Counting by 7s (8 page)

mai & quang-ha

A leader gets everyone to shoot in the same direction.

N
guyen Thi Mai
was fourteen years old and a freshman at Condon High School, which was on the other side of Bakersfield from where Willow Chance lived.

She had a brother named Nguyen Quang-ha who was a year older.

Quang-ha was a troublemaker.

Mai was not.

She was determined and deliberate in everything she did, and that quality attracted people to her.

Mai had true confidence. Or as she liked to see herself, she was born strong-willed, while a lot of the world was wishy-washy.

Adults didn't intimidate her, and neither did strangers of any age.

Because Mai, as her mother reminded people, was born in the year of the dragon; and that meant nobility and power and strength.

Starting the second week of class, on Thursday afternoons, the teenage kids caught a bus to the school district main offices for Quang-ha's appointment in Dell Duke's windowless mobile unit.

Mai had the bus fare, a bottle of water, and two snacks. Even though she was a year younger than her brother, she had long been his keeper.

Mai waited for Quang-ha to have his counseling session, and when he was finished, they went together to Happy Polish Nails.

This was the salon that their mother operated.

Mai knew, of course, that she and her brother stood out in Bakersfield.

Her mother had been born in Vietnam from a father who was a black American soldier. Because of this, Mai's mother, who was named Dung, had been an outcast.

When the U.S. government gave teenage Dung a chance, she had left home and gone halfway around the world to California. In the next ten years, she had two children with a man originally from Mexico (who had left soon after Mai was born to see his sick brother, and had never come back).

Dung had changed her name to Pattie once she found out what it meant in English. But even though she had been in the United States for twenty-one years, some of her mail still came addressed to Dung. Her kids didn't appreciate it.

Dell had ignored (even more than usual) his regularly scheduled cases.

He gave the pest known as Quang-ha a geometric coloring book and commanded that the kid complete three pages.

Dell was surprised to see that, instead of complaining, the hostile teenager actually looked enthused to employ colored pencils to fill in blank spaces.

Being careful that no one was watching, Dell then got in his car and took off. He had fifty minutes to take care of his business.

Dell Duke returned to the room without a can of soda, but with a pet carrier. His voice was strangely high-pitched and harsh as he said:

“Quang-ha, you should be done by now. I told you to leave at ten till four.”

Quang-ha continued coloring and didn't even bother to look up.

Mai and Willow Chance both fixated on the jail-like front panel of the beige plastic crate, where they saw an extremely large orange cat.

Dell Duke was insistent:

“You have to go. My next appointment is here!”

Quang-ha kept working the mustard-colored pencil as if he was getting bonus money for every stroke.

This shouldn't have surprised Dell because the kid was in counseling for not following classroom instruction and having control problems.

But
Dell
looked like the one with a control problem. His face flushed deep red and he put the pet carrier down on his desk as he raised his voice.

“Done! Finished! No more coloring!”

Willow seemed to be sucked back into her chair.

And when that happened, Mai got to her feet. She was some kind of wild tiger unleashed into the airless room.

“Don't you raise your voice at us! He didn't do anything wrong. If my brother wants to finish the picture, he'll
finish the picture
!”

She took in a deep breath and continued.

“He was supposed to have a counseling session, but you were gone the whole time. That's not right! You are late for your next appointment with this little girl here. And
that's
not right either! And here's something else to chew on: I don't think you're allowed to have animals on school property. We could turn you in for that!”

I
felt my
blood pressure rise.

But in a good way.

The exotic-looking teenager standing in front of me was bold.

She was yelling at Mr. Dell Duke and the tone of her voice demanded that the world listen as she stood up for her brother and for me.

It was there, in the small, stuffy trailer on the edge of the baking-hot blacktop of the Bakersfield school district parking lot, that I found an older girl who was disappointing only in her failure to speak the language of the mostly obliterated Cahuilla people.

I found Mai Nguyen.

Dell Duke stared at us but he didn't say anything.

Instead he pulled the only rabbit he had out of a hat, which happened to be a cat from a cage.

He gave us all a wobbly smile and opened the metal door of the plastic pet carrier.

Then he said:

“This is my cat, Cheddar. I thought you might like to meet him.”

So this was my surprise.

