So now she was back, relaxed and refreshed.
And plotting. A little bird had informed her that a woman who was quickly becoming a dear friend had a birthday coming up. Now, it was indeed a shame Delilah had not been made aware of this sooner! Had she, there would have been some big todo!
Now, she was doing what she could.
Running was out because Delilah did not run. But she had a few other things. All she needed now was the birthday girl.
So she stood outside Mei’s home and knocked on the door, bag in hand with balloons attached.
From inside the house, Lihua set down the kitchen knife then rinsed off the little bits of cilantro that were stuck to her fingers before grabbing a hand towel from the oven handle. As far as she was aware they weren’t expecting any guests; so unless her husband left his house key hanging on the hook by the door, the woman could only presume it was either a solicitor or someone wishing to talk about their religion.
However, when she turned down the hallway and glanced out the frosted glass panels lining both sides of the heavy wooden front door, Lihua was taken aback by the array of colors waiting just outside. Hurriedly, she opened the door with a smile on her face. “Hello!” she greeted warmly, “You must be Mei’s friend Delilah. Come in, come in!” Tucking her charcoal colored hair behind her ear, Mei’s mother opened the door more fully and stepped to the side.
Since moving here two years ago, her daughter rarely spoke of friends from school let alone invited them over. As a mother she knew Mei wasn’t as antisocial as her husband accused her of being but rather more reserved or private about certain things. The girl holding onto the bundle of balloons, however, was someone who had been brought up in conversation a few times since about part way through her daughter's first year of college. “Mei’s outside in her garden picking some broccoli. If you’d like you can to go see her outside or you may feel free take a seat in the living room and I can go get her for you.” The woman was clearly excited that Delilah had shown up by the way she seemed to be rambling.
For a moment, Delilah wondered if anyone was home. Then, through the frosted glass, she saw movement. Black hair. Not Mei. If she had to guess, her mother? Delilah had never been over here before but she had remembered seeing the woman at graduation. Boy how time flies!
“Thank you Mrs. Xing. If it’s alright if I leave the bag here, I’d like to surprise Mei?” Delilah flashed won of her award winning smiles at Mei’s mother as she slipped into the house. Asian home? Her eyes quickly darted towards the neatly piled shoes and she began to slip her own off. It was a custom she had started to do in her own apartment. Kept the floors a bit cleaner. But instead of adding them to the pile, she carried them toward the back door that Mrs. Xing had been going to.
Leaving part one of the surprise behind, Delilah had just gotten out the back door and into her shoes when she spotted the fair hair beauty.
Sneaking up, she gently poked Mei in the back. “Happy Birthday!”
Startled by the fact someone was right behind Mei gasped and did a bit of a bunny hop. Quickly turning around she pointed her hand trowel at the person as if she were to jab them with it for scaring her. Eyes wide, pupils dilated, it took and pale haired woman a few seconds to drop the tool and realize that it wasn’t a creature or a youma here to ruin her garden or steal her seed.
Over time this war between order and chaos had conditioned her to react in such a way. It was unfortunate but now it was simply a way of life.
Reaching up, she removed the earbuds from her ears and turned the iPod off. “Delilah? What are you doing here?” Mei asked. The question made it clear enough that she had missed what the raven haired woman had said because the music she had been listening to was a bit louder than likely recommended.
Throwing her hands up, Delilah stepped back from the weapon in question and looked at it with sudden fear. “Hey hey! I’m on your side!” She chuckled out when the trowel finally dropped. “No chaos here. At least not that kind.”
The iPod though made her give a pout. Well, she would just have to do it again! “I’m here to see you! A little bird told me someone standing here has a birthday and well, since mine has already past…” There was a knowing smile on her lips.
“So I have come to steal you away.”
Mei looked at her somewhat skeptical. Spur of the moment plans like this often went one of two ways; surprisingly well or incredibly horrible especially with birthdays involved. Take her birthday party for example…
With a bit of a nervous laugh she tugged each digit on her left glove before pulling it off and doing the same to the other. “What exactly do you have in mind? Ahh!” Mei interrupted Delilah before she could respond.
“Before you say anything,” She pointed a finger at her friend. “You have to promise there will be no singing.” Steady eyes stared at her friend with a brow raised and lips turned upward in a smirk.
“Mei, if you have never heard me sing, then it’s for a good reason.” Delilah chuckled, holding up her hands like a boy scout honor code. “I promise I won’t sing. However, I can’t promise someone else might not if they find out it is your birthday. But it won’t be me!”
Smirking back, Delilah folded her arms under her chest and leaned to the side. “So what do you say? Let me take you out for a few hours? Just us girls?”
