“No English. No English. Cheap. Cheap.”
I walk back to the car.
“That was fast. What did he say?” Seth asks.
“He doesn’t speak English or any language that I recognize. Maybe we’ll find someone else—”
Seth puts the car in park and opens his door. “Let me give it a shot.”
We watch Seth talking with the old man. I see the same gestures he gave me. No. No. No. And then suddenly the old man smiles. He laughs and stands and gives Seth a hearty slap on the shoulder. Many nods. Laughter. It is like they are old friends. He pulls an apple from the basket, rubs it on his shirt, and gives it to Seth. They shake hands, and Seth returns to the car.
“What was that all about?” I ask.
“Tagalog. The old guy speaks Tagalog.”
“What!” Aidan says.
“Did he give you directions?”
“Yep. Second left. Veer right at the fork. First left.”
“Tagalog,” Aidan mumbles. “We’re lost, and the only person in sight speaks Tagalog, which Seth happens to know.”
Mira, Seth, and I look at each other. Mira’s brows rise. Aidan is speaking to his lap, not us. The universe a
nd its numbers are clearly expanding at much too fast a rate for him.
Seth puts the car into gear. “Hold on,” I say. I open the glove box, grab three of the hundred-dollar bills, and jump out of the car. A few yards away, I turn and call back to the others. “We’re his only customers. It should be his fair day too, right?”
The old man’s jaw drops as I place the three bills in his hand. I choose a small bunch of sunflowers from his basket and run away before he can stop me. As soon as I jump back in the car, Seth heads down the road.
Mira offers one more toast. “Here’s to sunflowers and directions!”
Seth turns at the second left. The road is narrow, trees hugging close, their fallen leaves providing a carpet of orange and yellow for us to drive on. Still not recognizable. “Very generous of you,” Seth finally says. “Why do you carry so much money in your glove box? It’s not the safest place, you know?”
“Especially with a convertible,” Mira adds.
Aidan grunts. “But I bet the old guy is glad that you keep it there. He can quit for the day.”
I shift in my seat. I glance sideways at Seth. “The money?” My fingers run through Lucky’s woolen coat. “Oh, the money. That. It’s there because. Well. It’s not exactly mine.”
“What do you mean, it’s not yours?” Seth asks. “You’re carrying somebody else’s money around in your car? And spending it?” I notice his last three words are an octave higher.
The world dims. Can time stand still? In these few seconds, I am convinced it can—that the world really can defy logic. At least the logic we know. That the unexplainable is part of the science that makes the world spin, like mystery is the blood running through its veins. I move forward and backward in time at lightning speed, thinking, weighing, remembering, while the three of them are caught in a timeless fog. We’ve come so far since this morning. Nice car, Des. Can Aidan come? Whose car? Go. Go.
And then time circles back around, the way it always does. It catches the gear that left it suspended, and there is no way around it. “I have a secret.”
Mira is delighted. “More points for Des! I love secrets!” Her smile disappears as she leans close and whispers, “Is this a real one, Des?”
“Wise up, Mira,” Aidan says. “Most likely she’s going to tell us she has two baboon hearts—a spare that she carries in her purse.”
“This one’s true, Mira,” I say. “Not that the others, weren’t.”
Mira nods. “Of course.”
“Okay.” I take a deep breath. “I’ll just lay it out: I don’t know who this car belongs to. It’s not mine. I simply found it with the engine running and—”
“What?”