Chapter 5 – Why you shouldn't get ready in five minutes
Tyson's POV
The pink haired beauty in my arms emptied her amber orbed eyes of sorrow filled tears, pittering and pattering on my now green speckled sleeved shirt. Stroking her soft, silky strawberry coloured hair and her back I try to reassure her that there is a way out of this maze of despair.
There has just got to be a way out. I just need to break the problem down. Kevin is meant to marry Mariah in six days on Wednesday. Can't change that, unless I either kill Kevin or stop time. Whoa talk about a heavy crush, the thought of killing Kevin actually ran through my mind, I know he shouldn't have upset Mariah and forced her into marriage but he doesn't deserve that. Okay next part, Mariah is starring in an ad, which she has already signed the contract for that Kevin will eventually see. Again I can't kill Kevin or go to all the television-broadcasting offices for each channel in China and burn all their copies of the ad. Hold up, the ad is being made for Japanese viewers, so there is only a slim possibility of it being aired in China. I'll ring the Garnier Company in the morning to confirm it.
I glance down to tell Mariah my brainwave but she is sound asleep. I wipe her tear stained cheeks and feel her soft sun kissed skin, it should be definitely be made a crime for those tears to dim the beauty of her face. I pick her up gently and cradle her as a mother would cradle her newborn, she so light and delicate. I lay her on her bed and slip off her heals before tucking her in. I steal one last look at her as I switch of the light and whisper a barely audible goodnight.
I sigh as I crawl into my own bed, I've just got to stop thinking of her like that, she is Ray's friend and more importantly she's my friend and I'm her friend. I don't want to destroy our friendship especially with me housing her, it would be awkward if I expressed my feelings and she turned me down. Also it would make her feel extremely uncomfortable to stay with me. Argh! Ever since I peered into those golden orbs, this afternoon especially I've felt this way. When she stepped out on the catwalk she was beautiful, stunning, goddess like still wouldn't be the words to describe her. Then she posed and paused at my eyes and I gazed into the depths of those golden pools and I dived deeper and deeper. I was drowning in those pools and I didn't want to surface. I wanted to dive further and drown in her soul. It's true; the eyes truly are the windows of the soul.
Great, I'm beginning to sound like the modern day Romeo sap. Next I'll be drinking poison because I can't be with her. I sigh and with that last note I fall asleep.
Mariah's POV
Waking I peer out the window to view the day's weather, completely contradicting my mood. The azure sky boasts the golden sun, tickled every now and then by fluffy white clouds that are perfect for lying in a paddock and making pictures of them. To be honest I swear one of them appears to be a miserable bride and an ecstatic groom.
I get up to poor myself a glass of water from the kitchen. Actually alcohol would be better I wonder if he has any? Speaking of him, Tyson is sitting by my door and seems to be waiting for me…
"Morning Tyson," I greet rather glumly.
"Morning Mariah, this morning I rang the Garnier's head office and inquired about the ad and it won't be aired in China! And even if it was it is against the law for them to give out your personal details with out your permission before hand.
"You serious?"
"Yes," I smile as my spirits are lifted from my stomach and dance back into my aura. "Come on you. We have an acting class to attend today."
"You're going?" I ask curiously whilst rather pleased.
"Yep,"
"Thanks Tyson,"
"Don't sweat it I wanted to go to the class anyway," he modestly replies.
"No, for solving my problems with Kevin," I answer whilst playfully punching his arm.
"So do you have other problems not concerning Kevin?"
"No," I respond quickly. "Just hungry for breakfast…" I voice. But there is also the little problem that I have a crush on you, but that's just about it.
"Um Mariah what time is the acting class?"
"Ten thirty," I reply, he looks at his watch and a grimace look slithers onto his face.
"Shit it's three to ten, we'll get breakfast at McDonald's," he curses. He must really love using that McDonald's discount card. "Let's go," he screeches snatching his keys from the phone table.
