Well, this has been the first chapter in a while because of my fantastic summer holidays. I have some more spare time to myself at the moment and so I will be online a little more often from now on. You can still e-mail me on wanna_get_lucky@hotmail.com and visit the home page on http://luckys_place.homestead.com
Chapter 33 - Playing the Field
"Hi mum."
"Hi sweetheart. How are you?"
"Fine."
"Good! Hi my other sweetheart."
"Hi mum, I think you've lost weight."
"Really? Or do you just want money already?"
"Mum!"
"I'm just joking, thank you for noticing though. And last but certainly not least, hi my last sweetheart."
"Huh? Err, hi!" Conner was taken aback by my mum's hug and calling him one of her sweethearts. To tell the truth so was I. It seemed out of character, she seemed overly happy about something.
"So then, shall we get unpacked?"
"Err, already?"
"Well why not?"
"Don't you want to relax? You normally do after long haul flights."
"I just feel really energetic this time."
"No kidding."
"Mum? Whilst I think about it, some woman from your office dropped this in for you the other day." Sean handed my mum the real estate brochure which we had left on the table in the hallway. Mum's face dropped when she realised what it was that she was looking at.
"Meddling bitch." She only mumbled it under her voice, I don't think she even realised that she had said it aloud.
"Who?"
"What?"
"Who's a meddling bitch?"
"The woman who brought this around. She's been asking for a pay rise and so has been brown nosing her way around the office. I didn't want you boys to see this."
"Why? What's going on?"
"I've had a job offer in LA and have been seriously considering it. I went down there this weekend whilst I was in the states to have a look at the company and it really seems to be going places. I didn't want to say anything to you until I had decided one way or another."
"Mum, what about us?"
"Well, you know that I would want you with me, but I couldn't take you away from your friends. It wouldn't be fair on you, so your choices would be to join me or stay here."
"Yeah, but where?"
"With your dad, he'd have you."
"Dad? Couldn't we buy a flat or something?"
"Now Danny! That isn't fair! Your father loves you very much, he just has no idea how to express it. I don't want you hating him because you feel you need to for me."
"I don't hate him it's just that we don't talk, not like you and I do. And I don't like that tart of a girlfriend of his. You're really serious about moving are you?"
"I am serious that it is an option for me. Apart from my family, I have nothing left for me here. As important as my family is, I can't help but feel that this new life would be good for me, a new start without the good hearted but annoying sympathy I get for your father leaving me. I know everybody means well but there are only so many cakes and invitations to dinner that I can take out of sympathy. Everything here reminds me about how my marriage failed and I would rather make a fresh start somewhere where I won't have to deal with that anymore."
"I want so much to be understanding and everything and I know it's selfish of me, but I don't want you to go mum."
"I can understand that. It's the same reason that I don't want to go, but you have to understand that I need something new in my life. At the moment I feel as if I'm missing out on so much, and now that I'm free from marriage and that you boys are old enough to hold your own I want to take a second shot at life, to travel, to experience things that I wouldn't have done had I still been married."
Neither Sean nor I answered, we could understand what she meant, we'd seen it happening to her but we didn't want her to go. It was selfish of us, but we didn't want her to leave.
"When would this be for mum?"
"Whenever I decide."
"Would we have to move out of here?"
"I don't know. Your father may wish to move in here, but don't forget that he has his tramp now." That made us smile a little. "She might not want to move."
"Does dad know any of this yet?"
"No. Like I said, I wanted to have a firm decision on my own part before I start to plan things out."
"I think that's fair enough. You will let us know as soon as you do right?"
"Of course sweetheart. You guy's will be the first to know."
A short silence fell over us, nobody knew what to say. Sean took a deep breath in and made an attempt to change the mood.
"So how was your trip anyway?"
"Good. Good, Steve and I had an excellent team and we got the entire campaign sorted in no time."
"Steve?"
"My PA."
"To what extent?"
"What? PA, Personal Assistant."
"I know what a PA is, but how far was he personal in assisting you? I saw that grin on your face when you said his name."
