Counting by 7s

  Dell has a huge TV, but he hasn’t programmed it correctly.

  I adjust the settings and now everything isn’t all stretched and too bright. I also fix it so that the audio is in sync with the picture. It wasn’t properly aligned before.

  I notice that over 70 channels haven’t been activated.

  I don’t think he read the manual.

  Dell comes in and sees the changes and says that people do look better not so orange and wide. He especially is pleased that when they speak, their lips match.

  I show him the new channels that I’ve programmed, and he gets angry because he’s been paying for a year for premium services.

  He’s pretty worked up about it.

  I know for certain that we will now have things to talk about in our weekly counseling sessions, because he’s asked me to review every appliance in the place.

  Tonight the new living arrangements take effect.

  Mai and I still sleep in the second bedroom. Pattie is now in Dell’s old room. Dell is down the hall at Sadhu Kumar’s.

  Quang-ha has officially taken over the living room. He has blankets and a pillow on the couch because he sleeps right in front of the big TV.

  And I mean right in front.

  This could cause eyestrain.

  But he looks so thrilled with everything about this new arrangement that I don’t bring it up.

  I wake up in the Semper Fi bunk bed this morning to the realization that I’m going to need to pull my own weight.

  At least as much as a twelve-year-old kid can.

  My parents didn’t have life insurance, or much in terms of a savings account.

  They were responsible and hardworking, but it turns out they didn’t excel in the long-term planning department.

  I will start by putting Pattie’s accounting from Happy Polish on a new computer program.

  Everyone has made sacrifices for me.

  I feel that it’s the least I can do.

  Three days have passed.

  Maybe it’s some kind of joke, but Quang-ha leaves an avocado pit in the window ledge in the kitchen.

  Apparently he loves guacamole.

  Mai says when Quang-ha was little he put toothpicks in the sides and tried to grow avocado trees. Quang-ha then gets mad and throws the pit in the garbage can.

  I have not thought about cultivation since Before.

  It’s too painful.

  But when no one is looking, I rescue the avocado pit from the trash. I almost cry just looking at the thing.

  Suddenly, I can’t help myself. I start to think about soil composition.

  I try to push it out of my mind.

  But later, when I glance out the window, my eyes fall on the scrubby trees across the street.

  Three different species.

  I consider the possibilities of grafting the woody stems from one plant to another.

  I’m lying in bed.

  Everyone is asleep.

  It is late.

  Night is always the hardest.

  The shadows pull you under.

  I hear a dog somewhere outside barking.

  I shut my eyes, and instead of darkness, I see rooting hormones.

  I have placed what Mai calls “my lucky acorn” on the box next to our bunk beds, which serves as a nightstand.

  I open my eyes and stare at it.

  The world of plants is a slippery slope.

  It’s hard to care just a little.

  Chapter 39

  It’s the weekend.

  I come into the living room. Quang-ha is sprawled out on the sofa, moving from channel to channel as if being paid by the number of programs that he can simultaneously track.

  His agitation is some kind of internal struggle.

  But it isn’t muscular, it’s mental. I know the difference.

  He doesn’t take his eyes off the television, but he says:

  “Are you looking for something?”

  I want to say that yes, I’m looking for anything that could make a world gone flat return to its original shape, but instead I just mumble:

  “No. I’m getting a glass of water. Dehydration is the cause of ninety percent of daytime fatigue.”

  Someone is knocking at the door.

  It’s Saturday and Pattie’s at work. Mai is out with friends. Quang-ha and I are both home at the Gardens.

  I go open the door and Dell’s standing there. He starts to say something, but nothing comes out.

  I know how that feels.

  This is all weird for so many reasons.

  We live in Dell Duke’s apartment. And he has to knock to even come inside.

  Pattie set down some ground rules on Thursday. She is tough. She actually took away his key because he locked himself in the bathroom the second day for over an hour and he should be using Sadhu’s from now on.

  But I pull open the door for him, which is welcoming. If we were in the wild, I would part the leaves of the tree and move back on the branch.

  He takes a step inside.

  Quang-ha shouts over his shoulder:

  “Whatever it is, I didn’t do it.”

  Quang-ha has a real persecution complex, which is no doubt legitimate.

  The chubby counselor says:

  “I don’t have a television down the hall. I’m missing all of my shows.”

  Quang-ha answers:

  “You can watch with me as long as you don’t do anything nasty.”

  I see Dell’s face soften. I think he likes the word nasty.

