Counting by 7s (12 page)

pattie nguyen

A leader organizes people whether they know it or not.

I
t was a
slow afternoon at the salon and Pattie was doing inventory, which was never her favorite thing.

But it had to be done. Bottles of nail polish vanished almost every day. She was certain that it was the result of theft from both her workers and her clients, so it was essential to stay on top of the situation.

As a small-business owner, you had to show that you cared about these things, even if the nail polish, bought in bulk, only ended up costing her sixty-nine cents a pop.

That was one of the secrets to success: caring about the big things
and
the small things.

Or in Pattie's case, you cared about everything.

She wished all of her customers just wanted red nails. Red was lucky.

But Pattie carried over one hundred shades in their squat little glass containers.

She put down a bottle of fire-engine red and picked up peacock blue,
a new shade that was very popular but carried no good fortune
.

With the annoying blue in her right hand, she looked through the front window and suddenly saw a dusty sedan pull into the parking lot.

A police car was right behind it.

Not good.

Maybe if she had kept the red bottle in her hand, this wouldn't have happened. She knew that wasn't logical, but still.

And then she watched, her heart rate increasing, as her two kids got out of the dirty Ford and rushed toward the salon.

Really not good.

Pattie dropped the little glass bottle straight into the trash. She was going to discontinue carrying the unlucky peacock-blue
nail polish
.

In the very first week of school, Quang-ha had cut classes and gotten into arguments with teachers. He was in danger of being expelled.

Pattie had asked the principal for counseling. She firmly believed that her son needed a voice of authority to scare him back onto the right path.

But not real authority!

Certainly not the police.

And then before she could make a guess at what he'd done, her kids were inside the salon and they were both talking at once.

Quang-ha wanted his mother to know that Mai had lied.

This was suddenly an important moment for him because the playing field was being leveled.

Now he wasn't the only one who twisted words to the people in charge.

But Mai, speaking rapid-fire in Vietnamese, raised her voice above his.

This wasn't about lying.

This was about a car accident and a girl who had lost her parents. Mai only cared about that.

Quang-ha argued that they didn't even know the little kid. Getting involved on any level was trouble.

Pattie tried to sort it out but it wasn't long until both of the police officers were standing in front of her getting ready to launch an avalanche of questions in her direction.

Before they could, Mai took her mother's hand and pulled her toward the door. Pattie followed, moving right past the two cops.

Mai led her straight to Dell's car, where she wordlessly opened the backseat door so that her mother could be face-to-face with Willow.

Pattie saw grief.

Her eyes focused on a version of her own young self, and so many other children in Vietnam who grew up without parents, some abandoned because of their ethnicity, others because of tragedy.

And her arms reached out wide.

After Pattie signed the bottom of the paperwork that gave her legal responsibility for Willow for the next twenty-four hours, the police cruiser charged out of the parking lot like a getaway car.

That left Dell Duke.

He wanted to be invited home with them. He was now really part of this.

But Pattie ignored him as she went about closing the nail salon early, barking orders in Vietnamese to the two manicurists.

Dell hung around the cash register trying to be relevant.

It wasn't working.

Even though Pattie stood barely over five feet tall to his five foot eight inches, she kept edging him toward the door.

“We talk tomorrow.”

She said this more than once, and then suddenly she had a hold of his right elbow as she literally led him outside.

Dell managed to say:

“I should probably get your home number. I mean, I have it in Quang-ha's files at the office, but I . . .”

Pattie either wasn't listening or wasn't interested.

She pulled out a large ring of keys, and with Dell now on the sidewalk, she went back into the salon and began locking the heavy door at the bottom.

Dell was on the wrong side of the thick plate glass. But he continued as if he were still in the room, raising his voice as he said:

“Okay then. I should be going. Which I'll do. Right now. Long day. For all of us . . .”

He strained to get a better look at Willow, but she was crouched down with Mai at her side.

He hadn't even said good-bye.

