A Day with David

So much for Christmas. I got a few presents, some badly needed clothes, and got eyed all over by my mother's husband, again. My mother said goodbye to me on the front porch, didn't even walk me to the car, and had Gail take me to the train station. So Gail and I didn't go to the train station. She took me to her family home where she stays with her mother, father, and five brothers and sisters. She has her own bedroom but usually sleeps with one of her sisters, has a big double bed. So I slept with her. Made for an interesting night. Mostly we talked and read to each other. She told me about an idea she has for a novel, and we talked about how to plot it. She's a lot smarter than I thought. Catches on really quick. She's read a lot more than I have, mostly trashy romances, but I got her interested in serious literature, if you can call anything about vampires and the paranormal serious. Still, I believe you can put some pretty heavy ideas in any novel regardless of the genre.

Gail took me to the city underneath Edinburgh. The biggest part is gated, locked and off limits without a guide. We went to a place that's not so well known. We got two boys she knows to go with us. Not a safe place for two girls alone. Mostly just a bunch of tunnels. Hardly enough room to turn around in. Dark is the word. Lots of homeless people. Talk about Roma smelling bad. And sick people, although it wasn't as cold as I thought it would be. Some really scary places. Tunnels that just go off in the dark into nowhere. No one seems to know how big the subterranean city is. No longer inhabited, but you can tell that at one time it flourished.

The guys who took us were really nice about it. Gail didn't say we'd be with them, you know, like on a date, but we were. The big one was sweet on her. And the little guy, named David, stuck close to me. He was a nice kid but didn't say much. When we went up one of the tunnels and into the dark, I moved in close to David, and he put his arm around me. We talked and chuckled together. Gail turned out her cellphone light, so we could listen to the sounds of the dark, and I let David kiss me. Encouraged him a little. Oh, to be hugged again! On the way out, we stayed cuddled.

I stayed a couple more days. Drina is not going to be happy with me. I feel bad about that. She needs my help. But David was after me. He takes classes at the University of Edinburgh. He grades weren't enough to get him admitted, but he can still take classes and hopes to get admitted for the fall. He took me for a walk around the University. He's into science stuff and maths. That would be the life. I could never go there, but my little vampire character could. I was thinking of sending her to Oxford, but Edinburgh is much more interesting. David told me that that's where Lord Byron's physician went. His name was Polidori and he wrote the first vampire novel, short story really. I've never met anyone as polite and considerate as David. Dragos takes anything he wants, and David is always careful to not touch me anywhere private. It's like Madonna said. I feel like a virgin when I'm around David. If he only knew, that'd be the end of that.

Before I left, Gail suggested that I stay and we get an apartment together. We can both find jobs, she said. We could write novels and chase boys. That almost took my my breath away. But in the end, I couldn't bear leaving my father in Codlea prison and me not somewhere in Romania. So I'm on the train back home, and I miss Gail, but I really miss David. I used to think that I was in love with Dragos, and I don't know that I'm in love with David, but when I leave Dragos, I don't think a lot about him, just getting away from the Roma for a while with him.

The morning after we descended into the underground city, David called. Gail and I had planned an afternoon of shopping, window shopping for me, to see some of the sights of Edinburgh. I had in the back of my mind that I was only a few miles from my mother, and that I wasn't with her. Sad. But then David called, and he wanted to show me something.

Gail said, "Go. He's a nice boy. You need this."

So I went with David, last name Kennedy, and he took me for a walk about the campus of the University of Edinburgh. He showed me his classrooms where he has some form of advanced maths that I know nothing about, and another where he has a class in quantum physics. He's such a normal boy, and he's no Einstein. He struggles, he says, but he makes it. He has to work to pay the bills, so he only goes part time. Turns out, he took the afternoon off work these last two days to be with me. Just an hour the first day, but a whole afternoon the second. Classes were out for the holidays, and the University was shutdown, but still a lot of students milling about. He told me about his work, just a small engineering firm where he does some filing and light computer work. The day before, I'd told him that I was writing a novel, and was a little ashamed that it was about vampires, but smiled and was interested. I told him about my Carpathian Vampire web blog, and over night, he'd gone there. He said that I have something different, that there's something different about me. He said that it has to do with the quality of my ideas. That's why he wanted to be with me. I'd thought he'd take me somewhere where we'd smooch a little and then he'd try to get into my pants, but he just wanted to be with me. He'd been to this blog also, of course, and read about my family, and even Dragos, which was really embarrassing. He said I should think about college, to not sell myself short. He told me about some literature classes he'd taken, and that he writes some too, but he doesn't have the courage to post it online. He's read the poetry of TS Eliot, Ted Hughes and Seamus Heaney, Lord Byron.

David has never traveled. He asked me about Romania, as if it was an important place. He wanted to know more about the Roma. He even asked about my father. I don't know what to think about him anymore. Seems that I fell into a world that wants me to be a part of it, a world I can't have.

When I got back, Gail asked me what happened. "You look pale as a ghost," she said.

And now I'm on the train back to Romania and my little band of Roma. Dragos will see this that I've posted, and he'll have questions too, although he never asks me about other guys. My life is so scattered. I'm a mess. I told David that it was weird, him reading about me online and me posting about us. He mentioned something about the post-modern world, about us watching ourselves as we live our lives. We are the first generation to be in this position. He asked me why I don't have a Facebook page. I can't get David out of my mind. Bashful and sweet. Who would have thought I'd go for that? He came to the train station to see me off. Can you imagine? I told him to come see me in Romania. He smiled really big and laughed out loud. Brought tears to my eyes.

I'm asked sometimes why I don't put pictures on my blog. And I realize after talking to David Kennedy that I'm only interested in the narrative of my life. It seems to exist somewhere in the mythical world. To provide pictures would bring it out of that world into the real world, and I don't want that. My life is a myth, and in a sense, it exists only in cyberspace. Somehow, it's more real there and only in narrative form. My life exists only in my words about it. No. No pictures. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words, words that are out of control. Who is Luminita Laura? She's a young woman novelist who only exists within her own words in cyberspace.

Sitting here on the train to nowhere, I got to thinking. My mother didn't give me her email address.