Radiant (8 page)

"
Well, I guess I'll see you tomorrow," she said.

"
Mary?"

"
Yeah?"

"
Where are you going to now?"

Why did he want to know?
"To the retirement home. To visit my grandmother," she said.

"
May I come with you?"

"
Uh…"

"
You can say no," he said. "I am sorry. I'm...still learning my boundaries of what's appropriate."

"
Boundaries?" she asked. "Is that why you were ignoring me all this time?"

"
Not ignoring," he said. "Avoiding. I made you uncomfortable your first day back. I didn't want to do that again."

"
Oh," she said. "So, that wasn't because you were getting over Laci?"

"
'Getting…
over
Laci?'" He thought for a moment. "Was I
under
her before?"

Mary snorted,
barely managing the sudden fit of laughter.

His face lit up.
"I said something that amused you?"

Mary took a deep breath and composed herself
. "No. I mean, yeah. Never mind."

"
I still don't understand your question."

"
It's all right. You answered it." She cleared her throat. "Anyway. About my grandmother. She has Alzheimer's. She takes medication for it, so usually she has good days. But once in a while, she has episodes. She should be okay, but I just wanted to warn you." That might put him off, she thought.

But
he answered, "Thank you. I'll be sensitive to the situation."

"
Um, okay. I guess," she said. "Anyway, the bus is coming. We'd better get on it."

Carter
didn't have a bus pass, so Mary dug around in her bag for change. He watched her for a moment. Then, he opened his wallet and took out a hundred-dollar bill.

"
Will this cover my fare?" he asked.

Mary gasped
. "Are you
nuts
? Why are you carrying that much money around with you!" She grabbed his wallet to shove the bill back inside it, and her hand touched his briefly. "Ouch!" she cried, dropping the wallet and the money. She felt like she had touched a car door that had been sitting in the sun too long.

"
Are you all right?" Carter asked.

Mary examined her hand
. "Yeah, I'm fine. I think you just shocked me or something."

"I
am sorry," he said. He looked really concerned. And he didn't pay any attention to his wallet on the ground or the hundred-dollar bill starting to flutter away.

Mary
stamped on the bill with her foot to keep it from escaping. She picked it up with the wallet and handed them back to him. "No, it's all right. A day pass is four bucks. Do you have anything smaller?"

Carefully,
Carter took the wallet and money without touching her. He stowed the hundred dollars and took out a five-dollar bill instead.

"
That's better." Mary told him how to put his money into the machine. It spat out his ticket and four quarters.

Carter looked at the ticket and change in his hands
. "Thank you. I am not familiar with this."

"Don't mention it," she said.

When they boarded the bus, they sat across the aisle from each other. Mary watched Carter as the bus moved. He sat with both feet planted on the floor and his hands folded together. He looked out the window, studying everything with quiet fascination. Mary hadn't noticed before, but Carter cleaned up pretty well. The style for a lot of guys seemed to be not to wash their hair regularly, letting it get all greasy and nasty. But Carter's was clean, thick, and a little shiny. And usually at the end of the school day, guys un-tucked their shirts, took off their ties, and rolled up their sleeves. Carter kept everything together, though he did wear that same thick black sweater.

Mary
had to admit it. Carter actually looked kinda handsome.

Electronic gunshots caught his attention.
Carter turned to the kid in the next seat, who had his nose buried in a handheld game.

"
What is that?" he asked.

"
Theft
," the boy answered without looking up.

"
Theft
?" he repeated. "Isn't theft wrong?"

"Yeah, but this is just the game," the boy said.

Carter looked at the tiny screen. "You are making that man shoot and kill other people?"

The boy nodded
.

Carter
looked surprised. More like shocked. "Why?"

The boy shrugged.
"It's a game."

Carter
thought for a moment. "I thought games were for fun."

"
This is."

"
Causing harm to people is fun?"

The boy looked at him at last.
"Stupid, of course not. But this is just a game. Not like I'm out there
really
doing it."

Carter
thought again. "So, it's okay to
pretend
to cause harm to people?"

"
You don't hear any laws against it, d'ya?" the boy asked.

Carter
looked at Mary. "I don't understand."

"
Neither do I," she said.

Carter looked over the boy's shoulder at the game again. The boy glared at him before reaching up and pressing the button to let the driver know he wanted to get off. He took h
is game and mumbled "freak" as he left the bus.

Carter looked at Mary as the bus started moving again. "I offended him, didn't I?"

Mary shrugged. "He'll get over it."

Carter looked back. "That is why I am concerned."

They got off the bus later and walked to Agape. Mary signed her name in the log and then handed the pen to Carter. "Here."

He looked at it.
"What do I do with it?"

"
You can just sign your name here, honey," Ms. Nancy said, pointing to the logbook.

"
Oh." Carefully, he took the pen from Mary. He held it awkwardly at first. Then he managed to scrawl something into the empty space below Mary's name.

