CHAPTER 28: THE MIND OF MANE
I finish off my tea and head back to bed shortly after talking to Kenya. I’m still not sure what was in that tea but when I did manage to fall asleep, I didn’t toss or turn all night. I slept like a newborn baby. I wake up the following day to find sunlight beaming through the seams of my blinds. I can hear busy feet scrambling outside my bedroom. I sit up and rub the crust from my eyes, and I then walk over and peek out of my bedroom door. I see Maria walking down the steps in a pair of bat pajamas.
Her slippers are bats as well. The wings on her slippers are bouncing with every step she takes. I step into the hallway the same time Jason walks out of his room, which is directly across from mine.
"Good morning,” he says with a handsome smirk.
"Good morning,” I reply.
“Are you feeling okay?”
“I feel a little better.”
“That’s good to hear,” he responds.
We walk downstairs into a busy dining room. Everyone is sitting at the table and eating breakfast. Everyone is present at the table except for Daniel. Jason walks into the kitchen and examines inside the refrigerator.
"Good morning,” Kenya says to me.
"Good morning,” I reply.
"Hungry?" she questions me.
"I’m a little hungry.”
That’s an understatement. I am starving.
"I'll cook you something,” she says helpfully.
She begins to lift up from her chair but I stop her.
"No, it’s okay. Cereal is fine.”
"You don’t have to lift a finger. I’ll get it for you,” she tells me.
“You know, you guys are not my maids. I can do things on my own.”
“But you’re our guest,” Jessica says politely while pulling back a chair for me.
“Okay, if you insist,” I tell Jessica as I sink into the chair.
Jason goes into the kitchen and comes out chomping on an apple with one hand and holding a breakfast bar in the other. He winks at me before he takes a seat next to me. I blush automatically.
"What kind of cereal would you like?" Kenya asks from the kitchen.
"I like granola,” I reply.
"Do you want any fruit?" she questions.
"Um, do you have any bananas?"
Jessica snorts two seats down from me.
"Hear that guys? She’s craving those already,” she says while laughing.
Everyone giggles at her joke.
"Ha-ha,” Kenya mocks Jessica as she walks in with my breakfast. "You think you’re so funny don't you?"
Jessica smiles and replies...
"Maybe.”
"I didn’t think it was funny,” Eric says in a low voice.
Jessica’s smile flattens.
"Why do you have to open your dumb lips?" Jessica asks with furious eyes.
"The shit wasn’t that funny. That’s all I’m sayin,” Eric replies.
Jessica lifts her fist into the air.
"What if I punch a damn hole in your face? Maybe you’ll think that’s funny.”
Eric pauses and then ponders about her threat.
"How would that be funny?" he asks her while shaking his head. “I swear, you’re so evil and dumb and stupid and mean.”
Jessica’s face turns blank. She stares at her brother with a void expression.
“I hate you,” she tells him.
“But I hated you first. See, that’s what I'm talking about. You’re always copying me. You’re so annoyin.”
"You two stop this mess, please,” Kenya prompts them with authority behind her voice. “Aero, move away from your sister.”
Eric blows out a lung full of air, which causes his lips to flap together. He drags his bowl across the table, relocating to another seat. Kenya sits down and gets comfortable at the table.
"And I thought I only had two children,” Kenya says to herself.
Kenya shakes her head as she spreads open the newspaper in front of her face.
"So where’s Daniel, I mean Mane,” I ask.
She giggles at my comment.
"In his room, as usual,” she replies. “He’ll come down when he’s hungry.”
“I’ll take his food to him,” I offer.
Maria smirks at me with raised eyebrows.
“Okay, but he’s going to bite your head off,” Maria says. “But do it at your own risk.”
Kenya prepares an ensemble of food on a tray for me to carry upstairs for Daniel. I carefully walk upstairs with the breakfast tray held firmly in my hands. A swarm of butterflies hit my stomach as I reach the top and begin my journey to the last door on the left; Daniel’s room door. I’m nervous but somehow sweat doesn’t manage to come between my hands and the tray. I’m usually not the one to prowl around and stick their nose in other’s personal business, but curiosity is tugging on my psyche like never before.
Daniel is a very interesting person. I guess I just want to know more about him. Unlike the others, he is standoffish and reluctant on staying that way. Supposedly, he doesn’t open up much, not even to his own mother or sister. After our awkward moment at the dinner table, I feel compelled to know more about him. I’m always bothered by things I don’t understand. Maybe that’s why I’m so interested by him.
I stop in front of his room door. Here goes nothing. I then balance the entire entree with my right hand before knocking gently on his door. I knocked softly because I want the knocks to be only noticeable to a person who is awake. If he’s still asleep, at least he won’t be disturbed from his slumber. To my surprise, he answers the door and without hostility in his voice.
“Who is it?”
