Counting by 7s

  But I say:

  “I think that is a great idea.”

  Dell says:

  “Let’s go water the sunflowers.”

  The next afternoon, Dell does run.

  He makes a big show of it, coming in dressed in what looks like a costume, not an athletic outfit.

  Quang-ha starts the giggling thing again.

  I manage to say:

  “Good luck out there.”

  And then Dell’s gone.

  He comes back in bad shape.

  He’s soaked in sweat and he’s as red as can be.

  And he was only gone eleven minutes.

  I don’t keep track of time anymore and I don’t count, but I saw the clock on the stove when he walked out the door.

  I just happened to be looking in that direction when he came back.

  I say:

  “How was it?”

  Dell is breathing very, very hard. He holds up a hand. It’s the international signal for stop.

  I give him time to regain a somewhat regular breathing pattern. Finally he says:

  “Very tough. I might be a little out of shape.”

  From the couch I hear the return of the giggling.

  I write a five-page paper on Mark Twain over the weekend for Quang-ha.

  He is very resistant to certain aspects of learning.

  I believe that he understands a lot of what is being taught, but he has no interest in doing the work that comes with the assignments.

  Maybe he’s just too tired from his late-night TV viewing.

  I don’t think Pattie realizes that once she’s asleep, he turns the thing back on.

  He somehow got himself a headset, so the sound just goes right to that.

  I know because I spend a lot of the nighttime awake.

  Quang-ha is clever enough to delete the first paragraph of the Mark Twain paper and go through the computer file and misspell a dozen words before he prints it out.

  But it wasn’t enough because he comes home today in a very bad mood.

  He’s being moved out of his English class and put into some kind of Honors/AP program.

  I will not take the blame for this.

  Chapter 44

  Pattie had to find something for Willow to do.

  It was the only way to keep her from staring off into space.

  She didn’t like the look on her face when that happened.

  The girl was so still. Like a statue.

  Or a dead person.

  In the nail salon she could scare the customers.

  So Pattie gave Willow the lease agreement for the salon, and the kid actually read it. She pointed out three areas with inconsistencies, and made a document for Pattie to use when she next met with the landlord.

  It was impossible not to be impressed.

  When Pattie casually said that she wished she had room to add another manicurist, Willow made a floor plan of the nail salon that optimized the space, moving the front counter and three of the four manicure stations. This opened up room for a new chair and foot spa.

  Pattie immediately took action.

  And the crazy thing was that it felt less crowded, not more, once they added the new person.

  But the kid was obsessed with disease and infection.

  She saw problems that didn’t exist, and it grated on Pattie’s nerves.

  She finally told Willow to just write down all of her anxieties.

  The next day, when Willow handed her a detailed report on the incidence of infection from manicure and pedicure treatment, Pattie got angry. She had never had a single complaint from a customer with a health problem.

  Pattie avoided the twelve-year-old for the rest of the day, sending her back to the apartment early.

  But then that night Pattie had a dream.

  It was a gruesome nightmare in which her clients all keeled forward, face-first, onto the manicure desks.

  The next morning, Pattie asked Willow to talk her through the information.

  Her eyes glazed over when Willow spoke about new drug-resistant bacteria, but she got the gist of the whole thing.

  That afternoon, new, more powerful disinfectant was purchased for the basins and foot spas.

  Willow insisted that it never be watered down, as they had done in the past to make the chemicals go further.

  Pattie had all of the manicurists stay an hour late that night, and Willow gave them a presentation (in Vietnamese, which was impressive for that reason alone).

  The following Monday, once the changes were all in place, Pattie let Willow post the ten most important health rules that every nail salon should follow.

  Pattie put Willow’s manifesto on the front window, and she adopted the girl’s proposed new slogan:

  SETTING THE STANDARD IN CALIFORNIA

  FOR HEALTH AND SAFETY IN NAIL CARE

  But Pattie was still surprised when new customers began appearing.

  Willow had said that it would happen.

  Dell no longer ate meat loaf.

  He wished his mother were still alive, because he wanted to tell her. He was certain that she went to her grave worried about his addiction to compilation meat dishes.

  Hadn’t he discovered a list in her address book written just weeks before she died?

  It read:

  1. Find a pair of high heels that don’t hurt my feet.

  2. Cancel life insurance.

  3. Get Dell to stop eating so much crummy meat.

  It had taken a decade since he first saw her spidery handwritten list, but now it was a fact.

  The meat obsession was behind him.

  He didn’t cook his meals anymore, so he wasn’t sure that he could take any credit for the change.

  But still.

  There had been other life improvements.

  He had a new computer.

