Immortal Max (9 page)

“Yes, sir. The strip of grass on the side of the road.”

He nods, looking over my completed form. “You don't follow the rules, the dog owners will be given the citation.” Another piercing look through the glasses. “You know what
that
means?”

“Yes, sir, I'll be fired.” I'm not feeling so relaxed anymore.

He pulls a map out of a different drawer. Points out a lake in the middle. Streets curving around it. Squares that represent tennis courts, swimming pool, beach areas.

“Stay on this loop when you walk the dogs, nowhere else. Leave your bike at the first house you pick up a dog. . . .” He draws a rough circle along certain streets and connects the circle with the line leading back to the front gate. “Pick it up when you're done. Turn in your pass when you leave.” He looks at me. “Got that?”

“Yes, sir. Justin Wysocki told me outsiders aren't welcome.” I'm glad the outlined route isn't near the places where Justin and his friends will be hanging out. The fun places.

“He did, huh?” Chief Beaumont lets out a deep grunt. “Okay, you're good to go. Any problems, let me know.” He points a finger at the door.

“Um, I need to go to the office to place an ad.”

“Across the street and down a block.”

Outside, I study the map to orient myself. Suddenly, my heart's pounding like a snare drum. On the way to the office, I'll get my first look at the mysterious land of CountryWood.

Mysterious
describes CountryWood to a T. It's nothing like I thought it would be. The biggest mystery is why it's called CountryWood.

There's no country or woods anymore. The old oak trees have vanished into thin air. It's like an alien Transformer with front-end loaders for arms descended to Earth and ripped them from the ground. Huge belching machines are digging foundations for new homes and trenches for utility lines. Diesel smoke and fumes float like storm clouds. Light poles are nonexistent, replaced with solar lights along driveways and motion-sensor detectors next to garage doors. Lawn sprinklers work continuously, spraying water on the grass. The only green thing to be seen.

Mom was right. Our place is prettier than this.

Some houses
are
big—two stories with three-car garages—but most are average size, average looking. But all of them, fancy and plain, big and small, are the same distance from the road.
Exactly
the same distance. Lego blocks on steroids, lined up in perfect rows.

I feel like I've entered a parallel universe.

I look at my watch. Nine-thirty and I'm sweating. The sun beats down, a fiery orange globe in a cloudless blue sky. Turning asphalt streets to frying pans. Toasting leaves on the newly planted trees in the front yards. Electric golf carts glide along like enormous slugs, the drivers' faces replaced with metallic sunshades or hidden under hats. I recognize kids from school, carrying beach towels or tennis rackets.

By the time I reach the office, my clothes are waterlogged. My armpits are overflowing sewers. My lips are lizard scales. My memory, though, has sharpened.

Aww, man. I forgot to bring water.

I push through the office door and enter an air-conditioned
room. I pause a minute in the entry, cooling off, and spot an older woman sitting behind a counter, smiling at me.

“Samuel Smith?” she says.

“Yes, ma'am.”

“Anise and Yee told me to expect you. I'm Mrs. Callahan. I do the newsletter. Did you bring your ad?”

“Oh, yes, ma'am. It's fifteen words long.
Exactly
.” I pull a wrinkled piece of paper and a ten-dollar bill from my pocket and watch as she reads my ad.

“Well, now, this is very good. . . .” She hesitates. “But I might suggest one change.”

Change? The ad is perfect. I worked on it for hours.

“How about we substitute
waste
for
poop
so that the ad reads ‘Will walk dogs. Credentials. Includes picking up dog
waste
. Payment in cash required.' ”

“Waste? Sure, no problem. I've just heard that's one of the requirements here. You know, picking up a dog's
waste
. So I thought it was important to include it.”

“Oh, yes.
Very
important.” She slips my ten-dollar bill into a cash box. “I'll make sure this gets in the newsletter. Everyone will have it by this afternoon. We put one in every door.”

“That's swell. Um, I hear you might be interested in someone walking your dogs?”

“Yes, indeed. I can't leave the office on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday so my little dogs don't get walked midday. Just morning and evening.”

