Nature of Jade (21 page)

to war and survived the Great Depression." Abe gets up. His shirt is coming untucked. He refills his teacup with hot water, bobs a tea bag up and down.

"I never really thought about that."

"Well, look. They have. Your ancestors. You didn't just, poof, appear. You have the pieces of every person that came before you, from the dawn of time. You've lasted. That's what you're made up of. You've done pretty well, huh? Made of strong stuff."

"Me? Always afraid? They'd laugh."

"Think what a huge force fear must have been. Imagine being out in the dark, alone in the elements. Fear, great enough to change the formation of all living things--eyes on the side, eyes in the front, protective coverings, spikes, and venom. Other protections, too--shyness and anxiety and superstitions--all remnants of fear. Rituals and rain dances, gods and mythology. Living in groups ... It goes on and on. Fear causes the greatest changes, when you think about it. Fear is a monumental force."

"Maybe my ancestors left behind too much of it. My instinct sucks."

"Sometimes it can get drowned out by other things. Maybe it gets tweaked by people in your life.

Urged in one direction. Sometimes that's just the way you come."

"Or it gets broken ..." I think about Onyx and the other elephants. How they will become afraid to the point of harming people after they've been hurt, even people who try to help them.

"Nothing about you is broken, Jade."

"I'm not talking about me. Just... in general."

"Sure, okay." He rocks a bit in his chair. "Instinct's an awe 189

some thing, but we don't have to be a prisoner to it." He scratches his whiskers. "So. Anyway.

What's happening now that's brought all this to mind?"

"I met someone. Not just someone, but someone."

"You're in love." He grins.

"Quit it." I glare at him. I look away, stare at his bookshelf and his photo of Tibetan prayer flags, waving yellow, red, blue, green in the wind.

"Your instinct is there and in fine working order, okay? You've just got your fear turned up a little loud. Like your stereo with too much bass. Makes it hard to hear the lyrics."

"I don't want to get hurt."

"How does a person stay safe, always? Lock yourself away? You're looking for a guarantee and there are no guarantees. If you love, you'll feel loss. You can't 'careful' yourself into avoiding loss. You're trying to get day without night."

"All the marshmallows without the cereal," I say.

"Summer vacation without the school."

"We can stop now," I say.

Abe sighs. "I was just getting going."

"I've got a new plan for Onyx," Damian says to me when I arrive at the elephant house. "It's brilliant, if I do say so myself." Damian is checking health charts when I find him. His warm, brown face is soft and pleased with himself, his eyes bright. "I could barely sleep last night, I was so excited. It's so simple." "What?"

"What Onyx needs. A mother. Her own, full-time mother. Consistency. Unconditional love."

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"Okay ..." I wait for more.

Damian faces me, clasps his hands together. "Delores!" he says.

"Delores?"

"She's perfect. The solution has been right here all along." "Delores? Are you sure?"

"Of course I am sure. She is a caregiver. She is a mother with a loving heart. Do you see those pictures of her children?"

"Yes, but have you asked her to do this?"

"Well, that is my one small problem. She says no."

"That seems like more than a small problem." I step into my overalls, zip them up.

But Damian's eyes are still all gleaming and dancing. "That's where you come in!"

"Me?"

"She likes you. You will coax her out of that little box she hides in."

"Damian! I barely know her."

"You are young and you make her smile, I've seen it. And she is missing her daughter. Get her to come out of her box and just see."

"If she doesn't want to, what can I do?" "Try," Damian says. "And try quickly. Onyx is running out of time."

I work a little cleaning stalls, and then hang a traffic cone on the chain for enrichment. Hansa is the first one over. She saunters right over to it and sniffs to examine it. She sets her trunk to my head as if to get me to play too.

I pat her, rub her trunk. I love its roughness under my hand, 191

and her funny little face. The fluff of hair. "Sweet one, you are," I say to her. "Funny girl."

As it gets closer to leaving time, I watch for Sebastian. After Tess and her reaction to me, I don't know if he'll even come.

And I am right. It's a nice day, and there are several visitors in the viewing area. See the elephants.1 Say hi to the elephants! But there is no Sebastian and no Bo.

