Stephanie & Xander

Chapter 4

We're both twelve when she was adopted. Now, we're thirteen.

Luckily for me, she lives in Sacramento. I can totally bike my way to her house. Though, unluckily for me this is my father's last year as the governor of California. We only have less than a year to be actually this close together.

She was adopted by this wonderful African-American lesbian couple. Well, I mean, I don't have prejudice against blacks and lesbian but there's no lie that could make someone believe she's their daughter. The couple is only about 25 years old, like she can be their younger sister. They can't possibly conceive her when they were 12, right? And, Emily is totally white, both skin and name. If the mothers were impregnated by a donated sperm then it's totally from a white donor and it totally won. She's just screaming 'I'm adopted.'

But somebody adopted her. They both have red hair too. I mean, dyed for the sake of Emily and I appreciate that. I should've done that before. Laqueta is a nurse from Venice and retired to settle down for a family and to pursue her dream of becoming a writer. Abigail, in contrast, is an inborn Sacramento resident. She has inherited the house from her grandmother, which is Latina. It's a mess. I don't know which is which anymore.

They own a thrift bargain shop of kitchenware from China and Japan and Abigail is also doing tattoos. I hope Emily doesn't end up getting tattoos. Emily... with a tattoo.

But they were angelic. They really wanted to have a child of their own so they're thinking of getting a sperm from the bank but they realized that they might as well help an unfortunate child by adoption and I find that heroic. I love them.

I'm welcome to their house as long as I work for their thrift shop. Abby wanted to teach me how to tattoo. I was interested at first because she tells me stuffs about how she liked drawing dragons or Kanji or Mandala or tribal tattoos. She really likes detailed stuffs and I also love detailed stuffs so I thought I should learn.

But one time, I asked her why she always runs out of Red ink and this is what she told me, "When you only use black ink, it fades into blue after some time so it kinda works like how every paints work. Black is way stronger if you make it yourself, mixing all colors to produce black. So, I buy red to mix the black ink with to avoid fading." But what really got me into her words were, "...because you know it's not just black. It's a mixture of many more colors. It makes it more beautiful. Like, when it's tainted, it's prettier."

When it's tainted, it's prettier. I don't get those words but maybe someday I will.

And, that surely throws me off. At some point I started to understand how the tattoo machine works. I used to refer to it as 'gun' but Abby hit me for some reason so I never repeated the same mistake. But moving on, it was a complicated yet very simple machine. When I watch Abby hold it like a pencil and move accordingly with the foot pedal, it was amazing. And, the way Emily watches it as enthusiastically as I do is actually heaven too. Like... having the same interest as your favourite actress or liking the same local band. It was amazing.

Or maybe Abby is just amazing. She's good with her hands, Laqueta too, in different manner. Say that both of them are given a human they can use, they can do whatever they want to. Abby will probably craft some tribal earrings or necklace or bangles and fill that person with tribal tattoos. While, in Laqueta's case, she would probably open that person up, touch every organ she could touch and put them back inside and without changing anything, she thinks that person is her masterpiece. She's a nurse yeah but she can perform surgery. It was her passion or obsession, I don't know.

They like me. They sometimes give me advice about Emily. Sometimes I think that they know her better than I do even though we've known each other for six years. It's the girl thing probably. They said girls are complicated but so far in my life, all the girls are simple. My mom, Abby, Laqueta and Emily.