Counting by 7s (24 page)

I get up and head out the gate to the front of the apartment complex.

I see a hummingbird in a bottlebrush tree that is planted in the space between the sidewalk and the street.

I make a decision and head upstairs.

Dell and Quang-ha barely look up when I enter. They are watching girls play beach volleyball. Very intently.

I go to the kitchen and I boil four cups of water. This releases the chlorine. I then add one cup of sugar, which easily dissolves because of the heat.

I wait for the mixture to cool.

This is what I used in the past to feed hummingbirds in my garden.

Now I pour the still-warm syrup into a bowl and I go back downstairs. But first I put on my red sun hat.

Outside, I take a seat right next to the flowering bottlebrush tree.

I dip my hands into the sugary mixture and I sit very, very, very still.

It takes a long time, but a ruby-throated hummingbird finally descends and eats from the tip of my unmoving, sweetened index finger.

I've heard that there are places that hold statue contests.

But I'm certain that they aren't anywhere near Bakersfield.

I will see only what I want to see.

It's possible that's how people get through crisis.

The world where we live is so much in our head.

If I'm sent by the state of California to foster care in a remote location with no Internet and no books and no vegetables, where I will live with a family who secretly worship Satan and only eat canned meat, then so be it.

Until then, my life is at the Gardens of Glenwood.

And I'm thinking this place needs a real garden.

I
t happens, as most things do, in the smallest of ways.

I take a few clippings.

I'm not thinking about what I'll do with them.

I'm getting out of Dell's car three days later and the monthly maintenance man has trimmed the lone jade plant by the front entrance of the apartment building.

A few of the cut pieces are still on the ground.

I pick them up.

I take the clippings inside, and place them in a water glass.

The light is good by the front windows. It's south-facing.

I have my counseling this morning.

I walk from the nail salon to Dell's office and I realize that I'm looking at the lawns and the trees and the flower-beds as I make my way there.

I haven't seen them until today.

I know it's not possible that all of this stuff was planted in the last week.

What have I been looking at for the last six weeks?

I arrive at Dell's office and we pretend, as always, that nothing has changed and we don't live in the same apartment complex on the same floor of the same neighborhood of Bakersfield.

He doesn't drive Pattie and me to the nail salon every morning.

He doesn't eat dinner with us.

He doesn't watch hours of inappropriate TV with Quang-ha.

I slide into the chair and he says:

“We need to talk about going back to school.”

I say:

“I'm not ready.”

Dell Duke looks at me, and whatever my face is doing seems to be working, because he shrugs and says:

“Okay.”

We spend the rest of the session pretty much staring at nothing. And then right when it's time for me to go, he says:

“Tell me one thing that I can do to make your life better.”

I'm surprised when a voice comes out of my body.

“You could get me a packet of sunflower seeds.”

Dell leans forward.

“For eating?”

I answer:

“For planting.”

He nods. But then he repeats:

“For planting?”

I say:

“Yes.”

Pattie and I ride the bus at the end of the day back to the apartment and Dell is waiting for us in the living room.

He's with Quang-ha and the TV is on.

He gets up and takes us into the kitchen.

He has two dozen packets of sunflower seeds spread out on the counter.

I could grow a field of sunflowers.

He says:

“I never knew that there were so many kinds. I wasn't sure what you wanted, so I got them all.”

I look down at the sunflower packets and see Honey Bears and Strawberry Blondes. There are Vanilla Ice and Chianti Hybrids. I see Fantasia and Tangina and Del Sol.

He's even picked up a packet of pollen-free bloomers.

I stare at the seed envelopes and it's too much.

My eyelashes collect tears.

For so long I couldn't cry.

But I guess once you learn, it's like everything else; it gets easier with practice.

I know that Dell's not a very competent person.

He's not even a particularly interesting person, unless he's judged by his organizational disorders.

But until this moment I hadn't realized that he's a really caring person.

I don't know what to say.

So I scoop up the seed packets and go straight to my room.

I hear Dell ask Pattie:

“Did I do something wrong?”

I don't hear her answer.

After dinner I go down the hall and tell Dell that I'm going to open a few of the packets.

He comes back to #28 and together with Mai we spread some seeds onto a wet paper towel that I've placed on a cookie sheet.

I then explain that for a few days I will keep these seeds moist.

This will ease the process of germination.

Mai and Dell watch. They look pretty interested.

I tell them:

“Sunflowers are indigenous to the Americas. They came from Mexico.”

From the other room a voice says:

“My dad came from Mexico.”

Quang-ha pretends he's never paying attention to us.

But apparently he is.

M
ai could not
remember ever feeling this way.

Maybe it was because her brother hadn't been scowling so often in her direction.

And her mother hadn't been telling her to put her things away.

Mai sat on her bed and appreciated that she had an actual room with walls and a door that belonged to her and to Willow.

At least for right now.

Maybe it was the acorn.

Willow had put it on her night table. The kid was slowly beginning to collect things. She had gathered the small, bead-like pods that fell from the trees on Penfold Street.