"Tyson my make-up is all over my face and my clothes smell strongly of sweat from yesterday. Give me five minutes." I reason in my, I'm-going-to-die-if-I-go-out-like-this voice.
"Fine," he sighs crossing his arms, "but I'm timing you."
I piss bolt back into my room, grasp my jeans and baby blue hello kitty T-shirt I purchased from the mall, my lacy pink bra and matching undies and piss bolt to the bathroom. Once there I decided on have a deodorant shower instead of a regular one.
Ten Reasons why you shouldn't get ready in five minutes…
1. You pluck only one eyebrow
2. You apply eye shadow with the blush brush
3. You but your pants on back to front
4. And unfortunately your knickers too…
5. You do your hair in that I-forgot-to-brush-my-hair-and-I-was-electrocuted-this-morning look
6. You but your bra on inside out… or is it outside in?
7. As you rush when applying the mascara and you poke yourself in the eye
8. You don't dry yourself properly and all plans of wearing that white shirt are foiled
9. You just happen to not be able to find your toothbrush, so you use your fingers
10. A random animal just randomly decides to sit down in a completely random spot where you're just about to step… and that bloody cat, Tac claws your goddamn legs!
"Time is up," Tyson yells from the hall.
"No wait! I want to put some lippy on!" I plead.
"Don't think so," he sings and with those words, I was swept off my feet and thrown over his shoulder.
"Hey but me down! What do you think I am? Some shoulder bag?" I demand heatly, drumming his back with my enclosed fists.
"No way! I know what you girls are like when getting ready," he states as he runs out and locks the door. The elderly female neighbour across the road stares at me curiously and suspiciously and halts trimming the rose bushes. I kind of wave sheepishly, boy do I feel lame… Just as Tyson turns for the car I suddenly remember that I'm wearing one shoe.
"Um Ty, I'm only wearing one shoe…" I whisper as innocently as possible.
"Argh, typical…" he exhales noisily. He pulls a 180 turn, unlocks the door, marches back to my room, glances at my shoe to see which one I need then grabs my other pink heel as I pinch my pink bag from the door handle. Back out we go for the second time today and he then seats me in the car and slips on my heel like the servant in Cinderella. "I do believe it fits milady," he teases and shuts the door in a very butler like manner. I glance in the mirror from the thing you shield your eyes with from the sun, I must ask Ty what they are called one day… Luckily my make-up didn't turn up to bad, I fix up my eyelashes with the mascara I have in my bag and check one last time for any problems. I don't look to bad considering I got ready in five minutes. My hair is in a messy bun and I'm wearing some jeans and my sky blue hello kitty top I purchased from the mall.
We reach the McDonald's drive thru in seconds thanks to Tyson's speeding and I swear that he ran through a red light though he claims it was amber. I order some pancakes, a hash brown and a medium orange juice. He orders two bacon and egg McMuffins, 3 sausage and egg McMuffins, 4 hash browns and an extra large orange juice. With our breakfast scoffed down and our fingers cross that we don't get indigestion we made it to the class with one minute to spare.
The class was held in some university block but luckily Ty knew his way around the campus from when he visited Hilary when they use to date. The block was painted in an icky plum purple and brown, the two colours reminding me of dried blood. We entered the building and unofficially joined the group of people who appeared to be waiting for the class to start. Aneki, Sonna and Rosemary found us and I introduced the girls to Tyson. It turned out that Ty already knew Rosemary as she happened to the elder sister of Barry and Taj, the twins on the Junior Beyblading team. Small world eh? She was also best friends with Caramel and was attending Max's birthday party too. Our intros were cut short when our teacher announced the class was starting.
