I HAD A BLANKET HOOKED around me when I woke up in Rosalie's study room, my laptop on the desk in front of me with my scattered pages of notes. It must have been around two or three a.m. when the recorder played itself out, and I probably fell asleep as it finished.
I opened my laptop to check if I managed to sum up the main points and events of what happened and thankfully I did. But the thought of going through the same recorder again and listening to Maeve tell her story didn't sound so bad to me either.
Just as I look at the clock to check the time I jump up in surprise when there's a sudden knock at the already left opened door.
Carlise, who was in her classic rose velvet red robe, stood by it, a mug in her hands.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you."
I brush my bangs to the side and quickly gather my things in my arms. "It's fine actually, did I really fall asleep in here?" I point at the blanket I left on the seat, and now I wonder if Rosalie placed those around me. Why would she?
Carlise laughs a little too heartedly. "I think so."
She brings me to the kitchen and as she fixes the both of us some breakfast I try to organize the bunch of random notes I took on my laptop and notebook. But then I remember what had happened last night, with her and...Rosalie.
"So you're back...I thought you weren't going to come back. I mean, at least not that quick"
She has an apron tied around her waist, and as she turns around I see that it was a pretty old apron with old trended flower patterns knitted on. "What was that?"
I think I'm the kind of person who misspeaks or asks the wrong questions, and right now was exactly one of those situations. Except curiosity does get the better of me.
"You just suddenly left last night and right before, what was going on with you and Rosalie?"
She turns her back toward me again while making pancakes, and those long black hair reminds me of Klarise Kong from when she was around her thirties. Was it the time when she had already gotten plastic surgery?
"Ever heard of fights, Izzy? That's what it was, she was being unreasonable, I was mad and I needed some air. And as simple as it is, I come back here when I'm done being mad." Her voice sped up too quickly and there is a tone to it.
"You still sound mad."
She laughs, but it wasn't one of those kind laughs Carlise Kong gave out. "Of course I am! How would I not be when she——" She stops and instead of continuing, she uses her spatula to spoon over the pancakes. A little too aggressively.
"When she what? What did Rosalie do?"
She shoots around, spatula still in hand, and now I could see just how huge her eyes were and the small resemblances she held of her father's side, even though she looked more like her mother. "I'm not blaming you for asking questions, since you are a paparazzi after all. But if Rosalie doesn't tell you any of this, then I can't tell you."
I shut up and go back into organizing my notes until she hands me and herself fresh made pancakes. She sits across from me and lets out a sigh.
"I'm sorry for asking too many things." She smiles at me as I say this. With excuse. "It's just that there's so many questions I have, and you're the only one here right now."
"I think I can't understand you but I get where you're coming from. It's fine, Izzy, I mean I would have so many questions if I were you too." Her eyes flicker away for a moment and there it was again. That thing she and Rosalie does. They both know something, or somethings about me that they're not telling. I want to argue but before I could my phone starts ringing.
FaceTime notification from Mom.
"I better let you have that." Before I could stop Carlise from leaving she had already slipped away. Instead of picking it up, the call dies in my hands and hundreds of messages notification replaces it.
I have absolutely no reason to be mad, I am being unreasonable. They have raised me, and even not by blood, they are my parents. I wonder if other people feel this, like you try not to be selfish but you can't help it, like some dark power dominating over you without any of your control. But the thing is that there is control, only if you really help it. Empower it. I am not someone like that I guess.
How are things going over there? Is Beijing as wonderful as it is in the pictures?
My hand shakes a little, but all I could do was just stare at the messages from her for a moment.
Things are going fine, may I text you later? Kinda busy.
I wonder what Maeve would say about this, me avoiding and running away from them. She did leave me in their care though, didn't she? Why was that again?
Instead of a text message back, I receive a photo and a smiley emoji right below it.
A man will tell you what you can or cannot do. But know that you are the one who says what you can or cannot do, and know that if you set your mind to it, you can do just about anything.
