Chapter 5: Later Friday Morning

On places like the Nature Channel, you sometimes see whole families of monkeys all sitting around grooming each other. They eat any nits they find which is a bit gross but they also clean each other’s hair and untangle any knots and stuff like that. The narrators always make comments about how this is an important social activity and how it helps bond the tribal group together and so on.

I guess putting braids in someone’s hair is a human equivalent of that.

I was sitting quietly on the sofa with Pearl’s cat on my lap when Pearl’s grandmother came over and sat next to me. She talked to the cat and stroked its head while he sat on my lap. She smiled at me and said something and nodded to me and stroked Rui Shi on the head some more.

I smiled back at her and ran my hand along Rui Shi’s back. Then she picked up my hand and started stroking the back of it. I looked at her and she smiled and her eyes sparkled at me. I understood that she was checking up on me in her own way. I didn’t mind that at all. She’d seen me upset and now she wanted to know if I was feeling better. It was kind of nice – very grandmotherly. I smiled at her to let her know I was feeling better.

Pearl sat down on the other side of me.

“Grandmother is pleased to see you looking happier.”

I nodded and looked down to where her grandmother was still stroking my hand.

“I was thinking that if we’re going to LaserCity then we should probably find you something else to wear. The problem is that I don’t think I have any pants that would fit you.”

I shook my head at her. I really liked the dress she had given me – and the boots. I didn’t care that they weren’t the most suitable things to wear for running around inside LaserCity. I was happy dressed like this and I didn’t want to change. Besides, Rui Shi looked very comfortable on my lap and I didn’t want to disturb him.

Pearl picked up a handful of my hair and ran it through her hands.

“We could probably do something with your hair, though, to keep it out of the way. A ponytail maybe? Or a pair of braided ponytails? That would look cute on you. I would love to braid ponytails into your hair.”

She took my silence as agreement and started gathering all the hair on her side of my head and then dividing it up ready for braiding. There was some discussion in Chinese and then Pearl’s grandmother started doing the same thing on the other side of my head.

So that’s how we ended up with Pearl and her grandmother grooming me as part of an important social activity. I half expected to hear some narrator start explaining how this was helping us bond into a more tightly knit tribal unit. All I know is that it was nice to have the two of them calmly and quietly working on my hair.

I guess I kind of zoned out while they did that. I sat there with a cat purring on my lap and two women putting my hair into braids and let it all happen. Pearl and her grandmother chatted away in Chinese with Pearl translating into English every so often but I let most of that just slide over me. At some point there was a quick conversation with Pearl’s mother. She left the room and then came back with a wooden box full of ribbons and hair ties and scrunchies and so on. They all had an animated discussion holding up ribbons against my hair and my dress and so on until they found a pair of purple ribbons that stood out against the amber and the burnt orange patterning on my dress without actually clashing. The braids got tied off with ribbons – complete with little bows – and I was done. The ribbons weren’t the color I would have chosen but I think they looked nice.

Pearl patted my leg and slid onto the floor so that she was sitting with her back to the sofa between her grandmother and me.

“Grandmother has a special ponytail braid that she does for me. It makes Grandmother very happy to do my hair for me. She is offering to show it to you. I would love it if you would honor her by letting her teach you.”

I turned to Pearl’s grandmother, smiled my biggest smile and nodded to her. She smiled back and patted my cheek in approval. Pearl’s grandmother slid a little sideways so that she was right up against my side and almost directly behind Pearl. Then she started stroking Pearl’s hair backwards with her fingers so that it lay loosely on her head. Then she separated the hair into not three but five different sections. She trapped three sections of hair in the gaps between the fingers of her right hand and two sections of hair between the fingers of her left hand. There was a running commentary going on in Chinese but I didn’t need it to be translated because she was going slowly and pausing at each step so that I could see what was happening.

Then the two hands slowly started twisting back and forth and rolling over and under each other. The two thumbs were transferring the sections of hair back and forth between the hands and between the fingers so that each section changed place in the weave at each stage of the braid. I don’t think I can explain it better than that in words.

