Cynthia Kadohata - The Thing About Luck

An hour later the door opened, and Obaachan and Jiichan walked in. “We have dinner now,” she said. The clock read 3:07 p.m. “We starving.”

Jiichan lay down in the bed. Apparently, he wasn’t joining us.

Jaz turned to his friend. “Wanna come?”

“Sure.”

“Don’t you have to ask your mother or something?” I said to the boy. He looked maybe a year younger than Jaz, with dark hair and faded blue eyes.

“She’s cutting today. So’s my dad.”

Mick was waiting outside, and we all went to the front desk to get a restaurant recommendation. They said I should talk to the desk clerk because I spoke American English the best. Miss Talk So Good. I went into the empty office and leaned on the counter. “Hello?” I called. Nobody answered, so I gave the desk bell a short tingle. When nobody came, I gave it a firmer ring.

An older man walked in, looking almost confused. It was possible he hadn’t talked to anyone all day.

“We were wondering if you could give us a restaurant recommendation.”

He looked as if he was thinking. Finally, he said, “There’s not that much to choose from. I guess Monty’s is best. It has decent food for the money.”

That wasn’t much of an endorsement, but if that was the best place in town, so be it. He told me where Monty’s was, and we drove in the pickup to the other side of town. Monty’s was a buffet—fajitas and meat loaf and macaroni and cheese, among other entrées. The macaroni and cheese looked like it was dry on the outside, so I took the fajitas. I knew you couldn’t go wrong with fajitas. All you had to do was fry up some meat and vegetables.

Well, the fajitas tasted awful. I wouldn’t even know what to do to make fajitas taste that bad. It was almost like the person who cooked it must have had a special talent for bad cooking. There were some kind of crazy spices involved that I wasn’t familiar with, but they didn’t fit together. It was kind of like putting salt into iced tea or something. The spices just didn’t make sense. The cost was $7.99 per person. So far it didn’t seem worth it. On the other hand, it was slightly better than the trail mix and it did stop my hunger pangs. “How’s the mac and cheese?” I asked Jaz.

He didn’t answer because sometimes when Jaz was eating, he didn’t hear you; he was focusing too hard on his food.

“The mac and cheese,” I said again. “How is it?”

“I’m thinking,” he said. “I can’t find the words.”

“This not food,” Obaachan said.

“What is it?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” she replied. “Let’s see. It not plastic. It not clay. It not mud. It not wax.” She looked at me. “You ask good question. I need to think about.”

“I’ve been thinking,” said Jaz’s friend. “Maybe we should try to build the Eiffel Tower with your LEGOs.”

“Good idea,” Jaz said.

I decided to clean my plate because I knew it would be a long night. Also, I had been on harvest before, so I knew you just had to eat your restaurant food and accept it.

Mick was mostly quiet. The Irish guys talked more when they were all together. They were kind of shy that way. Then I thought about it and realized that we didn’t talk much in front of the Parkers either. It’s hard to have a big conversation with people who are in charge of you sixteen hours a day.

As always, Obaachan was eating with her whole fist wrapped around her fork. Jiichan always ate that way too. I thought I’d try it now, and I discovered it was easier for me to eat that way than the proper way. Then Obaachan’s gaze fell on me. Her mouth opened, but before she could say anything, I started to hold the fork the right way. She closed her mouth and returned to her food.

After we finished, we stepped out into the warm air. Mick said, “I suppose I’m only going to feel the hot side of America, aren’t I?”

“Very hot on harvest,” Obaachan said politely. She was carrying leftovers home for Jiichan.

Obaachan dropped Mick at the farm, then drove us to the motel. “Tomorrow I go to store and make sandwich for Mick,” Obaachan said.

On the TV was a show about cooking fancy food. It had absolutely no relevance at all to how we cooked on harvest. The cook lady was neatly arranging food on a platter. The boys seemed fascinated, so I didn’t change the channel.

I heard Jiichan and Obaachan talking quietly together. Then Obaachan announced, “Now I know what they feed at restaurant. Your jiichan explain. When you put the hate in food you cook, person who eat die. When you put love, person stronger. Mr. Monty put apathy into his food. I learn new word today: apathy. I think maybe Mr. Monty put two or three apathy in his food.”

Once Jiichan fell asleep, Obaachan set off back to the fields to drive the semi to the elevator. I so wanted to work the combine now, instead of spending time cooped up in a musty motel room. But Obaachan would kill me so bad if she knew I’d driven last night, and she would kill me even worse if she knew I’d dropped a mountain of wheat, so I had no choice but to sneak out again late tonight after everyone else was asleep.

When the boys lost interest in the cooking channel, they got busy with their Eiffel Tower project. To start, the other boy drew a picture of the tower. It wasn’t museum quality, but it was pretty darn good. Then the boys stared at the picture, as if they were meditating. The other boy even closed his eyes, maybe picturing the tower in his mind. I wished we could take him home with us. Jaz would never be lonely again.

They focused intently on their tower, occasionally discussing technical details. Finally, around nine p.m., the other boy said, “I better get back. My parents should be coming in around now. See you tomorrow.”

“Sure,” Jaz said.

They high-fived each other. I stood outside to make sure the boy got to his room okay. “What’s his name?” I asked Jaz when I got back in.

“I don’t know.”

“You spent all that time with him and you don’t know his name?”

“It didn’t come up.”

“Well, did he ask you your name?” I asked.

“Like I said, it didn’t come up.”

“But finding out someone’s name is one of the first things you do when you meet.”

“Says who?”

I just looked at him for another moment and then gave up. It was none of my business how he made friends.

Obaachan returned in a couple of hours and immediately lay on the floor. I did a double take when I saw a tear slide down the side of her face. Or was it perspiration?

“Obaachan, are you okay?” I asked.

“No bothering me,” she answered sharply. “Go to sleep before I ground you.”

“What would you ground me for?”

She didn’t answer, which wasn’t like her. I felt really kind of disturbed by that teardrop, if it was a teardrop. I didn’t understand what was going on.

I took all my books and binders into the bathroom at once, but I didn’t open any of them. I stayed in there for what seemed like a long, long time, brushing the knots out of my hair, trimming my toenails—anything I could think of to pass the time. I spread on yet more DEET, even though by doing so I broke a number of the EPA’s rules for DEET, as usual. Here are the rules I broke:

• Read and follow all directions and precautions on this product label.

• Use just enough repellent to cover exposed skin and/or clothing.

• Do not use under clothing.

• Avoid overapplication of this product.

• Do not spray in enclosed areas.

And later I would break this one: After returning indoors, wash treated skin with soap and water.

Hopefully I would stop being scared of mosquitoes before I perished from DEET exposure.

Anyway, about twenty minutes after I heard the TV go off, I tiptoed into the room. “Jaz?” No answer.