Endless Summer

Desmond had lived an idylic life, and he was well aware of it. He had grown up with caring parents, both working, and each considered succesful in their work. He spent most of his childhood alone, but he understood, he tried to be reasonable. They worked, he went to school, they had family dinners almost every night and their family vacations were always fun and relaxing for everyone. They had petty fights like all families do, but he was blessed. Then he turned 14.

The perfect family fell apart around him. He found his mother with a man, who was not his father, in their bed when he came home from a friend’s house instead of staying the night. That was a bit of shock, and as soon as he found out, both he and his mother, and eventually his father, knew what was going to happen. His father filed for divorce, it wasn’t messy, but instead of having their son around to see a ruined family, both parents decided it would be best if he was sent off to a boarding school. Desmond liked that idea, he couldn’t look at either of his parents the same way anymore. It had come out that his mother was not the only one with “marital indescrestions”. They could afford it, and because both parents had worked the entire time they were married, it wasn’t a horribly messy divorce. As clean as something like that can be, of course.

So, for the next three years, Desmond was sent from his hometown of Chicago, to a boarding school in Minnisota. By the time he was interested in persuing a post-secondary education, he realized it perhaps was for the best. Sure, his family life was shot, but he had an impressive college application checklist. The boarding school insured that. Hard work, but it boasted something like a 92% chance of your child being accepted into one of their top three choices for College. Or so the brochure that Desmond has seen on his first trip there. And at school he spent the entire next three years, not wanting to have strife caused by “picking favorites”, he, dealing with the situation much better then his parents had expected, made the choice to live away from any family for the three years he was there.

Now a 17 year old young man with a bright future ahead of him, he aspired to be an Investment Banker. His parents had encouraged at least a tangental knowledge of finance growing up, and once his teachers had figured this out, the encouraged him. Headed to USC in the Fall for a degree in Finance, Desmond had the whole world infront of him. Having taken summer classes, Desmond had graduated a year early, and had registered in classes and been for a campus walk around and, for the first time in three years, was truely happy and excited about life.

Flagging down a taxi, he threw his suitcase in the trunk and kept his shoulder bag with him as he slid into the back seat. Checking his smartphone he read off the address his father had e-mailed him months before to the Russian cab driver. As he rode towards his father’s appartment building, he forgot how much he had missed the big city in his time away. Sure, Chicago wasn’t a perfect city, he seemed obsessed with gunmetal grey everything, including the weather, but Desmond loved the thriving life that he saw with the people walking, the bright lights and street performers let him forget how utterly alone he felt.

Now Desmond had seen numerous councilors at his boarding school in Minnisota, but he highly suspected that after the intial few meetings, it was mainly so that they could feel useful. They asked him questions about how he felt finding his mother, or about his parents divorce, or their eventual re-marriages. He answered all their questions, and then had been informed that he was, mentally at least, “in my opinion, quite resiliant”. The psychiatrist had then went on to talk about how fascinating his reserach was about children and their ability to rebound much faster then adults. Desmond had pretended to be interested. Actually, he had spent most of his previous three years feigning interest, except for in his intro economics courses. Math was, while useful, quite boring, he did not care about History and none of the Sciences had really caught his interest. He was fluent in Russian because the school had started out exclusively for Russians to send their children to get educated in the West. Honestly, it also seemed a bit weird to learn Spanish in Minnisota. Moving to California, Desmond wondered if he would wish he had learnt it, but then he pushed any kind of profiling thoughts out of his head. English class had been okay, he’d been decent at writing esssays, but he found that he was constantly writing what he thought, well knew, his teachers wanted him to. He never followed Mr.Jeremey, one of his rather effusive English teachers, had told him to “pour your heart on to the page boy! Ther’s so much more to you!”

Paying the driver, Desmond grabbed his bag out of the back and looked up at the looming building infront of him. He called his father and waited as he came down to the lobby. Upon seeing him his father, Paul, visibly fought back tears as he grabbed his son into a long embrace. Whipping his eyes he said, “Desmond, I…I’m just so happy to see you! Let’s get you upstairs, time to meet Janis!”

