Counting by 7s (9 page)

M
ai watched as
Willow got out of the backseat and headed up the driveway, pulling her wheeled luggage behind her.

Quang-ha mumbled:

“Someone should tell her to get a backpack.”

Mai shot him a hard look, which she knew would keep her brother quiet.

She could see that the strange girl's house had been painted the color of the shrimp curry that her mother made. It was a bold yellow that stuck out in the drab neighborhood.

But what really interested Mai was behind the house.

Because it was very green back there.

On one side, a stand of timber bamboo jutted up three stories high. On the other edge of the property, a tall palm tree and several smaller, bluish silver eucalyptus trees trembled together in the late-afternoon wind.

Staring at the house and the properties next door, it looked to Mai like there was a jungle behind where Willow lived.

No one else had that. Not in a neighborhood that spent two hundred days a year without rain.

Maybe, she theorized, the girl's parents owned a plant nursery.

Her brother didn't seem at all interested in Willow, or her house, but Dell stared intently with his nose almost touching the glass as Willow removed a key from a zipped pocket in her carry-on luggage.

Any regular little kid would have then turned and waved back, or done something to acknowledge the people in the waiting car.

But Willow simply unlocked the door and slid inside, disappearing into the shadows of the curry-colored house as if she were suddenly invisible.

It was intriguing.

Once Willow was gone, Mai watched as Dell Duke jerked his car out of park, hitting the gas pedal so quickly that the Ford lurched forward like a broken carnival ride.

Her eyes narrowed in suspicion.

So he was
that
eager to get rid of them?

Interesting.

She hadn't had a very good opinion of the counselor, but in the last hour she had been feeling bad about his lost cat.

Now she was quickly returning to her original position:

Dell Duke was not a natural at his job.

After Dell dropped off the troublemaker and his flame-throwing sister, he headed home.

The route took him directly by the school district offices and that was when he saw Cheddar sitting in the still-hot sun on top of a once green Dumpster at the south side of the parking lot.

Dell didn't even brake to get a better look.

There were rats on the property. That was just a fact.

As far as Dell was concerned, Cheddar could pull his own weight back there. And maybe shed a pound or two in the process.

Dell had picked up the cat after reading a notice online about a lost pet.

It wasn't a shelter, so he didn't have to pay any fees. He just claimed the fleabag and even took the plastic cat carrier that the old lady offered.

The woman seemed thrilled to be reuniting the cat with the owner. Dell almost felt bad.

Still, he was going to dump the
LOST CAT
flyers in the trash. He had promised the kids that he'd post them, but that was just to keep them in their shoes. They'd been pretty anxious about losing Cheddar.

The flyers were on the passenger-side floorboard of the car.

Now, as he waited at a traffic light, he had to admit that the drawing, coupled with the imaginative and dedicated coloring that Quang-ha had done earlier in the afternoon, was disturbing.

The kid was a Lone Wolf.

He was coded green.

It was just wrong for the delinquent to have any artistic talent.

But anyone could see from the picture of Cheddar that the surly kid had some kind of visual sense.

Dell made a note to change Quang-ha's category.

He was going to be moved to purple, for Oddball.

Dell found himself wondering if all kinds of assumptions were questionable.

And that was Strange indeed.

Once in his possession-choked apartment, Dell peeled off his stinky shirt and poured himself a tall glass of red wine.

He next shoved a frozen meat loaf, which was supposed to be low in calories, into the microwave.

The box claimed it served three people.

He was trying to diet, but he always found himself eating the whole thing.

Dell then maneuvered around his heaps of junk, and took a seat on his patio furniture, which he used indoors in his living room.

He was surprised people didn't realize that a decent chaise longue was much easier to move, yet still as comfortable as a couch.

Most outdoor recliners had wheels for mobility, and you could hose off the cushion if you spilled a bowl of salsa—and who didn't on occasion?

Under ordinary circumstances Dell would have turned on the TV to some kind of reality show, and after consuming the meat loaf and enough wine, he would have fallen asleep, usually with his mouth open, which inevitably served as a spout for pink-tinged saliva.

The saliva would have stained regular furniture, but it went right through the plastic weave of the lawn chair, which was another plus.

Dell would wake up hours later and if he had the energy, make his way through the maze of his possessions to his bedroom, where he would crawl into a sleeping bag.

This was another one of his lifestyle choices.

Once a year he dropped the sleeping bag off at the dry cleaner's. Forget the sheets and blankets and comforters and duvet covers! Modern life provided enough challenges without throwing in making the bed.

But tonight Dell didn't fall asleep in a small puddle of drool. He lay awake in his sleeping bag, which he believed had the smell of a brown bear (a mix of wet fur and dead leaves and empty wine bottles), thinking about the events of his day and the genius kid.

I
had a plan.