"
Huh, that's funny," Mary said.

"
What?" he asked.

"
The way you did your 'C.' It looks similar to the way this other guy signed his name," she said, pointing to the name 'Chris' that appeared a few boxes up.

Carter
put the pen down and followed Mary inside. Ba was in the courtyard working on a painting of a vase. Mary walked around to her front and instructed Carter to do the same.

Ba
beamed. "Hello, Con. And who is this handsome young man?"

"
This is Carter," Mary said. "He goes to my school."

"
How nice to meet you. Mary never brings friends to see me," she said, stretching her hand out to shake his.

But rather than take it,
Carter slightly bowed from the waist and said, "
Chào Bà
."

Ba
's eyes brightened. "
À, cậu nói tiếng Việt hả
?"

He nodded
. "
Da ̣vâng, thưa Bà
."

They exchanged
a few more words in Vietnamese while Mary's jaw dangled towards the Earth. "I didn't know you could speak Viet."

"
You never asked," he said.

They sat down
and Carter and Ba kept talking. Mary tried to catch words she understood, but it was hard. Her head just wasn't wired for languages. She had enough trouble with English, as her grades demonstrated. But she understood enough to know that Carter's speech was flawless.

When dinnertime came, Ba asked
Carter to join them. Mary hadn't planned to stay for dinner. But since Carter was, she didn't want to leave Ba alone with him. George, Emma, and Julia also met them in the dining room.

"
So nice to meet you, Carter," Emma said. "Tell us about yourself."

"
Myself?" he asked.

"
Yea," George said. "Whaya want with Mary?"

"
George!" Julia cried.

"
Wha?" George said. They were eating veggie lasagna, so he didn't have his teeth again. "He look like wunnah them—what'd my grandson call 'em? Oh yeah. Players. You a player, son?"

Oh God, Mary thought as she leaned on the table with her head in her hands. Maybe this wasn
't a good idea to stay.

"
I played basketball," Carter said. "Is that what you mean?"

George squinted.
"You makin' fun of me, boy?"

Carter looked surprised.
"No sir. I—"

"
I fought in Korea!" George growled, brandishing his plastic fork. "Don't mess with me!"

"
Calm down, George," Emma said gently. "The boy's all right. He wasn't making fun of you at all."

George didn
't say anything, but turned back to his lasagna with a scowl on his face.

Carter looked at the elder man.
"You have many great stories from your life. Don't you?"

"
Don't get him telling one, though," Julia said. "George'll talk your ear off."

Emma chuckled.
"We all got stories, Carter. It's one of the few things we old people got that hadn't broken down with time."

"
Speak for yourself," Ba laughed as she tapped her head. Ba seemed to be the only one who could make fun of her condition and it be okay. "I'm doing my best to hold onto mine."

"
Can you tell me?" Carter asked. "I'd like to hear all of them."

Emma chuckled.
"Baby Boy, you'd be here forever. Why, just us sitting at this table got a few hundred years of stories between us."

"
And that's without the Pennys," Julia added with a laugh. "Add on another two hundred years for them."

Carter laughed with all of them.
"Well, can I hear one? Perhaps from you, Mr. George?"

Geo
rge slurped up a lasagna noodle. Tomato sauce dribbled down his chin. "Me?"

Carter nodded
eagerly. "Yes. What did you do before you went to Korea?"

George looked at him from the corner of his eye. Then he shrugged.
"Well, I was about your age when I started workin' at my granddaddy's farm. And lemme tell ya…"

George
told several stories in a row. Mary had heard some of them before. But others, like how he'd met his wife Betty—"may her soul rest in peace"—when he accidentally crashed into her at a roller skating rink, were new. Julia argued with George when he exaggerated certain details too much.

Carter
listened with acute fascination. He was so wrapped up in George's tales that he hardly ate his dinner.

After
wards, they played a few rounds of Gin. Julia won most of the time. When bedtime neared, Mary kissed Ba goodnight and left Agape with Carter.

"
Your grandmother is a wonderful person. So are her friends," he said as they walked to the bus stop.

"
Yeah," she said.

"
You look a little different from her," he added. "Your hair is lighter and has some red in it. Your eyes are rounder, too."

"
My grandfather was French. I don't know what my father was," she said. "Some combination, huh?"

"
Yes. But a good one."

She shrugged.
"Depends on who you're talking to. By the way, where did you say you learned Viet?"

"
I didn't say."

"
Oh, right. So where did you learn?" she asked.

He
hesitated for a moment before answering. "I…picked it up."

"
From where?"

"
From…the ladies at the salon who do my mother's hair."

"You mean your stepmother?" Mary asked.

"Yes," he said. "My stepmother."

"
You go with her when she gets her hair done?"

"
They cut my hair there, too."

"
And you were able to pick up on conversational Viet from just getting your hair cut?"

"
Yes," he said. "They talk a lot."

She narrowed her eyes.
"I see."