Broken Song (9 page)

The curtain opened and Sandra came walking in with her infectious smile on her face.  She was being towed by four excited cavaliers.  She saw Colette as she started standing and the two women hugged.  “Hi, Colette.  I'm glad I got a chance to see you before we left for the day.  Yvette was taking care of Tinkerbell for me for a bit.”

The puppies were trying so hard to crawl up onto Colette and she crouched to pat each of their heads. Then she grabbed the carrier and stood and handed it over to me with a smile.

Yvette smiled then said, “I heard through the grapevine that you sang for the burn ward kids.  Maybe next time you can sing for us too?”  She looked hopeful.

I grinned back. “Actually, that sounds fun.  Why not?”

I was rewarded with a sparkling smile and I couldn't help myself, I stepped in and hugged the young girl and said, “I'll have something special for you next time.  Bye Yvette.”  I straightened and shook her mother's hand again. “And it was very nice meeting you Colette.”

She nodded with a smile. “You too.  Bye ladies.”

Sandra snuck in some hugs and cheek kisses to the girl and her mom and we waved and made our way out to the ward doors where the blonde imp stopped and whispered, “Announce.”

The dogs howled and we were met by the giggles and howling of the children in return.  Then a little voice cried out, “I love you Monster!”  Then Ranee came running out from her curtain with the parents peeking out as she ran up to us dragging her IV tree then leaned down to hug an excited Monster, then she waved cutely and ran back to her parents.

I smiled as I watched her go, but then the prognosis of the children in this room came thundering down upon me again. 
This world really is cruel.
  I thought I was in control up until that point and Sandra grabbed my free hand with a concerned look on her face and dragged me through the doors as I started to cry.  I handed her the rabbit carrier and ran into the restroom in the main hall.  I cried for a minute then took a long, deep, shuddering breath and composed myself.

I dried my eyes and checked my makeup and stepped back out to a patiently waiting and concerned looking blonde.  I reached out and took the carrier and glanced up at her grey eyes that were searching for something, evaluating, calculating, and sharing compassion.  She had a smile on her face waiting just for me as she held out her hand.

I looked at her hand and slowly put mine in hers.  She laced our fingers and she pulled me toward her a little and leaned in and kissed my cheek.  She squeezed my hand then we started walking back out to the car.

She just spoke like nothing had happened,  “Let's get these fuzzy troublemakers home and walked then we can do some lunch.  Don't have anything else today except dropping off checks around town. Then let's decompress for the day at the Ballyhoo.  I think you need it.”  She gave me a cute smile.

Some random hospital security guard came running up to us before we could exit the building. “Excuse me!  Ms. Franklin!  You might want to use the rear exit.”  He had a strained look of apology on his handsome Hispanic face.  I looked a question at him and he sheepishly said, “Apparently one of the parents in the burn ward recorded you singing to the children upstairs and posted it online.  It has already gone viral.  There's a ton of reporters outside right now.  My guys are blocking them from the building citing privacy concerns for patients;  I don't know how long we can do that.”

Sandra looked appalled and turned an apologetic gaze to me.  “I'm really sorry Penny.  I'm so stupid, I should have told all the parents not to do something like that.  I'll go get the car and meet you at the rear entrance.”  I nodded and she grabbed the carrier from me and skittered off quickly with the animals to the front entrance.

The security guard, Hector his name tag read, ushered me to the rear entrance and apologized one more time before my blonde imp came driving up with a tiny wave.  I nodded to the man. “Thanks Hector.”  He rewarded me with a genuine smile.

I hoped into the car and smiled when she reached over to grab my hand and give it a reassuring squeeze.  We rode back to her place in an extremely comfortable silence with her holding my hand the whole way.  It felt like she was feeding me her seemingly boundless strength.

After unloading Tinkerbell, cleaning the rabbit cages, and collecting Daisy, we went back to the little park so the dogs could do their thing.  She did a little texting, then put her phone in her pocket and somehow got me talking about my feelings at the hospital.  It's like she has this gift to put you at ease.  She was more insightful than I would have thought, but this blonde imp has been nothing but surprises for me.  I'm getting used to seeing this hidden part of her that makes her so much more amazing then almost anyone I know.

