Girl
SURAYA HAD WATCHED the animated movie Pinocchio exactly once,
and then never again, because the bearded puppet master
Stromboli, with his dark beard and his wild eyes, freaked her out and
gave her nightmares for a week. She'd taken the DVD and hidden it
in the crack between the bookcase and the wall, where there was
space for little else but dust and geckos. It was, as far as she knew,
still there.
But when she looked back on the moment she met Jing Wei, she
would say that, much like the little boy made of wood, this was the
moment that she felt like she became real. This was the moment she
began to blossom into herself. It was as if having Jing accept her
showed her that it was okay to accept herself too. She stopped
stooping and trying to hide behind her hair; she walked tall and
looked people in the eye when they spoke to her. And it was
refreshing to have a friendship she didn't need to hide, for once.
With Jing Wei by her side, she learned to laugh, and even to
make jokes of her own. They were never apart, and the other girls
got used to seeing the two of them together, the tall, lanky figure of
Suraya beside the petite Jing, who barely came up to Suraya's
shoulder. The two exchanged books, shared their food—as long as it
was halal, of course—and talked about everything, from what they'dread to their families. Suraya even showed Jing her notebook, a new
one, its thin blue lines slowly filling with a cast of colorful characters,
improbable scenes, fantastic beasts. She'd held her breath as Jing
flipped slowly through the pages, and didn't let go until she heard
Jing's breathless, drawn-out "Coooooooooooooooool."
Jing had a huge family, a cast of thousands, and her stories were
often peopled with colorful characters: grandparents, uncles, aunts,
and a never-ending stream of cousins, whom she divided into
cousin-brothers and cousin-sisters.
She was fascinated by the idea of a family consisting of just two
people. "But you don't have any cousins or anything?"
"No," Suraya said. "It's just me and my mother."
"And your dad?"
Suraya looked down, studying the frayed tips of her shoes
intently. "He died a long time ago. I was really little. I don't even
remember him. My mother never talks about him."
She looked up to see Jing looking at her with frank sympathy and
understanding. "It's okay. My dad died too, you know." She pushed
her glasses back up from where they'd slid down her nose. "Just last
year. He loved Star Wars. We used to watch all the movies together,
have lightsaber battles." She lapsed into silence, and Suraya's heart
ached for her.
"How did he die?" she asked gently.
"Heart attack. He didn't even know there was anything wrong. He
had a pain, he said. We thought resting would help. Next
morning . . ." Her voice trailed off, and Suraya thought she detected
a glint of tears behind those glasses. "Anyway. That's why Ma moved
us back here, so we could be closer to family."
Suraya nodded. "I wish we had more family," she said wistfully.
Jing glanced at her. "You have me now what." Her tone was light,
but her hand brushed against Suraya's as she spoke, and her smile
lit up her entire face.
"I do," Suraya said. Her answering smile was so wide it made her
cheeks ache.
She went on the first of many visits to Jing Wei's house, a neat,
modern affair in a neat, modern neighborhood ten minutes from school. Jing's mother—"Call me Aunty Soo, dear"—picked them up
in her car, a trim red Mercedes-Benz, and served them fried rice
she'd bought from a stall nearby for lunch. "Halal, darling, don't
worry," she'd said, patting Suraya's shoulder with a perfectly
manicured hand, the nails painted bright red. "I purposely went to
buy from that stall because I knew you were coming. Ha, eat, eat,
don't be shy ya, you want somemore you just ask."
"Okay, aunty," Suraya said, her mouth full, her heart so happy
she thought it might burst.
Jing's room was big and sunny, like her personality, and full and
colorful, like her life. The walls were painted a soft blue, and there
was an entire wall of shelves crammed full of books and DVDs and
toys. "I used to play with those when I was small," she said quickly
as she saw Suraya's eyes linger on the worn dolls and teddies. "Not
anymore." There was a desk with a shiny laptop and piles of books
and notebooks, and in the corner, Jing's own small TV and DVD
player.
Suraya ran her hands along the books, craning her neck to read
their spines while Jing Wei popped a DVD out of a case on her desk
and crammed it into the player. "Come on, come on!" she said,
grabbing Suraya's hand and forcing her to sit down on the bed.
"Okay," she said, standing next to the TV with the remote in her
hand, a serious look on her face. "There are prequels, and there's
the original trilogy. I'm gonna make you watch the original trilogy first,
'cause the prequels suuuuuuck."
"Does that mean I don't have to watch them?"
Jing stared at her, wrinkling her nose. "Of COURSE you have to
watch them, Sooz. I just mean you watch these ones first, because
then you'll get why people love these movies so much. Then only
you watch the others so you get the full story. Understand?"
Suraya smiled and rolled her eyes. "Okay, cikgu. Teach me the
way of Star Wars."
They watched them all as the weeks passed, in between doing
their homework and talking and eating the snacks that Jing's mother
pressed on them in between, from fresh pisang goreng, the batter
fried to crispy golden perfection, the banana inside still warm and
steaming, to ais krim potong, blocks hand-cut from frozen ice cream, skewered with sticks, and flavored with everything from mangos to
lychees and deliciously refreshing on hot afternoons. The more she
was there, the more she experienced of Jing's seemingly charmed
life, the less willing Suraya was to let Jing see her own. Jing almost
forgave Suraya for never quite being as excited about Star Wars as
she was, though that didn't mean she stopped trying to stoke her
enthusiasm for it. But she never understood why Suraya wouldn't
invite her to her house.
"I could go with you on the bus what," she said. "And I could see
your room and your books, and you could show me the orchards and
the paddy fields. I've never even seen paddy fields in real life, Sooz."
Jing Wei had spent her whole life in cities and towns; Suraya's
stories of climbing trees and plucking fruit right from the branch
fascinated her.
Suraya thought of Mama, distant and cold, and the shabby
wooden house on the edge of the paddy fields. The idea of Jing
setting foot into her bare little room was enough to make her
shudder. "No lah," she demurred, trying to sound casual. "It's too far,
and my mom is always working. Better I come here."
"Then can't I come on a weekend, or something?" Jing pressed
on. "Some time when your mom isn't working. She can't be working
all the time lah right?"
"Right," Suraya said. "I'll ask her."
She never did. She was quite happy with her life as it was, quite
happy to endure Kamelia and Divya, and the long bus ride later in
the day that brought her home close to sundown, if this warmth and
friendship was what she got in return. And eventually, Jing stopped
asking.
Mama, for her part, never asked where she'd been all day; she
just assumed, Suraya guessed, that it was a school thing.
She realized that being Pink's friend was like dancing on the
edge of a precipice; it was fun, and you were on solid ground as long
as you didn't slip, but you worried about that line separating you from
the darkness all the time. Being friends with Jing, by contrast, was
like . . . just dancing, with a partner who matched your every move. It
was easy and free, balancing and satisfying. It felt right. It felt good.
And so life went on, in a way that made Suraya the happiest she
had ever been.