Finding Mighty

by Sheela Chari

  It was strange being inside Margaret’s house again after only a few days. Already it seemed different. The window shades were drawn and the air smelled like a mixture of incense, candles, and oranges. Peter said I could wait in the dining room, since that seemed to be the only place where there was furniture to sit on. The rest of the house was bare.

  “You hungry?” he asked.

  I shook my head. I watched as he emptied his backpack onto the dining table. I wondered what he was getting out. The necklace? But it was his lunch bag. From it he pulled out a Ziploc bag of Cheetos. He offered them to me. “Sorry, that’s all I have,” he said.

  “Oh, that’s okay,” I said, embarrassed. “I mean, thanks.” I reached into the bag to have one. The cheesy powder stuck to my fingers like orange paint, which was weirdly appropriate.

  He said he would be right back and went upstairs. So I sat down at the table and waited. There were unopened boxes and stacks of clothes everywhere, even on the dining table. I wondered what his family was like. Nora said it was him and his mom. What about the dad? On the table next to me was his backpack, and its contents piled up next to it, and I thought how if I ever did that in my house, I’d get yelled at. But his things seemed to fit right in with the rest of the stuff on the table.

  On top of his stack of textbooks and school papers was a thin black book. I recognized it immediately—it was the one he looked at every day when he thought no one was watching. It was old and beaten up, like he’d had it forever. Was it a diary or journal? Did boys even keep them? I had no way of knowing. Cheetah had a notebook, but it was for collecting new spelling words, which was probably weirder than what anybody else did on the planet.

  By now, Peter came back to the dining room with something in his hand. “This is what I was talking about,” he said. He laid it on the table in front of me and sat down. His necklace.

  “Did you get it in Yonkers?”

  He shrugged. “We’ve always had it.”

  “Let’s look at them together.” I took off my necklace and placed it next to his. Now that we were both seated, I was at the same eye level as him. I was glad, because that’s the only time I feel like equals with someone. My mom says that’s why I’m bossy, to make up for my height. But I don’t think I’m bossy. You can’t be when you’re short. Half the time, nobody hears you, and then you have to repeat yourself.

  “Actually, they’re not exactly the same,” I told Peter. I paused, trying really hard to keep my voice friendly just in case he thought I was sounding bossy. “Mine’s on black leather. Yours is brown.” Mine was in better condition, too, but I didn’t say that. I turned his over and there was no “finder” or “keeper.” Instead, the word there had been scratched away, and another one was etched over it faintly. “‘Shouse.’ What’s that?”

  Peter was surprised. “I didn’t see that before.” He lifted his pendant and held it to the light.

  “It’s called a finders necklace,” I explained. “Like finders keepers? Each Om necklace has one of those words on the back.”

  “Om?” Peter interrupted. “That’s what the symbol is?”

  “Yeah. The back tells you whether you’re a finder or keeper. I’m a keeper. It’s silly, I guess.”

  I had this sudden memory of Ana in second grade when she lost a Hello Kitty key chain attached to her lunch box. Then Isabel Loch, the one everyone called the Loch Ness Monster, found it and singsonged “Finders keepers, losers weepers” to Ana, and refused to give it back, even when Ana’s face was streaked with tears. I was playing on the swings, but when I heard Isabel, I jumped off and gave her a big push. She landed with a thump on her Loch Ness butt and gasped, because even then I was about half her height. Then she gave Ana back her key chain. But I didn’t share this with Peter.

  He was looking at the back of his necklace. “Then what am I supposed to be? A ‘shouse?’”

  “No, don’t you see? Someone scratched off the word and added that instead.”

  “Huh,” he said. He let the pendant dangle from his fingers as he watched it twirl in the air.

  I could still see the orange flecks on his sleeve. I’d been looking at graffiti all my life, but I’d never met somebody who did it. Peter seemed so mild. How could he sneak into the night without getting caught or hurt, or meeting dangerous people?

  “Who are the Fencers?” I asked. If they wanted my necklace, maybe they wanted his, too.

  He made a face. “Why do you keep harping on them?”

  “In case they’re looking for me.”