The thing about the standard three-strand braid like the one Pearl and her grandmother used for my ponytails is that it comes out flat and wide – like a strip of fettuccine pasta or like a leather belt. This five-strand braid ends up round like a rope. It looks awesome.

If you really want to know, Doctor K, then I guess I could show you in our next session. Except you don’t have enough hair so I can’t really do it to you – and no way could I do it to myself. Not without dislocating both of my shoulders, anyway. Maybe you could invite your grand-daughter in and I could braid a ponytail for her. From the photo on your desk she has really long hair and I think you said she’s seven. I’m sure she would love it. Also that would give me a chance to meet her – she sounds really fun.

Anyway, once Pearl’s grandmother had shown me how to hold the hair and what pattern to use, she undid it all and pointed to me. I nodded and started trying to do it myself. Every so often she would put her hands over mine and guide me through the movements. It’s kind of hard to keep all the hair trapped in the right place and then transfer it to another place without losing strands of hair and having them float away. The other hard part is keeping the tension even so that the braid comes out looking smooth without bumps and knots sticking out all over.

It was a fun thing to learn how to do. I don’t think Pearl translated a single one of her grandmother’s instructions. It was always pretty obvious from what I could see in front of me. The hard part was getting my hands to do what my brain wanted them to do. I got most of the way down to the end of Pearl’s hair when her grandmother stopped me. She clapped her hands together a few times to tell me that I did a good job and then she pointed out a few bumps and loose strands of hair. I nodded in understanding. She undid the braid and gestured for me to do it again. The second time I was better and the braid came out looking pretty even. I was quicker too. I felt very proud of myself for that.

She stopped me braiding with about two inches of hair left and helped me finish off the braid with a black hair band. I was rewarded with more hand clapping from Pearl’s grandmother. Impulsively, I leaned sideways and gave her a quick hug. She put her hands around me and patted my back.

Rui Shi objected to his comfortable lap being disturbed – apparently my legs moved around too much when I twisted to hug Pearl’s grandmother. I know he didn’t like me moving because I felt his claws dig into my leg through my dress which made me squeak and jump. I let Pearl’s grandmother go and sat back. Rui Shi stood up on my thighs, turned, stretched and walked slowly down my legs. He then leaped from my knees to the floor. He had his tail sticking straight up for the entire journey and therefore gave me a close-up view of his butt-hole. It wasn’t his most attractive angle.

Pearl’s grandmother patted my cheek and then lifted herself up from the sofa. I watched as she walked through to the kitchen. The conversation between Mrs Wong and Pearl’s grandmother started as soon as she walked through the door. At least this time it was clearly a conversation and not an argument.

Dan sat down in the space beside me and slid his hand into the small of my back. I looked at him as he started rubbing up and down my spine. The skin beside Dan’s eyes crinkled because he was smiling so much. He leaned forward and kissed my nose.

“Watching you learn how to do Pearl’s hair just made my day. You looked so happy, so full of life. I love watching you learn new things. It makes you sparkle.”

I smiled happily at Dan and put my arms around him. There was no problem with Rui Shi this time. I stroked my cheek across his chest, enjoying the feel of the fabric sliding over the muscles of his chest. Then my cheek slid over his pocket and a corner of the folded paper in it dug into my cheek. That reminded me to show Dan the cartoon I’d drawn earlier to explain my dream.

I pulled the paper out of Dan’s pocket and sat up straight. There were actually two folded bits of paper – he must have put the other one in there as well. I unfolded one and it turned out to be the first thing I’d drawn with the question mark in the middle and little cartoons around it representing my confusion about whether last night had been real or a dream or something else. I handed that to Dan and unfolded the second one. That was the drawing Dan hadn’t seen yet. It represented my dream as a sequence of cartoon panels. I handed it to Dan and sat back. I carefully didn’t watch as Dan looked at my drawing.

Pearl had stood up and was now hovering in front of me. I smiled up at her. Then I saw the pad I’d been using earlier was back in its place beside the phone. An idea came to me and I caught Pearl’s eye. I pointed at the pad and then put my hands together in a kind of praying/pleading gesture. Pearl understood immediately and fetched the pad for me. Then she slid into Dan’s lap and laid an arm around his shoulders. The two of them looked at my drawing together for a moment.