"Hi, I'm Seb and welcome to today's acting class. Please come in, take your hats and shoes off and sit on the carpet forming a circle," the middle aged man who had the appearance of a French man, pointy moustache included minus the French accent, informed hurriedly. We did as we were told and I sat between Aneki and Tyson and Rosemary sat to Tyson's left. Glancing around the room I counted 23 of us, 24 if you include Seb. "Kay let's get straight into it. First of all acting isn't just the ability to be able to act. It is the ability to make a fictional or reproduce an event in a 'real' way." I peeked around at Tyson and the other students and they all wore the 'what the?' look, especially Ty. "Who here comprehended that?" Seb asked.
A few said yes, others nodded their heads, I raised my eyebrows… and Tyson said a simple and blunt, "No."
"Well I'm glad one person here is being honest for sure. Could someone who does understand what I mean please show us?" Everyone remained frozen while looking at everyone else, daring them to go up. "Hey it's not illegal to stand up. It's not like I'm going to shoot you or anything." While everyone stared blankly, I thought about it. Acting is portraying an incident or event through actions and speech but real is real, it's believable. You could perform it in the street and people wouldn't have the faintest idea that you've made it up. I swallow my stomach and stand. "It appears we have a contestant, name?" Seb directs.
"Mariah Wong," I say like any new student on their first day of school.
"Miss Wong, would you be able to show me the difference between 'real and acting" Erm… I hope so… I thought about it really hard for a moment and then hey presto I think I've got it.
"Okay this is acting," I immediately took up the role of the stereotypical Asian citizen. "Excuse me, Ahhh you! You stole Noodle recipe. Sacred, ancient, ninja fighter, stringy noodle food recipe." I pause for a moment from my elderly squeaky Asian voice and listened to the imaginary reply. "Listen Lin Chow You, I'll wok you with big wok on Bok Chou face of yours." The entire class broke out in the laughter disease and I felt really proud and I think I just grew ten centimetres. I smiled and waited patiently for the laughter to tone down.
"And this is real," I proceeded. I made out that I was chopping some form of vegetable. "Lin could you please run down to the market and buy a bag full of baby corn as we are out… Oh and while you are at it could you please buy some Soya sauce." I once again listened to a reply, "Thanks, the money is in the jam jar." I finished and Tyson started one of those really slow claps and then the whole class including Seb played, if you say Mariah's performance clap your hands. I was literally beaming with pride.
"Well portrayed Mariah! Just out of curiosity have you ever acted before?" Seb asks.
"No," I reply not sure if it was a compliment and I return to my seat on the carpet.
"Impressive. Did everyone understand that?"
There were mostly nods and soft voiced agreeable gestures, minus Ty of course. "Well yeah!"
"Come on I can't hear you apart from…" and Seb stabs a finger in Tyson's direction.
"Tyson,"
"Now loud and clear say, YES!" he commands.
"YES!" We chorus in unison.
"More volume!" he conducts us, just like a conductor standing in front of an orchestra.
"YES!" we holler simultaneously.
"And give yourself a pat on the back." After feeling like a dog that just learnt a new trick, Seb spoke again. "Now we are going to introduce ourselves around the circle. And this is what I want you to say. Your name, your favourite body part, one thing about you that you want us to know, one thing about you that you don't want us to know and a quote. When they are finished do NOT applaud them as when we introduce ourselves to someone to we applaud them? Of course not. And don't make any rude comments; in fact don't make any comments. Though if it's funny laugh cause we all like a good joke same as the next person. How about we start with you." Seb pointed to a guy in his early twenties with raven hair and steel eyes. He wore baggy black jeans and a blue tee.
"Yo, I'm Tim and my fav body part is my nose because it's pierced. One thing that I want you to know about me especially the ladies is that I'm single and one thing I don't want you to know about me is that I've had a kidney transplant. And a quote, an apple a day keeps the doctor away but not the nurse," and he winks and we all lightly laugh a bit and sit silently in awe that this perfectly healthy guy had once gone under the knife.
And it kind of went like that for a while, someone revealed that he was cheating on his girlfriend with her sister; another guy was proposing to his girlfriend of two years this weekend and a lady revealed that she was bisexual. Someone said the classic, hi I'm such and such and I'm an alcoholic.