I'd been walking to Mr. Dell Duke's office for my appointments, but now that I knew Mai and her brother would be there before me, I wanted to get there early.

So I went online the following week and ordered a taxi to pick me up at the curb when school was over.

This was a very brave and daring act for me.

I waited in front of the sign that said
SEQUOIA GIANTS
, and the taxi arrived right on time.

I believed we were off to a good start.

I pulled my wheeled luggage to the cab door and leaned in through the open window as I said:

“I would like the number of your taxi license and to see proof of your compliance with brake and headlight adjustment requirements.”

The driver's name was Jairo Hernandez, and he had been driving for Mexicano Taxi for seven years.

I was nervous, but he seemed nervous as well.

He did not appear, however, to be someone who would kidnap me and cut me up into small pieces.

After I reviewed his paperwork (which took considerable effort on his part to locate), I got into the backseat.

As we pulled away from the curb, he picked up his phone and his radio handset and talked to someone (maybe back in the office?). His voice was low.

He didn't realize that I am fluent in Spanish, as it was the language I learned after English.

This is what he said:

“
At first I think I'm picking up some kind of little person going to the airport—because she has luggage. But then I get closer, and I see it's just a girl. I'm telling you, man, it's some kind of undercover sting operation. She asked for all my paperwork! I would have stepped on the gas and sped off, but she was leaning in through the window. This is harsh, my friend. If a kid can ambush you outside of a middle school, what's next
?”

Two things.

I had never been in a taxi before.

And I had never ridden in a car with a complete stranger.

I was suddenly an explorer and a risk-taker.

I could feel my heart pounding. It felt good. A smile spread across my face.

I was on my way to see a new friend.

Granted, the person in question was two years older than me, and looked to have some anger management issues (as well as a brother who had discipline and authority problems).

But no living thing is perfect.

All scientists know that.

When we arrived at the school district administration parking lot, and I had paid the negotiated fare, with the addition of an eighteen percent tip, I felt very pleased because I had done this all myself.

I looked Jairo Hernandez right in the eye and said:

“Never let someone tell you that you can't do it.”

And then I shut the car door.

I was speaking about my own achievement, but from the look on his face, I think he believed that I was talking about him.

As I came around the corner, I saw Mai sitting on the top stair outside the entrance to Dell's office.

Maybe I was imagining this, but I thought the teenaged girl looked happy to see me.

I quickened my pace while still maintaining control of my red case with the 360-degree spinning wheel option.

When I got to the trailer, I was able to say what I had been waiting all week to spring on her:

She said my greeting had perfect inflection.

I had learned eighty-five Vietnamese phrases over the last seven days, as well as a great deal of verb conjugation.

Now I tried some more of them out on her.

Mai was incredibly impressed—not just that I could say these things, but also because she spent two weeks trying to teach a friend's mother four words of Vietnamese and had not succeeded.

So this effort was worthy.

The time flew by.

We conversed, at first in English and then in bits of Vietnamese.

I usually found so-called “small talk” boring.

I like “large talk,” which is more about theories and concepts, mixed with facts and known quantities.

But we didn't have any problem finding things to say to each other, because right away Mai wanted to know about the garden behind my house.

All that greenery had intrigued her.

I told her about some of my plants and gave a simple explanation of a few of my backyard botanical experiments.

And then the next thing I knew, forty minutes had passed and the trailer door opened and Dell Duke appeared with Quang-ha at his side.

The counselor's eyes widened at the sight of us together.

He wanted to know how long I'd been out there and what we'd been talking about.

Dell Duke was not as friendly as I would have thought. And I got the idea that maybe he wanted to push the Nguyen siblings right down the stairs.

His smile was stiff and awkward as he said:

“All right then. It's time for Willow's session. Good-bye, kids.”

I insisted on keeping the door to the trailer open so that I could watch as Mai and Quang-ha receded into the distance.

At the last moment, just before the pair turned the corner to head down the block, Mai looked back and waved toward the trailer.

The door was angled, so I felt certain that Mai couldn't see me.

But she knew that I was there.

Suddenly I had a strange lump in my throat.

I had a new, older friend. A girl from high school.

She felt like a protector.

It was some kind of magic.

I settled into the chair and listened to Dell Duke.

Today I wasn't going to take tests.

He said that we were going back to word games.

This time, he would say an industry, and I would say “long-term” or “short-term” projected financial growth.

I explained to him before we started that I had very little knowledge of economics.

I really considered this study a social science, not a hard science, and I wasn't interested in the squishy stuff, so I had stayed away.

But he didn't listen.

He was prepared for our session and had a clipboard covered with scrawled notes.

I could read upside-down pretty easily and I saw right away that he lacked organization of any kind.

His lists had stuff crossed out and then arrows and all sorts of redirection to bubbles of messy thought.