Lucy (9 page)

11

JENNY HAD DROPPED LUCY OFF
at school and was driving to the university campus. She had to put in at least a perfunctory appearance at her lab. Lucy was having her first session alone with the psychologist before school. She told herself that Lucy was a teenage girl and had all the rights of any teenage girl. But then that thought was immediately followed by another: Did Lucy really have any rights at all? And: If they found out, could they put her in a zoo? Could they take her away to study her in a lab? Could they … put her to sleep like they would a stray dog? Jenny had heard from Donna about what they do in the labs.

She tried to concentrate on the view. Lake Shore Drive flowed along the uninterrupted parkland that lined the shore. Sunlight glittered on the blue water beyond. Gulls flew low across the sand. People were jogging, walking dogs, riding bicycles, savoring the last warmth before winter clamped down. Jenny told herself that she ought to take Lucy biking along the lake. And then this thought intruded: We should get rid of Stone’s notebooks.

Jenny’s lab was tucked out of the way in an old university building. A lab bench of black stone, fitted with sinks and brass spigots corroded green with age, ran the length of the room under a high ceiling of beaten tin. Along the walls were dark wooden cases with glass fronts containing a profusion of specimens and chemicals and notebooks.

As she was unpacking, Charles Revere, her chairman, walked in. “Welcome back. I’m sorry about the circumstances. Spoke to David Meece at the embassy. We heard about Don Stone, of course.” Staccato delivery.

“Hello, Charlie.”

“Well, we’re all glad you’re safe.”

“Thank you. It was pretty awful. I only wish I’d been able to bring his body out.”

“I hear you barely got out yourself.” Charlie was a tall, thin man with steel spectacles and bright eyes. His curly hair was reddish brown and flecked with gray. He wore a well-cropped cinnamon-colored beard. His constant training for marathons kept him sinewy. “David said you brought Stone’s daughter back with you.”

“Yes. She’s lucky to be alive.”

“Thanks to you, I guess. That’s an extremely generous deed. You’d never met her before?”

“I did what anyone would have done.”

“I wasn’t aware that Stone was married.” Charlie sat on a stool, making himself at home at Jenny’s lab bench.

“He may not have been married. I never saw the mother.”

“What did the girl say?”

“She was a bit delirious when I found her.”

“Well, what’s she said since then?”

“To tell you the truth she’s been kind of fragile. I mean, her parents were murdered.”

“If you didn’t see the mother, how do you know she was murdered? Maybe she’s alive and wondering where her daughter went.”

“We’re trying to track down some of her relatives in England. David’s working on it.”

Charlie let silence settle on them, then said, “Well, your teaching load is zero since you weren’t expected back. Take your time and get back into the swing of things. We’re very understanding.”

“Thanks.”

“I’ll let you get back to your work.”

He rose, pressing his hands to his knees, and went to the door. Then he paused, turned back. “Oh, by the way. How did you get the girl out?”

“David sent a helicopter.”

“No, I meant into the United States. Meece said getting the girl a passport was hell on wheels. Then he clammed up.”

Jenny could feel her stomach tightening as he bored in on the subject. He had a way of doing that. It had made him good at putting the screws to his academic competition. “I don’t pretend to know how things work in diplomatic circles.”

“I see. Well. Amazingly generous of you. Glad you’re all in one piece.” Jenny heaved a sigh of relief as he left.

On her way home Jenny stopped at the Hope Shelter. It was an industrial-looking brick building from the 1960s with a yard and a playground in the back. It stood across the street from a Lutheran church in an otherwise residential neighborhood of modest means. Jenny parked in back and crossed the lawn, where a number of pre-teen girls were playing on the equipment. She recognized none of them. She’d been away too long.

She went inside to find Nina, the administrator, behind a desk, looking overworked as usual. Nina looked up and began to ask, “May I help you?” Then she recognized Jenny. She beamed and came around the desk to embrace her. “Dear Jenny,” she said. “Back on the front lines?”

“I’d like to be. I won’t have vast amounts of time, but I’d like to keep my hand in.”

“Yes, of course. Come along. Kathy’s been using your desk.”

Jenny followed her into the corridor. Nina was round and solid-looking with curly brown hair flecked with gray. She wore overalls and a work shirt and sneakers. “I’ll just update your paperwork for you,” she said.

