“Do you have a book to read?”

“Mom, I’m a reader.” Plosive puffs of disgust escape rosebud lips. “Asking a reader if she has a book is like asking a writer if she has a pen.”

Cherry and Coco

On a dog day last summer, I hung by the pool chatting with another mom. Her child was going into fifth grade, the final year of elementary. My oldest was headed to secondary.

She asked, “What do you think of our neighborhood middle school?”

“Does anybody ever want to send their kid to sixth grade?”

My quip gave her an opening. She confided that one of my daughter’s classmates would be headed across town to a school with a more desirable student body.

“Why?”

“She thinks it’s full of gangs and drugs.” And fewer white kids.

“I love our neighborhood. It’s diverse.”

“Yes. Diversity is good. Up to a point. I’ll be interested to hear how you feel about it later.”

Through the wavy heat, I watched Cherry bounce a perfect dive off the board. Her golden skin glistening before she disappeared into the water. I turned back to the mom, still debating the merits of School A over School B. Racism disguised as polite conversation. Had my daughter faded in the sun? Did she assume that since I was white, I wouldn’t take offense? Didn’t my Chinese children count? I stared into the deep end of the pool waiting for Cherry to surface. She did. And I said nothing.

Six months later, I picked up my youngest from elementary school. She climbed into the mini van, head low. ”What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“Coco, I know you’re upset.”

“Those boys.” The same three that had taunted her all year. “They made fun of me. And T__ did the eye thing.”

I walked around to her side and opened the door. “Get out of the car.”

“What are you going to do?”

“You’re going to tell your teacher.” Ten minutes later, Coco was healed, simply by standing up for herself.

The next day, her teacher assembled a line-up of fourth and fifth graders, all of Asian descent except for one. She said to the boy, “When you put down one person for who they are, you’re making fun of everyone. Now, you have to apologize to the whole group.”

It was a tough moment, but he wasn’t likely to be a repeat offender. I wish I’d said the same thing to that mom. Diversity is good, always. Not up to a point.

“What?” Bacon’s head was in the latest Albert Brooks’ novel.

“Your happy road,” she said.

“What’s that?  I asked.

“The thing that makes you happy.” She closed her decorated composition book. Coco makes notes on the couples’ performances and judges’ evaluations on DWTS.  I figured the comment had something to do with movie theme night on the reality show.

“Did you think that up or hear it somewhere?”

“Made it up.” She looked at her dad again. “Mine’s the violin. If I’m sad, I play, and I feel better.”

Bacon said, “You, your sister, and your mom are my happy road. You make me laugh.”

Satisfied, she opened her book again. The commercial break was over.

Day four, I’m checking the sweaty surface. Will it ever dry? The seventy percent humidity isn’t helping. The phone rings. I turn my back for a millisecond. Talk. Hang up.

“Jasmine? Jazzy?” Where’s the puppy? ”Shit.Shit.Shit.Shit.Shit . . .”

She’s yaps from the middle of the shiny floor. “You can’t catch me I’m the Gingerbread Schnauzer.” Dance. Dance. Dance. Puppy paws on concrete.

Smack. Smack. Smack. “Shit.” The sound of black flip-flops on wet paint. “Jazzy, come. Jasmine, come.”

“Let’s dance, mom.”

“Damn it. Jazzy come.” She bounces. I stick. Her little feet float above the surface. Weighing less than three pounds is an advantage when walking on wet paint. She doesn’t dent the surface. My BMI leaves size seven footprints. ”Gotcha.” I grab the little rat and deposit my shoes in the trash.

On day four, the floor the gets another coat. Hence I live with the expression, watching paint dry.

“You’ll do fine. Just do what you practiced.”

Coco was the youngest musician in the warm up room. She watched a teenager in a tulle dress play Bach. The girl sat her viola on a chair and knocked out Ode to Joy on the grand piano. Returning to the strings, she twitched. The instrument hovered and crashed to the floor. The bridge splintered.

Coco lifted her bow and played A Simple Gift. The butterflies melted. Seconds earlier, I wondered, would she balk? Run away? Freeze? Now, she understood, nerves are universal.

When Coco’s name was called, she marched out of the room like she was twenty instead of nine. Later she said, “This was the best day of my life.” She won a position in the orchestra.

Anyone who knows me, knows my history with the To Do list. I’m ashamed to say, I’ve passed on my angst to a nine-year old. Coco took out a notebook. She scheduled five minutes for bowing, ten minutes for fingering, ten more minutes for working on the rhythm to a Haydn melody. In all she played forty-five minutes.

At the end of the night I said, “I’m proud of the way you practiced.”

“I used one of my habits.” Her school teaches Stephen R. Covey’s The Leader in Me curriculum. “Make a plan. Begin with the end in mind.”

I’m trying to follow her example.