I had said that my father was allergic to pet hair, which was why I couldn't have a dog or a cat or even a pygmy goat.

This was Dell's attempt to please me. To bond. He brought in his cat. It was strange, but right then in that room, what wasn't?

The cat took several (in what looked like slow motion) steps onto the desk. I knew that cats behaved in this casual way because they weren't needy.

They didn't run and greet a person and slobber with joy.

They didn't look for validation or recognition.

They didn't fetch or cower or make big-eyed faces that say: “Love me, please.”

Their failure to care wasn't just appealing, but seductive.

Because cats made you try.

We all watched as Cheddar sauntered across the desktop, rubbing his freakishly big body against the three shelves of the in-and-out box (where Dell Duke had piled official-looking paperwork that I suddenly felt certain he later simply dumped unread in the large storage closet that was behind his desk).

The huge cat then took a few sniffs and found the whole place not very satisfying.

With no obvious provocation, he leaped down to the floor and bounced right out of the building like a bright-colored, fur-covered soccer ball.

We watched as Cheddar hit the parking lot running, and in moments the fat cat had disappeared.

For 37 straight minutes, we all looked under cars, behind hedges, and around the buildings of the school district administration headquarters for the missing hunk of Cheddar.

But he was not to be found.

Dell claimed that he felt bad about this, but oddly it seemed that Mai and I felt much worse.

Finally, after agreeing to stop our search, we all returned to Dell's office to make
LOST CAT
flyers.

Dell didn't have any photos of his cat, which also struck me as strange because from everything that I'd read, photographing a pet seemed to be where most animal owners found their greatest joy.

But the problem was solved when Quang-ha drew a perfect pencil sketch of Cheddar, which then served as the centerpiece of the
LOST CAT—PLEASE HELP—REWARD OFFERED
flyer.

Dell wouldn't list an exact reward amount.

I believe that economic incentive is crucial as a motivator, especially in a consumer-driven society.

But I didn't argue the point.

We gathered around the copying machine in the main office and watched together as the image was reproduced.

It was here that I was able to identify a new sensation.

I have never been part of a true group effort with older kids.

And while we hadn't been successful in finding Dell Duke's lost cat named Cheddar, I couldn't help but experience a kind of accomplishment as I stood next to fourteen-year-old Mai and her surly big brother.

I was not pretending to be anyone but myself, and they still accepted me into their troop.

I felt human.

That was the only way I could describe it.

Mr. Dell Duke drove us home.

He said that he had to take me first and I assumed that this was because it would be inappropriate for him to be alone with a kid in his vehicle.

Parents had to give permission for students to be off school grounds with anyone who works for the district.

But I didn't want to raise any red flags, even though that was my signature color.

For a moment, I drifted off into my head, but not with thoughts about something like cellular structure.

I found myself imagining the place where Mai and Quang-ha lived.

Maybe it was a home with a chronically ill relative who was interested in regular examination by a young person who would listen endlessly to ailments and take precise notes.

Or perhaps Mai's family had an apartment with a roof-deck that housed an amateur self-constructed observatory with a shockingly powerful reflecting telescope.

Sitting in the backseat, I wanted to exchange vital contact information with this older and intriguing girl named Mai.

In a blink of pure fantasy, I suddenly saw myself walking away from Dell Duke's grimy car with a tiny glass vial of her blood sample for genome sequencing.

Because even though Mai said during the cat search that her mother came from Vietnam, I hadn't completely given up on the idea that she could have something to do with the Cahuilla tribe.

This was one of my secrets. When I was younger, I imagined that I was an Indian princess.

Looking out the car window to the street that I'd known my whole life, I understood that origins were so important.

Even if you didn't know your own.

I was energized.

Once I was home, I went into the kitchen and fixed myself a drink of hot water mixed with a tablespoon of honey (from my backyard beehive) and a tablespoon of my own homemade vinegar (made from tart apples, brown sugar, and distilled water).

As I sipped the tangy beverage, I was certain that the day, despite the loss of the counselor's cat, had been a triumph.

Having a friend—even one who was older and went to high school—would open a door for me into another world.

That afternoon I made a decision.

I would learn everything possible about lost cats and Vietnam.

It felt as if I were going up and over some kind of barrier after spending too long hitting the thing straight on.