Looking For Hope

Chapter 10: Rain's Interview and Moira's First Date

With her morning class over and nothing to do for the rest of the day, Moira decided it was finally time to update Neesa about everything that had happened so far. Moira glanced at the time, it must be pretty late back in White Banyan but Neesa had been known to stay up past midnight on some occasions, so Moira crossed her fingers and hoped she would still be awake.

Moira only needed to ring once before Neesa picked up, wearing her pink pajamas.

"Oh, hi cousin, I was gonna go to sleep but it's not every day that you call, so what is sleep? Sleep is for the weak. Okay, that was uncool, but seriously it's lonely here without you."

"Ah. Sorry for the bad timing. I'll make it quick. So, first thing you should know is Nardho asked me to date him and I said yes. Secondly, there was this epic thing he did with a former roommate of his who had been very mean to Nardhia. Did you know he is a martial artist?"

"Nardho? No way. Such a skinny boy is into martial art? But anyway, I see the part about dating coming. He likes you a lot, Moira, I always caught him staring at you in video calls even before you guys went off to college. So, did anything else happen? Like, how were classes?"

"Classes were fine and there's one class in which everyone will band together to create a play. It's the prelude class to the study abroad trip. Also, I made a new friend called Rain, I think they're genderless but they haven't specified yet. They are mute but everyone here loves them, we baked cupcakes to welcome them."

"Oh? I don't think I've ever met a genderqueer or gender non-conforming person. What do they look like, appearance-wise? Are they androgynous? Do they have any piercing?"

"They look like a woman, actually. They wear a head scarf and modest clothing."

"That's interesting, you've met interesting people, I'm kind of jealous. By the way, I went to the open house of the local community college. Turned out that the culinary arts program have two sub-programs: Classic Pastries and Fusion Pastries. I wasn't sure which one I liked, I had thought that the fusion one would be exciting, but I e-mailed Kenta with questions since he's such an amazing baker. He said when he first started out as an amateur baker on a whim, he began by learning to make French and Italian pastries, like croissants and tiramisu. It was difficult, no doubt, but he said it was rewarding too because once you master the hardest techniques of baking the oldest pastries out there you have enough basic knowledge to create your own recipes. So, I think I'm gonna apply to the Classic Pastries program!" Vannie waved her hands animatedly. Moira smiled, it had been a while since she saw Neesa's hyperactivity.

"That's great, Neesa, you'll definitely follow in his footsteps. Okay, I gotta hang up."

When Moira ended the call, she heard a soft knocking on her door. It was Rain, standing with Vannie, clutching their dry erase board. They looked eager to tell Moira something important.

"Hey, Vannie. Assalamu'alaikum, Rain. How was the performance? You went with Nardhia, right? I hope you had fun. Maybe one day I'd ask Nardho to bring me there."

Wa' alaikum salam, Rain signed. They showed Moira the dry erase board and Moira leaned in to read their handwriting. Vannie surprised me back stage when the poetry slam was over. She said she thought of me as a very poignant person and asked if I ever wanted to have a romantic partner. I'm new to this whole romance business, like you and Nardho, but I said yes. So, we come here to tell you that, but there's something else. Oh, I run out of space.

"Well, congratulations Rain and Vannie! Oh, no, you run out of space, can you erase everything then and I'll wait for you to finish writing your thoughts down?"

"No need." Vannie said. "Rain brought me here to interpret. So, they said they have an assignment from their class Sociology of Intersectionality. They had wanted to interview Kenta and Johan, because it's rare to see a Catholic in an interracial relationship with a deaf person. Rain wanted to know how their love story started and maybe use it to compare that with the relationship that they and I just started. So, could you please take notes for them? They would be too busy typing into their text-to-speech device to effectively do note-taking. I would have helped but I still have an early evening class to attend in a few minutes."