“Iva. I brought you some breakfast.”
A pause comes between us as I wait for him to respond.
“Why?”
I really didn’t expect him to ask why. We just starting the conversation and he already thinks I'm trying to be nosey; which in all honesty, I am trying to be nosey. He must know I have ulterior motives about bringing him breakfast. I’m pretty sure his mother and others may have tried to use the same avenue before to get him to open up.
“Just in case you were hungry,” I reply.
It’s quiet now. The pause goes on longer than expected. He’s already making the connection between the food and me randomly appearing at his room door. He’s nowhere near an idiot and I probably just annoyed him to the fullest.
“It’s opened,” he replies in an unenthusiastic tone.
The way he answered me is how I originally expected him to answer; dull and uninterested. However, I expected a little hostility with his words which he doesn’t deliver.
With my left hand, I twist the knob and push the door open. I enter into his room, which is a lot larger than mine. I expected it to be dark in here but it’s not. He keeps the blinds lifted and the curtains spread wide-open. It looks like a photographer’s art gallery. I never been to an art museum in person, but I’ve seen them in magazines and movies.
To further explain, the walls are covered with various scenes of cities and landscapes. The pictures are at least twenty by thirty inches. Some are larger than that. I halt with his breakfast tray still in my hands to stare at a picture of a giant butterfly. Its wings are extended from corner to corner. The colors of the wings are brown, yellow, and orange. I walk closer to the picture and realize it’s not just a picture, but it’s also a giant puzzle.
I had a lot of time on my hands as a little girl; even still, I wouldn’t have the patience or interest on completing a puzzle of such a large scale. I remembered completing a two-hundred piece set before, which took me a couple of months to finish. This puzzle has to be thousands of pieces. As soon as I think about how unbelievable this puzzle is, I see one of an orange sunset overlooking black stones off a coast somewhere.
This one is like six-foot tall and it’s absolutely breathtaking. I look over and see him sitting at a drafting table, constructing his next puzzle. By the look of it, I assume it’s a rose because I can see their famous spiraling peddles and dew drops sprinkled on its surface. This one is large also; maybe two-feet by three-feet. All of the photos are shot with such quality that you can see detail you wouldn’t be able to see with regular eyes.
“These are…incredible,” I blurt out while looking at one of an underwater dreamland.
The water is crystal blue and schools of fish are twirling over colorful coral. The best part of it all, is the bright white light that cuts through the surface of the water like a spotlight. It’s an amazing moment in time captured by a lucky photographer that just happened to be at the right place at the right time. It’s hard to believe these places actually exist in the world.
“You can put the food on the foot of my bed,” he says, completely ignoring my compliment.
Once again, I’m not shocked or offended by his lack of response. I place the food on the foot of his bed and then give myself a tour around his room without his permission.
“So, this is your room,” I whisper while curiously glaring around like a girl in an art museum.
His wall has shelves on them that are covered in an array of finished puzzles including three, four, five, and six sided Rubik’s cubes. Now I’m even more curious about him. I remember a finished cube appearing on Professor Forester’s desk with a note. The real question is why would he not tell anyone he did it? This is just one of many questions I have lined up for him. I walk over to him with my hands behind my back and a grin on my face.
“What cha working on?” I try to start a conversation.
“What does it look like?” he replies.
Once again, I expected him to answer me that way. But I think it’s time for him to get a taste of his own medicine.
“That’s why I’m asking you, duh.” I reply.
He looks up at me, stares with a blank expression, and then continues his puzzle; ignoring me.
One of my biggest pet peeves is being ignored and I had enough of talking to the back of his head. I take a pair of his tweezers and walk away.
“What are you doing?”
I turn my back to him and place his tweezers down on this dresser. I then move over and pick up a random maze thingy. It’s a maze with a small silver ball inside. I act like I’m observing it.
“Please, don’t touch my stuff.”
I place the maze down and then pick up something else. And if this isn’t annoying enough, I then begin to hum to myself. As I lift and study a wooden geometric puzzle, I can hear him puffing out air behind me.
“Again, please don’t touch my stuff,” he tells me.
I hear him but I want to make sure he feels irritated. I hum even louder as he speaks. I then place the wooden shape down and then pick up a fidget spinner.
“Hello, can you please stop touching my stuff,” he says in an assertive tone.
I put his spinner back on his dresser with a thud.
“You don’t like that do you; being ignored?”
He puffs out air again and stands. He stares me directly in my eyes as he grabs his tweezers off his dresser and sits back down; facing away from me. He doesn’t even respond.
“No clever comeback? I’m pretty good at having a smart mouth too,” I tell him.
I’m surprised he didn’t tell me to leave yet. I can almost hear him saying “Get out” in his lackluster voice.
“Get out,” he tells me.
I immediately snicker at him.