I pass Delores as I leave the front gate. She is in her booth, doing word searches and drinking a can of Diet 7 Up.

"Wow, you look down," she says. Her voice is small and echoey from behind her window.

"I do?"

"Written all over your face. That boy?" I nod.

"Complicated," she says. She picks up her purse from the shelf near her feet, fishes around inside.

She pulls out a pack of cinnamon gum and offers me a stick through the half-circle hole in the glass. "Here. I just got to give you something," she says.

She's a person with a loving heart, just like Damian said. "I'm supposed to talk to you about Onyx," I start.

"I don't want to hear any more about it," she says. She unwraps a piece of gum for herself, folds it into her mouth.

"Delores, you'd love it."

"I'd get attached, I'd get all involved, I'd never leave. . . ." "That's the idea."

"I had that in my old job, remember? That's why I left. No more. This is perfect for me." "You're missing out," I say.

"So, I'm missing out." She chews her gum, smacks it all juicily.

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"Hansa would love that gum. The smell," I say. "She'd put her trunk right up to your cheek."

"Go," Delores says. "I'll be back," I say.

I walk the long way home, through the rose garden, hoping Sebastian will still show. The garden is mostly green sticks, an improvement over the brown sticks they were a month ago. Green stick bushes and hedges, a pavilion at one end. In the summer it will be beautiful there, but now it is harsh and prickly. Jake Gillete isn't in the parking lot, and Titus is too focused on his work to wave. Through the window of Total Vid, I can see Mrs. Porter, our mail lady, perusing the display of Riding Giants as Titus heads her way, determined as a salesman in the Nordstrom shoe department.

When I open the door of my house, I can hear my mother talking on the phone in the kitchen, laughing. I shut the door loudly, to let her know I am there. I don't know why this feels necessary, except that her voice has something different about it. A lightness that erases the mother parts of her. That makes her seem like a girl. Her voice--it's like ice cubes tinkling in a glass.

"I have to go," she says. I hear the phone clunk to its cradle. "Jade?" she calls.

"It's me."

"How was your day?" "Fine."

"I've got to pick Oliver up from basketball. Oh, and can you start dinner? Hamburgers? 'Cause I've got a meeting at seven." "Okay."

I take everything from my patron saint box, look at each candle carefully. Saint Dymphna is the best choice. I know it

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sounds like a growth that should be surgically removed, but really she's this young woman with a handkerchief over her head and an understanding look. In her picture she holds something that looks like a box of chocolates, but I don't have a clue what it really is. Maybe some kind of cure, some magic released when the lid is off, like in one of Oliver's Narnia books. She is the patron saint of family happiness, of possessed people, of therapists and nervous disorders and runaways.

I figure she'll do the trick for Tess and Sebastian, close enough, and I feel qualified on the nervous disorders end. Even Abe will be watched over, and I figure it's the least I can do, considering all he does for me.

I have a ton of homework, but I don't care about reading twenty-five pages of biology right then.

I'm too worried about Sebastian, about that angry white-haired lady with the blue eyes that he cares so much about. Instead, I lie on my bed and look out the lava-lamp window. I watch the white clouds make shapes against the sky, drifting, but with purpose. As if they know just where they are going.

After dinner, Mom leaves for her meeting, and instead of helping with the dishes, I am bouncing Oliver's basketball around in the kitchen.

"Jade, you better help," Oliver says.

"If you think we're doing your plate, just know you'll be seeing it at breakfast," Dad says.

"Go out for a pass," I say. I bounce the ball Dad's way. He ignores me and it crashes into the oven door.

"Something's going to get broken," he says.

"I'm giving you another chance," I say. I dribble around the kitchen table. Scoot beautifully around a blocking chair. It

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doesn't have a chance. If I were this good in PE, those people never would have laughed. I give the ball a single bounce toward Dad. He turns in a flash, drops his kitchen towel, and neatly catches the ball.

"Now you're in trouble," he says.

