The Adoration of Jenna Fox (5 page)

"Please," Mother says. Her voice is
soft now. Almost a whisper.

"Claire, you can't keep her hidden from
the world. She wants a life. Isn't that what this was all about?"

"It's not that easy. It could be
dangerous."

"Walking across the street can be
dangerous, but thousands of people do it every day."

"I don't mean for her. There are others to
consider."

"Oh. Them." Lily's voice is mocking.
Mother doesn't respond. The conversation seems to be over. I hear dishes
clatter and then a chair scraping across the floor. Silence threads through the
house like a lace pulling tight, and then I finally hear the scraping of
another chair and the sound of Lily sighing herself into place. "You know
I don't care one way or another. I said goodbye eighteen months ago. You can
send her back to Boston as far as I'm concerned, but as I see it, you made a
decision. Right or wrong, it's done. Now you have to move on. Are you her
keeper or her mother?"

I hear a choking sound, and then an almost
inaudible "I don't know."

Silence follows. No dishes. No chairs. No
voices. No bending. Mother is done. So is Lily. Lily, the last person I
expected to argue for me. At least I think that's what she did. But she would
be just as happy if I were three thousand miles away in Boston. Probably
happier. I don't understand. I only know I will not be going to school. Claire
said so.

Claire.

I remember now.

I didn't call her Mother. I called her Claire.
I am certain of it. I finish the ascent of the stairs. I go to my room. Claire
told me. I think I hate her.

Jenna Fox / Year Ten

I know the meaning, but I check again to be
sure.

hate v.
1. Intense dislike,
extreme aversion or hostility. 2. To dislike passionately. 3. To detest.

There is a better word for Mother.
Aggravating,
maybe.

But I think Lily is wrong. She does hate me.
Her aversion is extreme. She nearly shakes me with her constant sideways
glances. She hasn't spoken more than four words to me in as many days, but
since she's been out in the greenhouse from dawn until dusk, it has been easy
to avoid me. Our worlds only intersect briefly in the morning when the three of
us sit at the kitchen table and in the evening when we return there. I have
been in my room watching discs. Mother asked me to. Her desperation for me to
be who I was has intensified. As the Cotswold sees improvement, workers coming
and going and restoring, it is like she expects to see the same measure of
improvement in me. Restored shingles. Restored flooring. Restored Jenna.

I don't want restoration. I want a life. Now. I
want to move on. Those were Lily's words. It is ironic that her words should
become my own.

But I watch the discs.

Because Mother told me to.

I am halfway through Year Ten of Jenna Fox. I
see a pretty girl. Her blond silky hair wags in a ponytail across her back. I
have already seen her at diving lessons, another ballet recital, practicing
piano, and now I see her running across a field kicking a soccer ball. She is
impossibly busy. Her life is so full I can hardly take it in, the complete
opposite of the empty-life Jenna I am now.

She kicks the ball to a teammate, who in turn
kicks the ball into the goal. A horn sounds. Fists fly into the air along with
shouts. Teammates hug and lift one another, and Jenna is in the midst of it
all. I hear Father and Mother, unseen behind the camera, cheering and finally
calling me over. I run to them. I acknowledge their congratulations. I smile. I
toss my head back to call to a friend, and I notice something for the first
time. A thin red line just under my chin.

"Pause," I blurt out. "Back.
Pause." The disc player follows my commands. I look closer at the still
picture. "Zoom." The thin red line becomes what I suspected. A scar.

I walk to my bathroom mirror and tilt my face
back. I run my fingertips up the length of my throat. I feel. I search.

There is no scar.

It's been seven years since that video was
filmed. Do scars disappear in seven years?

A Glimpse

It's been twenty-five days since I woke up.

Eight days since I went to the mission.

Six days since the new front walkway was laid.

Five days since the plumbing fixtures were
replaced.

Three days since I last saw Mr. Bender through my
window.

Three days of rain and 4,287 cold beads of
water beating against my windowpanes.

I'm good at math after all.

Without friends and a packed schedule to keep
me busy, keeping track of time and numbers has become a prime source of
entertainment. Watching the collecting rivulets of rain on my window has become
a close second.

February in California is cold. Not as cold as
Boston. Not nearly. The Net Report says it has dropped to a low of fifty-four
degrees. "Oh, my," Lily had mocked. The temperature varies very
little. Boredom reigns on all levels. The rain is a welcome change. I have seen
the pond swell and the creek surge. I press my palm against the glass,
imagining the drops on my skin, imagining where they started out, where they
will go, feeling them like a river, rushing, combining, becoming something
greater than how they started out.

I spend time on the Net. Mr. Bender
said there isn't a thing you can't learn about your neighbors there. Since he
is the only neighbor I know, I learn things about him. He is famous. A recluse.
There are no pictures of him. Few people have ever met him. Quirky artist. And
more.

I type in the name Jenna Fox. I am overwhelmed
with the hits.
There are thousands.
Which one am I? I turn off the Net
and realize I don't even know my middle name. It's too much work, trying to
become who I am, always having to ask others what I should already know. I lie
on my bed staring at the ceiling. For hours maybe.

Other thoughts replay, collect, finger out into
more thoughts.

Mr. Bender's birds and my untouchable palms . .
.

... a watery blood bead on my knee . . .

... a baptism I remember . . .

. . . and visitors.

I had visitors last night. Kara and Locke came
to me again. In my deepest sleep, they shook
me. Jenna, Jenna.
I opened
my eyes, but their voices stayed in my ears. I hear their voices even now.
Hurry,
Jenna. Come. Hurry.

