*****
Emi sat next to Josh in French the next day. He was at the desk in the room’s farthest corner, his head bowed over the worksheet that was due that day for homework. She appraised him from a few feet away. He was definitely a fine specimen, even with his reading glasses on.
Emi strolled closer and sat next to him.
She noticed he was only on question seven of fifteen.
“You didn’t answer your phone last night,” she said.
He barely glanced up from his work. A strand of his hair had fallen into his eyes. “I was busy,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
“Are you avoiding me? Do you not want to be partners for the project?” she asked.
He still did not raise his eyes from the page. “I honestly do not have a preference,” he said. “If that’s what you want, it’s fine.”
“Great,” she said. She took her French textbook out and laid it on her desk. She drummed her fingers against the cover.
He went on ignoring her for a while, which she found aggravating. Yes, he was trying to do his homework, but really he should have done that last night. More importantly, what if Kainoa looked over at them right now? Emi wanted Kainoa to see her commanding Josh’s attention, not listlessly sitting next to him.
She leaned in close to Josh’s homework, practically butting foreheads with him.
“You used the wrong relative pronoun form in number six,” she said. “And you conjugated vouloir incorrectly. It’s supposed to be indicatif passé compose. ‘Tu as volu’”
He stopped writing and scowled at his work. “You’re right. Thank you.” He moved away from her, backing his chair into the corner.
“Pas de problème,” she said. She scooted forward in her seat so they were close again. “So do you want to work on the project after school today? I’m free in the evening, too, if that’s better.”
“I can’t. I’m busy.”
“You sure are awfully busy. What do you do? Do you have a job?” she asked.
He continued scribbling away. “You could say that.”
“What kind of job?” she asked.
He finally stopped writing and settled her with a look. Good gracious those were blue, blue eyes. “Do you always ask this many questions?”
Emi didn’t have a chance to answer because Ms. Labarge came in and started class.
In fact, Emi did not speak another word to Josh for another couple days. On Wednesday, French class didn’t meet, and Josh once again failed to return her phone calls. On Thursday, he was absent from class.
Forcing a friendship with Josh was proving irritatingly difficult. His absence all but foiled her “make Kainoa jealous” scheme, a project she had privately taken to calling “The Plan.”
By the end of the week, Emi was less concerned about The Plan, and more worried about the fate of her quarter one French grade. Procrastination was her biggest pet peeve, especially when it came to major projects and assignments.
She had decided it was time to switch partners when, on Friday, Josh moseyed into class five minutes late and answered Ms. Labarge’s “pourquoi?” with a very surly, “ce ne sont pas vos affaires.” It’s none of your business.
Needless to say, Ms. Labarge was not pleased. She even sent him to the deans for sassing back, and he didn’t return before class let out.
Ordinarily, Emi would not have cared whether or not Josh chose to sass back in French class, but now it affected her, too. After all, what if Ms. Labarge’s distaste for Josh affected their group grade?
When school let out, Emi went to Ms. Labarge’s office to explain the situation.
“You may switch partners if you wish,” Ms. Labarge said after Emi had voiced her concern. “But I’d be grateful if you stayed with Josh.”
Emi had not been expecting this response. “Really? Why?”
“Because he’s a smart kid,” Ms. Labarge said with a sigh. “Ill mannered, but very bright. I’m hoping you can knock some sense into him.”
Slim chance, Emi thought. Aloud, she said, “But what if I can’t and our grade suffers?”
“T'en fais pas. You won’t be punished for helping a classmate, my dear,” Ms. Labarge reassured, patting Emi on the back.
Fine, Emi thought as she left Ms. Labarge’s office. If Mohammad can't go to the mountain, let the mountain come to Mohammad.
She left a quick message on her mom’s phone saying that she’d take the bus home. Then, she set about hacking into the school web portal using her mom’s administrator login.
