Counting by 7s (10 page)

I decided to ignore it.

The first thing he said was:

“Pharmaceutical companies.”

Dell had instructed me to answer “high growth,” “medium growth,” “no growth,” or “eroding market.”

This was a really crummy game.

I thought that pharmaceutical companies were probably always growing because more medications were constantly being developed; and the field of medicine was so rapidly advancing.

That was just a fact.

So the answer would have to be “high growth,” especially with an aging population.

But I said “eroding market” because I decided that I wanted to play the opposite game.

I just didn't tell him.

I was going to see if he was paying attention.

But what was sad was that he never caught on and shouted “You're playing the opposite game.”

He just kept writing down my junk.

On my way home I evaluated my situation.

Being a Sequoia Giant had been a colossal disappointment.

But going to the new school led to seeing the round-headed counselor, and that enabled me to meet my new friend, Mai.

School was better since I figured out that all I had to do to get out of P.E. (and the violent sport of volleyball) was say I had a migraine headache.

I claimed that I was going blind from the pain, and I then got sent to lie down in the nurse's office.

I knew that the nurse, Miss Judi, liked me because we discussed things like flu outbreaks and the statistics behind spontaneous nosebleeds.

So by the time I walked back up Citrus Court to the front door of our house, I was very happy.

jairo hernandez

A pilgrim is a traveler going to a spiritual place.

J
airo looked over
at the paperwork on the seat next to him. His license. His vehicle inspection infor-mation.

When he started driving a cab, it was only supposed to be a temporary job.

And now years had passed.

Jairo picked up his radio and told the office that he was going on break.

He then drove straight to Bakersfield College, where he picked up a brochure for the Career Pathway program, which was a continuing education opportunity for people over the age of thirty.

He was going to investigate the requirements to be a medical technician.

The girl he picked up that afternoon had rattled his mobile cage.

He realized that she was some kind of shaman when she said:

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

She was a blinking warning light.

And Jairo paid attention to signs.

For the first time in his career, Dell thought about his work when he went home that day.

Fate had delivered Alberta Einstein into his life and he had to figure out a way to take advantage of that.

Maybe she could make him smarter?

It certainly appeared as if she could improve his financial situation.

One thing was for certain: With her in his life, everything was happening so fast!

T
he next week
I went online and ordered a cab from Mexicano Taxi again. In the special comments/requests box I asked for Jairo Hernandez.

He was on time and had his license and vehicle inspection records ready for me on the front seat.

I checked them again because I think it's important to always be thorough.

As Jairo pulled away from the curb, I noticed two things.

The first was that he had just gotten a haircut. The second reveal was more alarming.

Because his hair was shorter in the back, I could now see a nevus on his neck.

This means I saw a mole.

But not a regular-looking mole. It had, in my opinion, the signs of trouble: It was asymmetrical and it had flecks of red and blue on the broken edges.

One infant in one hundred babies is born with moles. I doubt that's fun for the parents.

Who wants a spotty kid?

But almost all moles appear in the first twenty years of a person's life.

And that is why if a new mole appears, or an old one changes into something else, attention needs to be directed to this area (medically speaking).

I didn't want to alarm Jairo Hernandez.

But there was a real possibility that he might not be aware of this bad-looking mole, because it was on the back of his neck and he couldn't see there very easily.

So while we drove across town to my appointment with Mr. Dell Duke, I stared at his skin issue.

And I felt compelled to write the following on an index card:

You need to have a dermatologist perform a punch biopsy on the mole (nevus) on the back of your neck. If it is not too much of an invasion of your privacy, I would very much like to look at the pathology report. I will be taking a taxi next week at this same time. This is important, so please do not take this medical suggestion lightly.

Willow Chance

I handed him the message when I got out of the taxi.

Mai and I were able to talk more easily now in Vietnamese.

I had effectively mastered the tones and accent by obsessive listening at night to audio lessons designed for state department employees.

You could download the sessions if you had a password, which was not hard to get if you knew what you were doing.

It was like we had a secret language, because on the school property no one else but Quang-ha spoke Vietnamese.

We walked around the buildings and the parking lot, still half looking for Cheddar, but really just talking.

We were both interested in botany, and I tried to explain some of the things I knew without sounding like the host of the Discovery Channel.

We were sitting under one of the few trees out in front of the main school district office when I said to her, in Vietnamese:

“You are my new best friend.”

Mai was silent. I knew that she had many friends at school, and that her friend Alana was the one she considered to be her closest friend.

I was just a little kid, and I realized that I had overstepped.

What kind of person only knew someone for a few weeks and said something like that?

So I added:

“Since I just started at a new school, you're right now sort of my only friend, so that makes the distinction perhaps not much of a difference.”