"Danny! My personal life is as much business as yours is with Conner. I would appreciate you not implying such sordid ideas as that again." She had a stern look on her face.
"Yes mum." She turned and carried her suitcase towards her bedroom. I looked to Sean and Conner who were grinning at me.
"Steve's her boyfriend all right."
"Oh yeah!"
"Danny! We talked about this the other night and you know how I feel about this. It's not fair of you to put me in this situation. You had no right to invite Scott to stay here in the first place. I can't turn him out now, what kind of a cold-hearted bitch would I look like if I did that? My house is not a hostel Danny, I can't feed five mouths every night can I!"
"Well actually, mother, you can." She was pissed off, she swore. That was a give away sign of my mother being angry. I was angry too though. I could not leave Scott out of a home. Especially when I had been the one to persuade him to leave home in the first place.
"Scott is not my responsibility Danny. He is not one of my children. Don't get me wrong, I like him and I feel sorry for him about his situation, but I cannot be expected to house and feed him as one of my own for ever."
"It's not forever though is it!? It's until he can sort something out."
"And how long is that going to be, huh? What is he going to do to sort something out? Where is he going to turn to? What you boys imagine as being a temporary solution, as being a problem that will be sorted within a couple of weeks is so much more complex than you realise. What happens if he can't find anywhere to stay? I don't want him here indefinitely. I need some time to myself and with you and Sean obviously living here, Conner here so often he may as well live here and now Scott living here indefinitely too that's getting increasingly difficult for me."
"Then set some ground rules."
"You want me to set ground rules?"
"Yeah, if it makes things easier on you, you won't feel the need to complain as much and then life becomes more pleasant for everyone."
"OK, well we'll start with this, when you guys get home from school, you get the television and newspapers, whatever. When I get home from work, I don't want empty crisp packets, glasses, cans, whatever swarming the living room. I want to have the living room clean, tidy and vacated when I get home so I can watch the telly or read a newspaper in peace and quiet to relax after work."
"Fair enough."
"There will be no arguing, if any of you boys feel the need to argue, you take it outside. I mean that literally, there will be no raised voices in this house other than mine."
"I don't see that happening anyway mum. But OK."
"I want all your rooms tidy."
"Mine usually is, I don't like clutter."
"Fair enough, yours is, but Sean's rarely is. He only cleans his room when he's after something and I never saw the state of Scott's room and so I don't know what to expect from him, as long as he's a guest in this house he will have the courtesy to keep his room clean."
"I'll let him know then."
"And Sean."
"Yeah, and Sean."
"You will all from now on do your own ironing."
"WHAT?"
"If you want this to work then you follow these rules and it is not fair of you to expect me to start ironing an extra set of clothes, washing is different, I just stick them in the machine, but ironing takes physical effort and time on my behalf, neither of which I wish to have to sacrifice. Clear?"
"Clear."
"Now let's see. What else?"
"You don't have to make up rules for the sake of it you know mum?"
"I know, but it's fun to anyway." She gave a week smile.
"It'll work out soon. Don't worry."
"I just don't want it to take too long OK?"
"OK mum."
"Good."
"What the fuck is wrong with you people? It's boring!"
"We don't fucking complain when you watch Neighbours do we?"
"At least that's got people in not drawings!"
"Guy's stop fucking arguing all right! Sean if you don't want to watch the fucking cartoons then go and watch something else in my room if you have to."
"But that's not the point!"
"The point is you're acting up and being a complete fucking twat about all this. Just go and watch something else, stop fucking bitching about what other people want to do. You're making yourself look like a tight dick."
"Oh and you're not? Mr this-is-my-house!"
"You know what Sean? You're right! This isn't my house, but if mum was here, do you know what she would say?"
"Go on the all mighty, all knowing Danny. What would she say? Tell me."
"She'd say stop being a fucking dick you obnoxious piece of shit."
"Fuck you Danny."
"No Sean, fuck you."
"You are such a cunt sometimes."
"For fuck sake! Get out and watch something else."
"Danny! It's all right, we'll change the channel. It's not that important."
"Now who's the fucking dick?"
