The Adoration of Jenna Fox (9 page)

"And the worst part of it is, I've
forgotten everything. I don't remember my parents, my friends, which things I
love, and which things I hate. I can't even remember which side I parted my
hair on
—or maybe it was down the middle? And
look at this," I say, pointing at my legs, "I obviously can't even
remember how to walk!"

"It's okay
—"

"It's all a blank. My life, my parents, my
friends. I'm not sure I should even be here. I can't remember anything that
matters," I say in a desperate breathless finish, feeling like I have
confessed a sin and I need forgiveness. Their forgiveness. Three friends. Are
they friends?

Ethan's eyes, at that moment, are the kindest,
deepest, safest brown I am sure I will ever know. I wait for him to absolve me
of not remembering a mother who birthed me, a grandmother who saved me, friends
who rebelled with me, and a suffocating fear I can't name.

"Jenna," he says. His voice is as
soft as a sparrow's beating wing, and I can almost feel the gentle flutter
across my cheek. "Thou
speakest
the loveliest .
. . load of crap." He leans close and whispers,
"A single gentle
rain makes the grass many shades greener. So our prospects brighten
..."

He waits expectantly. I lean in closer.

He watches my lips, and I let my words trickle
out as softly as his. ". . .
on the influx of better thoughts. We
should be blessed if we lived in the present always, and took advantage of
every accident that befell us. ..."

Ethan downs the rest of his milk. "Two
points made."

"Three," I say.

He raises his eyebrows.

"You're far more versed in
Walden
than
you let on," I say.

And not a dickhead at all, I think to myself.

Pieces

Isn't that what all of life is
anyway?

Shards. Bits. Moments.

Am I less because I have
fewer, or do the few I have

    mean more?

Am I just as full as anyone else?
Enough?

Pieces.

Allys
saying "I like you."

Gabriel snorting out bread,
freeing me to laugh.

And Ethan reminding me how much I do
know.

Pieces.

I hold them like they are
life itself.

They nearly are.

Fine Tuning

"Don't forget, I'm coming home with
Ethan," I call out to the kitchen. "So don't pick me up."

I walk down the hallway, turn around, and walk
back again, watching myself in the full-length mirror. I lift my feet
carefully, but it seems overdone. Maybe it's my arms? Do they swing properly? I
go back to the end of the hallway and try again.

Claire calls back, not to me but to Lily, loud
so I can hear, "Did you hear that, Mom? Jenna's coming home with
Ethan.
Sounds almost like a date."

I smile. The last few days, Mother has been so
cheerful, almost giddy that school has gone well. Perhaps she sees my life
—and hers—coming back to us.

I stare at the mirror. I think it's my knees. I
walk slowly, willing them into smooth movements. Better. I go to the kitchen.
"It's not a date, Mother. I'm just working at the Mission with Ethan until
I find my own community project."

Mother tilts her head and rolls her eyes.
"Oh. Sure. A community project. I've seen Ethan the last two days when I
picked you up. He's
—"

"Claire!" Lily yells. "What's
gotten into you? Do you really    think it's wise to encourage
this? Dating? Think it through!"

I glare at Lily. Mother and I are finally
having something that resembles a conversation and she has to put a stop to it.
Why does she have to be so annoying? So small-minded? So
—

"Don't be such a dickhead, Lily!" I
tell her.

Mother's jaw drops and she seems to forget what
she was going to say.

Lily is silent for a moment and then bends over
the counter.

Laughing?
Is she laughing?

I'm afraid I will never understand either one
of them.

Jenna Fox / Year Fourteen

Since Lily isn't driving me to the mission
until ten o'clock, I continue to fill the morning with the task of walking. I
was hoping to have it figured out before I saw Ethan again. I practice in front
of the mirror. I move slow. I move fast. I sway my hips, my hands, my chin. I
glide, but it is all still off. I see that now. Am I trying too hard?

I decide to watch the videos. Maybe I'll learn
something. Isn't that what Mother says? That it might trigger something? Maybe
it will trigger something in my legs and arms so I walk like everyone else. I
want to be like everyone else. I saw how Dane looked at me, before he saw me
clod my way across the classroom. I liked the way his eyes were fixed on me.
Close. Personal. So slow it almost felt like he was sliding his hands over me.
It makes me feel different. Familiar. Maybe like the old Jenna.

"Play," I say, and the disc follows
my command.

I get lucky. Year Fourteen appears to be all
about Jenna walking and moving.

As with all the discs, Year Fourteen begins
with my birthday. I pose next to a street sign, Champs-Elysees, and then run
along the street, the Arc de
Triomphe
as my
destination. Paris. Not bad for a fourteenth birthday. "Hurry, Dad!"
I call. But I don't fuss too much. Jenna is so used to every move being
recorded at this point that she seems to have surrendered herself to the
adoration of Jenna Fox. There is no such thing as hurry for Mother or Father. I
am too important. Why is this Jenna Fox so strong, but I feel less powerful
than a single kilowatt?