Then somehow, against my will, she had me talking about my cancer until I started getting scared.  She left it at, “Just know Penny, if you decide to go for treatment, you are not alone.  I'll be by your side if you want me to be.  Most importantly, it won't change who you are as a person.”

I wanted to scream at her, vent my frustrations, but I couldn't.  All I could do was to stare into her incredible eyes at that spark buried down inside them, and at her always smiling lips.  I wanted to hate her so much, to break her and make her see the world as it was, yet I didn't want her to leave my side and I wanted to see the world through her eyes.  I was so confused and I didn't know what emotions I was feeling.

We wound up going out to lunch after dropping off the 'kids'.  She brought me to a nice Italian restaurant because, how did she put it?  “OMG, I need spaghetti!”

As we talked as we waited for her spaghetti and meatballs and my lasagne, her phone vibrated.  She looked concerned. “Just a sec Penny.  I gotta take this.  I normally only text but sometimes they call when they can't find a solution to things.”  I nodded with curiosity burning in my brain.

She answered, “Hi Randy, what's up? … family of four?  Hmm.... what are their names?  What were their occupations? OK... yeah, you got some birth dates for me? Heh heh... you know me too well...  OK, to keep em together we'll have to do some creative shuffling around our two shelters and the mission and two sister shelters across town.  Unless they are OK with social workers placing their children.  I can place two easier than four.  No?  If the kids share a cot we can do it in just three moves instead of five.  Right, so we'll need to...”

And she went on doing some shuffling of people in cots to cause the minimum disruption or displacement of  “her people” through the shelters.  She was a fucking... sorry, a frigging maestro the way she orchestrated it. 
Why do I care if I cuss when I'm around her?  It's not like she can read my thoughts... I hope.
  She seemed to know how many cots were available at shelters she didn't even claim as her own.  She mentioned promised cots for future days that couldn't shuffle.  She never once needed to reference notes or ask questions, and she named each person to be shuffled by name.  Then she ended it with, “I'll need to meet them tomorrow so I can put faces to the names.  Send Leo to get them to the Anchorage Avenue shelter after the shuffle.  Tell him I'll owe him one.  No, thank you Randy.  Solid.”

She hung up then grinned at me.  “Sorry.”

I just shook my head and smiled at her.  I'll never discount her intelligence after witnessing that display.  She just seems to go about thinking a little differently than most people.

Then our food arrived.  She seemed to take an almost childish delight in her meal.  I could watch her eat all day and not get tired of it.  She kept our conversion flowing through the meal and tangeting as only she could every couple minutes.  I was smiling and laughing through it all, everything just seemed to melt away but her eyes and her smile.

When the check came I grabbed it and put my debit card on the little tray.  She pouted cutely. “Hey. This was my treat!”

I almost giggled but managed to turn it into a chuckle. 
What am I a teenager?
“You can handle the tip.”  This got a grin from her and she pulled out some scratch paper and a pen from her purse and looked at the bill for thirty two dollars and fifty one cents.

I watched as she divided the total by ten in long division to come up with three dollars and twenty five point five cents.  Then she made another problem and divided that number by two and came up with a dollar and sixty two point seven five cents.  Then she added the two and wrote four dollars and eighty eight point two five cents.  She drew an arrow pointing up and wrote five dollars.  She grinned at herself and pulled a five out of her purse and put it on the tray.

My god, she just did such creative shuffling of people to free up some cots over various nights with more variables than I could imagine, yet she couldn't figure out a fifteen percent tip in her head?  And she did it with long division?  I looked at her proud grin and I smiled back.

I tilted my head wondering something.  “Hey San.  I got a theoretical question.”  She tilted her head in return, her eyes prompting me to ask.

I asked, “How many cots are there between Second Street Shelter and Anchorage Avenue?”

