The Thing About Luck

by Cynthia Kadohata

  I sat down next to Jaz. “How is Jiichan?” I asked.

  “Same,” Jaz said without looking at me. He was studying a single piece of gravel; for whatever crazy reason, he rejected it and chose another. He placed the new piece into the arrangement they were making. The arrangement looked like lace—perfect lace.

  “You mean he’s still really sick?”

  “Maybe a little better.” Then Jaz lifted his head and evaluated me like a detective. “Something’s fishy,” he said. “What are you up to?

  “What?”

  Then he lost interest in me and turned back to his gravel. “What did they say?” I asked.

  “Who?” Jaz held up a piece of gravel for his companion to inspect. “What do you think?”

  The other boy looked up, but he didn’t glance my way. He watched Jaz set the piece into the lace. “Cool,” he said.

  “Obaachan and Jiichan, what did they say?”

  “What do you mean? Say when?”

  “About me sleeping so late or about anything.”

  “Nothing.”

  I looked really closely at the lace. It was gorgeous, like something you would see in Queen Elizabeth’s room. “Where is Obaachan?”

  “She’s riding with Jiichan because he’s still sick or she’s at the elevator,” Jaz said impatiently. He wanted to concentrate on his gravel. The other boy just stared at the ground too.

  I knew that Obaachan’s back would hurt even more than usual tonight because of how uncomfortable the passenger seat was in the combine. And they had no real food. I squinted toward the sky. There were clouds gathering, but they weren’t yet rain clouds. Since Jiichan was still sick, I definitely would be needed again tonight. I tried to figure out how that made me feel, and it came to me: determined. I imagined going three miles per hour, even four. But actually, I didn’t want to go faster. Two was fine.

  “That’s pretty,” I told Jaz, pointing to the arrangement.

  He squinted at me with scorn, either because I was bothering him or because he didn’t like me calling his work “pretty.”

  He returned to his project. The amazing thing was how even the spaces were, how perfect the curves. It was really beautiful. A touch of envy rose inside me. He was so, so good at things. Ridiculous things, maybe, but couldn’t he transfer that perfectionism to anything he wanted when he grew up? And who was this other boy? I could hardly tell the difference between his work and Jaz’s. And they’d found each other in a small town in Oklahoma. That reminded me of something Jiichan had once said: “You find magic everywhere, in wheat field, in mosquito, even here.” When he’d said that, we were driving through the town of Lost Springs, Wyoming, which had a population of four. Jaz and I were making fun of it, and Jiichan had cautioned us to stop laughing. “Don’t make fun. You don’t know what magic here. Maybe bad magic, maybe good.”

  “Do you get an endorphin rush doing that?” I asked Jaz. “Remember endorphins from Obaachan’s acupuncture?” We’d once gone to Wichita with her to get acupuncture for her back, and the acupuncturist had said that when the needles were placed just right, you got a rush of something inside you that made you feel good. That something was called “endorphins.”

  “I remember,” he said, as if annoyed that I was still there. “What does gravel have to do with endorphins?”

  I leaned back again. The pattern was about four feet long by two feet wide. But what was its purpose? Shoot, if I could make a lace pattern like that, well, I wouldn’t be wasting my time making a lace pattern like that. I’d be . . . doing something—not sure exactly what.

  Jaz looked at the intricate arrangement one last time and stood up. Then, with his foot, he wiped away the gravel. That startled me. All that work destroyed in an instant. “Come on,” he said to the boy. They walked away, then the two of them stood facing the door to our motel room.

  “I don’t have a key,” Jaz said to me.

  I held up mine, and he came and got it without speaking. The boys went inside the room. Obviously, they didn’t want me in their little gravel-arranging club. I decided to try to make some lace of my own. I know I had just gotten through saying it was a waste of time, but I wanted to see if I could do it. Though there was no physical exertion involved, soon I was sweating profusely. It was like working my brain was causing me to sweat. I got really involved with making the lace. It was so hard for me to make my lines perfect, and when I stepped away, I saw how uneven it all was.

  After a while I bought a bottle of water from the machine and said to Thunder, “Water.” He stretched his neck and opened his mouth as I poured in a small amount at a time. He was as much of a genius as Jaz was, just in a different way.

  I sat back down. I was going to make beautiful lace. If I could drive a combine, I could do this. For hours I sat there arranging the gravel into lace, occasionally stopping to eat stale trail mix, drink iced tea, and give Thunder water. By two p.m., my T-shirt was soaked and my hair was matted with perspiration. Thunder was panting. And my lace still didn’t look half as good as Jaz’s.