Eventually it was Rosemary's turn. "Hi, I'm Rosemary and my favourite body part is my right thigh as it has a fish hook shaped scar on it from when I fell on a broken beer bottle when I was eight. What I want you to know about me is though I don't speak too much I can fluently speak five different languages, English, Japanese, Chinese, Russian and Italian. What I don't want you to know about me is that I've experimented with illegal drugs before. My quote, which happens to be my favourite, is there are no problems, only solutions."
"Hello, I'm Tyson. My fav body part is my mouth. One thing I want you to know about me is that I teach Kendo and one thing I don't want you to know about me is that my mum died when I was really little. I don't really have a quote but I hear this one a lot, eat to live but do not live to eat."
I breathed in and began to speak my part of this introduction exercise thing. "Hi, my name is Mariah and my hair is my favourite body part. One thing I want you to know about me is that my favourite colour is pink. One thing I don't want you to know about me is that I don't have a driving licence and I'm 22. And my quote, well a quote, you can never please anyone so just please yourself." Okay… so that was not what I really didn't want to tell them but word travels fast and I'm not stupid. Besides it's an acting class and I just made out that was the 'real' thing I did not want to tell them. I should seriously go to the top of the class.
"Morning, the name is Aneki and my fav body part is my legs. What I want you to know about me is that I have a really bad obsession with the shoe 'Sex and the City' and what I don't want you to know about me is that I've witness someone commit suicide. And my quote, Soccer Rules!"
Two more people after Aneki spoke and we had finished the introductions. It seemed that most people had something major happen in their lives. It just shows you that nobody's life is perfect.
"Now that the intros are finished and you have vaguely gotten to know each other, I advise you that what you just heard does not go pass these walls. What we are going to do next is that we are going to start a scene and whenever you feel like it just enter the stage, well this are of carpet and add or change to the scene. This is an improvisation, which is a make believe scene you make up as you go along. There are only two rules, one, don't split focus. This means don't create two stories cause, as humans we weren't created to read two books at once and two, don't block. Blocking is when you reject someone's offer or idea. For example one asks another, do you want to form a band? Don't say no, one it's blocking and two, the story ends and doesn't flow. Okay I'll start."
Seb than sat on the 'stage' and proceeded to fish. Tyson then went up and asked if he had by chance caught a brown boot as he had lost his. Seb had but the boot had no lace so they decided to use fishing line. The a girl went up as Tyson's royal shoe fitter and discovered that he had two left feet and had to go for and operation to fix it has he had lost his leg in a motorcycle incident and the sewed the wrong person's leg on him. I then went up as a nurse, along with Tim who lost his leg in a bet and had the wrong leg sewn on too. The doctors and nurses then performed the operation. Then there was an after party for the success of the operation and Britney Spears also known as Sonna showed up. By the end of our story everyone was at Britney's funeral, including a Michael Jackson that claimed he was in love with Britney, as she had choked to death on her mic when a break dancing doctor bumped her and she swallowed the microphone.
The remainder of the day went extremely quick. We lunched together at the cafeteria than regrouped and acted out some scenes from various plays. Soon it was six o'clock and we had to go, as this was when the security alarms were activated and we didn't want to get locked in or anything. We were meant to finish at five but we were having so much fun we decided to keep going. We said our goodbyes and headed home only to hear on the radio that there was a huge car crash and delays of at least an hour were expected so Ty and I went for ice creams.
Tyson's POV
Because of the delays I suggested to Mariah that we go for ice creams and she nodded eagerly. We went to this little ice creamery named 'Sweet Tooth.' I chose a double scoop with one mud chocolate scoop and one choc-chip peppermint scoop. Mariah chose a double scoop too (I love girls that aren't afraid to eat in front of me,) one scoop was English toffee and the other cookies and cream. I lead her to the peninsula were I first bumped into team Psykick all those years ago.
