Oscar
Oscar had a lot on his mind. First, there were the two pieces of his that had been stolen (the buyer hadn't pressed criminal charges, as far as Oscar had known, but he also hadn't re-commissioned him to create any replacement pieces); second, he was beginning to grow more and more uncertain as to how to respond to Dr. Chilton. Not only was he growing less willing to create the sculptures she was selling to various clients, but he was also beginning to feel drawn to being in her presence, despite the condescending attitude she seemed to have adopted with him over the last few weeks. His desire to put up with her deprecating comments was disconcerting to him; he knew it was dangerous, somewhere in the back of his skull, but he was unwilling to admit it.
In addition to his growing concerns about his recent work and his fascination with Dr. Chilton, Oscar's heart had begun to ache over Eve. He wasn't quite sure what exactly it was about her that was beginning to make him nervous, but there was something that hadn't been right between them for the past couple of weeks. There were no specific words or incidences to give Oscar reason to suspect that Eve had felt anything but love and kindness toward him; it was more a strange feeling he had recently, every time he saw her; it was a sort of dull, anxious sense of inadequacy somewhere in his stomach. Within the past seven or so days he'd seen her only three times. Two of those sightings had been on purpose, but one had been accidental; he'd spotted her on campus. It had been strange. Both had been crossing the quadrangle between the arts buildings, and Oscar had seen her before she'd seen him. She was hurrying in his direction, but she'd been preoccupied with some of her own thoughts and had not seen him. Strangely enough, his first instinct had been to turn and hide. He couldn't figure out why he wanted to avoid her, seeing as he always felt content around her. He couldn't help but feel as if a gulf was somehow forming between them . . . And yet, was he correct in assuming such a thing? Had she seen him in the quadrangle, she'd surely have smiled and thrown her arms about his shoulders. She no doubt would have kissed him and been charming and not in the least judgmental or nagging, just as she behaved every time they were in one another's presence. So why was he so sure running into her would be a bad thing? Perhaps his certainty was built more on the shaky foundations he'd been building during his business dealings with Dr. Chilton. In fact, he had been coming from a brief meeting with his professor. Eve had no way of knowing where he'd been, but she would've known that he was out of place—he didn't have any classes on this campus on Thursdays. She no doubt would have asked him what he was doing, and he would have to have lied to her. But why would he have to lie? He was being ridiculous. He'd be able to tell her the truth; she wouldn't have cared at all. So what if he'd been meeting with his professor? That was absolutely normal. Students met with their professors all the time. There was nothing suspicious about his setting up a time to come meet with his art teacher. And yet, as confident as Oscar was that he was right to see no transgression in his actions, he felt loath to tell Eve what he'd been up to, as if the very mention of Dr. Chilton would somehow validate the apprehension he'd been feeling.
It was all so ludicrous—his own self holding him back from being honest; no, it wasn't him. It was something about Eve. Had she seen him, she'd have sensed something in his quickened heartbeat, his desire to evade her. Some insinuation of suspicion would have crept into her features, so subtle to anyone that didn't know her, barely perceptible to him—but he'd see it. It'd come through in some slender arch of her eyebrow, a twinkle in her eye that was a shade darker than the surrounding iris, a barely discernible lift at the corners of her mouth . . . yes, some soft movement in her face would give away how she really felt about him. Eve wouldn't have to say or do anything at all—he'd know she disapproved.
His pocket vibrated, and the sudden sensation caused him to jump. At that moment he was sitting on the metro train. The last thing that he wanted to do was answer his phone and have a conversation amidst the fifteen or twenty other people in the car. However, when he saw that the caller was his mother, Oscar decided that this was the perfect time to answer. He had a great excuse if he needed to cut her short—that he was on the train and surrounded by people. He hadn't talked to her in a long time, even though she'd left him several messages. He knew that sooner or later he would have to talk to her, and having an excuse to keep the conversation brief was ideal. Of course, even if he was at home he could lie to her and tell her that he was busy, or in class, or at a bar . . . but she was his mother, and he hated lying to her. More than that—he was almost unable to lie to her.
"Yeah?" he answered, purposely not addressing her because he didn't want anyone to know he was speaking to his mother.
"Oscar? Baby? Is that you?" The voice on the other end of the phone possessed an almost unnatural sense of urgency. Obviously it was Oscar that answered his phone, and his mother no doubt knew that the moment she heard his voice, but Alessandra Marcus for some reason felt it necessary to always sound as if each call was some sort of emergency.
As much as he knew he didn't even need to answer her questions, Oscar replied, "Yes, it's me."
