S I G N S

Chapter 4

It was Wednesday morning and Jennie was walking out of her favourite café with a vanilla latte in one hand, and a paper bag containing a cinnamon roll in the other. She shaded her eyes with the bag, noticing a familiar beige trench coat sticking out in the crowd.

It was Lisa.

Jennie wanted to call out her name to get her attention, but knew that it was hopeless. Not being able to talk was rarely an inconvenience to Jennie, the people closest to her knew sign language, and she could get by with simple gestures and written notes if she needed to. But then sometimes, like when she wanted to get a girl's attention, it was the most frustrating thing in the world to her.

Luckily for Jennie, Lisa was walking straight towards her. As she got closer, Jennie waved her hand holding her cinnamon roll, catching Lisa's attention. Lisa's face lit up when she realised it was Jennie.

"Sorry, I was in a world of my own, I almost didn't see you then," Lisa said as she moved closer. Jennie tried to reply, but realised she didn't have a spare hand to write with. She gestured to Lisa to wait a moment, clamping the paper bag between her teeth and pulling out her phone. She quickly typed out a reply and held her phone out to Lisa.

'I was just stopping for some coffee before work, I thought I'd say hi'

Lisa handed Jennie her phone back. "I'm glad you did, it's been a terrible morning so far, I could use some cheering up," she replied with a grimace as someone walking past bumped into her. Jennie took her by the elbow and steered her towards one of the tables outside the coffee shop, moving out of the way of the stream of shoppers and business people rushing down the street.

Jennie waited for Lisa to settle into the chair opposite her before pointing at her and giving her the OK sign, figuring that Lisa would understand.

"Just family and work stuff you know," Lisa sighed, "my mom's in town for this business gala, which is a nightmare, and there's so much work to be done at the office, and so much planning to make sure it all goes well."

Jennie recalled Jisoo talking about the rebranding of Manoban Corp, which Jennie assumed was what the gala was for. She watched Lisa as she carried on ranting about the gala, realising she spoke with her hands a lot.

'Why don't you just do what you want to do?'

Lisa laughed as she read the message, "Well that would be too easy now, wouldn't it," she said sarcastically. She sighed again, staring intently at Jennie, like she was making up her mind about something.

"I don't know if you know, and well, you're still talking to me so I figured you don't know, because if you knew you probably wouldn't want to talk to me anymore," Lisa rambled, getting all flustered. Jennie grabbed one of Lisa's hands and trapped it underneath hears on top of the table, taking and exaggerated breath in and out to make a point. "Right," Lisa said, calming herself down, "well, I was adopted when I was younger by the Manoban family, you might've heard of that name before because my brother owns Manoban Corp, except now I've taken over because ... he's the guy who bombed congress last year." She looked at Jennie, fighting back tears as she waited for her reaction.

'I know'

Lisa looked up from the phone, a crease between her eyebrows from the confused look on her face. "If you know then why have you been nice to me this whole time?" she asked.

Jennie's heart hurt for Lisa. She'd been right, she was lonely. How many people had turned their backs on her after her brother had blown up all those people? How many people held her responsible? Did people not realise Leonard had hurt Lisa too? It wasn't hard to imagine why she had decided to move to National City and rebrand the company. She was looking for a fresh start.

'Because none of it's your fault, and I think you're hurting too, and it's not fair'

Lisa read the message and gave Jennie a sad smile. "You know, you're the first person to tell me that, all of my friends back home... they wouldn't answer my calls, they stopped texting me, they just cut me off," she choked out, "sorry, I didn't mean to get all upset on you, but you're the only person who's actually had a proper conversation with me since I moved here."

Jennie grabbed Lisa's hand and gave it a gentle squeeze, giving her a reassuring smile.

'Well what are friends for?' Jennie typed out, holding the phone up for Lisa to see. They both wore matching grins as they looked at each other, and Jennie hoped she'd cheered Lisa up, even just a little bit.

Lisa reached forward and plucked Jennie's phone out of her hand. "Well if we're friends now, you should at least have my number," she said as she typed it into Jennie's phone, handing it back when she was done.

Jennie smiled down at her phone, looking at the new contact in her phone. She laughed when she saw that Lisa had typed in her first and last name, as if there was another Lisa that Jennie might know.

"And speaking of being friends, would you please come to the gala, you might actually make it fun." Lisa begged, biting her lip as she waited for Jennie to answer. Jennie nodded her head enthusiastically, beaming at Lisa, a matching smile spreading on her face too. How could she say no when Lisa looked so cute when she was nervous?

"Brilliant, I'll text you the details," Lisa said, glancing down at her watch, "but now, I had better be getting back to the office, I'll see you soon," she said, pushing her chair out from the table and standing up.

Jennie waved goodbye and watched Lisa disappear into the crowd. Finishing her latte, she stood up and headed to work, hoping she wouldn't be late.

-----

She text Lisa as she walked to work, so she had Jennie's number.

The rest of the day passed by in a blur of texts between her and Lisa, and Jennie found it impossible to stop smiling, even when the head librarian, Miss Grant, had scolded her for being ten minutes late to work.