Serenade Me Home (Working on title)

I am inclined to believe that love is a fantasy. Fictional. Tragic. The people that watch Romeo and Juliet in the desperate hope for their very own true love is, quite frankly, in my opinion, the most demeaning and vapid thing.

Mum only thinks of my opinions as a teen “phase” and that I’ll soon get over it. Mother, just in case you’re reading this, I will get over it as soon as you stop reading books about Prince Charming and how, oh so bloody perfect he is. Oh and Mum? The constant loop of Katherine Heigl movies on a nightly basis is getting a tad irritating now, don’t you think?

And someone needs to wash your Barbie pink polka dot heart Snuggie (I mean, a blanket with arms. Seriously?) I personally will put it in with Mitzi’s dog dirt. Which, all things considered, was the place where it belonged in the first place.

As you can tell, my mother and I are complete worlds apart. It’s like I’m on the moon and she’s on Jupiter. Which, isn’t even considered a proper planet anymore. Mum’s a workaholic, you see. Always has been, always will be. I just feel like I’m an inconvienience to her, as if I’m some piece of furniture she regrets buying. Kind of like her marriage to my Dad. Something she thought was oh so fantastic and then after realising she was required to make an effort (which, in all honesty, she only ever did with her job) she backed out, filed for divorce under “irreconcilable differences”

Mum says I’m just like my father, in every way possible. The eyes, the nose, mouth and apparently, my personality.

I enter through the front door, dripping wet, as the rain in this town demands on persisting, my younger brother Harvey runs up to me and wraps his arms around my torso. “Mummy said she has to go to some meet thing. You babysit, she said.”

Of course she did, I think to myself.

I pick up Harvey. Harvey has just turned five, Our parents have been divorced for three years now. Mum and Dad were dating when they figured out I’d be brought into a miserable existence. Then, when I did come along Dad declared his love for Mum, and they got engaged. Fast forward 12 years, Harvey, the new bundle of joy comes along. Mum and Dad decide to marry. Three years later, they’re divorced. So much for death do we part, eh?

Harvey’s voice gets me back to my train of thought. “Can we have chips?” Harvey asks excitedly.

Just then, I hear the tap tap of my mother’s Jimmy Choo’s descending the staircase. She winds the ends of her long brown hair around her left index finger. Her best friend, Blackberry, superglued to her ear. “Yes, Jeremy. Make sure Elaine has the press release sorted and in good time.” She sighs, impatiently, obviously, her assistant hasn’t pleased her. “No, you know what happened last time. Yes, reschedule my meeting for tomorrow morning. 8.30.”

“I said,” Harvey starts. “can we have chips?”

“One minute, Harves.” I whisper, softly rubbing his back. 

“Mum.” I mouth over at her. She gives me a look of pure disgust and pinches her forefinger and thumb together, motioning them across angry pursed lips.

I knew what that meant. All to well.

***

I was lead across the couch watching some crappy reality TV when Mum casually walks in, tapping away furiously at her Blackberry keyboard.

“And what time do you call this?” I ask, with an eyebrow raised, cup of chamomile tea in hand, as I flick on the living room light.

Mum dramatically gasps, dropping her beloved Blackberry and keys on the floor and bangs her head on the cupboard next to the door. “For God’s sake, Annie!”

I smirk, then my expression mirrors hers from earlier this evening. Pure disgust. My forefinger and thumb zip my lips. “Your son is asleep.”

Harvey woke up around eight, running into my room in his Spiderman pajamas and bashing a pillow over my head, and laughing uncontrollably. As much as I’d want to scream at him right now, I don’t. I sit up, grab another pillow and climb out of bed. “You better run, little monster.”

The laughing/screaming starts as I begin to chase him. Mum is standing at the bottom of the stairs asking what all the commotion is about. Oh, now she feels the need to be an assertive parent, does she? She totters out of the house dead on eight twenty. She yells goodbye and then the front door slams.

Later that day, as we are making our way through the park Harvey asks me why we never see much of Mum anymore. My answer would be: because she is a physcotic robot workaholic. Then again, how can you explain that to a five year old who still believes in all the innocent things that I wish I still believed in?

As much as I knew I wanted to leave this town, I also knew that I needed to stay. At least for Harvey’s sake. Mum was having what she liked to call a “rest day” as it was a Sunday. This meant she was still doing all the work she “just needed to get done”, just in her £6 pajamas from Asda. She was lightly sipping her coffee from her “I HEART NY” (Out of all the places she’d been on a business trip, New York certainly wasn’t one of them, which I found incredibly ironic) when she replied to my statement. 

“You what?” She nearly spills her coffee all over the breakfast table.

“I’m going to Dad’s for the summer.”

“No.” She says in a firm, I-am-your-mother-and-you’ll-do-as-I-say tone.

“You can’t just show up unannounced like that.” She says, slamming down her now empty coffee cup.

“Who says I’m going unannounced?” I smirk, folding my arms and narrowing my eyes at her.

“You spoke to your father?” Mum asks with the same look of absolute disgust I had seen the night of her meeting.

“They do have all the same communication techniques up North, you know?” I turn away and just as I do:

“What about Harvey?” 

A nasty, vindictive laugh escapes from my throat. “Oh Mother.” I turn back to face her. “Harvey’s coming too. After all, you’re too busy for both of us these days.”