Crossing Figures

A week passed, and I still got fed up by Daniel. Fortunately the weekend was there, and I could relax and concentrate on shopping. And on my mother.

She had called me one day before she would arrive, and from what I had heard, she brought her new acquisition with her, a certain Walter. According to some source (my father, who had called me to wish me luck too) they had been together for about two months, but my mother had never mentioned his name in one of our many phone calls.

For some reason I saw a fat man with a giant moustache when I thought of the name Walter. He would also be bald, with little beady eyes sunken into his thick head.

I went to the airport to pick up him and my mother, and then we would go to a nice restaurant to eat something so we could chat. We would finally hear each other again in real life, and not always by phone. After a while it became annoying to always talk by phone, my ear was getting numb from it.

Still, I preferred that Mom would stay at home; I knew Walter would annoy me, because I wanted a copy of Dad, and he wouldn’t be that kind of person. Mom was no longer interested in men like Dad, she was tired of nice family men, she wanted something more exciting. And Walter would give her that… For a few months at least.

I drove to the airport, turned up the volume of my radio and sang along with the cheerful songs. It would take a while before I would reach the airport, so it was better if I would make it a fun ride, because the ride back home would either end in a great silence or in a great rage, because I wouldn’t accept that Mom hadn’t informed me that she had found someone new.

Maybe I didn’t want them in my home, I lived in a small apartment, I couldn’t cram both in my bed! And I didn’t feel like sleeping on the sofa, that would just give me back pain. Walter had to show his good heart and decide that my Mom and I could sleep in the bed and he would sleep on the sofa. That would be a good initiative of him.

After at least an hour of driving, the airport loomed in front of me, on the left a plane just landed and on the right one of them rose high above the clouds. And to think it wasn’t so long ago that I had been on one of the planes to get here. It seemed like an eternity that I had been living in my apartment, cut off from all my family.

But today there would come a small part of my family, and my otherwise always enthusiastic mood disappeared at the thought of Walter. Damn, all these surprised and encounters had to stop for a while; they gave me nothing but trouble. First Daniel, then Ben, then James, and now Walter. Yay.

I parked near the airport, and walked inside. On the time table I could see Mom’s flight had just landed, and she could come to me any moment.

The idea that also Walter would stay in my apartment, gave me the chills. Mom was tiring sometimes with all her questions and comments, what would it be like if someone was there to encourage her? I would find out soon enough.

"There she is," I muttered to myself.

A bunch of golden curls galumphed toward me. I showed a twisted smile when I felt Mom’s slender arms around me in a big, crushing hug. Her hair still smelled the same, like lavender. The scent swirled into my nose and I thought back to my carefree youth. Well, those days were gone forever, why bother to think about them?

"Hello, darling! How are you?" Mom gave me a big kiss on the cheek.

"I’m fine, Mom," I nodded. "How did the flight go?"

Mom started beaming. "Fantastic! With a man like Walter at your side it’s impossible to feel bad!"

"Where is that Walter guy anyway?" I asked dryly.

My eyes went around the airport in search of a fat guy with a huge moustache, but someone like that was nowehere to be seen. Mom pointed with red blushes on her cheeks past me, and when I followed her finger with my eyes, I almost fell backwards.

My vision of the man Walter was completely wrong.

A man with blonde hair, straight, white teeth, a body like that of an Adonis and the brightest eyes I had ever seen, came walking towards us. In his left hand he held something what looked like the newspaper, and in the other he held a fresh cup of Starbucks coffee.

"Is that… Walter?"

"Yes! He’s a cutie, isn’t he?"

My mouth dropped open wide in surprise and I didn’t even bother to close it. This couldn’t be true! This man looked barely thirty years old, he would rather be my friend than the boyfriend of my mother.

"How old is he?" I asked flatout.

"Erm…" Mom began to blush again. "He’s… ehm… Thirty-five."

"What?"

Just as I had left my cry of surprise Walter stood beside me, his perfect smile didn’t fade from his face and I felt nauseous at the thought that my mother and Adonis had a relationship with each other.

This man looked like he just had crawled out of a magazine to impress all men and women, and my forty-eight year old mother dated him? What had become of our society?

"Thirteen years, gosh…" I said to myself. "That’s a lot."

Walter blinked. "Excuse me?"

"Oh, sorry," I said. "I’m Lux, Carry’s daughter. Nice to meet you."