She found a white feather at the bus stop and a speckled rock in the gutter out front.

Mai felt like it was some kind of beginning.

She knew that any minute they would be told to pack up their things and leave, but up until the very second that happened, Mai was going to enjoy this new life.

So she took long, hot showers, even though that was wasting water and bad for the planet.

She arranged and rearranged her clothing at every possible opportunity, admiring the hangers and the shelving in the shallow closet.

She stretched her arms out wide when she slept so that they dangled over the edge of the bunk bed.

Because now she wouldn't be hitting a face or slapping the back of a neck.

Mai cut pictures out of magazines and put photos of people she didn't even know, but just liked, up on the walls.

She found a box of red paper lanterns in the attic storage at the nail salon. She bought a string of Christmas tree lights and threaded them through the round fixtures, which she then hung in the bedroom.

It made the low ceiling come alive.

And what she knew for certain was that the weight of the world no longer felt like it rested entirely on her shoulders.

Jairo drove his taxi across town to the college bookstore.

He stood in the long line at the cash register waiting to pay.

Books were expensive. Especially textbooks.

He held the two pieces of required reading for the introductory course in biology against his chest.

They were both used. That was a good thing. Someone had taken a yellow pen and marked up one of the books.

Jairo hoped that the right parts were highlighted.

Just the idea that there were
important
sections of the books and
other
sections that didn't deserve the swipe of the yellow pen made his stomach hurt.

Suddenly, he couldn't do it.

He hadn't been in school in fourteen years.

Now, surrounded by so many young people, he felt old.

Ancient, really.

He was thirty-five years old, but hadn't he recently found gray hair?

Three strands. They grew on the very top of his head, in the center, shooting up from the thicket of black like the rebels that they clearly were.

Those three hairs were outlaws with the confidence that one day they would conquer their world, which was his head.

Jairo was almost at the cash register when he spun around. He should put the books back. Who was he to think that he could take college courses? Why would anyone ever want him to work in a hospital? How would he pay for a degree?

This was all just a big waste of time.

Jairo moved back to the maze of aisles. But the large store was crowded and he suddenly couldn't remember where the books had come from.

And there was no way that he was going to just dump the textbooks on the wrong shelf. He wasn't going to be
that
guy.

Settle.

New plan.

Just buy the things. Owning them didn't mean he'd go to class. Maybe he could read the stuff in his spare time. Didn't he have to wait every day of his life for people?

Who was he kidding? That wasn't happening.

Could he give the books away as gifts? They were used and had yellow pen marks all over them. What kind of present was that?

Jairo leaned back on his heels and allowed his eyes to close for just the briefest of moments.

He needed to talk to her.

His angel.

She'd appreciate the textbooks.

It was with her on his mind that he stepped back into the line for the third cash register.

The young woman behind the counter rang up his purchases, and when he handed over the cash she hesitated. Did she look surprised? People didn't seem to pay that way. The woman hit a button to make the register drawer open.

Suddenly a light swirled and a buzzer went off.

Everyone stared.

At him. At the clerk. At the spinning red ball up front.

What had he done?

Jairo felt his face grow hot and then he saw someone who looked official pointing in his direction. The cashier was giggling as she said:

“You're our one millionth customer.”

He had no idea what she was talking about. His expression was blank. She filled in with:

“You won! Didn't you hear about it?”

Jairo shook his head.

Other workers were now assembling and a man in a burgundy jacket appeared at his elbow. He had a pin on his chest that said MANAGER. He held up a camera.

“Smile!”

Jairo tried his best to make his quivering mouth form some kind of grin.

And then he heard a voice from somewhere in the small crowd say:

“He won twenty thousand dollars, man! And I was right behind him in line. Unreal.”

Jairo looked around and realized that the cardboard triangles suspended from the ceiling all said:

ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION!

BE OUR 1,000,000
TH
CUSTOMER AND WIN!

A woman held her phone close to his face as she said:

“Can you tell us your name? Are you a student? What are you studying at Bakersfield College?”

He realized now that she was recording him. He managed:

“I'm a new student. This is my first time here.”

The crowd gave a collective groan, followed by laughter and chatter.

“His first time! Come on. I've spent a fortune in this place!”

As the woman continued to question him, Jairo became conscious of the fact that he was smiling as he spoke.

And he couldn't stop.

After he filled out all kinds of forms–from the bookstore and from the government for taxes–they officially took his picture.

This time holding a big oversized check.

And then he was given the real thing.

Everyone was so nice to him. He was slapped on the back and he shook hands with dozens of students. He hugged people he'd never seen in his life.

Finally, as he walked back to his taxi, moving across the wide parking lot in the midday sun, he checked his watch.

He'd been inside the place for almost three hours.

But in his back pocket, folded in half in his worn-shiny leather wallet, was a slip of paper worth a year's salary driving his taxi.

And that money would pay for all the college classes he ever wanted to take.