Counting by 7s (20 page)

I
s there a
more personal piece of clothing than someone's underwear?

I don't think so.

Dell wears all different styles.

He has a great variety of colors and a shocking number of patterns. He is heavy on the cartoon characters. And images of vegetables.

It is truly disturbing that I now know this.

This man is not just my counselor. He's also supposedly monitoring my schoolwork. Although in five weeks, that has never once come up.

I can't believe we don't just leave his privates in the closet, but Pattie is all about doing things the Right Way.

Even if that means getting involved in someone's obsessive-compulsive underwear disorder.

It takes us three trips to haul the mountain down to the laundry room.

After we get the first load started, Pattie morphs into some kind of human tornado.

Earlier, I realize, she was just some kind of tropical storm.

By the time Dell and Quang-ha come up the stairs carrying the box of kitchen stuff, we have mopped the floor (which turns out to be shades of orange, not brown), cleaned the microwave and all of the counters, and filled eight trash bags with more detritus.

I know a lot about bacteria and germs, so this is all very challenging for me.

Dell has barely finished bringing up the stuff from the garage when Pattie hands him another list and shoves him back out the door.

Quang-ha stays with us.

Everything in Dell's apartment looks gray.

This is because someone put a canvas tarp over the skylight in the living room. Probably to cut down on air-conditioning costs or something.

Now that tarp is coated in atmospheric dirt. Mold and mildew stains rim the edges where water must collect.

So when you are in Dell's living room, no matter what the weather is outside, overhead it appears that a CAT-5 hurricane has just descended.

Pattie has her hands on her hips and she's squinting up at the covered skylight.

She says:

“It's not right.”

The look on Pattie's face isn't good.

I stare up with her.

It's like a giant dirty diaper is on the ceiling.

She calls for Quang-ha, who has just been given a large plastic garbage bag of wine and beer bottles (found under the bathroom sink) to take downstairs.

Pattie points skyward.

“I want you to go up onto the roof and take off the tarp.”

In a month, I've never seen Quang-ha happy, so his current scowl is just more of the same. He says:

“You just told me to throw away these bottles.”

Pattie says:

“Do both.”

I feel bad for him and offer:

“I'll help.”

Quang-ha doesn't want my assistance. But his standard operating procedure is to ignore me. Completely.

And I'm okay with that.

Now he grabs the heavy bag and heads to the door.

I follow.

We are both in the hallway and he's lugging the bag of bottles. He should leave them if he's going to go up on the roof, but he doesn't.

I don't say anything because he's older and can't stand me. And also because I rarely talk now.

He's only here cleaning up Dell's because of me and my problems.

There's a stairwell at the end of the corridor, and a sign indicates that it leads to the roof.

I wish that Quang-ha would put down the bag of bottles. I think he's trying to prove something to me, like maybe that the big bag isn't too heavy for him. But I know that it is.

I've lifted more things today than I have in the last six months.

Quang-ha goes right up the narrow steps. There is a door at the top with a sign that says:

ROOF ACCESS FOR MAINTENANCE

WORKERS ONLY

I don't think we qualify, but Quang-ha just pushes the door open anyway. The sun is sinking, but outside it is still bright. There are ten skylights and ten dirty old tarps.

So Dell isn't the only one with interior shades of gray.

I can see that Quang-ha is confused.

I point to the left side of the building.

“Over there. The third one is his living room.”

He isn't going to argue with me because after over a month of living together he knows I really only talk to state facts.

Quang-ha still has the garbage bag as he moves across the hot roof.

Again, I follow him.

I'm not sure why. I'm his little kid shadow and I can see that I'm only making everything worse.

There are bricks that hold down the corners of the tarps, and when we reach what is Dell's unit, I lift one.

Quang-ha then bends over and, with his free hand, pulls on the dirty piece of canvas.

But the trash bag slips from his other hand and the bottles spill out and one crashes right at his feet.

Green glass shards go flying and several pieces land on the clear plastic of the newly uncovered skylight.

The Old Me would have screamed from the crash.

The New Me expects these kinds of things.

The New Me is actually surprised that we weren't cut up from the airborne shards.

Quang-ha was angry before. Now he's
really
angry. He starts to pick up the broken glass.

I move quickly to help.

Standing over the skylight, I see that three glass pieces have caught the sun. They send small spots of color down into the room below.

I glance over at Quang-ha. He sees it too. I say:

“It's like a stained-glass window.”

