and it was pleasant, even, being able to be on his own for once.

He knew his age, sixteen in three months, and how laughable it was to think he was really on his own in any sense. But he knew, deep inside, he had finally found his place. Maybe not his aunt’s flat, beautiful as it was, but the city. San Francisco. It was so different, a breath of fresh air really, from his home town of Oxford—aesthetic though it was. It had that constant buzzing, moving, energy that flowed and pumped throughout every street corner, from Chinatown to Union Square. The music that lasted from ten to two in the morning, the smell of hotdogs and coffee that lingered in the air, and the slight drizzle and comfortable chill of the air, all served to make Michael feel as if he belonged.

That in itself was a miracle. Michael had never belonged in Oxford, and he often credited it towards his Americanisms, although he knew that wasn’t the case. He had fit pretty well with his mother’s colleges, an erudite bunch of professors and lecturers, all men and all very much older than she. He had even started teaching himself, flowing in with the rest of the body of students that drifted through the old, rustic buildings and gardens. He had sat in on lectures of Whitman and Freeman, listened to collegians murmur over covers of Wilde and Ibsen, and even helped stumbling students write their essays, topics ranging from the Greeks to Modernized Poetry.

But even with his satisfied love of literature and art, it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t enough watching his mother flip through the Harvard Review while chomping on bear’s claws. It wasn’t enough watching her type away at her laptop, sitting on a small wooden bench in the garden near the creative writing classes. He needed something else, he needed a place he could claim as his own, where he could finally stop leeching off his mother’s works and life experiences, and form his own. And here, in San Francisco, he had found it.

Michael watched a sleek, black limousine pull up through the window in his room. The driver, honked, and even that sound came out casual instead of rude. He heard a hurried shuffling in the living room, and a rushed, “’Later, Michael!” before the door slammed and Andrea was out. Michael finally had the house to himself.

He had been waiting for her to leave ever since Lawrence had called. He needed to be alone, needed to have her library to himself, if not for the entire day, than at least for a few hours. He walked into the library--Andrea had already said he was welcome to it, being a prolific reader—and found her Toshiba winking a little green light up at him, waiting. He slid into her seat and turned the computer on.

He had written...well, all his life. His mother was a great novelist, and he could see that his aunt, too, had been bestowed the gift. He had been encouraged to start at an early age, and oftentimes—having no siblings, and his mother always being out, he always had time to himself—he would pull out a piece of paper and a pencil and work away at whatever tickled his fancy.

But this was something altogether different. He was ready to write his first book, and he didn’t want to have a huge stack of paper at his expense. The computer flickered, wavered, and lit up. He signed himself into Andreas account (she wouldn’t mind, he was sure of it), and opened a new filed. The brilliant white document wheezed, then waited, it’s cursor flickering on, off, on, off. How should he start?

Chapter one...

Hand quivering over the mouse, Michael heard the phone ring. He looked up and the shrill, repeated noise came again from the living room. He stood up and left the library door ajar, walking to the mosaic spread where the telephone sat, buzzing shrilly. He picked up the phone, feeling the cold plastic chill running down his arm.

“Hello, this is the Rudovik residence,” he said.

The voice on the other end was almost breathless, light and feathery, high pitched, and Michael recognized it at once as his mother. “Darling,” she fluttered, “darling, Mickey, how’s my baby doing?”

Michael felt his stomach drop and his guts churn. The last time he spoke to his mother was as she had whisked him on to the plane—no, as she had whisked him onto the cabbie that would take him to the plane. She was too busy to see her son leave the country, but she could do this, she could interrupt his most important and sacred moments.

“Fine, mom.”

“Just fine? How is Auntie Andy? How is San Fran? How—“

“Jeez mom, slow down!” Michael ran one hand through his hair and thought of his mother, probably hunched over the Spanish newspaper, frowning over the cover of Lolita and sipping something warm and full of spices. She would be sitting on the beach or on the porch of a village, glaring through the sunlight—which was a pet peeve of hers—and thinking about her next big thing. She could have done that anywhere; she could have stayed in Oxford, could have gone back to Rome where Michael had been conceived; but she wouldn’t hear of it. Everything had to be exotic, experimental, and totally unnecessary. That was her way; if you didn’t need to do it, do it anyways.

“Sorry, hon. You know I did try to call when you got in. Andy was probably on the phone, hogging the lines.”

She was lying, and Michael knew it. It was another thing of hers, another unnecessary thing, the constant lie and pretense of caring. He knew she was just doing it to make him feel as if he were really her son; which he wasn’t—not in that sense anyways. But he forgave her. He would always forgive her.

“It’s ok mom. I’m fine. You see? I’m fine.”

“If you say so. How’s the self-study going?”

“Not bad.” Michael had adamantly refused to attend an American school, and being around the Oxford collegians, he had learned to teach himself everything and anything he needed. He wouldn’t need University anyways, not if he could do this one, final project. The one his mother was making skirt around his mind. “I’ve assigned myself a paper on Roman Catholicism in the late sixteen hundreds, and I’m reading Crime and Punishment.”

“Sounds great, sweetheart,” his mother replied, vaguely disinterested, “Dostoevsky is brilliant.”

“Yeah, well, I’m going to go work now.” Michael thought of the Toshiba, waiting for his intimate return.

“You’ve kept up the writing?” Typical. She would ask this, and he would have to answer of course, and his legs would be stuck in this position for ten, fifteen, thirty minutes; until he had answered properly. His mother would be interested, at least. She would be fascinated.

“No, I’m a little busy right now. I’ll get to writing as soon as I can.”

He could feel her frown over the line. “You were always such a virtuoso. A Rudovik trait.” he heard her sigh. “But I suppose it’s different with men, isn’t it?” it was a rhetorical question. She sighed again. “Well, whenever you get the chance, write. Believe me, you’ll be thankful.”

“Alright mom, I’ll get right on that.”

“Talk to you as soon as I can. I have this Lolita thing to do...”

“It’s fine mom.” Fine, he thought bitterly, fine, fine, fine.

“Bye-bye, darling.”

“Goodbye, mother.”

Michael hung up the phone, feeling regret and a passionate fury; but he couldn’t tell whether he was angry at his mother for her obvious lack of attention to her only child, or for pretending, denying, and delaying; or if it was a combination of the two, with the resentment that followed.