As they entered the recreation room, Jenny smelled the familiar aroma of stale cafeteria food. A girl, perhaps seventeen years old, passed them going the other direction. Nina said, “Hi, Clarissa.” The girl, who appeared to be eight or nine months pregnant, didn’t respond. Nina gave Jenny a look.

They sat together at a cafeteria table while Nina filled out forms for Jenny to sign. Then Nina sat back and smiled. “Well. We heard that there was trouble in Congo.”

“Yes, yes there was.”

Neither of them said anything for a time. The sunlight fell through dirty windows and made spandrels on the linoleum floor while a big institutional clock on the wall ticked out the seconds.

“Alice spoke to your mother,” Nina said.

“How is Alice?”

“Fine. Just back from Greece.” Nina hesitated. “She said something about a girl …”

“Lucy. A lovely girl with no parents.”

Nina looked up at Jenny and smiled with understanding. “We know what that’s like, eh?”

“I’m adopting her.”

Again they were silent, and Jenny watched the shadows on the floor as the trees beyond the windows shuddered with the breeze.

Nina put her pen down across the papers that Jenny had just signed. “Do you think you ought to attend to that right now? It sounds as if you’re going to have your plate full.”

“Yes, yes, certainly.” They looked at each other. “I do miss working here.”

“Well, your paperwork is in order. You’ll be back. It’s all right. You take care of Lucy. Come by any time. We’re always here.”

Jenny stood, and they embraced again. Jenny whispered into Nina’s ear, “I’m afraid, Nina. I’m really afraid this time.”

“I know. Now you can’t go home at five and be shut of it. But you’re strong. And she’s lucky to have you.”

12

“TELL ME ABOUT
your mother.”

Lucy didn’t like this woman. She didn’t like her square jaw, which indicated that she could bite hard. She reminded Lucy of old Lucretia, the nasty bonobo who had bitten Zeus’s fingers off. She could tell that Dr. Mayer was suspicious of her but the woman didn’t know why. That made her even more suspicious. Dr. Mayer was used to figuring people out.

“I loved my mother very much,” Lucy said. But that was all she could think of to say.

Dr. Mayer let the silence grow and grow. Lucy looked down at her hands in her lap. “Is that all? Surely you can tell me more than that. What color was her hair? Her eyes?”

“Black,” Lucy said, thinking of Leda’s body lying in the hut that last day, the hair on her chest matted with her own blood. “And brown.”

“Did she tuck you in at night?”

“Yes.” She recalled how Leda would make Lucy the nicest nests in the highest branches.

“Tell me about one of your fondest memories of your mother.”

Lucy remembered the time well. Early one morning Leda had led Lucy deep into the forest through the high branches of the canopy. They had moved quietly, swiftly. About midday they arrived at a clearing where another family was living. Leda let Lucy watch them for a long time. They were downwind, and Lucy could smell their particular aromas. She liked their smell, their look. They all had healthy shiny fur and seemed gentle and playful. One big teenage male looked particularly attractive to Lucy. After a time she and Leda slipped back into the trees.

Lucy had known what that trip meant. Her father had said that she was coming of age. As a female she’d be expected to visit other families and mate with various males among them, eventually settling in with a neighboring tribe. It was then that her father said that they had to prepare to go to London now, before Lucy’s relatives would drive her away.

“Well? Do you remember nothing of your mother?”

But what could Lucy tell her? How could she go on? She didn’t know where to begin. Should she describe how she had clung to the hair on her mother’s back as she went flying through the forest? Should she tell Dr. Mayer how she and her little cousins screeched and chattered around Leda as she copulated with Duke, or how they had delighted in watching Leda rub genitals with her best friend, Vicki, as they lay in the long summer grass? Perhaps Lucy could tell the good doctor how artistic Leda was. How much Lucy enjoyed lolling about on a sleepy afternoon watching Leda paint designs on the rocks with her own excrement.

Lucy began to weep softly. “It’s hard. She’s dead, and it’s hard to remember.”

Dr. Mayer began to write. When Lucy had composed herself, Dr. Mayer sat with her fingers tented, watching her. “Let’s continue this at the next session, shall we?”

