Radiant (12 page)

"
We'll have her back in time," Mary promised.

Outside, it
was sunny, so Ba put on her hat while Mary put on her sunglasses. Carter didn't seem to mind the light. He didn't even squint.

Since Mary didn't know exactly where the art show was, t
hey took a cab and gave the driver the address. He wove in and out of the streets, squeezing some of the yellow lights and overall making Mary nervous. She hadn't taken driving lessons yet specifically because driving in the city scared the cheese out of her.

Finally, t
he cab dropped them off in front of the art gallery. Mary paid the driver, and they went inside and gave the host their tickets. It was like a party. There was a DJ playing music and a bar serving cocktails and hors d'oeuvres. People in fashionable clothes walked about with drink glasses in their hands, chatting as they admired the various art offerings.

"Mary!
" Ben came to greet her and Ba, and Mary introduced Carter. "Pleased to meet you," he said as he extended his hand.

Carter looked at
Ben's hand curiously.

There was an awkward moment of si
lence. Then Ba chuckled, "It's all right to shake his hand, Carter. Ben doesn't bite."

Carter and Ben laughed, and they shook hands.

"Wow, running pretty hot there," Ben said. "Do you have a fever? Are you feeling okay?"

"I don't think I have a fever," Carter said.
"And I am well, thank you."

"Where is it?" Mary asked eagerly. "Where's your phoenix?"

"Right over here," Ben said as he led the way.

The show featured several art pieces that evening, but Ben's phoenix had the best display space possible. It was dead in the center of the gallery
, surrounded by a small crowd taking pictures of it with their smartphones.

"That's
amazing!" Ba gasped. "Oh Ben, you did such a marvelous work."

"Coming from you,
that's a huge compliment, Mrs. Phan," Ben said. "Here, let me show you what it looks like when you walk around it."

As Ben showed Ba around, Mary noticed that Carter's eyes
hardly blinked as he looked at the sculpture.

"What do you think?" Mary asked.

After a moment of silence, he said, "I…don't know."

"It's all right if it's no
t your thing," Mary said. "Art's really subjective."

Carter shook his hea
d. "That's not what I mean. I'm trying to think of what to say. Ben made this with his hands."

"Well, and some power tools," Mary said.

"But this was just metal and glass once," he said. "Raw materials. No form. No purpose. But Ben saw something in his mind. And the chemicals in his brain arranged to tell his hands to craft these uninteresting materials. This is the result. We are looking at what he saw before he made the work. I am…speechless."

Mary stared at him. He may have been speechless, but he had a
n eloquent way of saying so.

Carter looked around. "It's that way with all of these
works. They are all glimpses into the immaterial. The manifestations of information. It's too wonderful." He turned to her. "You should have your painting among these. The one of Saturn's rings."

"Are you kidding?"
Mary smirked. "These guys are professionals."

"Does that matter?" he asked.

Mary looked around. "Maybe not."

"
And there's no competition here," he added. "Everyone is celebrating the art together."

Mary crossed her arms and wondered
over to a painting hanging on the wall. It was an abstract piece showing a woman looking at the sky.

Carter followed her. "I apologize. I have offended you."

"No," she said. "You didn't. It's just as you said. Art shows what's inside. And that's scary. Showing my paintings would be like…like cutting my arm open in front of a crowd and showing them what color I bleed."

Carter didn't say anything.

Mary sighed. "I don't want people seeing the inside of me."

They both looked at the painting
, not speaking. At last, he asked, "Why do you paint at all?"

Ironically,
Mary felt like this conversation was exposing a little too much. "Because I wouldn't know what else to do."

He
said nothing. Then, he smiled and nodded. "I understand now."

Carter moved on to look at other works, and Mary went in the opposite direction. As she a
dmired a sculpture made of several glass-blown pieces, Ben came and handed her a soft drink. "Enjoying yourself?"

She nodded as she took a sip. "
It's awesome. And Ba looks like she's having a good time."

"I'm glad," he said. "Your friend
seems to be enjoying himself, too."

Mary looked around and saw Carter staring at a canvas featuring a nude woman.
She laughed. "He's not my friend. Just a guy who goes to my school."

"Really?" he chuckled. "Y
ou brought him to an art show. With your grandmother. And he's just a guy?"

She smirked. "What're you sayin'?"

He shrugged. "Nothing. Some things are spoken louder without words. I was actually just talking with him before I came over here."

"
About what?" Mary asked.

"He asked me about my art and how long I'd been doing sculptures and suc
h," Ben said. "It was strange. I started telling him how I was just getting back into it, but then I told him about Anna. Sometimes, it's still hard for me to talk about what happened. But it was really easy to talk to him."

Mary remembered the time
Ben told her about his wife and the bank robbery. She and Ba were in the store buying art supplies, but he was looking really depressed. Ba asked him what was wrong. It was the fifth anniversary of his wife's death that day. And just needing someone to talk to, he spilled his guts to Mary and Ba. Mary remembered Ba hugging him and giving him tissue like he was her own son.

Mary
looked back at Carter, now admiring a wooden mask. She remembered how George told stories when Carter visited Agape the first time. She also remembered their "opt-out" conversation in the art room. She had told him things that she hadn't told anyone before. Like Ben said, it was easy to talk to him.

"He's goi
ng through some stuff right now," she said. "I thought getting him around something beautiful would be good for him."

"
You didn't need to bring him here to get him around something beautiful," Ben said.

Mary looked at him.

He smiled. "But I am glad you came anyway."