Pattie then snapped off the bright fluorescent ballasts. The windows were tinted, making it hard to see much of anything inside.

Dell walked to his car. When he glanced over his shoulder the salon was just shadows. They had to be leaving out a back door to go home.

He thought about following their car as they drove away, but suddenly the weight of what had happened, the enormity of the situation, hit him hard.

Dell got into his Ford, slid the key into the ignition, and then burst into tears.

His neck muscles seemed to give way, and as he sobbed, his head fell forward and hit the steering wheel.

And that's when the horn sounded, startling him and the world around him into a new consciousness.

I
've never seen this person in my life.

But her arms are around me.

Tight.

Because the woman is so strong, you'd think her hug would choke me.

But instead, it's the first time I can get a full breath into my lungs since I heard what happened.

They live behind the nail salon in a garage.

A real garage, not one converted to anything. You could move things and still drive a car in here.

There is no bathroom.

They walk across the alley back to the salon, where there is a toilet and a tiny shower stall made of molded plastic.

They don't think living in the garage is weird.

Because they are used to it.

The garage has only one window and that looks like it wasn't part of the original construction.

I'm certain someone just cut out a square in the un-insulated stucco-on-plywood wall.

There is an ancient-looking air conditioner hanging on to the ledge of the bootlegged window, and the glass above the machine has been covered with a piece of decorative cloth.

The fabric has completely faded on the side exposed to the sunlight, and whatever pattern was there is gone. Scorched away.

Despite the air conditioner, it is still incredibly hot in the garage.

Even with the machine on the highest setting.

Mats cover the cracked concrete floor, making a crazy quilt of colored rattan and woven plastic.

There is a queen-size mattress and a single cot pushed together at one end of the garage. That is the sleeping area.

The other space is taken up by a long metal table where two hot plates and a microwave can be seen next to cans of bamboo shoots and water chestnuts.

An assortment of pots and pans hang from hooks on the wooden studs next to ladles and strainers and big boxes of breakfast cereal, which must come from Costco.

Mom buys those.

And just that fact makes my heart beat in a messed-up way.

A small refrigerator is plugged into an adapter that has six different electrical devices all feeding into one outlet.

I know for a fact that's not safe.

And then my thoughts shift.

It might be a good thing if the garage caught on fire.

If I were alone in here.

Because if I got trapped in a blaze started by arcing electrical overload in the wall of the garage, the searing pain of losing my mom and dad would go up in smoke with me.

I would be released then.

I would be set free.

Mai wants to know if I want to lie down.

But I can't speak.

In any language.

Pattie makes soup that is cloudy white with curly pieces of green onion floating on top.

And then there is suddenly a plate with salty pork strips, which appear from nowhere.

Dysphagia is the medical term for not being able to swallow, and I know that there are two kinds of dysphagia: oropharyngeal and esophageal.

But maybe there is also a third kind of dysphagia that comes when your heart breaks into pieces.

I can't swallow because I have that kind.

Mai tells her brother to go across the alley.

He only snarls at her.

He asks in Vietnamese:

“
Why are you always telling me what to do? It's just not right.”

He takes his sweet time, but finally leaves.

Once Quang-ha is gone, Pattie and Mai help me out of my shoes and baggy pants.

They put me into my red pajamas. I don't know how the clothes got here.

I still can't eat any of the food.

And not just because I'm a vegetarian.

Mai's mother pours some of the soup into a coffee mug and she holds it to my lips.

It's like coaxing a baby bird. Little tiny gulps.

I know how hard that is because I was a parrot-parent.

And so I take small sips that taste salty, like drinking someone's cloudy tears.

And then Pattie lights incense that is in the shape of a triangle and she places it on a red plate.

She bows her head as her eyes glisten and she takes my hand and we both cry.

Mai leans against her mother, and for the first time in my life, my memory disappears.

I know I will remember nothing of this night because I will try as hard as I can to never think of it again.

I will win that battle.