Different Minds

by Joyce E. Rayess

  While Eric bought the juices, we had our backs almost touching. Suddenly I saw across the distance…Robert! It took a second to destroy all the confidence I pretended having. I felt immense confusion as I saw his eyes looking at me with definite recognition. What should I do? I asked the consciousness that had the most confidence and probably thought more reasonably in a stressful moment. I had no answer.

  How could I make him believe that I was Julie, that the brain that identified me was not Cassandra? I panicked; I was starting to hear my heartbeats. Eric turned toward me with the juice bottles in his hands. I quickly took both bottles from him and placed them on the counter. He looked a little surprised with my behavior because I was silent and spontaneous. I quickly hugged him around his neck and kissed his lips. I did worry for a second that he would not respond, but that was highly unlikely. I had more confidence that he would, and he did. Across the distance I hoped my act was a proof for Robert to notice the difference—that Cassandra wasn’t that confident and would definitely not do something like that in public. Julie was in love with her fiancé, and this was a consequence of such a natural behavior.

  Although it was quite strange to have kissed Eric just after meeting Robert’s eyes, Robert might not have noticed that I spotted him among the crowd because I had my dark sunglasses on. I knew that I wasn’t allowed to look back toward him; it would obviously seem as if I kissed Eric because I had a message for Robert. The moment the kiss was over I intended to look in Robert’s direction from the edge of my glasses.

  Eric smiled at me and said nothing. It was a little strange that he didn’t comment, but I guess he felt stranger to ask anything at all. I looked peripherally at where Robert was standing …he wasn’t there anymore. I didn’t know what to think. Eric handed me the juice bottle and started walking me to class. I worried that my behavior earlier didn’t seem like Julie’s natural behavior to Eric; rather crazy. I couldn’t drink the juice, and what worried me more was that Eric didn’t take a sip of his either. Was he planning to talk to me about what I just did? Maybe it didn’t please him to have me kiss him in public.

  “Eric,” I said with a low, worried voice. I started squeezing unintentionally on the juice bottle, trying to figure out what I must say to justify kissing him if he asked me.

  “Yes,” he responded with an even lower voice.

  “Eric…” I paused just before entering class. “Do you love me? I mean, of course you love me because you asked me to marry you, but you never said it.”

  “Julie.” He sounded surprised. “If you love me a little by now, be sure I love you a lot. The best things we’ve said were not in words.”

  “I’m worried that the toll of things I do might not seem usual for you, and you will not love me anymore.” I felt like I was about to cry.

  “But I love you, it’s too late. I’m finished.” He came one step closer to me and held my face with both his hands; he moved my hair away from my face and placed a kiss on my lips. “I loved you ever since I met you, and I always will. Nothing you can do will ever change that.”

  He kissed me another time, and the more he did the safer I felt. I didn’t want to go to class anymore.

  “Don’t be late; I will be waiting here for you.” He kissed my forehead.

  “Oh…” It was hard to wake up from the dream of his kisses. “Yeah. I’ll be back soon.”

  The class session passed very quickly. I didn’t hear a word the teacher said. I woke up every fifteen minutes from the dream of kissing Eric and realized I was in class. It was impossible to look at the book. I resigned myself to watching the other students interacting with the teacher; they looked like fresh young businessmen and businesswomen. They didn’t seem like kids anymore, and neither did I. It was as if my eyes had opened to a bigger truth. I suddenly saw the bigger picture of the university. All I used to see was artificial people that dressed up like grownups and tried to act that way. Now I understood that the business world is a flavor of artificiality, a dress code passport for mature conversations. Of course, it had to be met by an equivalent physical appearance that I couldn’t understand before. The ambiance swiftly felt important and adopted a sort of responsibility that everyone was seeking. I did feel a part of this group of people that yearned to grow up and start handling mature issues.

  My positive thinking though didn’t eliminate the shock I felt as I saw Robert at the cafeteria. I couldn’t believe that he transferred to this university for late registration; I was sure that it had to do with me. I texted Sarah to meet me in the evening for an emergency. I needed her help and I needed it fast.

  I waited impatiently for the clock placed above the board to meet the number that would end the class session. It wasn’t too long until students crowded around the exit door. I didn’t like to be crushed, so I waited a little before I carried myself to the other side, looking for Eric. At first I didn’t see him and panicked because I was worried that Robert was going to find me first. But then suddenly Eric saved me from having a heart attack when he appeared from behind me and took me by the waist toward the car.

  “You were a little late.” He smiled from only one side of his mouth.

  “Well, I wanted to come out in one piece,” I joked.

  “You’re right.” He started pulling me faster toward the outside of the building. “Tell me something, do you remember how to drive?”

  “What?”

  I remembered my father trying to teach me once, but I was not interested to learn because in Paris it was easier to take public transportation. I did remember a little, but I wasn’t sure I was able to handle a car well, especially not one of those fancy new cars. There were too many buttons and the car made too many sounds that meant different things. Now there were two things that I needed from Sarah: information about Robert and lessons about driving such cars.

  “Umm…I don’t think so.” I frowned.

  “All right, we have something interesting to learn today.” He smiled again.