"You mean you live near the beach?" she gasps in surprise.
"Yeah," I reply a little astonished at how pleasantly surprised she was.
"I love the beach!" She cries out in a bimbo like way, making me smile.
"Really? Well let's eat on the beach than," I suggest and smile like that cat in Alice in Wonderland. Her face looks like she just one the lottery! We trek down the path, licking our ice creams, like kittens lapping milk. Sitting down on the golden sand we ate in silence but it wasn't awkward, taking in the view of the sun diving into the ocean. I glanced over to her and had the desire to pick her up and sit her in my lap but I fought it and tried to occupy my attention to the cone in my hand. That was all good until there was no cone…
"This is going to sound really lame but I've never swum in the sea before or even built a sandcastle. In fact I haven't done anything beach related till now," she speaks shuffling her feet in the sand and staring at me.
"No wonder why you were so excited when you first caught a glimpse of the beach. How about we make a sandcastle since you've never made one before?" She nods eagerly and we commenced our building of the sandcastle. We began to brush the sand of the surface and push it into a lump and there was a second when our hands touched and I looked up at her and she looked up at me and we both smiled. I think I just had a 'moment' with Mariah! Though unfortunately we quickly shrugged it off and focused our attention to the rendering of the sandcastle. Yes its official I want to be more than just friends with Mariah. And it's really annoying. I'm not one who just sits around and wait for them to make a move on me. If I want something I go after it. But in this case Mariah is sorting out her life and I don't want to hurt her or push her away.
I smile as she realises you need wet sand to build a big firm sandcastle. So we slip off our shoes and I roll up my pants above our knees to get some wet sand. That's when we noticed that the last light of day had slipped away and the first star flickered on.
Starlight, star bright,
First star I see tonight,
Wish I may, wish I might,
Have this wish, I wish tonight.
I recited the nursery rhyme that Mum used to say to me before I went to bed in my mind. I sneak a peek at the beauty wading beside me. The waxing moon emitting a faint glow highlighting her delicate features. Her feline like eyes glowing in the dim night light, her hair dancing with the coastal breeze. I wish, I wish I could work out my feelings for her.
Mariah's POV
I gaze into the night sky and witness one by one the stars light up, their reflections dancing in the ripples of the sea. I wiggle my toes and watch as the sand clouds the unknown dance of the stars.
"I wish I brought my bikinis," I think out loud.
"That doesn't mean you can't go swimming," Tyson responds.
"But my clothes will get soaked," I reason.
"Well take them off," he half jokes, half reasons.
"What skinny dip?" he gives me a funny look as if he swallowed a lemon whole.
"No, I meant in your underwear, but if you really want to…" he suggests. I kind of sensed that he didn't mind at all of the idea of me skinny-dipping. But he is a guy and I did suggest it and I do have a crush on him. "Look if you really want to go for a swim, go in your underwear because they are basically like togs and I'll turn around so I don't see." He proposes.
Let me think about it, I really want to go for a swim even if it is in my underwear and I'm not wearing a thong or anything so it is just like swimming in bikinis. Plus my crush is here. That would equal a definite yes.
"No one will see me will they?" I question in case I run into an embarrassing scenario.
"Nah, the peninsula is pretty much deserted, through the day even."
"What if I drown or a shark attacks me or something?" I whine for the sake of it.
"I'll have to come in and save you," He speaks teasingly.
"But how can you save me if you can't see me?" What happened to the good Mariah??? Okay yes it is official. I'm an evil, scheming hair model.
"How about I go for a dip on my boxers than. And don't worry we won't see anything 'foreign' cause I can't even see my toes through this water."
"And when we undress we can just turn around and dive in and turn around once we're in because we can't see anything. That way it won't be weird." I follow on form his sentence.
"Right," he replies in an agreeable tone. We stole one last glance at each other and proceeded to strip off down to our knickers.