"Walter, Carry’s friend," Walter said, and he shook my hand warmly.

I could feel how soft his skin was under my hand and there went a chill over my spine. I had always thought that men’s hands were rough from working, with callus stains. But this felt like a baby’s skin, soft and warm. This was certainly not a stereotypical man I first had envisioned.

We started to drag all the luggage from the airport and Mom stuffed me one of her heaviest cases, and I groaned under the weight. Walter grabbed his mountain of luggage and went off to the exit. My Mom and I followed him, a few weet away, so that he couldn’t hear our hushed conversation.

"For how long are you going to stay?" I asked.

"Two weeks."

I nodded, but then went to the topic that I wanted to talk about. "Mom, are you crazy? That Walter is a god! And you know what they say about such a guys…"

"That they are good in bed and they make me feel young?"

"Ew, Mom, please! Spare me the details!"

I gagged when I saw how my mother shared the bed with Walter. That would be burned on my retina forever. Horrible.

"But seriously," I continued. "He’s thirteen years younger. I don’t care if there’s an age diffrence, but don’t you think that this is… A big age difference?"

Mom shrugged, and her eyes went towards Walter. His pants were tight and his – it pains me to say – ass was looking sexy in it, and his muscular upper arms were very masculine and robust. Walter was a dream, I can assure you that, but he was not the man for Mom.

Why would you choose for a man you knew by just looking at that he was a no-good? Walter just stayed with my mother because he knew she earned quite a big amount of money, that much was already clear. But I wouldn’t be able to make her let go of Walter, she looked too happy to make Walter leave her.

"Ah, Lux… He’s my knight in shining armor. He came to me when I felt lonely. Let me remain at this stage of love, it feels so great…"

"Love is goof for nothing," I said, not realizing how bitter I sounded. "Especially when you get it from mister Adonis over there."

I gave a nod to Walter who was waiting outside, but Mom stopped abruptly and pulled me back by tugging at my arm. I almost tumbled backwards over one of the suitcases that Mom had placed down with a thud. I gave my Mom a startled look.

"Luxy…" she said sugary sweet.

I already felt it coming. "What, Mom?"

"Have you followed my advice, young lady?"

"Of course."

Mom raised her eyebrow for me. "Do you know what advice I’m talking about?"

"That I have to communicate with men to make sure that I get in a relationship where I feel happy in, so happy that I’m floating on air? Yes, I know about which advice you were talking, Mom."

"And?" Mom pressed.

"And…" I started to walk again pondering how I could best formulate my response. "Yes, I have followed the advice. I have male friends."

"Tell me their names, now!"

Mom was so excited that I almost became a little queasy. I knew that she could get any man she wanted, but in that aspect I didn’t look like her. I had a lot of trouble with men to love me, it just didn’t work out. But Mom didn’t had to know that of course.

"Ben, James and Daniel. And Thierry, but he likes the men," I said.

What a lie. Daniel wasn’t my friend, he would never be my friend. I’d rather avoid that sex maniac like the plague, but Mom didn’t know, she didn’t need to know. If she would see Daniel, she would choose him as a man with potential, because he had some traits resembled with Walter. But I would never choose him. Never.

James was too childish and not really my type. He was a nice guy, but he didn’t have… that little bit of magic that I was looking for. That magic that made me do crazy things, that gave me butterflies and a pounding heart. Otherwise he might have made a chance.

And then there was Ben. Ben… There was not much to say about him. In the two days I saw him he had not really left a good impression, all he had was something mysterious, something indescribable. But that was all. He also missed that spark of magic that I was looking for.

So my conclusion? No one with potential between the names I had just mentioned.

"Hmm, James… That sounds like a handsome Englishman, don’t you think?"

Mom grinned, but I shook my head firmly.

"It sounds like it, but he totally isn’t."

I opened the door of the airport and showed Walter and Mom where my car was. Mom was now walking beside him, and I trudged behind them. My arms began to get numb from all the
weight of the suitcase, and my brains were working faster than ever before.

I was looking for a story with a corse, to make it look like my three men had been my friends for already a very long time. Unfortunately, I barely knew them for two weeks, if I didn’t have a great story Mom would find out I was lying. Mom yearned already for a long time for a story spunned with sugar sweet scenes and spicy details. But she would have to wait. Or she would just never hear about a story like that.

