27 January 2012
I met Taylor's 5-year-old cousin for the first time on Christmas morning.
"Hi, I'm Carissa." "Hi... I had a hamster last month, but then it died."
Oh. Pity.
Jayden was a cute little girl with a short butter-blond ponytail, round chestnut eyes and a sprinkle of cinnamon freckles on her pale skin. She was missing her two front teeth. I was tempted to ask if that was what she wanted for Christmas.
Jayden had an eccentric personality for her age. She was like a 12-year-old trapped in the body of a 5-year-old.
She sat on the caramel-colored carpet and gleefully ripped the wrappings off her presents, then beamed at the kiddy makeup set Aunt Sandy bought her.
The next minute, she was peering at the eyeshadow palette, unsure which color to pick.
"Do you want help?" I offered but she stubbornly refused.
So I left her to it. When I came back several minutes later, I gawked at her new face; it was smeared with all the colors of the rainbow. Her eyelids with smudged with an unpleasant mixture of black, brown, blue and possibly green, her lips were unevenly red, and now she was attempting to color her cheeks.
I saw her dip the brush into a red lipstick palette and watched in amusement as she circled her left cheek in creamy scarlet lipstick. She saw me standing there and called out, "How do I look?"
"You look great!" I lied.
She flashed me that charming toothless smile of hers.
Later, she made me and Taylor sit down and play a board game with her. It was a fancier version of Snakes and Ladders, with vivid graphics of chocolate and ice cream cones around the board.
Jayden started inventing her own rules, insisting that was how the game should be played.
"That's not how people play it," Taylor said gently. "Let me teach you."
"Listen, guys," Jayden sighed, rolling her big eyes at us. "We're going to play this MY way, okay?"
Taylor shook her head at me and I shrugged. Little diva alert!
Five minutes into the game, she talked about her boyfriend at kindergarten.
"His name is Aidan and he thinks I'm hot!"
"Do you think Aidan is hot?" I asked.
"We broke up. I don't want to talk about it," she huffed.
Okayyy.
Toward the end of the evening, she asked if I had songs on my iPhone.
I was surprised at her song selection. She only liked fast pop music. When Britney, LMFAO and Rihanna came on, she would crank up the volume really loud.
Then Gym Class Heroes belted the first line of Stereo Hearts and Jayden screamed like a crazy fangirl. "I LOVE THIS SONG!!!"
What do kids these days listen to? Because when I was 5, my favorite songs were Twinkle Twinkle and Old MacDonald.
When Jayden left that night, I knew I was never going to forget her. How could one forget a vibrant, unique soul like hers? Impossible.
Jayden • Opuss № I