"Hey Mrs. P everything is done on my side, do you need any help?"
"No the last thing is going in the fridge now. I'll cook the main dish closer to the time of the party."
"Alright, I'll go see if Natasha needs help then."
"Okay thanks Brady." Brady walks away and quickly heads for the backyard.
"Hey Tasha. Need any help?"
"Oh hey Brady. Yeah can you hook the speaker up to my laptop on the table please?" Natasha said as she struggled to tie the balloons to the porch which will become the stage later that night.
Brady quickly got the speaker up and tested it out. Once it was tested Brady went over to help the still struggling Natasha with the porch. "Let me help."
"Thanks, I'll go set up the snack tables I guess, if you can figure out how to put these up here I will be extremely grateful."
"Yeah no problem, I think I'll be able to figure something out."
"Thanks Brady." As Natasha walked away Brady was examining all the possible ways he could put up the balloons. At long last he decided to tape them all individually to the wooden porch.
"Wow a Brady of many trades are you?" Mr. P laughed at his own joke.
"Well Mr. P I've been through a lot, and when you go through a lot you also get to learn a lot."
"Well said. That is a fair point to make too. Are your ready for tonight?"
"Well as ready as ever because I'm being a dj tonight. Never done this one before but I'm grateful that I don't have to be an mc cause that it stressful."
"Tell me about it. I don't know how mc anything let alone my sister's first real birthday party." Natasha chimed in. "But the venue looks amazing."
"Are we almost ready?" Mrs. P comes out from the kitchen.
"Yes, all we need to do is invite the guest then bring Lydia home. After that we can get this party started.
Meanwhile back with Lydia.
"Why did you bring your backpack with you?" Lydia opens up her bag and pulls out a long piece of fabric.
"Well I know how much you hate people seeing you dance so I made you an outfit that matches the theme of 'The Phantom Dancer'" Lydia lays the cloak across the table and puts the mask down beside it. "This is your new outfit."
"It's your birthday but I get a present?" Jordan said in shock and awe of his new dance robe.
"With this, I hope you learn to be confident of who you are and what you love to do. I hope you can forget the pain that 'he' caused you and move on. I want you to dance again."
"I promise, after today, with this outfit I will dance again. Even if it starts out just on occasion it will be the start of the new version of an old me."
"Go try it on."
"Here? We in a restaurant..."
"Think of it as a confidence building exercise."
"Fine..." Jordan sighed and went to the bathroom with the outfit. We went into a stall and quickly changed into it. It fit him perfectly so he went out to where Lydia was and showed her the outfit.
"How did you know my size?"
"Hugs."
"What? I'm confused."
Ï build a 3d model of you made out of paper mache and measure it by hugs. All I really needed was to know what size your waist and shoulders are so I hugged the model to see if it needed to be thicker by comparing it with the hugs I give you."
"You little crafting genius."