“It’s true, I tell you.”
Mira leans back and frowns. “If you don’t want to play the game—”
“All right,” I say. “I’ll share another secret, but only as an act of good faith, mind you.”
Mira’s smile returns. Again, Aidan shrugs. And though I don’t see, I am sure I can sense Seth rolling his eyes. The game is for Mira.
“When I was seven I had to have a heart transplant, but there weren’t any available, so they gave me the heart of a baboon.”
Seth taps on the horn. “Now that I believe.”
“To this day, I eat bananas without removing the peel.”
In spite of himself, Aidan smiles.
Mira smiles too and shakes her head. “Will you ever tell the truth, Des?”
Will I ever tell the truth?
Will I? I don’t know.
I look up and see Seth studying my face. He looks away. “I’ll go,” he volunteers unexpectedly. What did he see when he looked at me?
“Go,” Mira says hurriedly, like she too is eager to forget my baboon heart.
“Okay, it isn’t as amazing as a webbed toe, or flunking kindergarten, or being related to Shakespeare—I don’t have a lot of secrets. But this is something most people don’t know about me. I speak four languages and have lived in eleven different countries, some more than once.”
Aidan snorts. “That doesn’t sound like a secret to me. More like bragging.” He reaches over the seat and pats Lucky. “Were your parents on the lamb?” he asks, obviously looking for something a little more scandalous.
“Weak, Aidan. And nothing that exciting. Just my dad’s job. He gets companies all over the world out of trouble. Once he’s bailed them out, we’re off to the next crisis.”
“Maybe after today he can bail us out,” I suggest.
Aidan grunts. “I think that will take a presidential pardon.”
“That is so interesting, Seth! How come you’ve never told anyone?” Mira asks.
“It gets old after a while. I’ve moved so many times and retold my story to so many people, I start feeling like a parrot.”
“Which languages do you speak?” Aidan asks.
“English, French, German, Portuguese, and a little Tagalog.”
“Tagalog?”
“That’s five!” Mira says.
“Only enough Tagalog that I can find a bathroom. Directional Tagalog, I call it. Nasaan ang palikuran?”
They laugh at his nasal tone. “More!”
“Ang Tagalog ko ay mali!” he answers with a twang and pained expression.
“Translation?”
“My Tagalog is bad.”
“But better than ours,” Aidan says.