She smiled. “Two hundred and thirty seven.”

I nodded. “If they were all full up and you wound up with jobs that matched the skill sets of one out of every ten people in those two shelters, how many free cots would you have the next night if they took the jobs.”

Before I finished my last word she said, “Twenty three.”

Holy shit...  I mean, holy crap!  She knows the math and percentages if it applies to something she is passionate about, but when she thinks about it, she can't seem to make the connection with the written numbers.  I grinned at her.  “Cool thanks.  Hmm... Do me a favor?”

She tilted her head and cutely said, “Kay.”

I reached over and wrote sixteen dollars and twenty three cents on her scrap paper.  And asked, “Can you tell me what ten percent of that number is?”  She looked at me like I was making fun of her and she grabbed her pen with a little anger in her eyes.  I put a hand gently on her hand stopping her with a smile.

I tilted my head to catch her eyes. “You want me to show you a cool shortcut?”

She was looking at me like I might still be making fun of her.  I just kept softly smiling to reassure her and squeezed her hand gently to reinforce it.  She nodded.

“
OK, tens are easy because there is a neat trick to them.  See the decimal there?”  She nodded.  I crossed it out with a little x to demonstrate and drew a little u shaped arrow down and around the number to the left and then drew a decimal.  “All you need to do is to move the decimal over to the left one place and that is ten percent of the number.”

She looked at it then me.  “So, one dollar and sixty two cents?”  I nodded with pride for her.

I could see the gears turning in her head then she got an excited smile as it sank in.  I wrote twenty one sixteen down and she crossed out the decimal and swooped it over one quickly and said excitedly, “Two dollars and eleven cents!”  I nodded and felt my heart ready to burst at the look of pride and excitement she had on her face.

We did a couple others.  Then the server came and took the tray away then I wrote a bigger number but stopped her pen.  “Wait.  Lets try dividing by one hundred instead of ten this time.  This same trick works with any base ten number whether it is ten, one hundred, one thousand or whatever.  All you have to do is count the number of zeroes.  Ten has one zero so you went to the left one place with the decimal.  One hundred has two zeroes so you go to the left...”

She excitedly finished, “Two places!” She then drew the decimal in the correct spot.  We did a couple more until the waitress returned with my card.

I said, “This same trick works with multiplication too.  Instead of moving the decimal left, you move it right.”  We tried a couple and she was ecstatic.  Her smile changed a little as she looked at me and once again she was biting her lower lip.  It was doing wonderful things to me.  Then before you know it we were grabbing our stuff and on our way again.

As we made our way back to the car she pulled me close by my hand and kissed my cheek gently, her lips lingering. “OMG, Penny you are so smart!  That was so cool!  Nobody ever showed me that before.”   She locked her truly grateful grey eyes on me but her spark was a raging inferno now.  Then she added almost too quiet for me to hear, “And I didn't feel stupid.”

I couldn't help it, she was so fascinating – almost against my will, I leaned in and kissed her gently on her lips then smiled and tilted my head as she blushed.  “My pleasure San.”  Then I looked forward with a mischievous smile as we made our way back to the car.  She seemed to have even more of her boundless energy now.

As she drove I offhandedly asked, “You know the question I had about the cots and jobs earlier?”  She nodded. “That was ten percent and you did it in your head.”  I just stared forward grinning in mischief as the revelation left her gape-jawed for a moment before she closed her mouth and her smile crept back up.

The afternoon was filled with dropping off various check donations to shelters, missions, and community centers around the city.  I noticed none of the checks were as big as the ones to Second Street and Anchorage Avenue.  She seems to have adopted those two as her own as they are on her home turf.

She introduced me to so many people running the places, or volunteers, or homeless people that my head was spinning trying to keep track of the names.  I wouldn't be able to tell you half of them now.  But San, with her own unique gift, knew every name and every face. I was left wondering about her more than ever and they all seemed to love their “lil Dandelion”.  How many hundreds or even thousands of people was she keeping track of in her head?