  “What?” He started laughing.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “Oh come on. Look at you. You’re a nice girl in a nice house in a nice town with a math teacher dad. I bet your mom does something nice.”

  I didn’t like the way he used the word ‘nice.’ “She’s an urban designer,” I said tonelessly.

  “Yeah, well my mom does blood.”

  “Does blood? What is she, a vampire?”

  Peter’s mouth twitched. “She’s a phlebotomist.”

  Then I don’t know why but we started giggling. Peter bent over, and I laughed the way I always do, my head tilted up. We must have looked like opposites in every way, but it didn’t matter.

  “The Fencers are a gang,” Peter finally said. “They’re the ones you saw bust me in the mouth.”

  “The one with the tattoo?”

  He pointed to his arm. “Three lines make a fence.”

  I wasn’t sure what he meant. “Weren’t you scared? You were bleeding.”

  He flinched. “Sure. Nobody thinks they’re going to get jumped in daylight. But even when it happened, the worst was knowing they were really after my brother.”

  “Your brother?”

  “Yeah.” His face darkened. “He’s sixteen. He disappeared a few weeks ago. I mean, he left on his own. Nobody made him go.”

  “Oh,” I said. He looked so worried. What would I do if Cheetah went missing? “I’m sorry, Peter. Maybe he’ll come back soon.” I didn’t know what else to say.

  “I hope so.” His voice was gruff, but I could hear the worry in it.

  I tried to change the subject. I didn’t want to say something stupid, so I asked the only thing I could think of. “Do you like Dobbs Ferry?”

  He looked surprised, then he said, “I don’t know. I haven’t been here long enough.”

  “Right, it’s your first week,” I said.

  “It’s just . . .” He hesitated. “Does it ever . . . bother you?”

  “What?”

  “You know. Being the only one.”

  I was about to ask the only what? Then I got it.

  “I’ve always been the only one,” I said. In preschool, I was the only Indian girl in my class. In elementary school, there was a girl named Anjana in my grade, but she moved away. In first grade, my mom read a story on Diwali to my class, and then we made paper lanterns to celebrate the Festival of Lights. But after that, no one noticed I was Indian or asked about it. They forgot about Diwali, and they forgot about me.

  Peter nodded. “It was different in my old school.” He told me what the other kids were like there, how no one looked the same. It sounded so cool to me.

  I felt this strange pulse of happiness, hearing him speak. I’d never known what it was like to talk about being different. It was just something I always carried inside me. Maybe that was why I had noticed Peter. He was someone who was just a little bit like me.

  “Well, I’m starting to know people already,” he said. “Like your friend.”

  “My friend?” It took me a moment. “You mean Ana?”

  “Yeah. She’s in my Spanish class, too. She’s really . . . nice.” Then was it my imagination, or did he blush?

  Of course he did. Because it was Ana, who was tall and pretty. She was the one everyone noticed. And just like that, the happiness I felt went away, like a small animal darting for cover.

  I looked away. “Yeah, Ana’s nice,” I said. And even though
it was completely true, it made me sad to say it. Because I knew what we were really saying—that she was the nice one, not me.

  “Hey, I’ll be right back,” Peter said. “I want to put the necklace away before I forget.”

  While he was gone, I put mine back on, fingering the enamel like I always did now. Om. No one had asked about the necklace after all. No one had stopped me in the hall or wondered what the symbol meant. But I was still glad I had it.

  I leaned over to look again at the black notebook, still on top of all those school papers. Without thinking, I reached out with my finger and lightly traced the worn cover. It was one of those fake leather covers that feel like the real thing, even though you know it’s not.

  “What are you doing?” It was Peter standing next to me, watching in dismay.

  I stood up, flustered. “I was just feeling the front of your book. I’m sorry.”

  He reached over and stuffed it into his backpack. “Yeah, well, you can’t do that.” He looked upset for a moment, and then took a breath. “I mean, sorry. I just get touchy about it, that’s all.”

  “I have one, too,” I said.

  He looked at me, surprised. “You have a black book?”

  “Mine’s like a journal. I write down stuff I see. Is that like yours?”