Emi had figured out years ago that her mom used the same password for everything. Conveniently, this gave her access to all sorts of information, like the school directory. She could look up Josh’s parents’ address without a problem.
It turned out Josh didn’t live far from Madam’s ballet studio in Kaimuki. That explained why they sometimes took the same bus after school. His house was one stop past where she usually got off.
Emi took the familiar #1 to Waialae Avenue as usual and walked to Josh’s address. It was one of those large, run-down Kaimuki houses that were built in the 1930’s, with a long narrow front lawn that was not very well maintained.
She hesitated, suddenly shy about knocking on Josh’s door uninvited. At least there would be no one from school here to witness him slamming the door in her face.
As she was drumming up the nerve, she felt a prickle down her spine. She got the distinct feeling that someone was watching her.
Sure enough, an old man was standing on the lanai of the next-door neighbor’s house, studying her. He had posture straight as a ramrod and eyes that could only be described as “twinkly.” He was dressed impeccably, right down to the pale blue handkerchief tucked into his breast pocket.
“You’re the young lady who dances ballet,” he said. He had a slight accent that Emi couldn’t quite place. He looked like he was probably Japanese or Chinese.
“Uh,” Emi said, a little unnerved. “Do I know you?”
“I often sit at the coffee shop next to your dance studio,” he said. “Haven’t you ever noticed?”
Emi realized that she probably had passed this old man thousands of times without realizing it.
“Old people aren’t usually on my radar screen,” she admitted. She took a step up to his lanai and extended her hand. “I’m Emi Kapono.”
With a certain self-assured dignity, he removed a gardening glove before accepting her handshake. “Lawrence Zhang.”
He put his glove back on and started dragging a large potted plant down his patio steps. For an old guy, he was surprisingly spry, and he had a great front yard. There were two plumeria trees, several bougainvillea vines, hibiscus and some plants Emi didn’t recognize. Everything looked so natural, unlike her parents’ front yard, which had been designed by a landscaper and was pruned to within an inch of its life.
“You have a beautiful garden,” she said with genuine appreciation.
“Thank you. I’ve worked hard to cultivate it.” He shimmied the large pot a few more feet toward a spot on the yard’s periphery. “Are you here to visit the Stokowki’s?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m afraid nobody’s home at moment. I suspect they’ll be back soon,” he said. He had fetched a shovel from the lanai and was beginning to press it into the earth, but it seemed to pain him. He winced and shook out his hand.
“Oh, sir. I can do that,” she said, rushing forward to help.
He took a step back and relinquished the shovel. “I’ve been having some difficulty with the garden,” he admitted. “But I wouldn’t want you to muddy your nice dress.”
“I’m washable.” She took the shovel and pressed the pointed end to the ground, using her foot for extra leverage. She had never done this before, but it seemed like the right thing to do.
He gave her the dimensions for the hole he wanted dug and watched attentively as she set about breaking through the grass. It was easier than she was expecting. It had rained here recently, and th
e soil had been worked not long ago. There was no hard clay and or rocks to obstruct her progress.
“It’s a good thing you came along,” he said as she turned the soil. “I’ve been putting this off for weeks, but that plant couldn’t have waited another day. It’s outgrown its pot.”
“It’s no problem,” she said. “I like gardening.”
They worked in companionable silence, carefully transferring the plant into the earth. They finished by filling the hole with a special soil that the old man explained contained a perfect mix of compost, bone meal and manure. Emi stood and wiped the mud from her knees, checking out her work with pride.
“So you’re a friend of Deb’s?” the old man asked unexpectedly.
“Who?”
“Deb Stokowski. My neighbor.”
She had completely forgotten her original reason for coming here. “No, actually I came for Josh. I guess that’s her son.”
The man nodded. “Yes. Joshua. He’s a friend of yours?”
“We’re working on a project for school.”
“Nice kid, Josh,” he said.
Either the old man did not know Josh very well, or he was just being polite. “Nice” was not the word typically used to describe Josh Stokowski.