I ignored them and drew quick lines and curves on the page in front of me. I finished in ten seconds, tore the page off the pad and folded it once. Then I did a second page almost the same as the first. I looked at Dan and saw that both Dan and Pearl were looking at me.

Dan tapped the drawing in front of him.

“So, you dreamed you were Aunt Penny when she was your age – escaping from the thing that happened to her.”

I nodded.

“And then you got a surprise because you woke up in the middle of the street in the middle of the night. That must have been scary.”

I shrugged. I’d felt kind of numb at the time. My brain had known I was in a bad situation but I hadn’t actually felt scared.

“Aunt Penny told you about what happened to her yesterday and you dreamed about it last night. I suppose that isn’t surprising. Do you realize you now know more about it than I do?”

I nodded.

“That makes it harder for me to figure out how to help you but I’m a good listener. If you want to talk to me about it, that is.”

I nodded.

I handed Dan the page in my hand and watched with a little smile on my face.

“You drew something else? In that little bit of time? That was quick.”

I nodded. Not all drawings have to be complicated.

Dan unfolded the paper and looked.

It said, “Dan, I love you, xxx Bec xxx” in big letters.

Dan looked at it and his face lit up with the biggest smile.

Earlier in the morning, Dan had made the comment that I don’t always use words to communicate – but sometimes I do.

I handed the second one to Pearl. It said the same thing only with Pearl’s name at the top. She was as happy to get her note as Dan had been and I found myself being pulled into a three-way hug. After a moment they let me go and I sat up straight. We all looked at each other with big silly smiles on our faces.

“Something tells me you’re feeling better,” said Dan.

A giggle bubbled up from inside of me and looked for places to escape. It leaked out through my mouth, my eyes, my nose and probably through all the pores of my skin. That’s what it felt like, anyway. I’m sure I looked strange with little giggle-bubbles floating all around my head.

“We have about thirty or forty minutes before we need to leave for LaserCity. What would you like to do until then?” asked Dan.

I held up the pad and used my eyes to beg for understanding.

Dan nodded. “Of course you can draw if that’s what you want to do. Is it okay if we leave you alone? Jason has challenged me to a game of table tennis. Apparently they have a table out in the garage. I need to defend my reputation as a jock.”

I shook my head. I didn’t want to be left alone.

Pearl reached out a hand for me.

“Come with us. I have a perfect place for you to sit and still be with Dan.”

Pearl pulled gently and I used her strength to stand. Dan laid his arm across my shoulder and walked beside me as Pearl led me out through the glass door. She took us along a garden path to the side door of the garage. We went inside and I looked around. It looked like a long time since any car had been parked in there. There was an old battered carpet on the floor and posters on the walls. A table was set up for table tennis at one end and a small group of mismatched easy chairs and a couch formed a half-circle at the other end. An old stereo system perched on a table and was surrounded by piles of CDs. Some places were a bit dusty.

“My brothers originally set this up as a refuge. I can’t tell you how many times I snuck out after bed-time and curled up on the couch wrapped up in a blanket while my brothers played table tennis. Some of my best memories are of sitting on one of their laps while we listened to the latest albums and told each other ridiculous stories. They used to sneak an occasional girlfriend in here too. When my brothers moved away from home this place became somewhat lonely but I still came out here fairly often. My girlfriends and I had a few sleepovers out here during the summer – stuff like that. I think Grandmother sometimes comes out here now that I’ve moved out and am not using it.”

Pearl led me by the hand to the couch. It had a cheap throw rug draped over it to disguise the worn and faded covering. An old bar heater sat on the floor nearby and she switched it on. We sat together and looked around. From there I had a great view of the table tennis and I was in direct line of the heater so I wouldn’t get cold. Dan was at the table talking to Jason – I hadn’t even noticed him coming in. The two of them were looking through a box of table tennis balls and picking out the balls that were usable.

“Will this be okay?” asked Pearl.

I smiled at her and nodded.

I gave a happy little sigh and used the string holding the pencil and the pad together to get the pencil up into my hand.

“Do you mind?” asked Pearl.