“I, uh, I brought my credentials in case you want to see them.” I hold up my scrapbook so she can see it.

She hesitates. “Well, I'm working right now, so it's not a good time. How about you come out tomorrow to meet my little ones? It's important that they also approve of you. And who knows, maybe by then, others will have called and you can meet with them, too. Say, ten o'clock at my house?” She writes her address on a yellow sticky note and hands it to me.

“Yeah, that sounds great.” I watch as she starts typing my words into a computer. My ad is now official.

I walk back outside into the glaring sun and head for the security gate. From down the street, someone calls my name. Yee and Anise, still in their cheer outfits, wave me to a stop. Three little dogs sit on a porch behind them, leashes tied to the porch post. Tongues dripping.

“Come over to my house!” Anise yells. “We need a third person so we can practice making a pyramid.”

Anise's house is a blue vinyl-clad split-level. Purple petunias spill out of the front flowerbed, the special kind Mom grows that bloom all summer. Her trademark. On one side of the front door is a strange-looking mask that I decide is an
Igbo Mmwo
. Next door is a tan vinyl-clad trilevel, a pagoda fountain in the front yard, and two cement Chinese dragons beside the front door. Yee's house.

I consider their offer, remember Chief Beaumont's orders. “Can't. Have to go straight to the gate when I'm done.”

Yee and Anise exchange glances, untie their dogs, and dodge traffic. Sweat stains Yee's shirt and glues her straight black bangs to her forehead. Anise's shirt is sweat-stained, too. Her coffee-brown hair has turned to frizz.

“Walk your bike to the gate and we'll walk with you. I need to exercise Rooster and Rabbit, anyway.” Yee pulls two plastic bags from a box on a post and stuffs them in her pocket. Anise follows suit with one bag.

Yee's Pekingese wear different-colored dog halters. The one wearing red darts everywhere. I make a bet with myself that its name is Rooster. The one wearing blue walks quietly beside her. Rabbit. She's matched the colors to the dogs' personalities.

“How did it go?” Anise's toy poodle, Midnight, wears a collar studded with tiny brass bells. “Did you talk to the chief? Mrs. Callahan? Did you get the job walking her dogs?”

I become a limp rag, shoulders and mouth drooping. Watch them go sad-eyed. Say, “Gotcha!” They punch me on the arm and beg for details.

“It went great.” I use the back of my thumb to wipe salt crystals from the corners of my mouth. “Chief Beaumont is cool. And
Mrs. Callahan said the paper will go out today—with my ad in it. I'll be meeting her dogs tomorrow at ten o'clock. She couldn't look at my scrapbook today 'cause she's working. And maybe by then, other people will call, too.” My shirtsleeve becomes a rag to wipe sweat off my face.

“Didn't you bring water?” Yee stares at the empty bottle holder on my bike. “In this heat, you need to keep hydrated.”

Duh
.

“Wouldn't hurt to carry some for the dogs, too. I carry a jar lid for Midnight to drink out of.” Anise's black poodle jingles happily.

Now,
that's
a good idea.

Yee and Anise grow quiet, staring at me like an expectation hasn't been met. I get it. I'm supposed to say something. But what? Girls are hard to figure out.

“Um . . .” I clear my throat. “How was the first day at cheerleading camp?” I wait, hoping I guessed right.

“Awesome—”

“Incredible—”

“Humongous—”

“Inspiring!”

I sigh with relief. Expectation met.

They tell me about their coach and the cheers they learned.

I listen. Nod. Remember Bailey practicing in her front yard. Alone.

“So how come you don't call Bailey to come out and practice making pyramids with you? I mean, she'd be perfect. She lives close, and she's on the cheerleading team, too.”

They exchange looks, then stare at their shoes. Adidas, grass stains on the toes. Then Yee gives me a sideways look.

“I think we made her mad. She wouldn't even speak to us today.”

“
Mad
—” I'm burning. How can they be so blind? “She's
hurt
'cause you didn't invite her to practice with you.”

Not just them. I remember Bailey again, refusing to wave at me.

They roll their eyes at each other, which burns me more.