She smiled
, too.

"
Excuse me, Ben?" one of the gallery employees came and asked. "Sorry to interrupt, but there's someone asking about your sculpture. I think she wants to buy it."

"
It's not for sale," Ben said. "But I'll talk to her anyway. Excuse me, Mary."

"
Sure," she said, and she moved on as well.

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Lapse

They spent about an hour and a half at the show. When it was close to dinnertime, Mary's stomach was growling.

"I think it's t
ime to eat," Ba said. "How about soup?"

"Oh yeah!" Mary said.

They thanked Ben and congratulated him before heading out. As they stepped outside, Mary was surprised at how cool it felt. Then again, it wasn't unusual for the temperature to move up and down quickly this time of year. Mary had a sweater in her bag, but she had left that at Agape.

"Man,
it got cold fast," she said as she hugged her arms.

Ba joked, "It's because you're too skinny!
You need more fat like me to keep warm."

Carter was wearing
his black sweater. He removed it and handed it to Mary. "Here, you can wear this."

"But won't you be cold, too?" Mary asked.

"I'll be fine."

Desperate
for relief from the biting air, Mary put on the sweater. It warmed her instantly, as if it had been sitting in the sun all day. "You're really warm," she chuckled.

He smiled and didn't say anything.

They took another cab to a part of town called "Little Asia." Chinese shops and restaurants sat on one block, and Korean businesses occupied the next one over. A couple Thai places and Japanese joints were sprinkled about as well. Not far away was a huge grocery store that was owned by Vietnamese people. There were smaller shops inside the grocery store, like a hair and nail salon, a cell phone store, a bookstore that only sold volumes in Viet, a clothing store, and an impressive food court. Tucked into the corner of the food court was a little booth that always had lines. They sold different kinds of soup, including Mary's favorite,
bún bò Huế
. Most non-Viet people knew about the traditional noodle soup called
phở
, which was often mispronounced like "foh." It actually sounds like "fuh."

"I've not had
this before," Carter said. "What's in it?"

"Noodles and beef, similar to
phở
," Ba explained. "But it's a different style from the central part of Vietnam."

"It's also pretty spicy, because they put hot chili
paste in it," Mary said. "We can ask them to leave it out if you want."

"I
'll be fine," he said. "I'll have mine the same way you have yours."

They placed their orders, and the woman at the counter gave them a number to put on their table. Soon, their soups were brought out to them, along with a plate full of shredded cabbage, herbs, and the wicked hot little chili peppers that could burn holes in your intestines.

Carter watched Mary and Ba for a moment as they broke apart their disposable chopsticks and began eating. He took his chopsticks as well, but his fingers fumbled about to hold them. He tried picking up some noodles, but they just slipped back into his bowl.

"We can get you a fork," Mary said.

But he shook his head. "I just need some practice." He watched her hands and arranged his in a similar way. When he tried for the noodles again, he managed to get one into his mouth before the others splashed back into the broth.

Mary and Ba
laughed.

"Maybe I
do need a fork," he chuckled, wiping the splatters from his face with a napkin.

"I'll grab one," Ba said. "I want to buy some soybean drink, too."

She stood and headed for the counter. Mary took the bottle of red sauce that came with the other condiments and squeezed a little into her soup.

"What is
that?" Carter asked.

"Chili
sauce," Mary said. "Do you want to try it? It's pretty hot, so just heads up."

"
Yes please." He took the bottle and added a little to his broth. He tasted it with a spoon.

Mary waited for him to start crying.

"It's good," he said. And he squeezed a bunch more in.

"Are you nuts?" Mary
cried. "You're making it like a nuclear bomb!"

Carter stirred the soup with his spoon until it was bright red and took another taste. "I like it.
"

Mary stared at him. Then, she picked up one of the atomic grade chili peppers fro
m the condiment plate. "Try this."

Carter
bit into it like a pickle. "These are good, too. Can I put it in my soup also?"

Mary
was too shocked to answer.

"Here you are, Carter," Ba said as she returned with his fork
and three cans of soybean drink. "Oh, so you like the peppers?"

He nodded
as he bit into another.

Ba chuckled. "
You're like Jean-Marc. He loved spicy food, although it gave him bad heartburn some times. Oh, Jean-Marc was my husband. Mary's grandfather. He was such a fun man. He probably would have challenged you to see if you could eat as many peppers as him."

Carter chuckled.
"He sounds like a wonderful person. How did you meet him?"

"
We met in Vietnam, during the war," she said. "He was working in Saigon for a French-owned company, and I was making my family nervous. All of my sisters had husbands and children, and I was thirty-seven-years-old and still not married. My mother tried matchmakers and everything, but nothing worked. They said I was too stubborn and that no man wanted me. I was also told that I was too skinny and wouldn't be able to have strong children." She looked at her expanded waistline and laughed. "That was a long time ago!"

"But you still found each other," Carter said.

Ba nodded. "My parents had a store in the front of our house. We sold all kinds of food. I worked there sometimes, when I wasn't at my part time job as a receptionist for the college. One day when I was watching the store, this Frenchman came and asked me which were the good cakes to buy. We sold these cakes that the American soldiers and other foreigners really liked. So I told him which ones, and he asked me to wrap them up and he paid for them. But then he handed the cakes back to me and said, 'These are for you.' I still remember. I was wearing my pink silk
áo dài
because I was supposed to be going out with a friend later that day. You know the one, Mary. I gave it to you last year when you turned sixteen."