I looked at Pearl trying to figure out what she meant.

“Do you mind if I sit here and watch you draw?”

I wondered why she would want to. I mean, all I was going to do was draw. It would be fairly obvious what I was drawing after about two or three minutes. That’s how long it would take to sketch in the outlines. After that, the rest of the time would be spent putting in details. I figured she would find it all fairly dreary to watch. Besides, I wasn’t normally very comfortable letting people see half-finished drawings and that’s what she was asking to see. But this was Pearl. She’s not ordinary people – she’s special so maybe I didn’t mind so much.

I shrugged and nodded in answer to her question. Then I held my finger up to my lips. I didn’t want her talking about what I was drawing until the time was right.

She nodded. “I have to be quiet while you draw. I understand.”

Well, yes. I meant that too.

Pearl curled her legs up under her and snuggled in next to me. She laid her head on my shoulder and sighed.

I rolled the pencil between my fingers and used the back of my hand to brush the paper I was about to draw on. Then I started. I knew exactly what I wanted to draw. I only hoped that I would be able to finish it in time.

I did manage to finish in time – sort of. I was more or less finished with five minutes to spare but I sat there and kept adding little details. To my surprise, Pearl hadn’t moved during that entire time. My entire side where she snuggled against me felt warm and cosy. My other side was warm too because of the heater. I glanced down at my shoulder where Pearl’s head still rested and wondered why there was a damp patch on the shoulder of my dress. I had to kind of squint a bit but I managed to glimpse her eyes. They were wide open and shining with tears.

Pearl realized that I was looking at her. She lifted her head off my shoulder and kissed me lightly on the lips.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

At first I wasn’t sure what she was thanking me for but then I figured it out. I guess I’ve sat and watched Mum draw or paint often enough. Sometimes the magic of it has made me cry, seeing the rough drawing fill out and be brought to life by the power of her talent. It really is magical. I guess I forgot about that when I wondered why Pearl would want to watch me. I guess because I’m not in the same league as my mother, I forgot that what I do could be a bit magical too. One day I should find a way to get Pearl watching Mum do a real drawing. Then she would see some real magic.

I looked up just in time to see Dan throw up his hands in surrender and laughingly concede the game to Jason. He came over to where Pearl and I sat and told us it was time. I nodded and stood up, clutching the picture to my chest.

Pearl turned the heater off and took the pad from me. She stood next to me, her eyes still shining with tears. Dan looked at her and lifted his eyebrow. Then he looked at me as I stood there, clutching my picture. He looked at Pearl and used his eyes and a little nod to tell her that he understood. Then he put his arm around her and led her out of the garage. Since Pearl was still hanging onto my arm that meant I went too.

When we got back into the house, Pearl suddenly ducked out from between us. She told us to wait there and ran off towards her room – her ponytail bouncing behind her. I looped one hand into Dan’s and we stood together and waited. A minute or so later Pearl came back to us with a handbag slung over one shoulder and carrying a plastic bag.

“Bec, these are your pajamas. We can put them in Dan’s car so you don’t have to worry about forgetting them.”

That was good because I had – forgotten them, I mean.

The Wong family had gathered at the door to say goodbye. I shook hands with Jason. He said it was nice to meet me. I smiled at him and nodded.

I shook hands with Mr Wong. He said it was nice to meet me. I smiled at him and nodded.

I shook hands with Mrs Wong. She started to say it was nice to meet me but then she stopped. She stepped close and hugged me. I stood there and let her hug me. I was focused on protecting my drawing so that it didn’t get crumpled. I hadn’t really wanted to hug her but I didn’t complain or anything.

She stepped back and looked me up and down.

“Don’t worry,” she said. She put this enormous encouraging smile onto her face. “The bad dreams are probably just a phase. You’ll grow out of them. Hmm?”

I guess it was just as well she wasn’t expecting me to say anything to her because I wouldn’t have known what to say.

She smiled at me and then nodded as if she was agreeing with her own statement. Then she turned and hugged Dan and told him how he was a lovely young man and they would love to have him visit again.

