Mona of Dreamweaver (Book 1 of The Sisterhood Trilogy)

Chapter 7

We didn’t go home after visiting Sara. Instead, Stacy drove into a large shopping plaza. I was awe struck. I have never seen so many stores in my life, and there were so many people already shopping. It was only 8:30 in the morning. Were people here always like this? Stacy got out of the car with her speed of lighting reflexes. Every time she did that, I always wondered how she did it? And why?

“Hurry up Kai Lin,” Stacy said. I quickly jumped out of the car.

“What are we doing here?” I asked looking around and trying to keep up. Seriously? That woman had skills.

“We have 2 ½ hours to shop for a new wardrobe for you. At least something presentable for today. I don’t want people to see you in those kind of clothes. It’s bad enough already that Sara did.”

I glance down at my clothes. They looked fine and decent. Sure they were a little old, outdated and over washed. But I didn’t look like a bum. And it was better than walking around naked. In the 2 ½ hours of shopping, I think we visited every store in the plaza, which contained about 200 of them. As always, we zoomed through them. Stacy ran through the stores grabbing clothes and shoving them in my arms. After she was satisfied, she pushed me into a dressing room and forced me to try all the clothes on. When I wasn’t fast enough, she threatened to come in there and do it herself. It seems like there was barely anything that she liked. The things I liked, she didn’t, the things she liked, I didn’t. She liked bright colors, but I wasn’t ready for colors yet. Finally, we made a compromise. She let me get a black dress as long as I had colorful shoes. The shoes, were another story. From what I’ve seen so far, I landed into a society of high heels. I wasn’t used to them, and when Stacy put a pair on my feet, I literally fell flat on my face. I heard a couple giggles from passing girls. Eventually, we decided to get a pair of red and black wedges. Those I actually handled pretty well.

As we were heading back to the car, Stacy suddenly swerved and pushed me through a door. Before I could realize where I was, I was shoved into a chair and saw my reflection in front of me. Someone started to run their fingers through my hair and teasing it. I saw a counter full of hair appliances and products. It was then that I realized Stacy brought me into a hair salon. Horror struck me. NO. I jumped out of my seat.

“What’s wrong with you?” Stacy asked.

“Please don’t cut my hair.”

”Kai Lin, you need to look presentable. Now sit down and don’t waste my time. We have 15 minutes left or else we will be late.”

I thought for a second and sat down. I didn’t like this. I don’t know what it was. Whether it was God’s mercy or the hair dresser feeling sorry for me, but he didn’t cut my hair. He styled my hair up into a messy ponytail, leaving the length and my bangs in peace. Even though I saw that it wasn’t what Stacy wanted, she seemed satisfied. From what I saw in the mirror, it definitely was better than what I usually did.

The church service was amazing. I liked how Pastor Richardson spoke. His deep booming voice, echoed through the auditorium. His words rang in my mind like an echo in an empty room. Everyone in the church was of different class, as I observed. I saw many middle class and rich people. I noticed Jennifer sitting next to her aunt and the many children. I saw Sara sitting on the other side, definitely looking better and more decent than when I first met her. There were also many other people I didn’t know. The whole time we were there (one hour), Kyle and Stacy held hands, while listening to the pastor’s words. It was really sweet. I saw how much they loved each other and it reminded me of how much my parents loved each other. I knew that I should be paying attention more, but I couldn’t as everything was too fascinating to me. I will listen better next time, I promise, I said to myself.

After the service, we all headed to, what I remembered from this morning, was Pastor Richardson’s ranch. It was large and beautiful. The fast acres of land, spread around us. There were horses and cows in the fields and on the other side, I saw a small fenced area, where feathery chickens ran around. There was a pond, where ducks and a swan swam around gracefully. It all looked so peaceful. It looked like a picture. Something that was worth drawing. Speaking of drawing, it’s been a while since I’ve put my pencil on paper. I hope I didn’t lose my sketch book.

 People were arriving at different times and speeds. Stacy guided me in another direction. The land was larger than I thought. With the large red brick house blocking my view, I didn’t see that there was as much land on the other side as on this side. Here it was decorated in a festive way. There were tables spread out, with white tablecloths over them. White chairs stood around the round tables, making it possible to seat 8 people. The tables were set with fine china, and small bouquets of wild flowers in the center. A little further down, there were places set for games, that I really hoped to try out. As we walked closer, I noticed that on the tables were table cards with names written on them and in the enter, next to the vases were table numbers. Maids and butlers bustled around, guiding people to their seats. I saw our maid running up to us and guiding us to our seats. We were seated at a table with Sara, pastor Richardson and 3 other people that I didn’t know. One looked quite familiar though. She was a blonde girl, about my age.

“So Kai Lin, right?” Sara started and I nodded. I wondered if it was really hard for these American people to remember and pronounce my name. It seemed quite small and easy to remember and say. “How did you like the service today?”

“It was very nice, thank you.”

“That’s good. So Stacy, have you thought about enrolling Kai Lin in school? She needs good education; it doesn’t matter whether or not she’s on a trial basis right now,” Sara stuttered over my name.

“I have thought about it and I think you’re right. St. Jacob’s Academy does have a good education system. I like how you think,” the woman smiled at each other.

For the next 6 hours, we talked, ate, laughed and played games. This day was the first fun day I had in years.

Later that evening, as I was sitting in my room looking out into the night, I remembered all the people I met and what I learned about them. I learned that Pastor Richardson is a widower without children. He was born, raised and lived on this ranch, that was passed down in the family for 5 generations. It was in quite good shape to survive so many generations. The man sitting next to Sara, was her second husband, Zach. The two other people were her children, Laura and Paul. Paul, was 18 and going away to college tomorrow. He was the child from Sara’s first marriage. Laura, was 15, and the child from this marriage. She played concert piano, and just got back from Paris on a trip to perform. That is when I remembered that it was her I saw on the portrait.

Laura and I hit it off really well. She didn’t have really close friends, just people that pretended to like her. She said that most people think she is too stuck up because she travels everywhere to perform. But I know people are wrong. She is a sweet girl and not prideful at all. I was excited to learn that Laura went to St. Jacob’s Academy and that we might go to the same classes. We spent the whole evening at the picnic together. I got her to play games with me. At first she was shocked to do anything like that. But after I took my shoes off and showed her that it was possible to do anything if you put your mind up to it and didn’t care what people thought of you, she let loose and joined in with lots of enthusiasm. One of the games, we had to do a three legged race against all boys, because all the other girls were being princesses. Because of my recent work-out chasing after Stacy all the time, we were able to win. Most of the boys tripped over their feet and couldn’t coordinate. It was kind of funny and sad as one of the boys, whose name I learned later was Jacob, could have won, but his partner had to trip right before the finish line. Hmmm. Jacob. He was quite attractive, but he was also quite rude to wink at me when Laura and I were awarded ribbons for winking. I mean, what was that? I wasn’t one of those girls that would fall for his charms from just a wink. I have self respect!