  I’m invisible now, which is fine with me. Dell moves closer to the big-screen TV, asking:

  “Do you watch a lot of sports?”

  Quang-ha’s response doesn’t seem like a joke:

  “Not if I can help it.”

  This is the right answer, because Dell seems relieved as he drops down onto the couch.

  It’s a real thud and I feel bad for whoever lives underneath us.

  I didn’t have siblings and my dad never had friends over to hang out on the couch and talk back to the television set.

  But that’s what’s happening now.

  So this is all new to me.

  Dell takes out a pair of fingernail clippers from his pants pocket, and while Quang-ha flips through the channels, Dell pulls off his socks and clips his toenails.

  I don’t think you would do that if you hadn’t lived here before.

  I retreat to the shadows of the kitchen.

  Instead of staring off into space or sleeping, I watch.

  Since the accident, I feel next to nothing about everything, so it is possible that this surveillance will be beneficial to me from a psychological standpoint.

  But probably not.

  The teenage boy and the man are as close to wild animal observation as anything I’ve seen.

  I realize that this is a unique opportunity to get insight into both of these people. Not that either of them is very mysterious.

  But I’m looking for understanding of bigger things.

  Like the human race, as an example.

  Right away I notice that Dell and Quang-ha scratch more than girls.

  They are slumped down in their seats and appear to be really concentrating on the televised programming.

  On three occasions I hear what can only be described as “aggressive laughter.”

  After the third outburst, they each make a fist and bump knuckles.

  For a nanosecond I’m fearful this signals a fight.

  But it’s just the opposite.

  The knuckle touch is a bond.

  I know for a fact that these two people don’t even like each other.

  Is the television programming bringing them together?

  Why would watching a group of
out-of-control young women in bathing suits competing in a canoe contest do this?

  I conduct my surveillance from the shadows next to the purring refrigerator. It is silent, motionless observation.

  They seem to have forgotten that I’m in the apartment. Their behavior appears completely reflexive and natural.

  Quang-ha has the television remote, and he moves through the channels in a way that a grandmother might turn the pages of a speedboat catalog featuring water skis.

  There is not much stopping for analysis.

  Dell and Quang-ha appear to be hunting for two things:

  Mostly they are looking for acts of violence. (They watch with great amusement as a man in a cartoon gets stabbed in the eye socket with an ice pick.)

  The rest of the time they seem to be stalking the airwaves for appealing females.

  When they find either thing, they stop to enjoy the visual stimuli.

  They call girls “hot.”

  The girls are not untouchable, like truly high-temperature objects.

  No.

  They mean attractive.

  Dell even yells out “Super-hot.”

  And I hear Quang-ha say “Smoking!”

  It all seems very inappropriate.

  There is a whole language to be learned here.

  This is an education.

  After a while I’ve had enough and I go downstairs to be outside.

  I need fresh air.

  Growing up, unless it was raining hard, I was outdoors for part of every day.

  Now I want to sit in my old backyard, which was in some ways a jungle.

  But of course I can’t do that.

  Even though this place is called the Gardens of Glenwood, there are nothing but weeds and the dusty pumice rock in the central open area.

  I take a seat on the steps and stare at the layers of stone, which look (from a distance) like heaps of red potatoes.

  I shut my eyes and as long as I keep them closed, I’m surrounded by greenery. I can feel the plants swaying in the wind and the ground alive below me.

  I used to be somewhat of an expert on earthworms because a good garden holds so many kinds of life.

  Over the years, I made homemade paper from tree pulp, and I’ve mashed grapes with my feet (but it was easier to use a blender).

  We harvested a lot of what I grew.

  Now I listen to the dryer tumbling in the laundry room. And someone’s radio. I can’t help but hear bits of an advertisement for a place that sells discount tires.

  The guy on the radio doesn’t know I lost my parents. He’s just selling cheap rubber wheels.

  The person who put the clothes in the dryer has no idea that I need a foster home.

  Overhead I hear the sound of a jet engine, and I open my eyes and look up in time to see the plane pass by high in the sky.

  I’m thinking now about the passengers on board.

  I’m wondering about them and their lives.

  Are they looking down out the windows next to their seats?

  Do they see a two-story apartment building that is an unappealing color of pink?

  Do they give a thought to the people inside?

  Do they feel a girl sitting on the steps trying to make sense of the world?

  I seriously doubt it.

  Who wants a seat at my pity party?

  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.

  Chapter 40

  It 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 s
ure 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.

  Chapter 41

  Mai 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.