"At least I get some." Childish I know, but, well, hey!
"And what the fuck is that supposed to mean?" Ow! Claire had one of those 'how dare you' faces on.
"Nothing. Sorry Claire, that was just childish of me."
"Look! Would everyone chill out? It's like being in a room full of menopausal serial killers with you guy's some times." Everyone quietened down after that. We watched some more telly after the channel was changed.
"Danny?"
"Uh huh?"
"You OK?"
"Yeah, why?"
"You've been really irritable lately."
"He's nervous about the play this weekend."
"You'll do fine, don't worry Danny."
"I hope so."
"When's Horatio getting here?" Caz played Horatio you see and so the others had began calling him that.
"He's rehearsing until five I think."
"I take it that's where Trace is then?"
"Yeah. She'll be watching."
"And where is dear old Trix?"
"He'll be busy for a while."
"How do you mean?"
"He's courting too."
"Really?" The other's looked at me in surprise. That's about the time when I realised that I had slipped up.
"No. Just joking." Would they buy it?
"Then why do you look so nervous?"
"Who is it?"
"Are you sure?"
"Do we know them?"
"Jesus! OK, look, you didn't hear it from me OK?"
"Of course not."
"He'll kill you Danny, don't say a word." Conner warned me. I had told him when Trix told me.
"They'll find out sooner or later anyway."
"Don't say I didn't warn you."
"You ever been to that coffee shop by the French Connection shop?"
"Yeah. Go on."
"Well we went there, Trix, Conner and I for lunch last week some time. Trix has been back everyday after school to talk with one of the girls behind the counter."
"Really? Do we know her? What's she like?"
"Well, she goes to Westmount so I don't think any of you do know her."
"What does she look like?"
"Blonde, petite, usual Trix sort of girl."
"When was he going to tell us about her?"
"I guess he will if he gets to go out with her."
"He doubts that? Is he sick?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well usually he'd have told us all that she was his and then he'd go and ask her out."
"I guess he wants to impress her then. Not be too up front."
"Trix? Not too up front?"
"Strange huh?"
"Telling me!"
"Let's go and see her."
"NO."
"I warned you Danny."
"Oh come on, we can just walk past the place and peek in, see Trix sitting there and decide to go in and sit with him to keep him company."
"No, come on guys."
"Sorry Danny, come on everyone."
"You'll get me into trouble guys!"
"You shouldn't have opened your big mouth then should you?"
"I warned you!"
"Thanks for the sympathy babes."
"Anytime sweetie."
We made it to the coffee shop and the other's all went in first. I came in last and looked around. Trix was sitting at a table with the waitress. She was eating what must have been her dinner. Trix's eyes met mine and he looked at me as if to say 'We'll talk about this later!' The others all approached the girl and Trix introduced each of them to her. The girl seemed happy enough to meet our gang and seemed a pretty outgoing person. Shaking hands left right and centre with the vultures waiting to find out as much as they could about her.
"And this guy over here is Danny." The girl stood up and leaned over the table to shake my hand. She was a little further away from me than the others who were surrounding her.
"It's good to meet you. Trix has said a lot about you."
"Really? Don't believe it." I said as one of those crappy 'I've only just met you and so will say unamusing little quips which aren't funny but we will both laugh at anyway.'
"Oh I wouldn't be too sure about that one." Trix gave me that look again.
"So. Who's the lucky Conner then? I'm sorry, I've forgotten already, you all came in in force and so I've not picked up your names yet."
"I'm Conner."
"I see. You must be Sean, you look like Danny, that's all."
"Yeah."
"You're Scott because you're the tallest here. Which makes you Either Toby or Luke."
"Luke."
"Why not James or Ryan?" Trix asked.
"This guy isn't gay." A smile spread over Luke's face. I think that that was his largest concern; that he would be labelled as gay because he hung around with gay people. Plus the fact that we always teased him about it. He seemed happy that it wasn't the case.
"OK, so the girls. You look like a Claire."
"That's right."
"Which makes you Trace."
"Nope Trace ain't here, this is Kate."