And that made Mai smile.

roberta & jimmy chance

In American Sign Language, the motion for the word
parents
is to follow
mom
with the sign for
dad
.

R
oberta Chance was
finally at her doctor's appointment.

It had been over a year since she'd first seen a small dimple on the left side of her chest.

She was going to bring up the little dent during the exam, but Dr. Pedlar saw it before she even had a chance.

The next thing Roberta knew, she was being sent to the Bakersfield Imaging Center just down the street.

They wouldn't even consider making an appointment for the future.

They wanted her over there now.

It was only three blocks away, so Roberta left her car and walked over.

The medical technician at the imaging center seemed to know that she was coming, but the woman didn't smile when she handed her the lavender smock.

And most everyone smiled at Roberta because she had that way about her.

It wasn't until she put back on her street clothes after the ultrasound that it occurred to her something was wrong. That was when the doctor asked her to come to his office.

Because wasn't she already in his office?

Did he mean someplace where he did bookkeeping or ate take-out food for lunch?

Roberta followed Dr. Trocino down the narrow hallway and into a small room with framed pictures of pink angels.

On the doctor's desk was a vase filled with silk flowers that might have once looked good, but now were dusty and faded on the side that faced the window.

It was there, sitting in an upholstered chair that felt moist, like someone might have peed in it and the whole thing never dried right, that the doctor told her the news.

Her dent was a tumor.

The physician's mouth was moving and she could hear what he was saying, but it didn't mean anything because this wasn't happening to her.

Someone else was in the chair.

And then the doctor stood up and said he'd give her a moment to herself and that she should call her husband.

Jimmy Chance operated heavy equipment, which is how he and Roberta had met.

Just out of high school, they'd both signed up for an introductory class to get a commercial driver's license.

Roberta was the only girl taking the course, but Jimmy would have noticed her even if the room had been full of beauties, because she was open and confident.

But he was really attracted to her because Roberta was happy and that showed.

Now, as he left work to meet her at the medical center, he felt like he was the sick one.

What did it all mean? They said that the surgery needed to be scheduled immediately. Her voice was so dull on the phone.

The only other time he'd heard Roberta sound that way was when the man in the fertility clinic had said they couldn't have children.

It had taken his wife all of ten minutes to decide that they would adopt, and her enthusiasm for life then immediately returned.

That took four years to happen, but the adoption had worked out. So this would work out. There would be an answer. There had to be. For him. For Willow. For her.

Yes. For her.

Because he would do anything . . .

For her.

Roberta and Jimmy sat outside the medical center on a wooden bench that was dirty.

She put her shoulder blades back and realized that she was leaning against crusty bird droppings.

Did birds get cancer?

Jimmy was holding her hand but they were both silent.

She was glad for that.

There was so much to say but really so little. They had long ago said what mattered to each other.

Roberta put her head on his shoulder and sitting there, in silence, she didn't think about herself. Or about her husband. She thought about Willow.

Her love for her daughter now literally made it hard to breathe.

Roberta shut her eyes to keep the tears trapped under her eyelids. She made her decision.

They wouldn't tell her. Willow was far too interested in medicine to deal with this right now.

They would let her in on the situation when it was over.

After what seemed like five minutes, but was actually over an hour, they got up to go.

They decided to leave Roberta's car in the parking lot down the street and take Jimmy's pickup truck so that they could be together as they drove across town to the next appointment.

They would not be alone now until this thing was figured out.

Ever.

It was mid-afternoon and the sun beat down in a brutal way. Drivers were cranky as they navigated through congested streets, not giving an inch. It was every car for himself. Or herself.

But Jimmy and Roberta were in their own world in the front seat of the pickup. They were traveling down Eye Street and up ahead the traffic light was red.

Jimmy slowed, but before he came to a full stop the light changed to green.

Ordinarily he would have looked to see if anyone was entering the intersection.

But not today.

Not now.

Jimmy's hand reached over and touched his wife's arm and at the exact moment that he made this connection, the world literally came apart.

They were T-boned in the middle of the intersection by a driver for Med-Service Hospital Supplies. His box truck was loaded down with oxygen tanks and he was already forty minutes behind schedule.

The driver watched the traffic light turn to yellow and then he stepped on the accelerator believing he could just glide right through the red signal.

Instead, he sailed straight into a pickup truck.

Jimmy died on the scene but was still put into an ambulance and taken to the hospital with his wife.

Roberta stopped breathing three hours later during emergency surgery.

The driver was left in a coma.

The only piece of metal not mangled or burned by the collision was a yellow triangle with black lettering on the back bumper, which read:

SAFETY FIRST! Tell Me How I'm Doing:

Call 800 Med-Supp. I'm truck #807.