  Technically it was an old computer, or at least a machine made from salvaged parts, but it was faster and more efficient than any other piece of equipment he’d ever owned.

  Willow had made it for him.

  When he brought the new-old computer down to #22 and Sadhu saw how it worked, the guy’s eyes almost popped out of his head.

  It made Dell proud.

  Now he adjusted the pillows behind his back and opened his computer to his secret file.

  It was late and he couldn’t sleep.

  But not like before from severe indigestion.

  He didn’t have a TV in his room at Sadhu Kumar’s, so he had to read or work.

  He clicked on the screen, and the Dell Duke System of the Strange appeared.

  He needed to add a new category.

  Dell’s fingers slid across the keys and he typed in:

  MUTANT.

  Color code: blue.

  His favorite color.

  Next to MUTANT he typed the word: ME.

  Dell shut the computer and stared up at the ceiling.

  He was changing. He was capable of that.

  He decided that all his life he had been influenced by things around him.

  Now he lived with a cranky man who was originally from Punjab. And when he wasn’t with him, he was down the hall with the Californian Vietnamese.

  He was identifying.

  Since he was usually self-destructing, this felt so peculiar.

  But he knew that he was now different.

  And it wasn’t just the little things.

  Sure, he now trimmed his beard. He’d raised the bar on his personal hygiene in a lot of areas.

  But that wasn’t the mutation.

  It was bigger than that.

  It was on the inside.

  Because the truth was that, as frustrated and angry as he first felt, he had to admit that once his jun
k was all gone, and the rest of his things were put into some kind of order, he had started to feel stronger.

  Pattie had taken over his apartment and moved him down the hall, but that, too, had an upside.

  Because for the first time, in as long as he could remember, Dell belonged to something.

  Even if he was the one that they all talked about behind his back, it still made him part of a group.

  They were playing on the same team.

  Pattie had fixed the buttons on his shirts and had offered him a free pedicure at the salon (with one of the girls who was in training).

  When he didn’t show up she scolded him, prompting Dell to clip his toenails down so close it hurt to even put on his socks.

  But then she gave him foot lotion and powder to sprinkle in his shoes, and that made his toes smell fresh like lavender or something sweet.

  Before, his feet smelled pretty rotten.

  And then there was the running.

  That started out as a lie. He hadn’t planned on jogging anywhere.

  But now it had been two weeks.

  Every day after work he came back to the apartment building. He put on the orange tracksuit that he’d had since high school. It didn’t fit anymore, but he could still squeeze into the pants if he kept the waistband low.

  Then he set his watch for twenty-two minutes and he headed out the door.

  In his comic books, the Mutants had secret powers.

  It was possible, he now thought, that he did too.

  Hadn’t he and Pattie managed to take care of Willow Chance?

  That was pretty powerful for someone who couldn’t even keep a houseplant alive.

  Chapter 45

  The sunflowers are coming up.

  We planted seeds in twenty-three containers, which have pretty much taken over the kitchen. And we have germination in all of them.

  I don’t make a chart and monitor the percentage of germination, because I don’t do that anymore.

  But it crosses my mind, which is interesting.

  Dell and Mai are both excited when they see the small, green seedlings.

  Before I can stop him, Dell gets all gooey and over-waters everything.

  Quang-ha acts like he couldn’t care less, even though his single seed sprouted and already looks bigger than the others.

  I find a doodle of the seedling on a pad of paper near the TV.

  It’s very precise, so Quang-ha had to have gotten very close and taken a real look at his new plant.

  In his picture, the seedling is growing out of the top of a man’s large head.

  I’m not sure why this pleases me so much. I say:

  “Quang-ha, do you think I could have this drawing?”

  His eyes don’t leave the television. He makes a noise, which I can only describe as some form of a grunt.

  “Is that a yes?”

  He waves his hand in my direction.

  I take it to be some sort of positive gesture because there are no fingers involved.

  I put the drawing of the man with the germinating brain in my room on the wall where I can see it when I roll over.

  Mai is very happy that I have something up, even if it’s just a picture that her brother drew.

  She has been decorating since the first day we moved in.

  The Helianthus annuus are fine for now in their containers, but they will need to be transplanted.

  Quang-ha hears me refer to the sunflowers in this way and laughs.

  Teenage boys are so easily amused.

  But very soon the H. annuus will all need more space.

  I don’t want to talk about relocation. It’s too uncomfortable all around.

  My social worker has told me that they are actively looking for a foster parent to take me.

  I’ve had three home visitation checks.

  All three were fine because we do all now live at the Gardens of Glenwood.

  For now at least.

  I’m here on a temporary basis, but each day gives me more time to adjust to my new reality.

  So I need to be grateful.

  That’s what I’m working on.