I pull to a stop and drop the kickstand. “What do you have against Bailey? Is it because she's fat? She's trying to lose weight, she told the whole class that on Friday. I mean, give her a break. She never says a bad word about anybody—and works her butt off trying to please people.”

“But that's just it. She's always
Miss Perky
. It's just . . .” Anise pauses, eyes flipping through an internal encyclopedia. “Not
normal
.”

“That's right. She's in a state of denial.” Yee's voice sounds cold. Unfeeling. “No one is happy
all
the time. Why can't she just . . . I don't know, be herself?”

Yee's been dosing on her dad's psychology magazines again. And now she's Junior Shrink analyzing head problems. Diagnosis? Bailey's screwed up.

I go beyond burning to out-of-control forest fire. “Well, she's not that way with me! I've seen her plenty of times when she wasn't
Miss Perky
.”

Like this morning when I lied to her.

“And what about you?” I look at Yee. “Always
Miss Smarter Than Anyone Else
. Tops at everything, even top of the pyramid.” I turn to Anise. “And all you ever talk about are amusement parks—
humongous
amusement parks. Did you ever think that the only ones Bailey and I have ever been to are at the county fair? Lots of the other kids, too.”

They stare at the ground, chins on their chests. I've lost two more friends.

“Well, if you were Chinese American, you'd understand.” Yee looks at me, eyes liquid. “That's the expectation that's put on us. Especially from our family. I just don't want to disappoint them.” Damp bangs get pushed aside. “I don't even know who I am either . . . not really.”

Aww, man. I blew it.

“At least you're considered smart.” Anise faces Yee. “People are afraid of African Americans 'cause they think we're all gangbangers.”
She lowers her head, mouth drooping. “And I guess some of us are.”

She turns to me. “I'm really tired of going to those amusement parks every summer. When I was little, it was fun. Now I just want to stay home and hang out with my friends. But I don't want to hurt my folks like Saffron did. She, uh . . . she joined a gang and got pregnant, moved in with her boyfriend. He's a real trick. Won't let my folks see the baby.”

“I didn't know.” I go from furious to mortified. “How you both felt and all.”

“It's okay,” Yee says.

“Yeah,” Anise says. “You're not a mind reader, how could you know?”

I think about this. “Bailey's not a mind reader, either.”

Yee pauses, like she's lost for words. Which is very unusual for her.

“Oh, you mean someone needs to clue her in,” Anise says.

“Something like that.” Neither one of them says anything. As we start walking again toward the gate, I glance at Yee and Anise, remembering something else. “Hey, thanks for helping me get this job. It's really important.”

“Yeah, to buy a dog.” Yee shakes her head, frowning. “A
German shepherd
.”

“Why do you want
that
kind of dog?” Anise's eyes get big. “I mean, they're so
mean
.”

Mean? I wonder if they're talking about Bruno.

“Yeah, well, they don't
have
to be mean.” I leave it at that. They'll figure it out.

As we near the security hut, I take a last look at the baking streets, the sticks for trees in the front yards, and say, “Lot cooler at my house. Shady 'cause we have lots of trees.”

Watching Yee and Anise wilt, I see an opportunity.

“Yeah, and it's even cooler over at Bailey's. She's got this big oak tree in her front yard where she practices. And her dad keeps their grass like a carpet. A big, soft,
cool
carpet—”

A deafening roar forces us into the ditch. Justin races past in a gasoline-powered golf cart loud as a jet plane. Suddenly, he wheels into a tight U-turn and burns rubber, stopping next to us.

“You're not allowed here.” Justin, wearing a black muscle shirt and striped swim trunks, is yelling in my face.

“All legal.” I point out the orange pass on my bike. “Arranged everything with Chief Beaumont.”

Spotting my dog book on the bike rack, he turns his fury on Yee and Anise. “You helped him, didn't you? You
traitors
helped him get a job so he can trespass on my turf.”

His
turf? So now CountryWood is the Mysterious Land of Justin?

If I was burning hot before, I'm torched now. “Back off, Justin.” My hands ball into fists. Just once, I'd like to put him in his place. Then it comes to me. I
can
.