From Banjo to Bro and Back

Anna stepped into Sakura Sushi shaking off the freezing rain and exhaling. Her hair was plastered to her cold wet face and her nose began to run as soon as the warmth of the indoors met her. She dug in her purse for a tissue and heard Stephanie’s familiar hysterics coming from the corner table where she sat diagonally across from her brother Garrett.

The restaurant was in the lull between the lunch and dinner rush.

“Oh my god…this is fantastic. Garrett you should totally do this…”

Garrett’s back was to her but Stephanie waved her over as she handed her brother her phone.

“Anna you have to see this after Garrett…and convince him to.”

Garrett looked up as Anna stepped beside where he was sitting and smiled awkwardly “Or don’t…..hi Anna. Let me move over.” He slid towards the window and chuckled quietly before offering her Stephanie’s phone “It’s fuckin weird.”

Anna sat down beside him and took the device “I’d expect nothing less from Steph.” She smirked across the table and said “Tams is running late but on her way.” She began to read and scroll her hand slowly covering her mouth as she giggled and then gestured open handed at Steph “Ok so, why?”

http://www.boredpanda.com/man-bun-hair-trend-fake-clip-on/

Steph still looked completely delighted “Why not? Gar, consider it your Christmas present, Ryan too. Look there’s a Groupon! Stop cutting your hair as of today, got it?”

Garrett pulled off his cap and ran his fingers through his hair and shook it around “Nah…the ladies couldn’t handle more of this. But give one to Ryan. He can be the pretty one.”

Anna slid the phone back to Steph, leaning inadvertently towards Garrett right after he had shaken his head. She inhaled and caught the scent of a light and pleasantly earthy shampoo and caught herself darting a glance at Garrett before shifting quickly back to her side of the booth and snapping her gaze to Steph.

Steph raised a brow at Anna and then smiled towards her brother who was obliviously noticing a fishing boat pull into the docks out the window. He grabbed his hat and shoved it back on and turned to Anna.

“Scuse me, that’s one we need to buy from. I need to get out.”

Anna quickly slid sideways and stood up, letting him pass.

Garrett dashed behind the counter and shouted something in Japanese to his father Hiroshi as he emerged from the big walk in cooler with a bin.

Hiroshi gestured and spoke back very quickly, waving Garrett off as he watched him pull on a raincoat zip it up and take off for the docks with a dolly.

Stephanie observed her family during this interaction and then shouted something else at her father in Japanese, pointing at the till.

She looked back at Anna who shrugged so Stephanie explained.

“They need to write down what they’re spending on fish or mom will have both their asses. I’m going to stick around until I see it go in the ledger. Mom’s at Chen’s picking up some veggies. Tams is late anyway.”

As if on cue, Tamela’s form shuffled in through the door, pausing only to retract her umbrella after shaking the icy cold water off it. She spotted her two friends immediately and stepped over “Holy shit that’s nasty.” She slumped into the seat next to Stephanie and shivered dramatically.

Anna nodded “At least you had an umbrella. I’m still soaked to the bone.”

Stephanie made a face “I hate winter.” Then she pointed insistently at her friends “But Tristan’s at a sleepover so we are still going out! I need some grown up time or I’m going to lose it. I don’t even care who the band is…what are they called again Anna?”

Anna laughed “Molly and the Moles. It’s eclectic stuff.  Sorta folk, punk and reggae…Mexican polka fusion, you know? I first heard them back on Salt Spring. Sky was into them...” her smile dissipated a bit and she rolled her eyes “Anyway, they are good.”

Tamela snorted “Freegan approved freak music. Well one good thing about that, it’ll annoy the shit out of Megan.”

Stephanie looked quizzically at Tamela “I thought you two were getting along?”

Tamela shrugged “It comes and goes. She’s still Megan. You can relate. Sometimes they just make you mean.”

Anna giggled “Steph, show her the man bun!” She head jutted at Tamela “This is what she wants to force upon her brothers.”

Stephanie gleefully called up the link again and passed her phone to Tamela.

Tamela took it tentatively “I tend to prefer woman buns but…Ooook.” She started cracking up as she read “Oh that’s funny. Even better that they’re fake. Hipster hippie boys…save us all.” Tamela started laughing again and quoted the post ““This attachable—and, equally important, detachable—man bun lets you blend in with your surroundings, putting it on when you smell fair-trade coffee or hear a banjo, and taking it off when someone utters the word bro.”

Stephanie and Anna both burst out laughing.

Garrett returned with the dolly full of wet plastic bins and wheeled it to the kitchen. Stephanie looked at the floor and sighed as they had all been tracking in water and debris, the worst of it with the wheels of the dolly. As Hiroshi and Garrett unpacked the fish, she excused herself and exited to grab the mop and tidy the front entrance. Just as she finished, her mother, Sakura Yamada tramped in with bags off food in hand from Chen’s.

“Oh sorry Stephie…..” She gingerly tiptoed across the clean floor and smiled at Tamela and Anna as she passed “Hi girls!”

“Hi Mrs. Yamada.” They replied happily in habitual unison. Sakura, the namesake of the restaurant, looked like an older version of Stephanie and had adored and doted on her friends since their school days.

Stephanie went over her mother’s tracks and then returned the mop to its pail. She took out the ledger from the drawer under the till and walked over to her father and Garrett. They spoke back and forth in Japanese and at some point Stephanie wacked Garrett on the arm with the ledger before writing in it herself. Sakura wandered over after putting some food in the cooler and took it from her to write in it as well. Garrett made a face at Stephanie as she walked away and then caught Anna’s eye and grinned widely at her. Anna giggled and looked away.

Tamela peered across the table at Anna with a knowing wink “Uh huh.”

Anna looked cornered “What?!”

Tamela grinned as Stephanie returned to them “Nothing. Let’s go get pizza and then dance to whatever Mexican polka reggae madness they dish out at the Hole.”






Molly and the Moles are the delightful fictional creation of Mitch Newmore. Their description can be found in his blog here:

https://mitchnewmore.wordpress.com/2015/08/02/gigs/


*This was originally titled as a part 1. Part 2 kind of happened through role play and I was just too busy to work it into a blog. I'll follow up on it and try and make sense of it for future posts.*