"Will we get all the bags in your car, Lux?" Walter suddenly interrupted my thoughts.

"Hopefully, otherwise we have a little problem," I said a little absent.

Walter turned to me, and again that radiant smile with the bright white teeth appeared. At that point I would love to scracth the lovely smile of his face. He was too perfect, and that way I couldn’t concentrate on my hatred that I tried to brew for him, because if he would hurt my mother, I would cut him into a thousand pieces like a trained serial killer.

I opened the trunk of my car and stuffed Mom’s suitcases inside. Walter’s suitcases got in the back, together with him. I let Walter get in first and then stuffed all the bags so that Mom only had a small bag on her lap. And that way we were able to leave.

"Lux, if they ever have the time, I’d like to meet your friends," my Mom suddenly said. "Or no, wait, make sure I’ve seen them all."

"Mom, they’re working people, you can’t expect them to have plenty of time to meet the mother of a regular friend," I said sighing.

"Are you trying to say that none of those guys you’ve just mentioned has a crush on you?" my mother said with a dramatic movement of her arms. Walter remained silent in the back seat and followed the conversation. "That’s impossible."

I didn’t answer Mom’s question because I knew she would never listen to what I told her. The only thing she could think of was her opinion, her hope in the search of my dream guy, but she didn’t need to push me that hard. I had learned that love shouldn’t be forcerd, so I waited like everybody should do.

When Mom realized that I didn’t want to talk about my love life, she looked out of the window leaving out an amazingly great sigh. And I fully concentrated on the way back home. But suddenly raindrops began to splash against the windshield, and I cursed.

"Stupid rain! Why does it have to rain now? Goddamnit!" I swore frustrated.

In the back of the car I heard Walter murmuring words because of my rudeness, and I gave him a glare from out of the rearview. If I wanted to swear, I would swear. I got all the anger out like that and I didn’t need to worry anymore about killing someone because of the frustration hidden inside of me. Walter would be grateful, because I had thrown him out of the vehicle if I hadn’t cursed.

But it was quiet again and the rest of the ride took place in an uncomfortable silence. I didn’t know how I had to start a conversation, and Mom didn’t even bother to help and stared out the window.

And I felt what was coming. If I wouldn’t show Ben, James and Daniel to her, she would walk around for a long time with this mood, and all that silence would make me go crazy until I would finally snap.

So I started to go off the three men in my head, and Daniel was immediately removed from the list. He could definitely not know where I lived, or he would stand in front of my door every morning to guide me to my work and I didn’t want to spend even more time with him.

So James and Ben remained. Or maybe I could pretend Thierry was one of them…? No, Mom would realize that he was gay, and she would get even in a worse mood. God, it was hard to think about this! Especially if you feel a sharp tension you can’t remove, and you’re struggling to keep yourself under control.

"Mom, where would you like to eat?" I asked her to break the silence.

"Doesn’t matter, a cozy restaurant," she shrugged her shoulders indifferently.

Then she turned back towards the window and watched the dark gray sky above us expand. Now the drops clattered against my little car, and I felt the slippery path under my wheels. Hopefully we wouldn’t get into a accident.

Luckily I saw something looming in the distance that looked like a restaurant, and it looked nice, too. Just a little bit of luck for me.

I turned left and parked the car without saying anything on the parking lot.

"Get out or starve, you may choose," I said to Walter.

"Then I choose the food," he said. "Or I have to eat my sweetheart, and that’s really the last thing I want to do."

Those words brightened up my mother and with a grin from ear to ear she stepped out of the car, all her worries were forgotten by the little phrase, and I was relieved. How fortunate that Walter was a charmer, if we had sat around the table with a person that could kill you by simply throwing a glance, it would kill me.

Walter grabbed Mom’s hand in his and entwined their fingers together, and I felt my heart stopped beating. Why did I suddenly wanted that someone held my hand that way? I also wanted to be loved by a man like I meant the world to him, but where was this man now?

Mom and Walter went inside the restaurant. Walter now had his arm around her and pressed a kiss on her cheek, and made Mom roar with laughter. And I watched them, feeling sad and alone, forgetting that the rain was pouring down.

When I came back to my senses I ran to the door and saw Mom and Walter sitting at the table, hugging and kissing secretly, and I smiled watery.

This would become a very long evening.