Lucy rose and hurried out the door without looking back.

The meetings with Charlie Revere and the school psychologist had Jenny wondering how long she and Lucy could keep their secret. In one sense it seemed so simple: Who would ever believe the truth? In another sense Jenny could tell that everything about Lucy’s presence brought people’s antennae up. She thought she knew why, too. It was what Lucy called The Stream, that flood of information that animals and even people exchange mostly without being aware of it. When a dog encounters another dog, they may sniff around each other or play or even fight. But there is one thing that they know for certain: They are both dogs. When a dog meets a fox, they instantly recognize by scent, sight, and myriad other signals that they are not the same species. They share many similarities. They even share a common ancestor. But they know that they are not the same.

And now the accumulation of clues had Jenny wondering if people were having that same moment of unconscious recognition that she’d had when she first encountered Lucy. Harry had noticed it, too. Everything from her smell to her strength to her exotic and charming looks poured out the message that she was not quite the same species. Of course, that thought would never rise to the level of consciousness, because, well, how could it? She looked like a teenage girl. She spoke, she smiled, she laughed. So people ignored what they knew. They pushed it away. Yet the residue of the revelation remained as a faint and nagging discomfort. Some deep and ancient part of them had learned the new information and would store it away for future reference. The clues would assemble themselves and blossom into knowledge at the slightest hint.

Not long after school started, Jenny’s mother had come to dinner. She had become cautious in her old age and morbidly concerned about illness. She went about the house with a dispenser of disinfectant napkins, wiping off telephones and doorknobs. Lucy had invited Amanda, and Harry had volunteered to grill salmon. Jenny and Harry were in the kitchen doing the prep work with Amanda. Jenny’s mother sat in the living room reading.

“Where’s Lucy?” Harry asked.

“She’s in the euphemism,” Amanda said.

“What?” Jenny asked.

“She’s taking a shower.”

Amanda had just finished pulling bones with a pair of pliers. Harry grated ginger over the salmon fillet in a big Pyrex dish and then began cracking garlic on a cutting board.

“What else can I do?” Amanda asked.

“That’s it, thanks,” Harry said.

Amanda wandered out into the living room and turned on the television. Jenny heard her mother say, “Turn that thing off. I’m reading.”

“Sorry, Mrs. Lowe.”

“You should be reading, too.”

Harry and Jenny exchanged a look. Jenny squeezed lemon over the salmon and then added a sprinkle of tamari.

“You never told me why you wanted her blood back.”

Jenny felt her anxiety level rising.

“Well?”

“Not now, Harry.”

Harry put down his knife, took her by the shoulders, and just stared into her eyes. Those piercing hazel eyes. Jenny turned away. “Harry, don’t.”

“You’re hiding something about her, Jenny. I can’t imagine what it is, though. Does she have AIDS? I didn’t test for it.”

“God, no. Nothing like that.”

He began mincing the garlic with a surgeon’s precision. At that moment she was grateful to see her mother come in, her thumb marking a page in
Pride and Prejudice
.

“Mother! Won’t be a moment. The salmon is about to go on the grill.”

“I don’t know why you don’t use that stove,” her mother said. “I paid nearly a thousand dollars for it back when a dollar was worth something.”

“You’ll just love it grilled, Margaret. I promise. If you don’t, I’ll eat my hat.”

“You mean your motorcycle helmet.” Harry was the only one who could pull her stinger. “Best eat that motorcycle, too, while you’re at it.” She left the room muttering to herself, “Before it kills you.”

Harry turned and winked at Jenny.

At dinner Lucy picked at her food and seemed withdrawn. Jenny knew that it was because of that psychologist. Mrs. Lowe dug into her salmon and said, “Mmm, Harry, you’re right. This is good.”

“That’s a relief. The last motorcycle helmet I ate had bones in it. Unlike my salmon.” He smiled at Amanda.

“This is delicious,” Amanda said. “Thank you, Dr. Lowe. And Dr. Prendeville.”

“Call me Jenny.”

“You can call me Jenny, too,” Harry said.

Jenny’s mother chuckled but said, “Well, you can call me Mrs. Lowe.”

They all laughed. It felt like family to Jenny, perhaps for the first time since her father died.