"OK then, sorry about that."
"No worries."
"I've heard a lot about all you guy's. Tristan here must think real highly of you."
"Err, I don't mean to be rude but I never caught your name?"
"Jess."
"Hi."
"Hi." It was one of those moments. We'd caught Trix just before he was about to ask her out I could tell. I felt guilty and Trix wasn't helping much there. He kept on giving me irritated looks as Jess was barraged with a series of the usual get to know you chit chat.
I felt sick, scared and nervous. Well, nervous didn't do it justice in fact. I was so nervous that I was about ready to wet myself, even though I'd been to the toilet about eight times already, in the last fifteen minutes. I'd squeezed my bladder dry but still felt compelled to go and wring it out one more time. I chose not to and opted for the safer option of pacing up and down the wing.
"Danny! Sit the fuck down! You're making me nervous just watching you!"
"I'm gunna fuck up I can tell."
"You've sang in front of live audiences. How is this different?"
"This is Shakespeare. There's an audience of academic geeks out there who will laugh their heads off when I muck up. At least if I fuck up in a song I can make a joke out of it. If I did that here can you imagine what would happen?"
"You're going to be fine Danny. Just relax before you give yourself an aneurysm!"
"Caz, you might be on to something there. That would get me out of this."
"Well, as they say, 'forget the aneurysm and break a leg' Danny. I'm on."
Mental note: never agree to be in a school play again. I knew that the only thing that I could do was go out there and give it my all, but I was nervous as shit and that made me even more nervous! If the audience saw that I was nervous then they would think that I was crap, that thought made me even more nervous. It was just a big circle of nerves that I wasn't enjoying one bit.
Before I even knew it, I was on the stage. I couldn't see the audience because of the lights which were making me feel far too hot instantly. I delivered to the best of my ability and I think that I did pretty well. The others congratulated me whenever I came off stage, but they'd do that anyway. It was the soliloquy's that scared me the most since it was Hamlet that we were putting on after all. This play had the most famous soliloquy's of all time in it and I had to act them out.
I was surprised as to how fast the play seemed to run on and was pleased no end when the curtain fell for the last time. I had an awful time acting dead, I remembered a joke that had had everyone in piss fits during the final rehearsal and was struggling to keep from smiling or laughing. Other than that, I was pretty pleased with myself.
My friends had all been there to see me, as well as my mum and aunt. They all met me after and congratulated me. They all told me how much they enjoyed the whole play and how professional it had seemed. The usual stuff. It made me feel quite proud though. I had another two nights of performances, but tonight was the big one really. Opening night with all my friends and my mum there was the one that I worried about, but it was over now and I had done well. Now that I thought about it. In two night's time, I would have a hell of a lot of free time returned to me. No more rehearsals. On that note, in just two weeks I would have all the free time I wanted. School would break up for the summer holidays. Now that was something to look forward to. Mum hadn't mentioned any holidays for us this year. I'm not sure if I would want to go without Conner anyway, I'd much rather stay at home.
All of us in the play had been given the Friday off school because of the performance tonight. Conner had finished all his exams and so had finished school already anyway. Sean still had one exam to go in about three days time. Conner and Sean's mock exam results had been pretty good so I guess that they were doing well in school despite the relative relationships.
Conner and I went back to his house to stay. His parents were in bed by the time we got there. It was quite late since the play was such a long one. We quietly went to bed and just lay talking for a while.
"So do you think that Trix and that Jess girl will go well together?"
"She seemed to like him and he definitely likes her. I've never seen him so hyper these last few evenings. He's never drunk coffee in his life and now suddenly he's drinking loads to be with this girl. He's OD'ing on caffeine."
"Yeah I noticed that too. She seems like a nice enough person."
"Yeah."
"He seems pretty serious too. I mean she called him Tristan, I picked up on that one. Nobody calls him Tristan except when they're pissed off with him and he knows it. He didn't care though. He seems to be taking this relationship seriously. Especially since he's been taking it slowly, usually he would have just blurted it out, you know? Sort of 'Oy, will you go out with me?' He really seems serious about this."