“I’m sorry, I’m not teasing you,” I reply. “I knew you were going to say that. But I expected you to sound more like the terminator when you said it.”
“Are you comparing me to a one-dimensional character?”
“No, of course not,” I say sarcastically.
He squints at me like he’s studying me deeply.
“I thought Raven is bad but you’re worse. You have a slick mouth but you try to play the innocent role. I don’t stand them types.”
“I can be a sarcastic smart-aleck from time to time. I blame my mom.”
He turns his head and continues with his puzzle. I grab one of the unsolved three-sided cubes and sit down on his bed, playing with it.
“Why are you still here? You did your task. Why are you still in my room? This shows me that you had ulterior motives. My guess would be that your act of kindness was only a way to bother me.”
I think about playing dumb but why even bother. I’m caught red-handed.
“Yes, you got me,” I surrender when I realize that I couldn’t lie my way out of it. “You think too much. I just wanted to see what you do all the time. You’re so mysterious, even at school. We pretty much had class together every day and I don’t know a thing about you.”
“I just don’t like people bothering me.”
Over his desk on a shelf is a picture of him when he was younger. A man is taking a picture with him. They are holding up fish together. That must be his father.
“Is this you in that picture?”
“Yes. I know what you’re going to ask next. Yes, that’s my father. You already knew that’s me in the picture when you first saw it. You really wanted to ask about him first, but you started with me to soften the blow because you don’t want me to get annoyed and kick you out.”
“Wow. My uncle could use you.”
“Okay, let me ask you something,” he says as he rotates his chair.
He leans forward with his fingers intertwined, and studies me like I’m an unsolved puzzle.
“I’m all ears.”
“Where’s your father?”
I hesitate to answer him. I pause as I stare into his never-ending stern gaze, unaware of how I can answer this question without bringing out negative emotions within myself.
“My dad left me when I was young,” I reply with the vaguest yet most truthful answer.
“How old?”
“Ten.”
“Ten years old,” he says and ponders deeply about my answer. “That’s a lot to take in for a ten-year-old. Around what time of the year was this?”
I try to think about the time of the year when he left me and my mom. My mind hits a road-block as I begin to put myself in my ten-year-old body. I remember it being cold. Then it hits me, he left us in late November. The last thing I remember is having thanksgiving dinner with him.
I then feel a ball of sadness and regret form in my stomach.
“It’s was around November.”
“Right before Christmas; how terrible. You must was very confused. You probably kept asking mom where your dad was. Right?”
Then again, I’m sucked into my younger self. I remember myself asking my mother that exact question every single day. She always would change the subject. I would look out the window for hours and wait for him to come back. It took me two whole years before I stopped looking for his car to return home. I swallow a burning ball back down my throat.
“You don’t like that do you?” he continues. “This is the problem with people. Everyone wants to look down on others until the questions are turned on them. Now you’re acting like me; uninterested and avoiding questions. You don’t like it do you, bringing up terrible times in your life. It makes you feel like you’re less of a person doesn’t it? Now, if you may excuse me, I’m busy.”
He rotates in his chair and gives his attention back to his puzzle. I slip back into my adult body and grin at him. It’s hard to believe that Daniel is this wise. In ten seconds, he managed to make me feel like a judgmental idiot. He also managed to place me in his own shoes. Now I understand him a little.
“You are an interesting person,” I compliment him. “But can you answer me one last question before I go.”
He puffs out air and turns to me slowly.
“Please ask so you can get out.”
“Why didn’t admit you solved the cube in class? You solve these all the time. It doesn’t make since.”
“A lot of things don’t,” he says with no tone. “That’s my final answer.”
“But when it comes to you, it’s deeper than that. You make since, it’s just people aren’t smart enough to pick up on it. It’s like they are the slow ones. And it’s them that needs help. Or at least that’s how you see it.”
For the first time his stern expression falls off his face. And I swear, Daniel almost grins; almost. It’s as if a weight has been lifted off his shoulders. I can see a hint of gratification in his eyes before they return back to normal.
“And you’re trying so hard to be accepted in a world that belittles people like me?” he asks. “Iva Hill, aka Miss perfect,” he says in a mocking way. “People who call themselves normal are fucking delusional. It makes me sick. Remember that.”
Damn, he did it again. His words have turned my mind inside out.
“Now, you know why I don’t get along with people,” he tells her.
I nod my head humbly to show him that I whole-heartedly understand him.
“Okay, well, I wish you the best on that puzzle. You better do a good job because roses are my favorite flowers.”
“I don’t care,” he says as he rotates and continues with his puzzle.
I rise from his bed and start to make my way out of his room. I don’t know how this is possible but I’m walking out a different Iva. I just don’t feel like the same person who walked in. It sort of feels like I’m leaving a psychiatrist office but I was the patient instead of him…