  “With your car?” I was hoping he was actually willing to rent an old car that I could crash.

  “Yes, of course.” He handed me the key.

  “No, I cannot drive here.” I refused to take them.

  “Why not?”

  “Well, there are too many students. I don’t want to hit someone,” I complained.

  “Okay, I know just the right place.” He walked me to the car.

  I looked one last time around to see if Robert was anywhere near. I couldn’t spot him anywhere. I was glad.

  It was a short drive, maybe twenty minutes away from town—a beautiful place with many hills on the sides. I looked through the window at the rolling landscape; it all seemed like a dream to me. We finally reached a place where there were absolutely no houses in the area. There was only one route leading to a steep hill in the middle of nowhere. There Eric parked his car and pushed himself out.

  “This is the exact spot.” He smiled. “Are you ready?”

  “Here?” I didn’t think it was the right place to learn how to drive. It looked like an abandoned site covered with snow on both sides of the road. The only thing I could learn, if at all, was driving frontwards and backwards. There wasn’t even a place to make a U-turn if needed. I worried that it was impossible to move to the side if another car was coming from the opposite direction, and by the end of the route the road was becoming tighter.

  “Yes, but don’t worry, it’s a one-way route. And actually there is a dead-end just a few yards after the hill.” He leaned with one hand on the car. I stepped out into the cold atmosphere. “What do you think?”

  “I think it should be easy.” There was really nothing complicated in driving a straight route. I walked toward the driver’s seat; he smiled as he moved aside giving me space to get in.

  “I have to say I’m a little afraid now.” He placed his hands in his jeans pockets. Was he afraid I would crash his car, or was he actually afraid to be with me in the car while I crashed it?

  �
��Don’t be scared. I will do just fine.” I tried to sound confident.

  “I’m not really worried about that.” He opened the driver’s door for me.

  I placed myself in the driver’s seat still trying to analyze what Eric was really afraid of. I took a moment to remember my few-years-ago lessons with Dad, and it was easy to recall; it all came back to me. I started driving slowly toward the hill. Just before I reached the top of the hill Eric asked me to stop the car and drive the same way backwards. It was an easy task; I did the same driving back and forth about three times before Eric was convinced I had become a good driver.

  “All right, you can now make a U-turn at the end of the hill.” He nodded smilingly.

  Finally there was something challenging I was asked to do. As I came closer to the hill’s end I noticed Eric becoming tense in his seat. His eyes were on the road, a little too worried. He was being strange today, and I didn’t know if it was because of me or maybe because he didn’t have any sleep last night. I did the U-turn, so I decided to concentrate on the road. Close to the end of the hill the route was tighter and the snow was closer to touching the car from both sides.

  It was the beautiful landscape beneath the hill that had Eric worried. It was a plateau covered with snow, and there were red petals spread on top of it that spelled “SEP 27.” I stopped the car quickly at the sight of this and breathed heavily.

  “What have you done?” My mouth opened due to the shock.

  “Do you remember this date?” he said.

  “No.” I noticed it written on the papers in the hospital, and I thought it must have been my birth date. I never had the chance to check this again.

  “In fact this is your birth date,” he said slowly, smiling.

  “Today is February fourteenth?” I said in the form of a question because I wasn’t sure what Eric really intended to say by writing my birth date on a plateau, with red petals no less.

  “Yes, today is Valentine’s Day. September twenty-seventh is your birthday, a date that I really love. I would like to marry you that day.” He was silent for a few seconds, and I was extremely happy although I was sure to freak out later. But while I was with him I wasn’t scared.

  I blinked a few times, speechless, gazing at the site.

  “This year I mean,” he continued.

  The rest of his sentence actually terrified me, but I felt more pleasure in my stomach than fear. The petals were darker in places, and some were almost black, whereas others were very reddish.

  “These petals…”

  “Yes,” he interrupted, “are the same ones I brought every day to you in the hospital, up to the last one.”

  He took my right hand into his; for the first time his hands were colder than mine, in fact very cold.

  “Julie, every rose I got, I made you smell it while you lay in bed. I kissed your hands and massaged you to keep your conscious alive to the real world. I didn’t want you to disappear in the darkness of your thoughts. I spoke to you for hours and had sleepless nights with you where I just prayed. I got you stories and read for you, and I told you every day of what a beautiful day it was outside. I still can’t sleep at night because I’m used to sleeping on a chair next to you while holding your hand.” He paused and blinked quickly to dry the moisture from his eyes; it was beautiful!

  I never thought guys would look good while crying but Eric did. He looked unbelievably pretty as his green eyes became even greener while his voice was lost.

  “I got you fresh fruits and made you smell them, hoping that it would trigger your mind to actually wake up desiring the taste. I played your favorite songs on a radio that I carried with me. I got you some snow from outside and placed it in your hands so that you would understand it was winter. Did you feel any of this? Did you feel it when I brushed your hair, when I massaged your feet, when I kissed your lips, when I called your name, when I told you how much I loved you?” He almost cried.