"I thought that too. I'll tell you who else seems to be getting quite serious now too. Luke and Kate."
"Yeah, they've been going out the longest of all our groups relationships haven't they? They're like the couple that have so far stood the test of time."
"I like to think that we've done that too."
"Yeah, we've been through a lot too."
"Tell me about it." A short silence fell over us.
"What do you imagine our future to be like?"
"I don't know. To be honest I'm dreading next year."
"Why?"
"You finish school and move on to Uni. I still have the sixth form to sit through, you're already half way there. We've become so used to seeing each other every day and almost every night and after next September I don't see you until Christmas. Especially if you get into Leeds like you want to. It's too far away to visit you regularly and I couldn't afford it anyway. You're not going to be able to afford to come down and visit that often yourself and it's going to be awful."
"Well we can worry about that when it happens can't we. We still have a year and about two months till that happens."
"I know, it just keeps crossing my mind though."
"That's not really what I meant though. I mean the long term, do you still imagine us together in ten years time, twenty, when we're drawing pensions?"
"I hope so. I don't usually think that far ahead but lately I have been doing I suppose."
"What have you been thinking then?"
"About having kids, but well, that's out the window I guess."
"How do you mean?"
"Simple biology Danny, neither of us have a womb."
"There's adoption."
"It might sound selfish and I don't doubt that I'd love the kid, but, I think that I could never think of it as my own."
"There's this surrogate mother deal then."
"Then though, it wouldn't be our kid, only one of us could, well you know."
"Yeah, I suppose so. Like you say though, simple biology, we can't have a kid that is both of ours, it just isn't possible."
"No you're right."
"You really want kids huh?"
"I don't know, it's just, well, I might. One day I might you know?"
"I know. So what do you think will happen with us?"
"How do you mean?"
"Our future."
"If you mean to ask if I think that we'll be together for a long time, then yeah."
"How long?"
"I don't know. I don't like the fact, but statistics say that the sort of relationship that we have won't last forever."
"First love sort of deal?"
"Yeah. What about you?"
"Me? Well, I don't know. I want to travel and things like that, but I want to do them with you. I'd rather share what experiences that I'll have with you."
"How long do you think we'll last though?"
"Together? All I know is, I want to grow old with you." Conner's face screwed up into a smile whilst he blushed a little too.
"I think that that's the sweetest thing that anybody has ever said to me." He put his arm further over my chest and pulled me a little closer to him.
"It's true though."
"So you want to be old with me?"
"Uh huh."
"So when I need to be hand fed, helped to stand up, even when someone needs to wipe the dribble from my chin, you'd still want to be there with me?"
"That's different, I don't want to get old like that."
"You don't get the choice really."
"All I know is I want to be able to make it to the toilet on time no matter what age I am. If that situation ever changes, I'll find the nearest 12 bore and the rest will be history."
"You'd damn well better make sure that there were two bullets in that case."
"Now that IS different. I want you to live as long as you can. Enjoy as much of life as you can. I'd hate to see you end what you have for me."
"How come you can and I can't?"
"I don't know, it's just that way."
"You are really weird sometimes Daniel Owen."
"It's a gift babes." He grinned.
"I like that."
"What my weirdness gift?"
"No. You calling me babes. You have done for ages, but I don't think that I ever told you that I like it."
"Well you are. You're my babes."
"I could never think of a pet name for you. Whenever anything comes into my mind it always sounds really corny you know?"
"What like?"
"I don't know. Sexy, cutey, that sort of thing."
"You don't have to have a nick name for me."
"You don't like sexy or cutey then."
"Babes, you can call me what you like. Sexy or cutey are just fine, but you don't need to give me a pet name just because I have one for you."
"I can call you what I like?"
"Within moderation."
"Tit face is out of the question then?"
"Now, come on. If I had a tit for my face, would you really have taken any interest in me?"
"Well I guess you wouldn't talk as much that way." We both laughed a little and I hit him playfully on the arm.
"I think that we had better get some shut-eye."
"Good idea."
"Love you."
"Love you too."