Mei eyed her friend suspiciously through narrowed lids. She knew that it wasn’t a matter of “if” they found out but “when” which was usually when taking their order.
After a moment she finally stood up, slapped her gloved hands together to dislodge some of the damp soil from the grip ridges, then tugged each digit to remove them before stowing them away in the gardening box beside the hose bib beside the sliding glass door. “Okay, but fair warning I won’t forget it if you let it slip.” she jested.
“I don’t expect you to.” Delilah laughed, motioning to head back inside. “But first, I got you a little something. I left it inside because I wasn’t sure how much jumping you were going to do and didn’t want to lose part of it.”
The gift itself, while nothing ‘fancy’ was something Delilah had fretted over for ages. In the end, she had ordered several puzzles as well as a small book on rare plants. She honestly just hoped Mei liked at least part of it. If not, there was always the Happy Birthday balloons. Who didn’t like those?
“That is unless your mother got into it when I came out back. She seemed a bit happy to see me.”
“Ha, that’s because you’re one of my only friends that comes by.” Delilah’s arrival was proof her daughter had at least some sort of a social life.
With the weather getting a bit nippy outside Mei closed the door behind them once they got inside to keep the spiders and bugs from seeking shelter in their home. Granted after slaying a spider the size of a car almost a year ago kind of made her immune to the fear of more normal sized arachnids, she’d really prefer they just stayed outside.
A grin spread across the birthday girl's face when she spotted the wrapped boxes that were on the dining room table. “Can I open them now? Or should we wait until later?” Mei asked before picking anything up.
“You are the birthday girl! You decide!” Delilah chuckled, following her in and shaking off the n** from outside. “Though if I were you I would open them now because…” Well she playfully shrugged. “One never knows what could be in there.”
Smiling as she moved towards the table, Delilah picked up one of the gifts, clearly a book when one held it, and offered it out to her friend. “Start with this one. And I promise I won’t sing. If you had a piano I might have played Happy Birthday for you but singing….no…”
This one was a book on rare and exoctic plants. The bag next to it held several smaller things. A gradient puzzle, a wooden puzzle, and a puzzle with the most pieces she could find of a landscape. She had to try and challenge Mei even if she could solve it in a few days.
“For some reason I feel like I should be scared…” Mei commented with a raised brow, hesitantly taking the first give from Delilah. The weight, the shape and the way the side of the present felt soft gave it away almost instantly but a part of her almost didn’t want to know what the book topic was going to be about; especially with her mother in the other room. But Delilah wasn’t one to do something like that… was she?
Slipping her nail under the tape she peeled it back, actually putting effort in the act of trying to keep the wrapping paper in one solid un-ripped piece. Something her brother always griped about but there were a lot of people who opened presents that way. “Awww, hey now!” Seeing the title Mei became a little less concerned about the welfare of the pretty paper and discarded it on the table.
Fanning through the pages she stopped on one that supported a black and yellow lily. “Oh wow!” Mei held the book up for Delilah to see. “I got to find some of these bulbs, they’d look beautiful out front!”
Delilah shifted so she could see which image Mei was talking about and smiled. “That would be really pretty. It’s a lily right?” She asked trying to scan the page for the name. “But the book has different plants from all over the place so I figured it might give you some ideas?” She gave a little shrug. “I don’t know how hard it is to ship plants though. Shouldn’t be too bad.”
Maybe like finding rare fabric. Some digging always turned something up.
“The fun thing about that book was it also has in there what they can use some of the plants for. Kind of creepy to think how many things could kill you but at the same time, save you?” She glanced back at the page to see if this was one of them. “The other book I looked at was growing your own drinks. I didn’t think you or your family would want to go into bartending.”
“Ha, I don’t know I already grow our salads, snacks and the flavor for our food.” Edible gardens were the best.
Glancing through some of the pages she read a few of the effects. Temporary paralysis, difficulty breathing … death. Shaking her head, bidding the thoughts that soon followed away, Mei closed the book and set it down. “I’m going to have fun reading through that. Who knows, one or two might find their way here” she winked.
Once the final present was opened Mei almost immediately took out the wooden puzzle and began turning it over in her hand with a childlike look in her pink-jade colored eyes. “Oh, this is going to be fun.” She commented and then set it down with the other gifts to give Delilah a hug. “You are amazing, thank you!”
Mei then stepped away from her friend and flashed her a delighted smile “Let me go get changed out of my dirty clothes then I’ll be ready!” Today was slated to be a quiet day just doing her own thing until after dinner when her mother brought the ice cream cake up from the garage freezer. But the prospect of being able to do something fun, though she had no idea what Delilah had planned, felt more favorable than staying at home. Times like this she felt grateful for having such an amazing friend.
Sirene Naiads
BL 2016