Pearl’s grandmother was last in the line. She said something to me in Chinese. We smiled at each other and stepped in and hugged each other. I guess it was good that Mrs Wong had hugged me because now I knew how to hug and protect my drawing at the same time.

We stepped back and smiled at each other again. Then I carefully held out my drawing and handed it to her.

She took it from me and looked at it. I watched happily as her expression changed from pleased to astonished to totally gobsmacked. She muttered something in Chinese and Pearl giggled behind me. She stepped up beside me and whispered into my ear that her grandmother had said a really really rude word. I actually hadn’t needed her to tell me that. I knew it from the matching shocked expressions on the faces of Mr and Mrs Wong. They couldn’t see my picture, they were shocked at what she had said.

I put my mouth near Pearl’s ear and whispered, “Please tell your grandmother that this is a gift. Please thank her for teaching me how to do that five-strand braid.”

I did that without taking my eyes off Pearl’s grandmother. It was so nice to watch the expressions chase each other across her face as she looked at different details. I was kind of amazed that it was taking her so long – it wasn’t that much of a complicated picture.

Pearl translated my comment to her grandmother. She nodded and replied without taking her eyes off my drawing.

“Grandmother says that she is honored to receive such a beautiful gift,” whispered Pearl into my ear. “She says she will treasure it.”

Jason coughed. “Are we allowed to look at it? The rest of us haven’t seen it yet.”

I shrugged. It was his grandmother’s now and not mine so it was up to her to show the others – or not.

Pearl said something and her grandmother held the picture out. Everyone else crowded around to look at it – except me, of course. Even Pearl joined the crowd to have another look.

I had drawn two cats curled up and sleeping together. One was light gray and was easily identifiable as Rui Shi. The other was dark gray and was very closely based on Mum’s drawings of me as a cat though I didn’t tell them that. The backs of the two cats were to the outside and together they formed an almost perfect circle – each cat filling in a half-circle. The head of each cat was resting on the hind-quarters of the other one so their heads intruded into the half-circle of the other cat. The line separating the light gray from the dark gray therefore didn’t go straight across the circle but it curved up and down. In other words the two cats formed an almost perfect representation of the Yin-Yang symbol. I was pretty pleased with the way the drawing had turned out.

I’m fairly sure that when Mr and Mrs Wong saw my picture, the word they said was exactly the same Chinese word that had shocked them when the grandmother had used it. A little giggle bubbled around inside me when they did that. I didn’t want it leaking out and embarrassing me so I diverted it into my brain. The giggle ran around the inside of my skull looking for a way out. It tickled the back of my eyeballs each time it ran across them and that made my eyes water. Eventually the giggle lodged itself in the back of my nose where it felt like the beginning of a sneeze.

Jason whispered, “Oh! My! God!” almost silently. Pearl didn’t say anything – I guess she already knew what she was going to see.

Dan didn’t say anything either but he looked as closely as everyone else. He kind of knew what to expect, I guess. Also he’s used to looking at Mum’s pictures. He looked up at me and the love in his eyes just about made my heart burst open. He winked at me and then glanced at the grandmother and nodded. That told me he thought it was a good gift for her. That made me happy. I’d thought of it when I wrote those notes for Dan and Pearl. I wanted to do the same for the grandmother but since she wouldn’t have understood a note I obviously had to do something without words. Dan said that sometimes I communicate without words.

It occurred to me that after looking at my picture, Mrs Wong was going to want to hug me again. I looked at the front door of the house and wondered if I could quietly go and sit in the car. If I waited out there I could avoid some of the embarrassing fuss that was going to happen. I bit my lip and took half a step towards the door but then I stopped. I sighed quietly to myself. It would be rude and would make me look ungrateful or arrogant or something. I was simply going to have to accept it.

I heard Jason ask Dan how long it had taken me to draw it and saw Dan look at his watch.

“About thirty-five minutes,” said Dan. “You saw her doing it. She drew it in the garage while we were playing table tennis.”

Jason’s mouth dropped open even more. I sighed.

Dan glanced at me and then he checked his watch a second time. “We really should get moving or we’ll be late.”

