Chapter 2

Monday 16 May 2022

She called Steph three times through the next day to see how she was going, and Steph was fine. Good. Just a slight tickle in the throat. Whatever. Xander had agreed to get get tested at the end of the day before they all went out for dinner, but Bob and the company owner and his CEO had all had covid, and said he should have dinner with them anyway.

And then it was time for the dinner. The Vision Australia dinner that she’d agreed to do with Harry. The one she’d agreed to do blindfolded. It’d seemed like a good idea at the time, but the closer she got to it, the more ... stupid ... it sounded, and it was one part of her big freakout the night before.

She very nearly backed out, but Julian promised her repeatedly that he’d watch her phone as his single biggest priority, and he’d tell her if Steph messaged, and he wouldn’t let her down, and eventually she was too embarrassed to ask him yet again. So she sucked it up, did her best to pretend she was not freaking out inside, and got dressed.

Getting dressed for this one was interesting – she’d talked to Harry and Emma about it, and they’d said that if she allowed it, they’d all want to touch her. And she was still in the twelve week post-covid bliss, so she decided that she was fine with that. On advice, she left her hair down, and just brushed it. Her hair wasn’t something she was super involved with, but Julian liked it shoulder length so he could play with it. For a dress, she wore her favourite farm girl dress – nice strong material, to match her life. And she was wearing a fragrance that she’d never worn before, one that Jo picked for her for the night, subtle, and rich, and unusual. Julian was wearing a nice shirt and tie, and some fragrance that Jo had picked for him that matched hers nicely. More Jo magic, Larissa was fine to leave it with her.

Then it was time. Emma and Harry dropped in to pick them up. In the car, they reviewed their plans. When they arrived, Emma would help Harry out of the car, and then Larissa, and then she’d put the blindfold on Larissa. Then Julian would escort Harry inside, and Emma would escort Larissa, while someone else dealt with the car. Why Emma helping Larissa? Harry was more experienced, nearly good to do it by himself, so the experienced escort would guide Larissa. Was Larissa OK with that? A few deep breaths, and she agreed that she could. And inside? One of Julian or Emma would be holding her elbow and guiding her at all times, except when it was time for their speech, when Harry would walk Larissa up to the speaker’s stand all by himself.

“How the hell will he do that?” Larissa demanded to know.

She could hear the thrill in Harry’s voice when he said, “By sonar.”

“By what?” Julian asked, in disbelief.

“Sonar!”

Harry explained. As you got more and more dependent on your hearing, you got better at doing spatial resolution by listening to the echoes around you. Given the right noise background, Harry could hear obstacles, including the speaker’s stand, and he was confident they’d be OK for that. But what you couldn’t do, or at least, he had no idea how to do, was to hear echoes from things on the ground that would trip you up, so he couldn’t use it much.

Larissa could hear it in Harry’s voice: their incredulous response to the sonar idea had made his day. Hell, his year, maybe. He was seriously loving that.

All too soon, they arrived at the dinner, a swanky hotel. They’d sold several hundred tickets, she was told, for below cost if you were vision impaired, and ten times cost if you weren’t, and tickets had sold out quickly. Emma pulled up right out in front, and was welcomed by the person waiting there for her. She hopped out and helped Harry out of the car.

While she was doing that, Larissa turned to Julian and said, “You promise, right?” Julian smiled and nodded his head. “No, that’s not enough.” She grabbed hold of him tightly. “You have to promise me you’ll watch my phone like a hawk!”

“Sure, Babe. I love you, and I know it’s the most important thing in the world, and I’ll watch it like a hawk.”

Suddenly, her face fell. “I’m sorry, Sweetie. I know you will. I don’t know why I can’t believe you about that tonight. I’m not trying to insult you.”

Julian smiled at her. “Babe, it’s where your stress at what you’re about to do is bubbling out of you. What you’re about to do is a wonderful thing, and it’s how I know how hard you’re finding it. I want you to know, I’m going to be right with you all tonight, except when you speak, and you just have to say my name and I’ll do whatever you need.”

