Radiant - By Christina Daley Page 0,19

head just wasn't wired for languages. She had enough trouble with English, as her grades demonstrated. But she understood enough to know that Carter's speech was flawless.

When dinnertime came, Ba asked Carter to join them. Mary hadn't planned to stay for dinner. But since Carter was, she didn't want to leave Ba alone with him. George, Emma, and Julia also met them in the dining room.

"So nice to meet you, Carter," Emma said. "Tell us about yourself."

"Myself?" he asked.

"Yea," George said. "Whaya want with Mary?"

"George!" Julia cried.

"Wha?" George said. They were eating veggie lasagna, so he didn't have his teeth again. "He look like wunnah them—what'd my grandson call 'em? Oh yeah. Players. You a player, son?"

Oh God, Mary thought as she leaned on the table with her head in her hands. Maybe this wasn't a good idea to stay.

"I played basketball," Carter said. "Is that what you mean?"

George squinted. "You makin' fun of me, boy?"

Carter looked surprised. "No sir. I—"

"I fought in Korea!" George growled, brandishing his plastic fork. "Don't mess with me!"

"Calm down, George," Emma said gently. "The boy's all right. He wasn't making fun of you at all."

George didn't say anything, but turned back to his lasagna with a scowl on his face.

Carter looked at the elder man. "You have many great stories from your life. Don't you?"

"Don't get him telling one, though," Julia said. "George'll talk your ear off."

Emma chuckled. "We all got stories, Carter. It's one of the few things we old people got that hadn't broken down with time."

"Speak for yourself," Ba laughed as she tapped her head. Ba seemed to be the only one who could make fun of her condition and it be okay. "I'm doing my best to hold onto mine."

"Can you tell me?" Carter asked. "I'd like to hear all of them."

Emma chuckled. "Baby Boy, you'd be here forever. Why, just us sitting at this table got a few hundred years of stories between us."

"And that's without the Pennys," Julia added with a laugh. "Add on another two hundred years for them."

Carter laughed with all of them. "Well, can I hear one? Perhaps from you, Mr. George?"

George slurped up a lasagna noodle. Tomato sauce dribbled down his chin. "Me?"

Carter nodded eagerly. "Yes. What did you do before you went to Korea?"

George looked at him from the corner of his eye. Then he shrugged. "Well, I was about your age when I started workin' at my granddaddy's farm. And lemme tell ya…"

George told several stories in a row. Mary had heard some of them before. But others, like how he'd met his wife Betty—"may her soul rest in peace"—when he accidentally crashed into her at a roller skating rink, were new. Julia argued with George when he exaggerated certain details too much.

Carter listened with acute fascination. He was so wrapped up in George's tales that he hardly ate his dinner.

Afterwards, they played a few rounds of Gin. Julia won most of the time. When bedtime neared, Mary kissed Ba goodnight and left Agape with Carter.

"Your grandmother is a wonderful person. So are her friends," he said as they walked to the bus stop.

"Yeah," she said.

"You look a little different from her," he added. "Your hair is lighter and has some red in it. Your eyes are rounder, too."

"My grandfather was French. I don't know what my father was," she said. "Some combination, huh?"

"Yes. But a good one."

She shrugged. "Depends on who you're talking to. By the way, where did you say you learned Viet?"

"I didn't say."

"Oh, right. So where did you learn?" she asked.

He hesitated for a moment before answering. "I…picked it up."

"From where?"

"From…the ladies at the salon who do my mother's hair."

"You mean your stepmother?" Mary asked.

"Yes," he said. "My stepmother."

"You go with her when she gets her hair done?"

"They cut my hair there, too."

"And you were able to pick up on conversational Viet from just getting your hair cut?"

"Yes," he said. "They talk a lot."

She narrowed her eyes. "I see."

When they got to the bus stop, he asked, "Mary? Where are you going now?"

"Home," she said. Thankfully, Mom had brought the leftovers for her night shift. If Mary went to get dinner for her, he might've wanted to tag along and meet her as well. Ba was one thing. Mom was another story. "You?"

"Home, too," he said. The bus rolled up then, and the driver opened the door. "Have a good evening, Mary."

"Aren't you getting on?" she asked.

He shook his head. "I'll walk."

Mary was sure he lived pretty far