Harry spent most of the dinner charming Mrs. Lowe and deflecting her critical remarks with jokes. But when Jenny was driving her mother home, Mrs. Lowe said, “Jennifer, you must be out of your mind thinking about adopting that girl.”

“I’m not thinking about it, Mother. I’m doing it.”

“Well, there’s something awfully peculiar about her.”

“Like what?”

“I can’t put my finger on it.”

“She was raised in a foreign country.”

“It’s more than that. Mark my words, she’ll bring you grief one day.”

Jenny knew. She knew what her mother sensed and she feared that one day some meddlesome busybody would follow that subtle suspicion too far. She couldn’t yet imagine how it would happen, but it left her with a queasy feeling.

On top of that, their circumstances were simply so unusual that they alone could set people wondering. Charlie had never met Lucy, yet he seemed to need more explanation than Jenny could give. Why would a woman in the middle of her career simply adopt a teenager from Africa? This had all started with the idea that Lucy would be reunited with her family in England. But no one would understand that there was no family, and anyway, Lucy had already stolen her heart.

About a week later Jenny and Harry met at one of those Greek diners that are everywhere in Chicago and that feature dozens of items on their long, laminated menus. When they’d first met, Harry had informed Jenny that—quiet as it’s kept—there was a top-secret subterranean kitchen beneath the squash courts at the University of Chicago, which supplied all the Greek diners in the area through a system of pneumatic tubes.

They made small talk. Harry was generally too busy to concern himself with the random events in the rest of the world. But he could be a tenacious investigator when faced with a mystery. He began casually enough, asking how Lucy was adjusting. Jenny assured him that she was doing fine and had already found a true friend in Amanda.

Then he said, “Jennifer,” staring at her evenly. Jennifer was the name he used when he wanted her to know that he wasn’t joking anymore. “How long have we known each other?”

“A long time, Harry. We saw the Berlin Wall go down, remember?” She was trying to get him off on another track by reminiscing. Jenny would never forget the day that Harry had driven up from Chicago and rushed into her little cubicle at the Milwaukee Zoo. “Come on,” he’d said, “we’re going to Germany!”

“What for?”

He gave her those intense eyes and said, almost breathless, “The Wall is coming down.” His Darth Vader voice.

He had driven her home and watched her throw a few things in a bag. Harry brought only one change of clothes. Within hours they were on a plane. The day the Wall came down, they were sitting on a curb in Berlin. Harry hadn’t shaved for days and Jenny’s jeans were filthy. Harry had taken off his Chicago Cubs baseball cap and was holding it in his hands. A man in an expensive-looking gray suit walked past, then paused and turned back. He reached into his pocket and dropped several bills into Harry’s hat. They’d never laughed so hard.

Now, sitting in the little diner, he asked, “Don’t you trust me?”

“Of course I trust you, Harry. You’re my best friend. But I’m just asking you to be patient. I’m not ready to talk about it, okay? Respect that boundary, won’t you?”

Harry didn’t miss a beat. “Are you going to have time to volunteer at the shelter with Lucy in your life?”

As Jenny reflected on his gallantry, she thought, Maybe Mother is right. Maybe I should marry him.

But there was still that psychologist. She was a piece of work. A professional snoop. For a moment Jenny entertained the idea that she should school Lucy at home. But then how would she become socialized? Amanda had already begun to teach Lucy things that Jenny could never have taught her—how to talk, how to dress, how to behave, how to fit in. One afternoon Jenny had heard voices. She peeked into Lucy’s room to see who was there and found her standing in front of the full-length mirror striking poses. She was saying things like “Cool,” and “Sweet,” and “Wow.” She struck a defiant pose and said, “No way.” Then another: “Duh!”

Jenny crept away as quietly as she could, thinking, Oh, my God, she’s turning into an American teenager before my eyes. Now she had to worry about the high school prom and even about sex. If Lucy were invited, she’d be the age of a freshman or sophomore at a dance with all those seniors. But what was the alternative? Should they become hermits?

Those were the kinds of thoughts that occupied her mind during Lucy’s first months at school. And even as Jenny worked to protect her true identity, she thought that she had at last come up with a workable plan just in case the worst happened. She had to go up to Milwaukee to see Donna.