The hugs and fussing happened the way I’d predicted. Pearl’s grandmother stayed out of it initially because she was finding a safe place to put the picture down. Dan hustled me out from the middle of Mrs Wong hugging me and Jason and Mr Wong shaking my hand and patting my back. He apologized over and over at interrupting but said he didn’t want us to be late.

Pearl and her grandmother linked arms and walked down the drive to the street where Dan’s car was parked. They were having a very fast conversation together as they walked and they both looked very happy. Dan held my hand and we followed. The rest of Pearl’s family stayed on the porch and watched us go. Near the car, her grandmother let go of Pearl and gave Dan one last hug. Then she gave me another hug and patted my cheek and said something to me so I nodded and smiled and used my hand to press hers to my cheek. I slid my cheek back and forth against her hand and then turned her hand over and kissed it. We smiled at each other and hugged each other one last time. Dan didn’t try to rush us over that.

Pearl was holding the front passenger door open for me but I shook my head and gestured for her to sit next to Dan. She got in and slid across the bench seat until she was in the middle. I sat down next to her and put on the seatbelt. I waved out the window to all the Wong family as we drove away. Then I relaxed back into my seat with a little smile on my face.

“That seemed to go okay,” said Dan after a few minutes of silence. “Last night your parents seemed to be a bit stiff and formal with me but they were more relaxed this morning.”

“According to Grandmother,” said Pearl, “my parents were impressed with the way you looked after Bec. You showed that you could be caring and gentle and that made a big difference. They still would much rather I dated a good Chinese boy, of course, but at least now they seem to think you’re an acceptable boyfriend. So it went better than okay.”

“That’s good,” said Dan.

“I always knew that Grandmother would like you and Jason has always stood up for me when it comes to my parents so I wasn’t worried about him either.”

Pearl spun in her seat and looked at me. “And as for you! Oh! My! God! That drawing! You always meant it as a gift for Grandmother, didn’t you?”

I nodded and smiled at her.

“It was the most awesome thing I’ve ever seen – and it was the perfect gift for Grandmother. You made her so happy this morning. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I love you so much.”

Pearl put her arms around me and hugged me as much as the seatbelts would allow. Then she kissed me firmly on the lips.

I nodded and smiled at her.

“I love you, too,” I said. It came out really quiet so I don’t know if she heard it over the noise of the car but she could probably read it from my lips.

“Bec, was that you as the other cat?” asked Dan.

I nodded but then I realized Dan was watching the road because he was driving, so I said, “Yes.” My voice came out really quiet though so I don’t know if he heard.

“I don’t understand,” said Pearl.

“Bec and her mother often draw Bec as a cat,” said Dan. “It’s a symbolic kind of thing. So the picture she drew today was symbolic too with your cat and Bec curled up together like that.”

“Wow, that’s so awesome. Now I want to go back and look at it again. I must tell Grandmother about that. She would love to know that.” Pearl looked at me. “Can I tell Grandmother?”

I nodded. It was her grandmother’s picture, of course she should know.

Pearl kissed me on the cheek. She must have sensed that I wasn’t really in a chatty mood so she spun back around to sit properly in her seat and spent the rest of the journey talking with Dan. They occasionally included me but I think they got that I was happy to sit and listen to them talk. At one point Dan told us that we were actually running ahead of time. He rushed us out of the house because he could see I was getting uncomfortable with all the fuss. Do you see why I love him so much?

There was a lot of traffic downtown but we made it in plenty of time. Dan parked in back of LaserCity and we had to walk through a little lane to get to the front entrance. As soon as we got out of the car Pearl latched onto Dan’s left arm and I grabbed his other arm so we walked down the lane in a little row of three. LaserCity has a kind of coffee shop/gift shop in front and we went there to meet the rest of the group.

As soon as we stepped through the door we were met by a whirlwind named Faith, dragging Danielle in her wake. Do you remember about Faith, Dr K? Faith and Pearl share an apartment. Danielle is Faith’s girlfriend. Faith seemed to be full of energy this morning. She swooped in and wrapped Pearl in a vigorous hug. Faith is taller and more solid than Pearl so Pearl seemed to get swamped and shaken around quite a bit. She didn’t seem to mind though. She laughed and let it happen.