PCTR: Pieces

On your first day of kindergarten, the teacher made you sit next to a pretty girl in a pretty dress.

“Hello,“ she said, and she told you her name. Pretty girl, pretty dress, and a pretty name. You wondered to yourself if you could convince your mom to change your name into a flower’s too (of course, she shot down the idea that afternoon).

Your new friend introduced you to another friend who was sitting on your other side. She was tall. Way taller than you that you had to slightly tilt your head up when you talked to her. You didn’t like it at first, but then you realized there’s nothing you could do about it. But you gave your parents an earful about your height during dinner anyway.


The teacher sat the class down in a big circle in the middle of the room. She then took out a huge box from the cupboard and started to throw large foam pieces onto the floor. You looked at your teacher with a frown written on your face. I’m not cleaning that up, you thought. You might be little, but you’ve always got a strong head. If you didn’t make the mess, you weren’t going to clean it up.

But then the girl with the pretty dress excitedly crawled towards the big foam pieces. She picked one up and showed it to you. Oh, you thought. I didn’t know there were colors on the foam.

“Class,“ your teacher called. “There’s a beautiful, colorful rainbow waiting to meet you,” she said. “But only if you can piece the puzzle back together,” she pointed to the foam pieces on the floor and the class turned into a maelstrom of eager children.

“I love rainbows,” said your friend in the pretty dress.

“Yeah,” your tall friend agreed. “They’re so pretty,” she said.

Soon you found yourself scrambling across the floor with the rest of your classmates, matching shapes, colors and sizes until you finally see that rainbow.

“I love puzzles,” you said with a big grin to your two new friends.

//

You can’t exactly remember how, but you’ve been best friends with those girls you met in kindergarten for years now. And on every birthday for most of your life, they give you new puzzles, which you would finish in no time, every time.

One day right after your 9th birthday, you stared at a puzzle piece, trying to figure out where it was supposed to go. You stared and stared and stared, and finally you chuckled because it started to look like a person. A bump on top (the head), a bump on each side (the arms), and finally a dip on the bottom (which made two legs).

From that point on you started to pretend that they were tiny human beings. Flat tiny human beings holding hands. You were sure that you’d lost your mind.

//

Everybody has to fit somewhere, you thought, so you started looking at people differently. You spent idle seconds and minutes observing. You learned that your mom’s fingers fit the spaces between your dad’s. You learned how Mr. and Mrs. Frances, your next door neighbor, didn’t necessarily fit each other, but became a perfect picture once you see their newborn in her arms.

//

You remember a strange day when your tall friend introduced her sister to you. You didn’t like it. You didn’t even know that she had one. So you stayed quiet and did what you’re good at. You observed.

You observed, and deduced, that the new girl could potentially complete one of your puzzles. And you got a good feeling that she would. Plus, there was something about her that made you think that each little piece of puzzle is made of even tinier pieces of puzzle.

Woah. You didn’t know your thoughts run that deep at all. And you were right. She did fit. Still does and always will.

//

Language is another puzzle piece.

Or at least that was your takeaway from an English class back in 8th grade.

“What would you do if you can’t speak,” your teacher asked the whole class. “Well,” he said, “you’d be confused, of course. How else are you going to talk back at me, right?” You laughed at his joke.

“But,” he continued, “it wouldn’t matter if you can’t speak. It wouldn’t matter if you can speak, if you don’t have something to communicate. Be it spoken or not, you would have to have language. Think of language as the glue. Without language, there is nothing. There is no bond, no connection. People would only be guessing what they were talking about. No complete picture.” he concluded.

You ended up mastering 4.5 languages in just 4 years.

//

Your three best friends had their own dreams. One of them wanted to own a bookstore, another one wanted to be a dancer, and the other wanted nothing but to just be together. But you? You didn’t really know. You (somewhat) knew yourself, but knowing what you wanted to be in the future was a completely different affair.

Lucky for you, you have a set of laid-back parents who never tried to steer you towards anything but a good human being. So you took your time deciding and studied mass communication in college because it seemed right. But you never stopped weighing your options.

You were extremely good in handling different languages, you had confidence (well, more like attitude, really), organized and determined (although some people might call you neurotic), and you wanted to travel the world. (You guess) you were torn between journalism and teaching languages. It wasn’t until a few years ago you had to make a decision, and surprisingly, it didn’t involve any of your choices.

//

Anybody would agree that twenty minutes is not a long enough time to settle on an answer that could potentially make, or break, your whole future. You convinced your best friend on the other end of the phone call, “we’re going to be OK,” but really you were saying it to yourself before you packed your whole life into two big suitcases and checked them into a 9-hour flight to Paris.

Fine. I‘m fine. You told your dancer friend over and over again every time you see her face flushed with guilt. You were really not, but this was something you felt you must do, and you couldn’t talk yourself out of it. You had given up trying.

You put on a smile, the best comforting fake smile that you were somewhat proud of. “You’re going straight to rehearsal the minute we land,” you told her. “Stop worrying about me and get some sleep instead.”

She did, and you sensed a small victory, but it wasn’t enough for you to fall asleep on.

//

Every night for the first two whole weeks, you felt like breaking.

You missed everyone and everything. Every email, every text from home made you feel like bailing and jumping onto the first flight back to Austin. You spent a lot of time doubting yourself because your friend had her dance, but what did you have besides a rash decision and several languages up your sleeves?

The only thing that kept you going was knowing that you were with one of your best friends in this strange land, and she was breaking too. That sounded awful, but it was the truth. At least you weren’t breaking alone.

