IMANI

9

The beautiful man had been coming to pick Mena up a lot these days. Did Mena's driver die or something? Imani thought.

"Uncle Fego framed my drawing and put it in the house," Mena sang with glee. Imani always seemed to forget that the beautiful man had a name.
Fego was a strange name for him, it wasn't what she had imagined his name to be. She had imagined him being a Derrick or Tyler.

"That's good. Please stay with Emma for a little while, I need to go and make a delivery. Your uncle should be here any minute from now anyway," Imani said.

She was going to deliver a small painting to Greg via the post office. Greg warned her not to pack the painting in a way that was obvious it was a painting and told her not to write her address no matter how much the people at the post office scolded her.

She hated whoever was making her go through this. She just wanted to smell the new paints of the gallery and learn from other artist style of painting.

She had spent all night wrapping the painting and placing it in a small box.
Imani rushed down the stairs and collided into something hard. She fell down flat on the box that contained the painting.

"Fuck!" she yelled.
Her first instinct led her to shake the box and just as she expected, she heard jiggling sounds in it.
Water quickly formed in her eyes.

"You really should get glasses if you cannot see," A voice she had come to know as Mr Dickson spoke.

God knows she hated the guts of this man. Each day he kept giving her new reasons to hate him.

"You saw me rushing down the stairs, you could have moved Asshole," she spat back.

He wasn't expecting her to reply back. He was taken back a little by her reply but regained composure.

"Fuck! This shit is ruined." She groaned.
"What do I do now?" She asked herself. She bent down looking at the box and then at him. She hissed and walked up the stairs back into her apartment.

On her way to her apartment, she was thinking of ways to kill him.
He couldn't even apologize? God please just hurt him for me! She thought.

"You're back so soon," Emma said.
Imani grumbled and walked past them with the box in her hand. The piece had taken her three weeks to complete.

Emma and Mena stared at each other confused as to why Imani was upset. They both turned their head to the door when they heard the doorbell.
Emma got up and opened it. She saw Mena's uncle at the door.
Emma was about to speak when Imani stormed into the room.

She walked up to Mr Dickson angrily. A look of confusion sprouted on his face.
Mena and Emma also had confused looks on their faces.

Imani stopped until she was close to him enough; she poked his chest,
"DON'T YOU FUCKING HAVE MANNERS! NOT ONE FUCKING HOME TRAINING." She yelled in anger.

Emma and Mena mirrored the same expression of shock, while Mr Dicksons face showed no emotion.

"THE FIRST TIME YOU FUCKING SPLASHED WATER ON MY FRIEND AND I, AND YOU DIDN'T HAVE THE COMMON DECENCY TO APOLOGIZE." She poked his chest harder this time.

Emma had seen Imani get mad but not explode like this. Imani never had a bad temper, she was the complete opposite of Emma. Her eyes opened wide in shock as her shy friend said everything that was on her mind. Imani would rather have toilet arguments than an actual confrontation.

"THE SECOND TIME AT THE GALLERY, YOU SAW ME ABOUT TO TURN BUT YOU STILL BLAMED ME AND TOLD ME TO USE MY EYES."

"NOW YOU DESTROY SOMETHING SO PRECIOUS TO ME AND WHAT YOU CAN SAY IS I CAN'T SEE??!!" She placed her hand on her mouth as if it was going to help suppress her anger. Everyone could see Imani shaking with anger. Imani was so angry that her eyes had become teary.

"The fuck is wrong with you!!! You think you're God's gift to nature???? News flash, Nobody fucking cares about you Mr Dickson," she said making sure he felt the hatred in her voice.

"Get your head out of your ass because it's obvious you're the one who cannot see. The next time you fucking annoy the shit out of me, it wouldn't even end well for both of us. Mena is the only thing stopping me from doing something stupid," She said poking his chest so hard he almost moved back.
She looked at him with disgust and stormed off past Emma and Mena into her room.

The room fell silent and everyone avoided eye contact with Fego. Mena silently packed her bag and walked to the door to meet Fego.
She gave Emma a small wave and walked out of the house.

Fego stared at the closed door for a minute, not sure of what to do. Surprised was an understatement. It was not like he pushed her down the stairs or something.
No one had scolded him in a long time and he didn't expect it, definitely not from her. She looked scary when she was angry. For a minute he thought her threats were real, then he looked at her small hands poking his chest and knew that she couldn't hurt a fly.

He wasn't going to lie, he was turned on by it. There was something about a confident woman who didn't like being pushed around that turned him on. He smiled and shook his head, silently trailing behind Mena.

"Uncle Fego what did you do this time?" Mena said.

"Hey! I didn't do anything,"
"Sure you didn't. I know you uncle Fego," Mena had seen him yell at waiters and people enough to push them to the wall. Mena knew her uncle had a bad temper.

"But I didn't do anything,"

"The woman is always right," Mena said struggling to reach for her seat belt.

"Says who?"

"My mum told me this and she always said it to my dad," Mena smiled weakly.
He knew that she rarely spoke about them and when she did, it was a sad memory.

"Well your mom was smart, my Brother didn't deserve her." Fego said trying to lighten the mood. He tickled her and made sure he heard her giggle.

Mena giggled and looked out the window.
"Uncle Fego, what if Miss Imani doesn't want to teach me again?"

"Well we find you another teacher," he said.

"But I don't want another teacher. Uncle Fego you have to apologize." Mena said.

Fego and apologizing were two things you could never see together. He never said sorry for anything he did. He believed he was never wrong. Mena would just have to find another teacher because Fego knew there was no way in hell he was going to apologize to Imani, especially now that he felt he wasn't at fault.