Hurry where?

I see us at the Commons, the memory so vivid I
can still smell the freshly mowed grass. We sit at the base of the George
Washington Monument, squeezing close for shade, our legs stretched out before
us in the long afternoon shadow. We are ditching our Sociology Seminar, and
Kara is filling every space with nervous chatter, and when she laughs her black
bobbed hair shakes like a skirt at her shoulders. Locke keeps suggesting that
we should go. "No!" Kara and I say together.
It's too late. Too
late.
And then the three of us are laughing again, exhilarated, bolstered
together in our defiance.

We are not comfortable with it. We are rule followers.
This is new to us, and our courage comes from each other. I lean over and kiss
Locke. Hard on the lips. We explode in more laughter, and snot spurts from our
noses. Kara repeats the kiss, and we are limp with our howling. I ache with the
remembering.

I roll from my bed to the floor and lean back
against the wall, the way I leaned back that day in Boston. I had friends. Good
friends.

A Curve

Mother is at the
Netbook
when I enter the kitchen. She is talking to Father. I have talked to her little
more than I have to Lily in the past few days. She is busy and distant. Lily is
in the pantry rattling boxes.

"Morning," Mother says and returns to
her conversation with Father.

"Jenna?" Father calls.

"Morning, Father," I say.

"Come here, Angel."

I stand behind Mother and look over her
shoulder so he can see me.

"You're looking good," he says.
"How are you feeling?"

"Fine."

"Any lapses? Pain? Anything unusual?"

"No."

"Good. Good." He repeats himself a
third time, and I sense he is filling time.

"Something wrong?" I ask.

"No. Not at all. I think your mother wants
to have a talk with you, though, so I'll be going. Talk to you tomorrow."
He clicks off.

A talk. She frightens me with her control and
sureness. I don't want to talk, but I am sure we will. Claire commands and it
happens.

"Sit down," she says.

I do.

Lily walks out of the pantry and leans against
the counter, her own busyness suddenly gone out of her. Mother looks like she
is going to regurgitate last night's dinner.

"You're starting school tomorrow,"
she says. "It's only at the local charter. It's the closest one, so you
can walk for the days that they meet. Their emphasis is ecosystem studies, but
there is nothing I can do about that. It will just have to do. The others are too
far, too crowded, and too
—well, they simply
need too many forms that we can't provide right now. You're all registered, and
they're expecting you. Unless you've changed your mind about going to school."

After a long pause I realize her last sentence is
a question. "No," I answer. "I haven't changed my mind." I
am still backtracking, trying to absorb everything she has thrown at me.
School? Tomorrow? I thought it was out of the question. How did this happen? I
pause in sorting out the turnaround, and I finally notice her.

Her eyes are glassy puddles.  Her hands
rest in her lap, weakly turned upward. The steady stream of words has ended,
and she looks spent from the effort.

"Are you happy?" she asks.

I nod. Is it a trick? This is not what she
wants. What is she
really
trying to do? "Yes. Thank you," I
say. She pulls me close, and I feel her uneven breaths against my neck. Her
grip is tight and I think she won't let go but then she pushes back my
shoulders and she smiles. The limp hands tighten, the eyes blink, and with a
deep breath she summons the infinite control that is Claire's. "I'm
meeting with carpenters this morning, but I will talk to you more about it this
afternoon." She hesitates for a long moment, then adds, "The rain's
stopped. Why don't you go out for a walk while you can?" Her face is pale.

A walk, too?

I can't respond. All I can think of is the
gilded figure hanging on the wall in Lily's church. Mother's lifeblood is
flowing out of her.

"Thank you," I say again and head for
the door, but before I leave the room, I see Lily close her eyes at the kitchen
sink and her hand brushes her forehead, her heart, and finally each shoulder.

Plea

I hear sobbing.

And then a hail Mary.

I hear a mumbling of prayers.
And bargaining, too.

Jesus. Jesus.

Je
sus.

Pleading and moaning.

In the darkest place that revisits
me over and over again.

And for the first time I recognize
the voice.

It is Lily.

A Walk

I am out the door in seconds. I am going to
school. Tomorrow. I hurry down the walkway. Will Mother change her mind? I
glance over my shoulder to make sure she is not following me.
Freedom.
It
feels as crisp and breezy as the open sky. But then I remember her pale face.
Her tentative decision. My pace quickens. Distance is my savior. I flee from my
closed world into one I haven't met yet.

Them.

Mother said it could be dangerous.
For
them.
Is she afraid I will hurt others? My classmates? I wouldn't. But
maybe the old Jenna would? Did I hurt Kara and Locke? Is that why they aren't
my friends anymore?

There is Mr. Bender. He counts as a
friend. I will visit him.

With the swelling of the creek, I can't
pass between our yards, so I follow the streets around to his house. I don't
know his address or what his house looks like from the front, but I know, like
ours, it is the last house on his street.

Even though the rain has stopped, the
gutters are still like small rivers. Leaving our sidewalk to walk in the
street, I must leap to get over the expanse. I walk down the middle of the
road. The air smells of wet soil and eucalyptus. This time tomorrow I will be
in school. I will be making more friends. I will be owning a life. The life of
Jenna Fox. It will be mine, whatever that may be.

Our neighbor's house, the massive Tudor,
is dark and quiet. Same with the next house. But at the sprawling Craftsman I
see activity. A small white dog barks at me through the bars of a gate. I stop
and watch him. A woman calls to me, and I turn my head toward the front drive,
where she sweeps the litter of the storm.