I smile, and it almost feels like the selfishness in me drains away. It's a picture of one of the notes. She must have found the boxes I have stashed away all those mysterious notes and letters from that unknown someone. And I think I remember this one, I received it around Junior year, and it was also the most perfect timing. Well, actually all of those notes and letters that came were at the perfect timing. But this one couldn't have been more right, it was when my English teacher (a man) decided that I had no use for literature, simply because I was a woman. It felt dreadful then, a teacher you look up to telling you you have no use, and when that note came it really brought me back up again. I wonder where the person who had sent these to me is now.
Do wonder where that secret admirer is now...
I laugh at her text but decide best not to answer it before I say something that might hurt. I think that's just how I am, and I wonder if Maeve, who is I think my biological mother, carried similar traits like that too.
After finishing breakfast I go around the whole place, looking for Carlise, and when I can't seem to find her anywhere; the elevator/entrance to the penthouse opens and I find Rosalie instead.
She's neatly dressed and she drops her purse somewhere near the entrance and shakes off her heels like it's the end of the day and she's just trying to get to bed. She passes by me like a whirl of wind and it's like I am a ghost. Not here, or just not here to her eyes. But then she turns around at me and that thought escapes me, so I am here.
"Carlise came back here, didn't she?"
I was just staring at her, how perfect she seemed in plain sight, and then I got my mind up to answer. "Uh yeah, but I can't seem to find her now."
She nods a little, more at herself, and then looks back up at me. And I think there are these certain similarities she and Maeve share despite not being related, I mention this too much, but I just can't help but think that they both give off such an eye-gawking feeling I wish I somehow have inherited from Maeve.
"Well come along, Izzy Adams, I don't have all day."
I stumble along her as she heads to the study room, me with my laptop and notes, and I'm back behind my glass desk and roller seat with Rosalie in her cushioned sofa in front of me.
"Don't you have to be on set filming?" I ask her, and as I do she's taking a cylinder glass out and pouring some kind of whiskey in there. As all the other times when we listen to the recordings.
"I went to film set and filmed some extra scenes that I have to do both today and tomorrow when you fell asleep after the recorder finished playing. So now, we can try to listen to as much as the recorders we can in two days." She finishes pouring herself a drink and her head shoots up to look at me, a fake childish grin.
It was ten a.m. and I wonder how she was so capable of finishing scenes at midnight while I was sleeping.
I lean forward on my desk and now I frown at her. "Why are you in such a hurry to finish this story?"
Instead of answering me right away, she goes over toward the cardboard box and gets out a new recorder that's labeled in numerical order. "You must be in a hurry of money, aren't you?"
I flinch back as it is an insult, but her face remains emotionless.
"When you start writing Maeve's story after we finish listening to the recordings, I can let you stay here writing it if you need a place and you know, just money and food and shelter in general." She looks up at me and I see that she means it. She really did, and it wasn't in a way to bring up your shame to insult you kind of way, but more just as goodwill and kindness. An offering.
"Wow that's..." I am smiling, and I think it also might be the best offer she's given me so far not including the other stuff.
She takes a sip from her glass, her auburn hair now in a loose ponytail. "If you're going to say generous, I think you'd regret that."
I laugh at that a little. "Why would I regret such an offer you're giving me?"
She's setting up the recorder, and her face is unflinchingly calm. "Don't make a hurried decision right away, Izzy, don't do something the future you will want to take back."
There's something so undisturbed to her voice that it scares me, but somehow Rosalie so far has had a way of making me both worried and unprepared. Am I ready to hear the truths about Maeve? About me? That's what I had come for after all even as mad as I was, it was to find out for my own answers through Maeve's story. But am I ready for that?
"Because I'm not sure if you want to stay in a place related to Maeve after this story finishes."
"What?"
She clicks play on the recorder and as the both of us wait for the airiness of it to play out first, she then says:
"Or maybe not even to the end of her story, but when you find out the deepest truth she has been hiding from you, I think you might be all too glad to have killed her yourself."