  That was the hardest moment for me to reply. I didn’t know anything. I didn’t know if Julie would have actually felt all that, if this was truly why she was kept alive, or whether she was in a deep unconsciousness and my partial brain actually woke her up or made her sleep even deeper. I didn’t know anything at all. I knew that my only escape was not to answer any of his questions, to maintain a type of vagueness about what exactly happened. Eric was too good for Cassandra; he was too honest and pure. I felt like I didn’t deserve him. Donna was right; I didn’t know him at all. I needed to know him well before I engaged myself to his perfection. At least for him, it wasn’t fair.

  “Eric.” I leaned toward him until our heads touched. I placed my hand on his cheek and closed my eyes—this time without worrying if he had his eyes closed too. “Right now, there are many things that I don’t remember, and probably one of them is that period when I was in a coma. But there is something that brings familiarity into me; it’s the goodness of your heart that I just can’t stay away from. It’s your touch, it’s your kiss, it’s definitely your voice, your keen decency, and I can’t seem to be able to escape your love.”

  I pulled back and looked into his eyes. He appeared unable to talk. I wasn’t good at taking the lead in talking and explaining my feelings. I knew I would get too romantically boring. “Marry me,” I said. “I don’t care about the date; marry me today if you like. I too don’t want to be away from you anymore.”

  At least I wasn’t lying when I said that. Thoughts of Robert had faded away. I couldn’t explain how much I wanted to stay with Eric. Although marriage was an exaggerated word for love to me, I was able to welcome the thought as long as it kept me closer to him. I didn’t think I was ready to be a mother yet though, at least as Cassandra. I was still a child myself, and probably the only mature experiences I’d ever had were the times I spent with Eric.

  “September twenty-seven.” He smiled.

  “When did you get the time to arrange all that?”

  “This morning.” He pulled himself closer to me.

  “You didn’t sleep at all.” I shook my head and frowned with a sort of smile.

  “You slept enough for two years for the both of us.” He continued pulling himself toward me.

  “Maybe I don’t want to kiss you.” I tried to sound funny, and it did make him smile widely.

  “You have no choice,” he said.

  His amazing smell folded around me like a scarf as he kissed me gently. I was becoming seriously addicted to him. No words could explain just what emotions I was experiencing as he pressed his lips against mine. I was conscious of all his moves as if I had my eyes opened. I could see wherever he touched me, how he caressed my hair and my face. A second later he pulled me on top of him and our kissing resumed. He put his seat back like a bed where we slept for an hour and a half, just hugging. It was my favorite sleep; it was safe and warm.

  When we woke up it was sunnier. I was dazzled. I felt renovated, like a whole new person had occupied me. One of Julie’s memories suddenly came to me; it was how this site used to look when there was no snow. It was a beautiful field of flowers, mostly white daisies.

  “Eric,” I said with a surprising look.

  “Yeah?” He stared at my face with a look that matched mine.

  “This field here, in spring I was here,” I said while looking around, trying to grasp as much as I could of the memory. “You were with me; it was a field of white daisies.”

  “Yes, yellow and white daisies,” he corrected.

  “No, just white.” I laughed.

  “Okay.” He laughed too.

  “Luna was with us, but she was a puppy,” I continued.

  “She ran after the butterflies but was scared of the birds.” He tried to bring me back further memories.

  For the rest of the time Eric told me about the places they used to go, the activities they used to do. I didn’t recall any of it, but I enjoyed listening to him as he spoke of how much fun he and Julie used to have together.

  When Eric drove me back
home, Donna was shoveling the snow in the front yard. He waved to her as he dropped me off. We didn’t say anything as I walked away; we just looked at each other with a smile.

  “Every new generation is just stranger!” said Donna. “You know parents worry.”

  “Everything is all right, Donna.” I tried to walk away with the least explanation. “You sound better by the way. Your breathing, I mean.”

  “Oh yeah?” She stood straight. “I think I deserve a cigarette.”

  “Never,” I called out before disappearing inside. I was still able to hear her laugh though. Luna welcomed me as usual, with a happy tail and lots of licking. I was surprised though that Chester was at home. He looked like he was helping Donna with the snow; he had a sports jacket on and some snow boots.

  “Good afternoon, lady,” he said from beneath his moustache.

  “Hi Chester, what are you doing here?”

  “To start with I’m your dad. How about you start treating me like one?”

  “Oh, sorry. I meant Dad.” It sounded like I was asking.

  “That’s not what I meant.” He laughed then walked toward the sofa and sat down.

  “You aren’t using your debit cards. I’m supposed to take care of you, and you are supposed to give me a hard time in wasting my money. This is my responsibility as a father toward you. If you don’t give me a hard time, we have nothing to discuss as a father to a daughter.”

  I laughed.

  “I’m serious here. You will either start acting like a real daughter, or we will have trouble as parents in raising you.”

  “So tell me, how much spending does actually give you a hard time?” I tried to sound serious as well.

  “Surprise me,” he said, looking even more serious. “You have to make up for the years you spent sleeping. So I would advise you to start acting like a real daughter before I lose my temper.” He couldn’t resist smiling.

  “You will be in trouble, old man.” I kissed his cheek and started walking away. “You never should have opened my eyes to such a thing.”