Larissa gave Julian a relieved smile, and then it was time for Emma to guide Larissa out of the car as if she was blind. Then, she stood behind Larissa and put the blindfold on. The last thing Larissa saw was Julian blowing her a kiss. Sweet. And then it was dark. Just a slight hint of light making its way through the material.

“Are you OK?” Emma asked her.

Larissa took a deep breath. “Yes. I have to be. I can do this.”

She could hear the approval in Emma’s voice when she said, “Great. Do you know what a safe word is?”

“I sure do!”

“Well, let’s agree on a safe word for you now. If you say it, either Julian or I will hug you and ask what’s up, OK?”

No reason for it to be any different, then. “My usual safe word is just to ask for a safe space, so I’ll just do that.”

“Great.” She could hear the amusement in Emma’s voice for her answer. “Now, is it OK for Harry to feel your dress, for practice for you?”

“Sure.” Though she was still a bit nervous, letting a guy feel her ... feel her up? ... while blindfolded.

A pair of hands touched her on her shoulders. Harry’s, obviously. Gently they explored across the top of her shoulders, down her arms and then down her sides. Very respectful, she was fine with that.

“I love your dress,” Harry said. “Emma told me about it, and the material is really strong. Like you.”

Given that was exactly the point of the dress, it was a surprise how strongly she felt that. Tonight was likely to be an emotional night. “Thanks!”

Then Emma took her elbow and guided her into the hotel. She could tell from the background noise when they were inside, and she was aware of people around her. This was a creepy experience, to miss out on so much context around her, but Emma was a solid lead and she felt increasingly confident about this. Then Emma said, “There’s a step here, the only one of the night,” and guided her up it. Just like Julian had for her birthday surprise, nearly a year before. Yeah, suddenly she knew that she could do this.

She was following Harry, she knew, and then she heard a group of people welcoming Harry. Then it was her turn. A group of people introduced themselves, all very formal, shaking her hand. They were all leadership in Vision Australia, or in Guide Dogs Victoria, and thanked her very much for coming, and said that they were sure that her star power had been the draw card for their successful evening, and they were really impressed that she was doing the blindfold thing all night. She couldn’t tell which ones of them were vision impaired, though Emma had whispered to her that two of them were, but really, did it matter?

Though she knew that the next group of people could see – the first one simply hugged her, and straight away she just knew it was Suzy, by the height and her perfume. And sure enough, it was, and then all of Mark’s family and Nathan identified themselves and hugged her tightly. When that was done, Suzy said, “Larissa, Nathan is going to blindfold me too now. I’ll see how long I can last.” That was comforting. Suzy really believed in her, and it made her feel good inside.

Then Emma lead her into a new room, and she could hear the clink of tables and cutlery. Had they started without her? Emma knew what she’d be thinking and said, “You can hear people sitting down, or knocking their chairs into the table. We have a little while for talking, but before that, I want to you to experience something.”

Emma led her over towards the wall – somehow, she could hear that was happening. Then she said, “OK, I’m going to put sanitiser on your hands.” Larissa held out her hands, and a squirt of sanitiser landed in them, and she rubbed it into her hands. “OK. Feel this.” Emma led her forward a step, and lifted her hands and placed them on something.

Whatever it was, it was vertical. A soft plastic, and she was holding its sides, maybe three feet apart. Oh! This would be one of Emma’s pieces of artwork. She systematically felt it, and recognised it as a ... painting? ... of her rescue of Lacey. She could feel the bank, the creek, the raging water, and the little dogs on the island, and then Lacey even, around behind the island. Interesting: Emma had done more than a direct reproduction of the photo here, she had changed it to tell the story. That worked in a way the literal photos couldn’t – way cool. And there was Johnny boy, and the concrete wall. Sweet. None of the other people around, but that would definitely be too hard to reproduce. She went back and felt herself. She felt naked, and in some ways she’d always felt naked when she looked back on that experience. But she shouldn’t expect too much detail.

“Thanks. This is awesome, Emma. It’s just amazing, so. Evocative ... I don’t know what to say. It’s almost better than a sighted one. I saw a photo of one of your pieces before, and it just looked boring. This is ... wonderful.”