Quang-ha is silent, but he takes a beer bottle and breaks it. He then positions a piece of amber glass on the surface.

A chunk of orange-brown light now hits the carpet below in Dell's place.

We exchange looks.

But we don't say anything.

And then we go to work covering the entire skylight.

We end up breaking all of the bottles to get enough glass pieces.

I find this to be strangely enjoyable.

I can tell Quang-ha feels the same way, even though he is silent while we smash what appears to be the result of a real drinking problem.

When we finally finish, we go downstairs.

Quang-ha opens the apartment door and we both can see right away that the room has taken on a totally different quality.

The light.

Chunks of green and amber filter down from above.

What was an ordinary and soulless feature is suddenly interesting.

We're standing there staring up at what we've done when Pattie comes in. I don't want her to be mad, especially at Quang-ha. I say:

“It's temporary.”

I'm surprised when Pattie only says:

“Quang-ha, you can arrange the furniture if you have a better idea how it should go.”

I'm
not
surprised when he does.

Quang-ha puts everything in a different place, setting the couch and the chairs on an angle. He doesn't follow the lines of the rectangle room; he makes his own shapes.

And when he's done I want to say:

“There is a qualitative difference in the visual effect of the room.”

But instead I say:

“The room looks better.”

Quang-ha just shrugs, but I can see he's not scowling anymore.

This is the first thing we've ever done together, and I realize that it feels strange.

For both of us.

And I'm forced to admit that being in a room with a teenage boy who appreciates the effect of shattered glass slices of color makes me feel better about the world.

D
ell pulled his
name out of the mail slot for #28, replacing it with a slip of paper on which Quang-ha had artfully written
Nguyen
.

He then made a beeline for his car, driving away just moments before Lenore Cole pulled up to the curb.

He headed straight for the closest bar, which was called the Hammer. Most people in Bakersfield went to the Hammer when they crashed their car or lost electricity in a heat wave and had all of their ice cream melt.

The bar was a misery magnet. No one put on their best sweater or their skinny jeans to go to the Hammer.

That's why Dell felt at home there.

Now, as he drove into the parking lot, he let out a sigh of relief. He had gotten away from Pattie Nguyen.

Dell found himself mumbling out loud as he opened the car door.

“Who died and put her in charge?!”

Then he remembered that two people actually had passed away. And maybe he was the one who had inadvertently put Pattie Nguyen in charge by getting her pushy daughter involved.

All Dell really knew with certainty was that now someone was steaming mounds of spinach in a kitchen that had never under his watch seen a vegetable in its raw form.

At least his underwear wall was being washed.

Once inside the dimly lit bar, Dell found a seat. As he leaned forward onto the sticky countertop he took a pen from his pocket and slid the thin cocktail napkin closer.

He was looking to regain control, and so he returned to the Dell Duke System of the Strange.

He wrote:

1 = MISFIT

2 = ODDBALL

3 = LONE WOLF

4 = WEIRDO

5 = GENIUS

And then he added his newest category:

6 = DICTATOR

Mai had to take a second city bus across town to the Gardens of Glenwood.

And she was not happy about it.

She called her mother from the salon and that was when she found out about the visit from child services.

Shouldn't someone have told her what was going on?

Now, an hour later, Mai's arms ached from carrying her heavy backpack.

But inside she felt a different pain.

She had to question the logic of pretending to live in Dell Duke's apartment.

Maybe Willow should have gone right after the accident into foster care.

Her mother had made it clear. They weren't in any position to take on another kid.

She had tried to help, but what if what she had done ended up hurting Willow even more?

Mai aimed her right shoe, which wasn't more than a satin slipper, and stepped down hard on an acorn.

But the nut lying in the middle of the cracked sidewalk didn't squish under her foot.

Instead it was solid and tough and it hurt. It was like stepping on a pointy rock.

Mai felt her whole body stiffen.

So many things caused unexpected pain.

Mai kicked the acorn and it flew across the sidewalk out onto the street. She watched as a passing car ran right over the still-green nut.

Mai moved to the curb to get a better look.

The acorn hadn't flattened. It rested on its side in the middle of the road, unharmed.

Mai dropped her backpack and went to retrieve it.

The acorn was a survivor.

Mai stuffed it into her pocket.

Lucky. That's what the nut was.

When Willow wasn't paying attention, Mai would slip it someplace she would find it.