  My back ached from leaning over. I lay down and stared at the awning above me. I could really see why Obaachan liked to lie down flat on her back. It felt great. Thunder got up and put his nose on my face to make sure I was okay.

  “I’m a failure at arranging gravel,” I told him. He licked my face. “I give up.” I pushed myself up with a groan and went to the door to our room. When I knocked, Jaz didn’t answer. I knocked harder. The door opened, and on the floor were a bunch of LEGOs arranged into a lace pattern.

  With the boys hard at work, my mind wandered back to A Separate Peace, to how Finny had died. The weird thing about dying is that while you’re doing it, you’re not afraid of it, but the second you’re not doing it, you’re scared of it again. So did that mean it was scary or not scary? I started reading the book again.

  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.

  “Jiichan?” No answer.

  “Obaachan?” Not even a grunt.

  Making sure I had my keycard and the flashlight, I slipped out the door with Thunder.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The walk sure was less scary with the flashlight. When I climbed into my combine, I immediately picked up the radio. “I’m here,” I said to Mick.

  “Summer” was all he said.

  “Yep, it’s me.”

  “Be careful when ya dump tonight.”

  “I will. Mick?”

  “Yes?”

  “Thank you for helping me yesterday.” And in my head I was also apologizing to him for not liking him before and wishing he had fallen out of a truck.

  “It was nothing.”

  Thunder lay squished at my feet as I honked twice and started the combine. I started to feel like we were in our own world. I felt safe, the way Jaz felt safe in his bed at home. He loved his bed. I knew this because he kept all his important possessions on the shelf in his headboard at home. He kept a key from when we had lived in another house he liked better. He kept his completed Sudoku books. And he kept a box of his favorite LEGO minifigs.

  I suddenly realized I was thinking about something else and operating the combine at the same time. According to my controls, the moisture content of the wheat was 11.5 percent: still perfect. Thunder whimpered in a dream. Mick was wrapped in dust on the far end of the field.

  I could drive confidently at two miles per hour, but when I tried three, everything seemed barely under control. Two was good.

  When I needed to pee, I stopped the combine and slipped into an area facing the empty highway. When I got back, Mick was on the radio. “Everything all right?”

  “Yes,” I replied. Then I added, “Ten-four,” because I had learned that from a movie. I pushed yesterday’s mistake out of my mind. Like Jiichan sometimes said to Jaz when Jaz got stuck on something, “Walk on, walk on.” And at least it seemed as though the farmer hadn’t noticed.

  The bin was empty when I started. I drove slowly, sometimes even more slowly than two miles an hour. I wanted it to fill, and yet I didn’t want it to. I wished the combine would break down. Then I wouldn’t have to dump, and the Parkers couldn’t get mad. Mick had already dumped twice by the time my bin was filled.


  I drove over to the semi. I thought about my whole life. There wasn’t that much to think about, except that I’d had malaria. I was born in Kansas, and I still lived in Kansas. I went to school. I hated homework. My mother was lenient, my grandmother was strict. I got three dollars a week for an allowance.

  I moved the auger over the grain trailer. Then I turned off the combine and got out to stand on the platform. The auger was over the trailer but very close to the edge. I got back into the cab, honked twice, and started the engine again. I pulled in the auger, backed up, and moved closer to the semi, feeling a little sick to my stomach about how close I was. I knew that the famous John Deere green color on this combine was polished and perfect, and I didn’t want to be the one to scratch it. But when I got out to check, the combine wasn’t as close as I had feared.

  I pushed the auger-out button located on the throttle control, and then I pushed one more button on the throttle lever, this one a bit harder to reach, so you didn’t accidentally hit it and lose the grain while you were driving in the field. A beeper sounded the whole time I was dumping. The beep was to tell the operator that the auger was running. When the controls said that my combine was empty, I pressed the same button. Then I brought the auger back in by pressing the auger-return button. I realized I was holding my breath. I exhaled, then inhaled deeply, smelling the beautiful scent of cut wheat.

  I picked up the radio. “I did it! I dumped my whole load, and it’s perfect!” I said to Mick excitedly.

  “Good girl!” he answered. “Can ya get that wee section near ya? The field is a strange shape, isn’t it?”

  “Got it,” I said. “Ten-four.”

  That was it. I was a combine driver, or maybe a third of one since I went so slowly. I tried to do that math in my head, and for once I could think clearly. Since I went two miles an hour and good drivers went five miles an hour, that meant I was 40 percent of a combine driver, more or less. Not bad for a twelve-year-old girl.

  “Summer.”

  I picked up the radio. “Yes?”