“Thanks.” She could hear the pleasure in Emma’s voice. “Harry has the other one up on his wall, and he loves it. This one is going in Guide Dog Victoria’s board room for a couple of years, and we’ll see. Tonight, all the vision impaired people are invited to experience this before you talk.”

“Sweet!”

“There’s one more.”

This one was the same size, but in portrait, not landscape. And immediately Larissa knew what it was – a portrait of Harry, Bud, and Larissa when they met later and posed for photos. And it made Larissa think of something. “This is just as wonderful too. Hey, there’s guide dogs here tonight, right?”

“Sure,” Emma said, “but you won’t notice them, they’re trained to stay out of the way.”

“Oh, I want to, I want to touch them and pat them if that’s not a problem.” She knew that you didn’t interact with the dogs ‘while they were working’, but she did for her work, so she wasn’t sure what the boundaries were.

“I’ll ask, if it’s appropriate.”

“Thanks!”

For the next little while, Emma worked the room with Larissa. Larissa just had to let Emma lead, though she could hear Julian and Harry in the background, never far from her, which was comforting. As was usual at these sort of things, she was introduced to a bunch of random strangers. Some Emma knew, and some she didn’t. A few times, Emma asked whether it was OK for Larissa to be introduced to their guide dog, and when it was, Emma helped Larissa down onto her knees for hugs with their dog. Almost everyone touched her shoulders as well as shaking her hand. Interesting, and sometimes they asked and went a little further – carefully, and respectfully.

“Just about time to sit down,” Emma said, “but there’s a couple of sighted women who want to meet you.”

“Hello Cutie!”

Larissa grinned. It was her mum! And no doubt Mary. She smiled and reached out her arms to where the sound was and she was hugged by both of them at once. “Thanks for coming! I had no idea!”

“How could we miss this? We’re some of your biggest fans!”

Larissa grinned. “Emma, meet my mum Raychelle and her partner Mary. I didn’t know that they’d be here, but it’s a real thrill that they are.”

Then it was time to sit down. Emma found their table, and then introduced her to the other occupants of the table. David Campbell, Marina Prior, Silvie Paladino. Larissa gasped, she was in the presence of absolute Vision Australia royalty – these were the most famous leads of the other big Vision Australia event, the Carols by Candlelight that was a national event on Christmas Eve. Larissa almost never missed it. What was this crap about Larissa being the star of the night? Could she get signatures, or would that be rude to ask? And she couldn’t even see them! And some of the board members of Vision Australia and Guide Dogs Victoria as well were at their table. Emma was feeling it as well, from her voice. Clearly, she didn’t know about that bit in advance.

For the next little while, her attention moved around between eating, listening to speeches, and talking to the other people around the table. And there was so much to talk about with these people, though she discovered that they thought the same about Julian and Larissa, had watched a number of their key videos on Youtube. And unlike lots of other people she talked to, these ones knew all about dealing with star power. They also knew about dealing with sightless people, and were very good to her, since she struggled the most at the table. She also had to keep reminding herself to bring Harry and Emma into the conversation, but the other stars were good at that one too. And she discovered the answer to a question she’d always had about the Carols: didn’t doing that ruin the stars Christmas with their families? Yes, sure did, but in every case, the families were firmly on board with it. Carols by Candlelight was different. Special.

The food was interesting, and Emma helped her with it. It was served on elegant hotel plates and so forth, but it was easy finger food that she could manage without seeing it. And to her amusement, everyone got the same food. Clearly, this wasn’t the first time for the other people at the table, but Emma made good natured fun of Julian for looking lost about this, and Larissa knew Julian well enough to know that he was playing up to that for the rest of them.

Early in the night, when there was a break, Julian said to her, “Babe, I have a message from Steph.” Larissa tensed up, her entire focus on Julian. “She wants to know how you’re going with the blindfold, and whether you’ve made a mess eating.” She could the amusement in his voice, and a quick breath from some of the others at the table.