Cynthia Kadohata - The Thing About Luck

“I drive, she cook,” Jiichan said. “She best cook in country.”

I tried to figure out who’d be doing what—four semi drivers, three combine drivers, one tractor driver. But that left an extra combine. The logistics always made my head spin. And then there was Obaachan and we three kids (including Robbie). What I could figure out is that Obaachan and I would be cooking for twelve every day. Yikes!

We all headed outside, and Mr. Parker gave us our driving assignments.

I think it went as follows: We’d leave our Ford at the Parkers’, and Obaachan would drive one of the Parkers’ pickups, which was attached to the smaller camper—the camper the Parkers would be living in. Jaz, Thunder, and I would ride with her. The pickup would also be the service car we would drive for the whole harvest, used to shop for groceries or to make a parts run if any of the machinery broke. Jiichan was driving a semi, which was hauling the tractor and grain cart. The three Irish drivers were each driving a semi, each hauling one combine and one grain trailer for an extra-long load. Mr. Dark and Mr. McCoy would each drive a pickup hauling a combine header. The final vehicle was a pickup, which Mr. Parker would drive hauling a third header. Mrs. Parker and Robbie would ride in that pickup.

We were leaving behind one combine, one grain trailer, the employee camper, and one header ... I think. I wasn’t sure I could keep track of it all at that point. When we reached Texas, the majority of us would start working immediately while three of us would drive back with two semis and a pickup to get the rest of the machinery. By law, the last combine wouldn’t be hauled down to Texas until daybreak. Transporting such wide loads was dangerous at night because of overhang into the oncoming traffic.

As everyone made their way to their assigned vehicles, Robbie Parker sauntered out of the house with his hands in his pockets. I had not seen him for two years. He was fourteen now, I thought, and had turned so good-looking that I gaped and was really glad that I’d neatly braided my hair that morning. I only stopped gaping because my grandmother pushed me so hard that I lost my balance.

I helped Obaachan pack some of our essentials in the pickup we’d be driving, but we transferred the rest of our luggage to the employee camper, which would be driven out to us on the second trip. The only special things I brought into the pickup for myself were a spray bottle of DEET and my lifetime savings of $461, which included the special twenty-dollar bill my grandfather had given me when I was five years old. I could still remember him telling me, “Someday this bill may be worth a million dollar. It called inflation.”

Once everyone else was packed up and settled in, Mr. Parker pecked Mrs. Parker on the cheek and said, “Let’s roll, beautiful.”

The air was still cool as we all headed for Hargrove, Texas. I figured it would be about a six-hour drive. I glanced into the side mirror at the line of vehicles behind us.

Obaachan turned onto the highway, then said to me, “Too young to stare at boys.”

“I wasn’t staring.”

“You staring like he alien from outer space. Boys not alien, they real, and they cause trouble.”

“How do they cause trouble?”

“You too young to know that.” She looked at me as if making a decision. Then she said, “Maybe I tell you if I have time before I die.”

“I’m a boy,” Jaz said. “I know how they cause trouble.”

“You do not,” I scoffed at him.

“Stop fight now or I throw you both out of truck and you have to walk to Texas. Jaz, this not involve you,” Obaachan said. “Summer, you walk to Texas, you be sorry. I walk twenty mile once when I a girl, and by end I could hardly move. And don’t think I forget what we talking about. No stare at Robbie. Everybody notice.”

I sighed and gave Thunder’s ears a tug. He had natural ears and a docked tail, like a lot of Dobermans today. In some countries it was against the law to crop Dobermans’ ears. Personally, I approved of this law. In fact, if someone tried to crop my own ears, I would bite them.

“You listen me?” Obaachan said.

“Yes, Obaachan, I heard you.”

“Not hear, listen,” she shot back.

I looked out the window at a cattle farm. In Kansas agriculture, cattle was number one in terms of how much money it brought the state. Wheat was a distant second. But my whole life had revolved around wheat.

“You listen me?” Obaachan asked again.

“Well, how old were you when you started staring at boys?” I asked back.

“That has nothing to do with it.”

“But how old were you?” I persisted.

“In my day girl not married by eighteen, she a reject. Different today. Girl get married at thirty. So if I stare at boy at twelve and get married at eighteen, that mean you stare at boy at twenty-four and get married at thirty.”

“So you were twelve?” I got more alert—I might finally be about to win an argument with Obaachan.

“I don’t say that.”

“Then what are you saying?”

“I’m say you make fool of yourself. Give me apple.”

I rummaged through the bags on the floor next to me. “There’s only pears. I think we left the apples in the camper.”

“Don’t get smart. Give me pear.”

I resignedly gave my grandmother a pear. It was obviously Pick on Summer Day. Once, I asked my mother if Obaachan loved me, and Mom said, “Of course she does. She thinks about you all the time.” I knew she thought about me all the time, but that wasn’t the same as love, was it? No. It wasn’t.

My grandmother ate the pear—seeds, stem, and all—and then she began emitting that low growl: “Errrrr.”

After a few minutes of this, Jaz asked, “Are we pulling over?”

“No can,” Obaachan said.

“They’ll understand,” I said.

“They no hire us again. Errrrrrrrr. Errrrrrrrrr.”

We had brought seven bottles of painkillers with us. “Do you want some painkillers?” I asked.

“Six,” she replied.

I pulled out a bottle and read the label. “It says take one, and if that doesn’t work, you’re allowed to take another.” Plus, I had read in a magazine at the dentist’s office that taking too much over-the-counter medicine was bad for your liver.

“Give me six.”

“Obaachan, that’s dangerous.”

“I sixty-seven—you young, so you don’t understand yet. Pain more important than death.”

I thought that over. I remembered that when I had malaria, the pain in my joints had made me wish I were dead. Up until then, I’d thought that pain was something that came from the outside, but malaria had taught me to fear pain that came from within. I knew my grandmother’s pain came from within. So I handed her the six pills.

She chuckled. “Easy to get my way with you.”

I gave her a bottle of water. We had filled plastic bottles with tap water because my grandparents couldn’t understand why anyone would pay for something that you could get from your own faucet. Personally, I loved bottled water. It made me feel extravagant and grown-up. When I grew up, I would keep bottles of water in my house at all times. I would have three dogs. My husband would love bottled water and dogs and me. Or maybe I would never be able to afford bottled water, maybe I wouldn’t have any dogs, maybe I would never feel extravagant and grown-up, and maybe I would never get married.

“Errrr.”

I thought of what Obaachan had said about not stopping the convoy for her. Timing was the essence of harvesting. If we held up the progress of the harvesting team, she was right—We would not get hired again, even if the Parkers liked us as people. When the wheat was ready to harvest, it was ready to harvest now , and my grandfather would be working fourteen- or even sixteen-hour days.