Cynthia Kadohata: The Thing About Luck

With my hair braided, Mel and I checked on Jaz in the living room. He was sitting on the couch wearing his favorite T-shirt, which was neon green. When noon came and went, I put the plates into the refrigerator. I went to check on Jaz again. His hands were folded in his lap, and he was staring straight ahead. There was no clock in the living room, so he may not have known that it was ten after twelve.

Back at the kitchen table, we waited some more. At twenty past noon Obaachan said, “Why say come when no come? Why say yes when mean no?”

I looked down at the flecks of silver in the kitchen table. Jaz had once counted every fleck on the table; there were 3,412. That was just the kind of boy he was, and that was why he had no friends.

I went to peek at my brother again. His hands were still folded in his lap, but now his jaw was hanging open. My brother was small and stocky, like a four-foot tall weight lifter. He was built exactly like my grandfather, a rectangle with a head on top. It was disconcerting to talk to Jaz because his eyes had a strange, unwavering quality. He was a very serious kiddo, but I had seen him smile. I had heard him laugh. So I knew he could be happy sometimes.

I started to feel furious at the boys in Jaz’s class. Were they completely heartless? Finally, at 12:45, my grandmother’s back slumped with defeat. I had never seen her like this before. Jiichan flossed his teeth, as if nothing special were going on.

“What Jaz doing?” Obaachan asked.

“Just sitting in the living room with his mouth hanging open,” I answered. “He’s hardly moved.”

At one o’clock, my grandfather laid down his floss and declared, “Nobody coming. Let’s eat sandwich. Let’s celebrate, ah, we can celebrate, ah ... ”

Nobody could think of anything to celebrate, so Jiichan just got to his feet and took the sandwiches out of the fridge. “Go get your brother.”

I walked reluctantly into the living room, where Jaz sat stoically. “Jiichan says we should eat.” Then I said it again.

He looked at his feet. “Why doesn’t anybody like me?” he asked.

I thought of saying, You have a bad temper, and you’re weird. He had such a bad temper that when he was angry, he sometimes banged his head on a wall or on whatever was handy. And he was weird because he would do strange things. Like, one time when he started singing a song in the middle of a test. My mother loved to tell that story because she thought it was cute, but I doubted the kids in his class thought it was cute. But I knew now wasn’t the time for honesty. “You had a friend, but he moved away. That wasn’t your fault. You’ll make another one.”

“Connor Foster smells, and he even brags that he takes only one bath a week, and even he has a couple of friends,” Jaz went on, now looking at me directly.

I hated all the boys in Jaz’s class. In my class the boys were nicer. They did not shun anyone. But then I remembered Jenson, who didn’t have a single friend that I knew of. I had rarely given him a thought, but now my heart went out to him. He was long and lanky, and he always held his chin slightly up, so you could see in his nostrils. And, it was hard to explain, but there was something about him that kind of repelled everyone. It was something about the way he moved, not in smooth, normal strokes like most people, but rather kind of jerky, as if he were part robot. Right then and there, I vowed to say something to him one day. Even if it was only “hello,” it would acknowledge that he was there.

Jaz stood up. “Okay, let’s eat.”

Everybody took half a sandwich, along with some potato chips. We ate silently. Jaz was a focused eater, just as he was focused with about everything he did. He stared down his food as if eating were a fight to the finish, and he chewed so vigorously that my parents worried he might crack his teeth.

“Boys need red meat to grow, not chicken,” Obaachan finally said, not sharply, but weakly, as if she had been defeated today. I think she loved Jaz more than she loved me, but at that moment I didn’t mind. Jaz needed all the love he could get.

Nothing more happened as far as making friends for Jaz. But a few weeks later, as I walked into class on my last day before we left for harvest, for some reason, my eyes rested on Jenson. I remembered vowing to say hello to him, so I cheerfully called out, “Hi, Jenson.” Several people looked at me like, What are you doing saying hello to Jenson of all people? Jenson?

Jenson glared at me suspiciously, then said, “Shut up.”

Wow. I didn’t expect that. People were still looking at me, and I felt my face grow hot. I thought about what Jenson had just said. He must have been incredibly lonely to respond that way.

I heard one boy saying to another, “Hey, Summer likes Jenson.”

Even though I knew Jenson was lonely, now I was annoyed at him. “I was just trying to be friendly,” I called out.

“And I was just trying to say shut up,” Jenson shot back.

And now everybody was laughing at me. I knew nobody would remember any of this in September when I got back; still, when I took my seat, my face was burning.

I got called on four times that day. I had to solve an equation with two unknowns on the board, read a page out loud, explain what an element was, and define “ethical” versus “moral.” Boy, I was glad to be free when the bell rang.

After school I walked with some friends to where the school bus stopped. The ones who didn’t take the bus hugged me good-bye. When the bus came, I sat next to Melody as usual. Then I don’t know what possessed me, but I wanted to try to be nice to Jenson one more time. He was sitting alone, as if people were scared that if they sat next to him, some of his unpopularity might rub off on them, which it probably would. But I figured I had loyal friends, so I could afford to lose a couple of popularity points. I got up, walked straight back, and sat right there next to him. I felt his leg against mine, so I moved over a bit in the opposite direction.

“We’re going away for harvest tomorrow,” I said pleasantly.

He looked at me with annoyance and said, “You again?”

“Yeah, I just wanted to sit here and, like ... talk or something.” I saw several kids, including Jaz, watching me curiously. I couldn’t think of what to say next. I finally came up with, “I like your shirt,” which was a ridiculous thing to say because his shirt was heavy plaid flannel, even though it was warm out.

He thought a second. “I don’t know what’s going on, but I’ve known you since first grade, and I don’t think you’ve ever spoken a word to me. So thanks for whatever you’re trying to do, but bug off.”

Well. That hadn’t turned out very agreeably.

Then we came to my stop, and my friends were hugging me and we were saying good-bye.

“See you!” I called out before I stepped off of the bus.

When I turned to head home, Thunder was sitting near the bush where he always waited for me. I walked with him a ways, then stopped in the middle of a bunch of weeds and sat down and rolled my head around to stretch my neck. I felt all tense. I didn’t know why.

“What are you doing?” Jaz said behind me. At least people didn’t mind sitting next to him. In that way, he was better off than Jenson.

“I’m de-stressing,” I said. De-stressing was what my dad did all the time. For instance, if you bothered him while he was watching sports on TV, he’d say, “Not now, honey, I’m de-stressing.”

Jaz shrugged and walked toward our house.

After de-stressing, I went inside. Jiichan had stretched a big map across the kitchen table to show us our route. This season we would be traveling from Texas to Oklahoma, back to Kansas, to Colorado, and to the Dakotas. If there was one thing I hated, it was road trips. It wasn’t that I found road trips boring. It was just that I would be trapped with my grandmother and Jaz for hours at a time. I mean, I loved them, but thinking of spending all that time with them made me crazy. My grandfather was different. I could ride with him all day, no problem.