  He breathed out impatiently. “I don’t think I could really explain what it’s for.”

  “Okay,” I said. I’d offended him, but I wasn’t sure how. “I guess I should go.”

  When I said that, he looked relieved.

  Outside on his porch, he said, “Thanks for opening the door. I feel like a donkey. Hope I don’t have to keep asking you every day to unlock my house.”

  “I don’t mind,” I said. The image of a donkey made me smile, but I still felt strange.

  “Maybe you’ve got some special way with keys,” he said.

  “That’s me, the key whisperer,” I said.

  I was suddenly conscious of the skeleton key in my kitchen drawer. I hadn’t told him about it.

  “See you tomorrow, Myla,” he said. And then he closed the sticky front door.

  Ma was worried. Every day she’d been coming home from work, with her face tighter than a drawstring bag. She would relax a little when we unpacked in the evenings. But the next day, she’d come back home her tired, stressed-out self. And the more stressed she was, the more coffee she drank. This evening she was making dinner and on her third cup already, with no end in sight.

  As I watched her drinking and rolling up burritos, I asked, “Are you getting fired at work?”

  She stopped, mid-roll. “Of course not.” Her voice was sharp.

  “Well, it’s something.” Then I saw her face. “I know, you saw the Oms at the stations.”

  Her hands shook as she placed a burrito in the tray. “That fool will get himself killed,” she said. The doorbell rang. It was then I saw how many burritos Ma had rolled. She was expecting company. I hurried out of the kitchen behind her.

  Ma had already opened the front door. “Glad you could make it, Richard,” she said.

  “I’d have come sooner but my car was in the shop and I took the train.” He looked at me then, his gray eyes like a cat. “Petey,” he said. He even knew my nickname, the one I’ve always hated.

  After Ma put the burritos in the oven to bake, we drank lemonade with crushed ice and little lemon wedges floating at the top of our glasses. Uncle Richard’s long legs were folded up under the dining table, but I could see the cowboy boots poking out.

  He swirled his glass. “Nice and sweet. I remember your lemonade.”

  “Omar liked it,” Ma said. “I always kept a pitcher in the fridge.”

  I stared at my glass. I hardly remembered her making lemonade for any of us.

  Uncle Richard pulled out a business card and handed it to Ma. “Before I forget, take a look at that,” he said proudly. “Designed it myself.”

  Ma looked at it, turning it over. “Nice. I like the lines crossing at the top.”

  “Well, I’m no artist like Omar was,” Uncle Richard said, but he was clearly pleased. Meanwhile, I wondered just what he meant about my pop being an artist. Did Uncle Richard know about the drawings in the black book? Did he know my pop did graffiti, too?

  “It says you’re a carpenter and a landscaper,” Ma read. “You do both?”

  “That’s right, Shanthi. I’m a superman,” he said, grinning. Then he looked at me and said, “One thing for sure, Petey has got his daddy’s height.”

  “Really?” My voice came out a squeak. I was desperate to know more about my pop, and that artist comment was just a small whiff. “You know Randall, too? Does he look like our pop?” I asked even though I knew the answer.

  “I do,” Uncle Richard said. “I knew the both of you when you were born. And I’ve known your ma since college.”

  Meanwhile, Ma got up to take the burritos out of the oven.

  “So does Randall look like our pop?” I asked again. I wanted to see how much he did know.

  “The spitting image. You’ve got his height, and mine. But Randall’s got everything else. The same face, the same walk, the same way of moving through his environment.”

  For some reason, that made me jealous. I wanted to be the spitting image of my pop. After all, I was here, and Randall was gone.

  Ma set the burritos on the table, on top of two hot mats. “Careful or it will burn you.”

  “Thank you, Shanthi,” he said. “Nothing like a home-cooked meal.”

  The burrito was hot and cheesy, and the steam went up my nose, so I waited for it to cool down. But Uncle Richard went tearing right in. He ate and ate and ate.

  “Good to be here,” he said. “It’s been too long, too much water under the bridge.”

  “Well, you’re back now, aren’t you?” she said archly.

  Uncle Richard chewed and swallowed. “I can’t help wonder, did Omar ever find them?”