  Dell comes over for dinner and we eat bún riêu and bánh cuÕn. I think Dell is developing a real taste for the food, because he takes seconds on the rice balls.

  I pick my way through the meal and when the timing seems right, I say:

  “I want to thank you all for what you’ve done for me.”

  No one answers.

  It’s like I pulled a rotten fish out of the refrigerator and placed it on the table. My words have a smell.

  Everyone goes from looking uncomfortable to embarrassed, and then Quang-ha just gets up and takes his plate and leaves the table.

  I know he wasn’t one of my early supporters.

  But they don’t realize what a difference they’ve made for me.

  Or maybe they do and they are just keeping the knowledge to themselves.

  I go to sleep early but I wake up every hour.

  In the morning I decide that I’ve done a disservice to myself in terms of my physical achievement.

  This is another way of saying that since no one thinks being motionless for hours is any kind of sport, I’m very challenged, athletically speaking.

  I think exposure to something new can’t help but generate interest, even if you feel out of it and on your own planet.

  Dell comes in this afternoon from his exercise regime and he’s red-faced and sweaty.

  He may be exhausted, but he looks alive.

  I’m interested in that.

  So I take a big step. I say:

  “I’m thinking of running.”

  Quang-ha hears me and his weird giggle returns. I don’t look at him. I keep my eyes on Dell, who says:

  “Really?”

  I continue:

  “What I meant is that I would like to start training. And I was hoping that you could help me.”

  Quang-ha is really giggling now, and he’s not trying to hide it anymore.

  But Mai comes out of our room. She shoots a hard look at Quang-ha and says:

  “I’ll do it too.”

  And with that, our running education begins.

  I need athletic shoes.

  I only wear work boots everywhere, and you can’t jog in those. Mai already has running shoes because she uses them in her high school gym class.

  The following day, she and I walk to the Salvation Army.

  She points to three shelves with used shoes and then disappears to look at a raincoat.

  It really doesn’t rain much around here, but Mai has strong feelings about fashion and she’s spotted some kind of designer rainwear.

  I begin going through the shelves, and I’m surprised to find a pair of track shoes that actually fit well.

  The Old Me would have obsessed about the possibility of a contagious medical condition being passed on from someone else’s footwear.

  The New Me has been a patient in a hospital and gotten a lot out of that experience.

  So my only objection is that the running shoes are bright pink, with hot-purple laces.

  Once I put them on, I feel like a flamingo.

  With the exception of the color red, I always wear earth tones because I’m blending into my environment. This is important for observation.

  But I’m not in any position to complain, so I smile with my lips closed and say that the flamingo footgear is terrific.

  I don’t normally use words like terrific, so maybe Mai will understand that I have my concerns.

  But she doesn’t pick up on it.

  Our first day of running is tomorrow.

  When I get home I work with Quang-ha on his biology.

  I give him a single-page document with a distil
lation of what he should know for his upcoming test. I try to come up with little tricks to help him remember things.

  I think it’s possible that I have natural teaching ability.

  I’m not boasting.

  I’m just presenting the facts.

  He’s starting to exhibit a degree of understanding.

  He tried to hide a recent pop-quiz from me, but I found it in his notebook.

  He got 91/100. The teacher wrote a note at the top:

  Your new effort is paying off!

  I’m certain the last thing Quang-ha wants is to be some kind of biologist, but it’s good to see he’s not getting sent to the office for threatening to burn people with lab equipment.

  All of this leads me toward my own expansion.

  I go online and devise a running plan. I show Mai and she appears to be interested.

  She says we will go as soon as Dell gets here because he wants to come with us.

  I have charted out a one-mile loop that travels eight blocks south of the Gardens of Glenwood.

  It then turns three blocks west.

  Followed by eight blocks north.

  And finally three blocks east.

  On the map, it does not look like much.

  I’m lucky to still be alive.

  After two blocks on the course, I get a pain in my left side that feels as if a knife has been implanted just below rib 7 (individual ribs do not have names, and are only referred to as one through twelve, left side, right side).

  My legs—or more specifically, my calves—tingle, and somehow I have lost all of my strength.

  My ankles freeze up.

  The air around me turns thick.

  I experience so many different health conditions—rapid heart rate, elevated blood pressure, dry mouth, pulmonary shock, muscle spasm—that it is impossible for me to even chronicle the degree of body breakdown.

  The shocking truth is that I cannot even continuously jog eight blocks south (which was the first segment of the run).

  At the sixth block I stumble.

  I feel that I might lose consciousness (and there is no metal elephant coffee table to break my fall).

  Mai places her hand on my arm and says:

  “Take it easy. Just breathe, Willow.”