Janis, as it turned out, was the same age as his father, 47, and honestly was quite a plain women. Average weight, average length, dull, brown hair with brown eyes. Standing at 5′ 6”, she was pretty damn near the average height too. She was polite, asking Desmond about his flight, clearly she was uncomfortable. Desmond, luckily, had learnt living at a boarding school how to be disarming. Soon she had warmed up a bit and turned out to be quite an intelligent and witty women. Desmond could see how Paul had grown to like this women, as he still held the, perhaps childish, belief that his biological parents always loved each other. As it became later, Janis said her goodnights and retired to leave father and son to talk, alone.

He had breakfast with both Janis and Paul at a bistro they frequented before work. He was a rushed affair and, when they finished, Paul and Desmond walked back and embraced as Paul went off the work and Desmond started walking toward the subway station with his suitcase and shoulder bag. He transfered twice and then took a 15 minute cab ride to his mother’s new house. It was in a neighbourhood much like the one he grew up in, and had to check his location three times on his phone to make sure it was NOT where he had grown up. He was hit by huge nostalgia as he walked up the drive way past a newer model Dodge Caravan, the one he’d grown up with, and a BMW X-5, esentially a nicer, and newer version, of the SUV his family had owned when he’d left. Desmond stopped before the door to compose himself. He was wearing the same dark wash jeans he had when he stepped off the plane, and a fresh white and blue striped dress shirt undone, with a white shirt underneath. He thought it was at least some what stylish. Janis had said nice things about how “grown up” he looked. Apparenlty, she wan’t a big fan of band t-shirts.

Feeling ready enough, he double checked the address on his smartphone, and rang the doorbell. A short, pudgey boy of about 14 answered the door. The boy looked him up and down, looking rather suspicious of this tall stranger that had suitcase. “Look,” the boy said, “if you’re selling anything, he aren’t interested.”

Desmond really didn’t know how to answer this and laughed nervously as he tried to think of a response, thankfully, he was saved from trying to explain to this boy that, surprise, I’m most likely going to be sharing you roof for the next few months.

“Desmond!”, expclaimed a female voice that Desmond instantly as his mother’s, Mary. “Oh my gosh, my baby!”, she said with just as much enthusiasm as she started crying and gave him a hug. Desmond wasn’t sure what to expect from his mother, but he supposed that after being seperated he should have seen this coming. Before leaving, he had elected a cold demeanour towards his mother as, at the time, he veiwed the breakup of his family entirely at her front door. Having matured, a bit at least, he realized that he had just been hidden from the signs of a marriage that was hanging by the threads. As Desmond awkward embraced his mother, an older man, whom he assumed was his step-father, came around the corner at full tilt with panic in his voice.

“Mary! Are you…”, he trailed off as he saw the two of them. “Oh, sorry. I mean, well, hello Desmond.” His mother did his best to pull herself together to stammer out an introduction between Desmond, and, she explained, her best friend and love, Mark. Desmond stuck out his hand while his mother clung to his left arm.

“Hi, I’m Desmond, it’s good to meet you.” Even he knew it sounded forced. This was the man that he’d caught his mother in bed, his parent’s bed, with those years earlier. Mark looked just about as embarassed and awkward as he shook back.

“I’m Mark, I really hope that you enjoy your stay, our door is always open to you.”, Mark said, and Desmond caught the look of shock from the short, pudgy boy out of the corner of his eye. Clearly, whoever he was, had not been briefed fully on who this tall stranger that made his mother cry was. This would become clear as Mark continued on, “This is my son,” emphasizing the ‘my’ so it was clear there was no blood relation, well duh Desmond thought, that would have been impossible, “his name is Augustus. Say hello son.”

The boy clearly didn’t know what to do, and waved awkwardly and introduced himself. Desmond almost laughed when Mark introduced him as Augustus, he thought that he looked exactly like the Augustus he imagined in Willy Wonka’s Chocolate factory, if it had been made up of real people. Desmond managed to smile a fully real smile and said he’d be happy to get to know him. Augustus took this point in the conversation to retreat to the basement to watch TV, or so Desmond assumed. What else to people do in basements anyways?

As his mother, still clutching his arm, led him around the house giving him a tour of where, she said hopefully, “you’ll be staying until you leave for California!” She did a very good job of trying to eliminate any kind of awkardness between her and her son.