The woman on the other end breathed a sigh of relief, then continued. "Oh, thank goodness. You haven't been answering your phone lately and I've begun to worry about you. Why haven't you been answering your phone? Why didn't you return my calls? Don't worry about it; you can tell me later. Or you don't have to tell me, honey, because I trust that you're fine and that you'd call your mother if you needed anything, or if something interesting was happening in your life. I assume you'd tell me if something was going on? Right? So then everything must be just wonderful. But I was calling to check in on you. Hadn't heard from you in a while and was starting to wonder if everything was all right."
Oscar already felt overwhelmed with the conversation. His mother tended to be a little overbearing when he put off talking to her for too long. He knew he always had to give her about two to three minutes to blabber on and give him a bit of a guilt trip before they could get to the meat of a conversation. He unknowingly rubbed his forehead as if already stressed and simultaneously forgot all the people around him in front of whom he'd been so concerned about embarrassing himself only moments before. "Mom, everything is fine. I'm sorry I didn't call you back. I've just been really busy with school and everything. You know I'd call you if anything was going on." As the words escaped his mouth, discontent moved through him; he was hardly sure why he was skirting the issue on his mind, because he knew she'd probably already seen through it. "Actually, a little bit's been going on. I'm sorry I didn't tell you about it. I just wanted to wait and see if anything came of it before calling, and it's all kept me so busy that I just haven't had the time."
"I know, Oscar. You quit your job. Molly Ortega's mother told me. You know her—she used to go to school with you? When you guys were in high school? Well, she moved up to the city and saw you working at the restaurant. She told her mom and her mom told me, but then she says you haven't been in there for a long time."
The woman would have gone on, but Oscar cut her off. "Mom, what are you talking about?" In the first place, he was really relieved to discover that that was the only thing she'd heard about him. Now he could make up some excuse and avoid having to talk about Dr. Chilton and his sculptures, which he'd just about stumbled into doing because he figured she'd already guessed what he was up to. Secondly, he had no idea who Molly Ortega was and didn't care in the least about her or her mother; in fact, he was a bit disgruntled to find out that people he didn't even know were somehow exchanging information about him. "Listen, I quit my job because I didn't have time for it anymore. Classes are killing me right now. You know how it is at the end of the year, and I'll be graduating soon. I've just got a lot of work to do. Besides, the job was draining me. It was just all these people that are going nowhere in life, and I don't need them dragging me down." Although it had hardly been part of his reason for leaving his job, the last bit was somewhat true—most of the people he'd been working around weren't in school and never intended to go there. They'd probably be in the restaurant business forever, but he hadn't resented them for that, so he felt a slight sense of shame for talking about them all as if he had. He was doing it because he knew his mother quite well; she would be more sympathetic if she heard something like that.
She was. "Well, I don't like to hear you quit. I don't like people thinking my Oscar's a quitter. But I understand what you're saying. It's kind of hard to be around a bunch of people that are so different from you. You need to be around some people who appreciate what you've got going for you; have you tried applying for jobs at the Art Institute? Maybe you can work in the gallery there, or you can get an internship with one of your professors. Or maybe you can work in one of the museums. You know, kind of work your way into the business."
"Sure, mom," Oscar agreed, mainly to appease her. For some reason, this conversation was annoying him, and he'd known that it was going to before even answering his phone. It wasn't that he was always disinclined to talk to his mother; it was more that at present, he was really concerned with things that he wasn't ready to discuss with her, and he didn't like feeling that he had to keep secrets from her. He knew his mother would eventually find out that he was hiding something, and he hoped that before she did he'd feel comfortable enough to inform her of his pursuits himself. So for now, agreeing with everything she said was pretty much the only way to keep her satisfied.
The train had passed two stops already, and Oscar's stop was about two more down the line. In a few minutes he'd be able to tell his mother he had to go, but she still seemed to have a few questions for him.
"How's that little friend of yours doing?"
Now he really wanted to get off the phone. Oscar knew his mother didn't think much of Eve. The woman had never even met her, but since Oscar had begun to date her, his mother had never been able to refer to her by her name and instead called her Oscar's little friend, as if there were nothing going on between them. There was some insinuation in her choice of words that gave Oscar the impression that whether or not she ever met Eve, her mind was made up to dislike her. He didn't really understand why, and until the time came when he had to introduce them, he was going to avoid the subject. If his mother's objective had been to engender in him an uncertainty about their relationship, though, perhaps it had worked to some extent. "Eve? Oh she's great. Everything's fine."
"Good, good. Met anyone new lately?"
Oscar didn't like the tone she employed when asking the question. "Nope. Look, mom, I need to go. My stop's coming up."
"Already? But I've hardly even had the chance to talk to you more than fifteen minutes all month. Don't you have a little bit more time?"
"I'll call you back in a little while, all right? I just hate talking on the phone walking through all those crowds. I'll talk to you in a while okay? I got to go."