  “Really,” Ma said. “Do you ever have a different thought in your body?”

  “But don’t you wonder the same?”

  “Sometimes I think they didn’t exist at all,” Ma said.

  “What never existed?” I asked.

  “The diamonds.” Uncle Richard looked at Ma. “He knows about them, right?”

  I trembled. Diamonds! What were they talking about?

  Ma pressed her lips. “No offense, but Rose is dead. It’s better to put some things to rest.”

  “How can you say that? Petey’s practically a man. He has a right to know.” He turned to me. “Petey, your grandma Rose was the cleverest woman this side of the Hudson River.”

  “Richard, you don’t need to go there,” Ma warned. “I hate dredging up all this stuff.”

  “That’s why I’m here,” he said. He took a sip of his lemonade. “Call me the dredger.”

  She sighed. She got up to refill the lemonades, but she watched him like a hawk.

  “All right, Petey,” Uncle Richard continued. “Picture this: about eight years ago, Scottie Biggs is this guy from the Bronx. He sells cheese. His pop sells cheese. His pop’s pop sells cheese. They’re a family of cheese-makers. But Scottie’s tired of cheese. He’s looking for something else.”

  Scottie Biggs. That sounded familiar. “Isn’t he that guy getting out of prison?”

  “Bingo,” Uncle Richard said. “Same loser. But we’re still back eight years ago, when Scottie goes to a jazz festival in Quebec. Two important things happen there. One, Scottie meets a woman selling jewelry. We’re talking necklaces with flowers and peace signs. A hippie. Then he finds out she’s from Dobbs! Not only that, her real job is diamond-cutting. Do you know who this lady is, Petey?”

  I shrugged. “Your sister?”

  “My sister! I don’t have siblings. Unless you count Omar.” Uncle Richard’s eyes clouded over momentarily. “But I’m not talking about my cousin, God rest his soul. I meant your grandma.”

  “Grandma Rose was a diamond-cutter?” I asked skeptically.
“Wasn’t she kind of old?”

  “Age has nothing to do with it, son. She was plenty smart to know what she was doing. Second important thing that happened to Scottie.” He held up two fingers. “Scottie was making some connections between a diamond mine in Canada and the Diamond District in Manhattan. He and his buddies were building a network to collect uncuts from Canada, cut them in New York, and sell them on the black market.”

  “That’s what my grandma did?” I asked, my eyes wide. “She cut diamonds for Scottie?”

  “That was the plan,” Uncle Richard said, and took a sip of his lemonade.

  I tried to understand. Grandma Rose worked for this Scottie dude. Did that make her rich? Nothing in our life indicated there was anyone from our family who was. And there was something else. “Why get the diamonds from Canada? Can’t you buy them here?”

  Ma banged her fork down on the table with a sudden vengeance. “Buy? Don’t you get it, Petey? They were stealing diamonds from one place, and selling them somewhere else for money. That’s what Fencers do. That’s what they called themselves. And that’s where your grandmother came in. She was the one who cut those diamonds for the Fencers. That makes her a thief like them. And when the Fencers came after her, she left behind her mess for your father to take care of.”

  The Fencers! But these couldn’t be the same ones I saw in the alley, could they?

  Meanwhile, Uncle Richard was sitting up, pointing at Ma. “I beg to differ! Aunt Rose was no thief. She was protecting her family.” He turned to me. “What would you do, Petey? One day Scottie leaves you with a set of stones. He thinks you’ll cut them into something fine he’ll sell elsewhere. Maybe he’ll give you a share of the profit. Maybe he’ll make threats to your life.”

  Ma muttered something from the counter.

  “But here’s the kicker,” Uncle Richard said, ignoring her. “Before Scottie can walk away with the diamonds, the Feds pick him up. The whole fencing network from Canada to New York gets shut down, people on both sides of the border get thrown in jail. Scottie gets eight years! Now here’s the important part, Petey. Imagine you’re Rose. You’ve cut the diamonds like Scottie asked. He’s arrested, and the authorities can’t trace the stones back to you. But the Fencers know you’ve got them. What do you do?”