“Do you think he’ll be back any time soon?” Emi asked.
“Oh. He’s just around the corner. At the market,” the man said, pointing west. “Maybe you can track him down.”
There was nothing to lose. She was already lurking outside his house, after all, and the supermarket was only two blocks away. She decided to go look for him.
The Handy Pantry was familiar territory for Emi. She used to go there often as a small child, picking out snacks and drinks after dance class. Strolling the aisles, she felt a wave of nostalgia as jumbled memories floated back to her. When they were kids, she and Kainoa would buy goodies and goof around in the parking lot, practicing the art of tossing food into each other’s mouths. Kainoa would buy mochi crunch, and she would buy chocolate panda bear cookies, and they would mix them together and wash it all down with Passion-Orange Guava juice. It was sort of disgusting to think about now.
Pushing aside the memories, she kept an eye out for Josh. He would be hard to miss. He was tall.
She poked around the deli section, craning her neck over a tower of cheeses. There were not many people around.
Twice, she passed a little kid wearing a headband with felt rabbit ears attached. It wasn’t the rabbit ears that drew Emi’s attention. There was something weird about the girl’s face. All the features were distorted, as if the flesh were made of putty and someone had punched the girl in the nose. It was hard to look at, but also hard to ignore.
Emi knew it was bad manners to stare, but she felt equally bad about averting her eyes too quickly. For a brief, uncomfortable moment, Emi and the rabbit girl locked eyes. Then, full of embarrassment, Emi pulled her gaze away and feigned deep interest in the poultry freezer.
The rabbit girl passed by, and Emi resumed her search for Josh, moseying past to the seafood counter. All thoughts of rabbit girl left her mind until a few minutes later, when she turned down the canned goods aisle and two surprising things happened at once.
First, Emi registered the rapid approach of a very large object hurdling towards her down the aisle. Second, she realized that the object was actually the rabbit girl galloping along at top velocity while pushing a wheelchair.
Frozen in space, Emi panicked and shut her eyes. She fully expected to be mowed down like Wile E. Coyote getting trampled by the Roadrunner. Instead of an impact, there were two little screams, a tremendous crash and then a high-pitched peal of laughter.
Emi’s eyes snapped back open. The wheelchair had apparently narrowly missed her, and instead scraped against the side of a shelf causing a waterfall of candied yam cans to cascade dramatically across the floor.
The culprit was indeed the rabbit girl. The person in the wheelchair was also a child. Both were laughing and laughing and laughing.
“Sorry!” the rabbit girl screamed unapologetically. She awkwardly redirected the wheelchair, forcing her whole body against its weight. The wheels reluctantly groaned into a new direction and both girls went zooming into the next aisle. Several yam cans rolled by in their wake.
“What’s going on over there?” a guy shouted from further back in the aisle.
Even before Emi turned, she knew it would be Josh.
He had a shopping cart and two other kids with him. One was a freckled redhead boy wearing a bike helmet and the other was a very bald Asian kid of uncertain gender.
“Two girls plowed a wheelchair into the yam display,” Emi explained.
Josh cast her a startled look, muttered under his breath, and disappeared in the direction of the two girls. He dragged the two other kids behind him like cargo.
More than a little intrigued, Emi followed. She found Josh in the next aisle dressing the ugly girl down.
“Why would you leave a mess in the middle of the walkway? Not only is it rude, but people might trip,” he said. He was flourishing a yam can at her for emphasis. “Please go pick those up, Iris. And stop laughing. This isn’t a joke.”
Rabbit girl, Iris, was still snorting and hiccupping with laughter, but she dutifully marched off to the yam aisle as Josh requested. When she passed Emi, she stuck her tongue out at her. Josh didn’t notice.
“You too, Meera. You know your chair isn’t a toy,” Josh said to the kid in the wheelchair. He sounded so stern that even Emi felt chastened.