"All right. But find a new job honey, and then call me as soon as you've got it. I can even help you if you need it. I can come up there for a while." The exasperation was evident in her goodbye.
"Bye mom." He hung up and slipped the phone back into his pocket. The conversation had really stressed him out, even though it had lasted less than ten minutes.
The train came to a jolting stop and the doors opened. Gathering his thoughts, Oscar stepped off and onto the platform, then turned into the current of people exiting the vehicle and followed them aimlessly down two flights of stairs to the street level. When he left through the turnstile, his bag got caught, and the person behind him had to help him through, but he hardly knew whether he muttered a thank you or not; his mind was too preoccupied. There were too many things weighing on him at present. He had to make two more pieces for some woman who was decorating her home, but they were both supposed to be angular pieces in which she could place knick-knacks. That meant they were basically going to be shelving units, and Oscar was incredibly uninterested in designing them. For some reason, his conversation with his mother had seemed to refresh his dislike of what he'd been designing lately. It was as if her words had scraped away the embellishments his mind had been attempting to cover up the job with. Just thinking of his mother had caused his pride to smart, and actually talking with her had made it begin to sting.
In the back of his mind, pushing its way to the forefront as he walked, was a sense of disgust with his arrogance. Oscar knew that he was behaving a bit like a spoiled child. The opportunity Dr. Chilton had given him was something most people would've paid or competed for, and here he was, sniveling over having to make things he didn't particularly like. His brain told him that he wasn't stuck in some pact with the devil; he could quit any time he wanted and go back to making his own stuff. And yet, the money and the prestige were too tempting to turn away from. Nobody had trapped him into these jobs. He had chosen to take them on, and so it was his own fault if he took no pleasure in his recent work. It was merely his pride that was instigating his petulance, and he understood that he needed to just suck it up and try to take joy in the fact that his present paycheck was coming from a job that was easy and entailed little effort. Whatever angst he was feeling was basically arising from his own egotism.
He was thinking too much. The people on the street around him were a big blur. He just needed to relax. Needed to chill out and forget everything for a while. This weekend, he'd head out. He'd call up someone and see what sort of stuff he could dig up; money certainly wasn't an issue, at present. After he'd been paid for his last few pieces, Oscar realized how lucrative his bargain with Dr. Chilton really was—which was another reason he needed to relax and just appreciate this job for what it was. Nobody got the job of their dreams right away, right? Everyone had to work in the trenches of boredom a few years before earning the right to step up and do something they really enjoyed.
"Sir, sir?"
Oscar was shaken from his thoughts not by the voice addressing him but by a tug on his jacket. Waking up a bit, he turned and looked at the man that had stopped him, who was obviously homeless (or at least masquerading as such). The man was black and thin and wearing several layers of clothing, likely every article he owned. He looked young, though, and there was something strange in his severe features—a look of . . . something dark, angry. Oscar started, chiding himself internally for over-diagnosing the man's sincere gaze.
Fumbling for his wallet, Oscar pulled out of five-dollar bill and held it out to the man. Why he was doing it, he couldn't say; he never offered money to beggars, because they no doubt would spend it on drugs or alcohol which he could very well use himself.
To his surprise, the man shook his head, scandalized. "I don't want your money."
Oscar didn't know how to respond. Embarrassment washed over him, though he knew in the back of his mind that he had reacted quite normally to the man, who looked as if he could use every penny he could procure. He nervously attempted to put the money into his pocket but for some reason couldn't find it and instead just scrunched up the bill in his palm as if wishing he could make it disintegrate. "I-I'm sorry . . . I thought—" The man stared at him. Just plain stared at him, a look of disdain in his features. Oscar felt extremely flustered and shook his head. Seeing that the man wasn't going to say anything more, he made a move as if to step around him and continue on his way, but the man blocked him. Fear streaked Oscar's throat; he instinctively did a quick survey of his surroundings.
"You dropped your phone," the black man said, his jaw and eyes still stern. He nodded over Oscar's shoulder.
Oscar was taken aback. "My—my phone?" He looked where the man nodded and saw his cell lying on the pavement. "Oh!" Relief swept over him. The burning sensation in his throat waned. "Thanks . . . thank you. I'm sorry for—what was your name?"
"Adrian."
"A-Adrian. Well, thanks, Adrian . . . Thanks." He turned nervously and quickly re-traced his steps to pick up his phone. When he looked up again, the man was staring at him. Instead of walking back toward him in the direction he needed to go, Oscar decided to backtrack and take another route home. Twenty paces further, before he turned the corner onto a side street, he glanced nonchalantly over his shoulder and saw that though the man hadn't moved, he had obtained a cigarette from somewhere and was lighting it, dropping his hand away once it was lit, and exhaling two thin streams of smoke through his nose. The whole while, he was intently watching Oscar walk away.
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