//

“I can’t do this,” your dancer friend sighed in frustration. In the past month, her popularity had shot up that she’d received offers for other productions. She had been coming home in the AM since the moment you landed in this city of love to piles of paperwork, including her press and meeting schedule.

“Yes, you can,” you said from the couch. You reminded her that it was her dream.

She brought her knees to her chest and buried her face there. “I can’t. The last thing I want to do when I get home is deal with paperwork. I mean, I don’t mind coming home sore every night because it’s part of being a dancer. But maintaining my schedule? Signing agreements? In French? And this is only because we’re in Paris.” She looks up at you, on the verge of crying. “I mean, I’m lucky that I have you here now. I can always ask you what these French documents mean. But what would happen when they move the production to Madrid? I’d die without you.”

You didn’t have a good response to that rambling but to tell her to get some sleep because she has yet another show in less than 12 hours.

But by sunrise you had finished the puzzle for her. You woke her up at three in the afternoon because her dress rehearsal was just an hour away. When she mumbled her objection of getting up, you told her that as her manager, you’re allowed to do whatever it takes to make sure that she’s on schedule. And that includes dragging her out of the bed, sorting her mail, and reading through the various documents that came and would come her way in, but not limited to, 7 languages.

It took her a while to register everything that you had just said, but once she did it, she gave you the tightest hug in human history.

//

Every night you walked out of the arena with thousands of others who were mesmerized by the show. Spectaculaire. Exceptionelle. Merveilleux. You were unfazed by these words because you heard them often. One particular night, though, your ears caught something else.

“La brune avec le magnifique solo. Elle était captivante,” the woman said and her partner enthusiastically agreed. You couldn’t help but feeling proud. You matched your steps with theirs and thanked them. “Elle est ma meilleure amie,” you smiled at them the first genuine smile in what felt like a very long time.

“Vraiment? Vous devez être très fiers!”

“Oui, beaucoup,” your heart swelled with your answer. You are proud of her.

“Vous êtes une danseuse aussi?”

“Ah, non,” you shook your head. You’re not a dancer. “Je suis le système de soutien. J’ai finir ses puzzles.” You pointed at your backstage pass, “manager.”

“Meilleure amie et manager? Elle est très chanceuse,” the woman told you.

You smiled back and told them that you’re the lucky one.

After a polite goodbye, you continued your walk toward the back entrance. You were pleased about several things at once, and the fact that you just had a conversation with complete strangers, in a language that’s not your own, was one of them. We got this, you thought to yourself.

Another puzzle completed.

//

It's no surprise, but the reunion went especially well. Your three families have known each other for your whole lives and the two weeks you spent with them fed you with enough mental tranquility that will last for months and months before you would get a chance to fly back home again.

The woman at the counter checks in your names and luggage. She hands you your boarding passes and points you to the lounge. “Have a safe trip,” she says, and you smile your gratitude.

The four of you stand together right before the security check, knowing that in less than 10 minutes it’s going to be once again ‘two by two’. You all smile at one another, feeling goofy, but not awkward at all, that you’re all quiet.

Your dancer friend stayed true. Along with legs that go on for days, she’s blessed with the tenacity to always break the silence. “So glad my manager told me to go home,” she looks at you. “Actually, scratch that. She threatened me with physical damage.”

You shrugged. “What can I say? Controlling other people’s lives is my calling. Besides,” you give her a nudge, “we get to patch things up, didn’t we?”

She nods and smiles at her sister, then at you, “yes, we did.”

After a long, long group hug, initiated by your friend with the pretty, flowery name, you and the dancer are finally ready to go pass the security check. You go through all the routines. You take out your laptop, take off your shoes, bracelets and phone and watch as they go through the X-ray machine.

When you’re done and not barefoot anymore, both of you turned to look past the glass dividers. You encounter a wall of people seeing their families off, but you can recognize your best friends among thousands of people in a heartbeat. It’s just one of those puzzle skills that you’ve mastered over the years. Plus, it helps that they were jumping up and down like maniacs.

//

You’ve lost count how many times you’ve been 35,000 feet up in the air in the past 2.5 years, and this time is so much unlike all the previous ones. This time, you feel serene. And judging by the look on her face, your best friend feels the same way.

“I don’t know what we’d do without you,” she said sleepily. “I thank the universe everyday for you.”

“For me?”

“Um-hm,” she nods. “You and your puzzle skills. You solve them like you breathe air. Easy.”

You chuckled because she knows you so well. “I try,” you told her with a smug shrug. She gives you a playful punch on your arm before dozing off.

You shift your gaze to the clouds outside your windows and something tells you to rewind to when you were 5. Then when you were 9. Then 11. 14. 16. 22. 25.

A switch was flicked on. You shake your head and laugh internally because you’re beginning to doubt your kindergarten and 8th grade teacher. They were wrong. It’s okay to be missing a few pieces here and there, because the other pieces are holding their spaces for them. You replay the past two weeks in your head and now you’re sure about it. You may not have all your pieces with you, but until you have them again, you know a particular puzzle will always be complete.

“Signorina,” you hear the flight attendant calling you, bringing you back from your thoughts. “Vuoi un giornale?”

“Non sono italiana,” you smiled. “Ma sì, mi piacerebbe un giornale.” She apologized but hands you the newspaper anyway. You accept it with a smile. She walks away after apologizing for the second time.

“We’re going to be OK,” you said to yourself. You’re going to be OK, and this time, it’s a statement that bores no doubt.


(end.)