And I am. See, as I've said, Dad's a really good athlete. Even in his dress slacks and shirt, his tie slightly loosened, he moves around the kitchen as if he's on some gym floor with his tennis shoes going siueefe-sujeefe and the crowds going wild. He stops, dodges, and advances. Already, he is over by the refrigerator. I approach, but he is gone again. Just dribbling, oh, so full of himself, back by the stove now.

"Help me, Oliver," I say.

We pounce, and Milo starts barking like crazy and Oliver lets out a tribal war whoop. Dad dances and jets around and we keep reaching out, grabbing at nothing.

"I-I'm whip-ping your buutts," Dad sings.

"Get him!" Oliver screams. I'm not sure whose team Milo is on, but he should be kicked off for unsportsmanlike behavior.

Oliver has his hip right against Dad's. Then he moves ever so slightly in front of him, neatly snatching the ball. Suddenly, Oliver is over by Milo's water bowl, dribbling with that same smug look Dad had.

"Yes!" I screech. I jump up and down. "Victory is ours!"

"Well, look at that," Dad says.

"I learned it from Coach Bronson," Oliver says.

"Game over. Let's have a beer," I say.

Dad shoots me a look.

"Kidding!" I say.

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We finish up the dishes, and then follow Dad downstairs to see the train. "Wow," I say.

The new part of his town has been filled out--there are patches of nubby green trees and serene rolling hills, a small lake, all surrounding the house I had set there. Off a bit from the house is a very small town, one store, with its own tiny gas pumps, and a truck beside them getting filled.

There's only a small corner of board left.

"You're almost done," I say.

"What do you guys think?"

"I like it there," Oliver says, pointing to where the new house is. It's true--it's the prettiest part of the board, away from his old center of town with the streets and people and miniature trucks and stores and factories.

"Me too," I say. "What are you going to do with the corner that's left?"

"Don't laugh," he says.

"What?"

"An ocean."

"Cool," Oliver says.

"I've never seen a set with an ocean before," he says. "I'm still trying to figure out how I can craft it."

"Then you'll be done," I say. "And then what?"

"I don't know," he says. He takes his tie off, tosses it on the chair.

"The train goes on its first trip," Oliver says. "I guess you're probably right," Dad says.

We leave Dad downstairs.

"Jade?" Oliver says. He's been thinking about something.

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"What?"

"I still don't like basketball."

"That's okay," I say. "More than okay."

I knock on my doorframe. I settle in front of my computer for homework, try to concentrate on things I don't care about instead of obsessing about where Sebastian might be. I flip over to the elephants, hoping for even red-jacket cyber contact. Anything. I would have called him if I weren't scared to death of his white-haired grandmother. I watch Tombi swaying, moving her feet in that restless way. I know how she feels. I do more homework, pop on the web, and try to look up FFECR. Maybe it would help me understand something about Tess. I stop looking for it after three pages of French phrases and medical conditions, nothing I'm guessing Tess would be at a meeting for.

I clomp back downstairs to feed my misery. I have a couple of chocolate chip cookies left in the bag from about six months ago, which are lifeless and stale. Milo appears with his blankie, and I give him a big new rawhide to brighten his evening. It cheers me up to make him so happy. He takes it from me, gently, politely, and then trots to the living room with it sticking sideways out of his mouth. I watch him. He paces, hunts around for just the right spot to bury it.

"Chew on it, don't hide it," I advise.

He ignores me. Continues his quest with the focused, got-to-find-it obsession of someone in a long checkout line hunting for that last nickel. He tries out one place, under the couch, decides against it. No good. He walks to the potted fern and sniffs, but no. Under the armoire with the television in it? Maybe. He sets it down, looks, decides it is not quite right. He finally sets it next to the basket of magazines. He pushes his

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nose against the carpet over and over, burying it with imagined dirt. It sits there on the rug in plain sight, and Milo looks at it as if it weren't there. It's kind of embarrassing. But you can tell even he knows he's kidding himself.

Milo stares up at me with his deep brown eyes. He seems like he's at a loss at what to do, and this makes me sad for him. "You did a great job," I say. "Awesome. I don't see a thing."

I pat his soft head. Talk about broken instinct.

It's one of those life rules that when you don't care about guys noticing you, they most often do.