Because Of Joan

Chapter 7.

     Joan doesn't email me in the next couple of days. Usually I would bask in the glory of my nicely organized, spotless inbox, but today I find my finger repeatedly lingering over the refresh button. I can't bring myself to enact such a desperate move. It is, after all, quite pointless, as my email self-refreshes everytime I log in. I, however, cannot help the feeling that it's somehow different on Adaline's laptop. That's the one I'm using currently, as I seem to have misplaced mine.

    I first attempt to preoccupy myself by listening to my favorite Jazz album, but even that is not the same. All I can think about is that night, when Circular Edit came on stage and I was deluged in a transience not yet experienced with my Jazz music.

As I sit and recall the events of a few nights ago, I find myself remembering details I had neglected to notice at the time. For example, I remember that the man playing the bagpipes had a large celtic cross tattooed on the back of his hand, and his third knuckles on both hands, were tattooed completely black. The tips of his fingers, meanwhile, were peppered with multi-colored bandages.

    This distraction doesn't last long, and soon I'm left staring at my computer screen again, somehow begging for a blue-haired, coffee-eyed girl to annoy me today. But she doesn't. My email remains spotless of messages. I stare at the screen until the sky outside my room goes dark once more, just as it did yesterday, and the day before.

    When I look outside, I behold the sky in all of it's glory. Tonight, it is absent of clouds, and the stars stare at me, unblinking, as if accusing me of some heinous crime I have not yet committed. I know the feeling is foolish. The blinking orbs shining in the sky are simply the lights from distant incandescent masses, long deceased.

A knock brings me to my feet.

"Enter," I command. Maria opens the door, the hinges squeak, and she peaks her head around the door.

    "Your Ma told me to tell ya dinner's ready." Without another word she leaves and neglects closing the door in the process. I hate it when Maria does that, and I've made my opinion on the matter quite clear. I hardly know much about Maria, and why she seems to have a natural distaste for doing what people want. She came to us a mere year ago, with hair much longer than it is now, tied into thin, tight cornrows; the color of ash. Her eyes, however, have always been the same: paper-money-green, marbled with an expression of keen interest and smug amusement, as if she always has some scheme hidden within that small piece of brain tucked between her ears.

        When I manage to extract myself from this strange stupor of mine, I am able to engage in Dining, in which I notice that Paula is accompanying Maria this evening. The girl is much larger in stature than anyone else at the table, with a B.M.I of 29. So she stands out like a crooked tooth. Her eyes are the color of lead and she surveys the rest of the table with the same calculating gaze I've seen multiple times in Maria's green ones.

    "Paula n' me are goin' out fer icecreams." Says Maria after awhile of unbroken silence. She and Paula simultaneously push themselves away from the table and drift toward the front door to get their coats and shoes.

    "Maria, dear, could you perhaps offer to take Harper with you?" Adaline asks meekly from across the table. Maria lets out an audible sigh, when that Paula quickly mocks.

    "Ms. Dombrovsky, y'know how he is!" she rolls her eyes up to the ceiling and adopts a stiff, paralyzed look before saying in a highly precocious voice-"He only conseeoooms icecrrream that eeezzz heterrrogeneeeousss."

    "Just ask him, Maria," Uncle Conroy says, his taciturn face turned toward his plate, but his eyes, the color of dirty pennies, turned toward her with a threatening stare. Maria maintains her regular composure once more.