Thinking she should speak up, she turned around to face him. “It was sort of my fault. I got in their way. They hit the cans because they were avoiding me.”
“They shouldn’t have been running in the first place,” Josh said shortly. He looked as though he wanted to say more, but thought better of it. Instead, he walked past Emi. Their shoulders brushed. The little bald kid turned to stare at her with big, wide eyes.
Following Josh and his entourage of strange children, Emi found herself watching as the rabbit girl named Iris handed cans to Meera, and Meera returned them to the shelf. Meera appeared to be the younger of the two, and unlike Iris who had such blond hair it was almost white, Meera had black, thick curls and eyes like watermelon seeds. They were obviously not related.
It occurred to Emi that these kids were probably part of Josh’s community service project. All the students at Staley were responsible for a semester-long service project where they helped members of the community. Emi didn’t have the community service class until Spring, but she was planning on volunteering at the Humane Society. Apparently, Josh was offering childcare for sick kids. It was strange seeing Josh The Jerk acting so charitable.
“Put them back nicely, just as they were. I have to get apple juice. I’ll be back,” Josh said. He steered the bald kid and the helmet kid down the aisle. Emi jogged to catch up.
“So, I guess we’re pretending we don’t know each other, huh?” she asked.
He didn’t turn around. “Hello,” he said, moving past her without a backward glance.
“I came here looking for you,” she called.
That stopped him short. The two kids bumped into his legs from the sudden halt. They were all ogling her.
“You came to Handy Pantry looking for me?” Josh asked, clearly finding this a little disturbing.
“The neighbor guy said you’d be here,” she explained. She didn’t want Josh thinking she was creepily following him around town like a stalker. “You’ve been ignoring my calls and we really need to start working on the French project.”
“I’m sorry. Now isn’t a good time. I’m busy.”
“I can see that,” Emi said.
Josh became momentarily preoccupied with dissuading the helmet kid from nose-picking.
Emi checked the time on her phone. “When do you get off? I can wait till you’re done,” she offered. “I’m free all evening.”
Josh resumed walking. “Today’s not ideal for
me.”
“When, then? We can’t put this off indefinitely, you know.”
“I’ll call you,” he said. “But not now.”
He was firm. He didn’t say goodbye, but she knew the conversation was over.
Doubling back, Emi shuffled down the aisle, irritated that she was wasting time on someone so fickle. Stupid Plan.
Somewhere halfway to the store’s exit, Emi found herself face to face again with Iris. Up close, she was even harder to look at straight-on, with her strange, irregular features looking so odd.
“You know my brother?” Iris asked without preface.
Emi became excruciatingly conscious of where she was putting her eyes.
“I don’t know. Who’s your brother?”
The girl crossed her arms. “The guy you were just talking to, you dolt.” Somehow, Iris managed to say this without sounding particularly mean. Maybe it was her toothy grin that mitigated the insult. It was not the most attractive smile in the world, with her lip curling back like some slow-moving sea creature that had attached itself to her face. But it was a genuine, unsuppressed smile nonetheless.
Emi was a bit taken aback. “Josh is your brother?”
“Uh-huh. Do you know him?”
“Really? Your brother? I thought…”
Iris tipped her head sassily. “What? You think we don’t look alike?” she asked. “Haven’t you ever heard of adoption?”
Her voice was so cheeky that Emi laughed.
“Are you his girlfriend?” Iris asked.
“No.”
“You have mud on your dress, you know.” She pointed.
“I was helping your neighbor plant something.”
“Gung-gung?”
“What?”
“Gung-gung. That’s the Chinese word for grandfather. He’s the old man next door.”
“Oh, yeah. I guess it was Gung-gung.”
“I like him. He gives us his guavas.”
The conversation ended as spontaneously as it began. “Goodbye,” said Iris, and she disappeared, taking her Cheshire grin with her.
Chapter 7