Jenna stops on the sidewalk, a speck in the
distance. She twirls, her arms outstretched, her face lifted to a blue and
cloud-puffed sky, strangers passing her, absorbed in her perfect, happy world.
Her movements are smooth and assured. Her limbs, graceful and elegant. Even her
fingers look like calligraphy against the sky.

"Pause." I stand and move to the
center of my room. I stretch out my arms. I look at my fingers. They are every
bit as lean and delicate as the ones on the disc. I turn. Slowly, at first. And
then faster. I try to imitate fourteen-year-old Jenna, but my feet cannot keep
up. My ankles collide. I stumble to the side and catch myself on my desk.
Nothing has been triggered. I am still not the nimble Jenna Fox on the disc.

I look at my fingers again, the ones that
trembled and shook just a few days ago at Mr. Bender's kitchen table. I bring
them together, fingertip to fingertip, like a steeple. Each one perfect in
appearance. But something is not . . . right. Something that I still have no
word for. It is a dull twisting that snakes through me. Is this a tangled
feeling that everyone my age feels? Or is it different? Am I different? I slide
my
steepled
fingers, slowly, watching them interlace.
Trying to interlace, like a clutched desperate prayer, but again, I feel like
the hands I am lacing are not my own, like I have borrowed them from a
twelve-fingered monster. And yet, when I count them, yes, there are ten. Ten
exquisitely perfect, beautiful fingers.

The New Lily and Jenna

Lily drives. I tap my knee. We don't speak. I
watch her from time to time. Sideways, when I am sure she doesn't notice. I
look at the lines fanning out from her eyes, the simple knot she has pulled her
hair into, and the hastily placed clip that holds it together. She drives me to
the mission because of Mother. I have figured that out now. Anything she does
for me is really for Mother. There is nothing she wouldn't do for Claire.

They seem to be at odds right now over me. But
I see the way Lily watches Claire, the way she will come up and squeeze her
shoulders, or hug her for no reason at all, the way they still share something
that I am not a part of.

I think she loved me once. But it is clear that
is not the case anymore. She tolerates me. For Claire's sake, I gather.
Occasionally she is touched by something in our past. I see a crack. Like the
day I thought I was drowning. But then she puts her rigid exterior back on,
like protection against me. Does she think I am dangerous? That I would hurt
her?

Would I?
I wanted to this morning in the
kitchen when she told Claire to stop encouraging me. I think I wanted to hit
her. Hard. I could have. But I didn't.

Strangely, I want her to like me. I don't know
why. Maybe it is just wanting to go back to the way things were. To be the old
Jenna. The one I don't know but the one she loved.

We take back roads. The hills are brown, dry,
cold. But beneath the dry scruff, spring is emerging. Bright emerald grass
contrasts with the brown chaparral that hovers above it. Winter is not welcome
in California. It is only the beginning of February, and spring is already
forcing its way in. Claire says she likes the temperate climate
—that she will never go back to the icy winters again. That I
will never go either. How does she know? I might. I will not always be
seventeen.

We pass a toppled building, its rubble being
eaten by weeds, and vines. Apparently after the quake, some parts of California
were worth rebuilding and others were not. "
Hm
,"
Lily comments as we pass, forgetting our agreed silence.

"Are you afraid?" I ask.

She feigns surprise. "Of earthquakes? No.
When it's my time to go, I go."

Is she really that confident? Just where does
she think she's going? "Go where?" I ask, enjoying pushing her. She
stares at me. Longer than is safe when driving fifty miles per hour.
"Never mind," she answers and looks back at the road. I look straight
ahead again, too. I know what
go
means to her, but I wanted her to say
it.

Die.

Go.

To heaven? Is that where she thinks
she's
going?
Is she really sure of going to a place that isn't even on a map? And how can
she be sure she'd like it once she got there? But that's Lily. One big question
mark.

We return to our silence. There are no more
comments about tumbled buildings, who we are, were, or the strain between us.
We return to something unnatural and painful and familiar. The way Lily and I
are now.

The mission comes sooner than I think. We are
here and I long for more of the strained silence. It doesn't make sense, but I
suppose in my new world, it does. I follow Lily down the same path as last time
—through the heavy wooden gate, the cemetery,
and finally through the church that leads to the inner courtyard where I am to
meet Ethan. When she opens the door into the church, an unexpected wave of
chanting stops us. A choir of pink-cheeked boys lift their voices as a priest
seems to pull the music from their throats with the urging of his hands. Lily
immediately crosses herself and closes her eyes. The echo of their voices makes
me stop, too. It feels like it is shaking something inside of me, something
that aches.

"Come along," Lily whispers.
"They're practicing."

We cross through the church, the priest
acknowledging our presence with a nod but not stopping from his work. Lily
opens the opposite door, and we exit to the courtyard.

"Ethan is bringing you home, so once I
finish my business with Father Rico, I'll be going." She turns to leave.

I am still filled with the sound of the boys'
clear voices. I don't want to let it go. I don't want to let Lily go. She is
already walking away. "I heard you," I say. She stops and turns
around. "Crying," I add. "When I was in a coma. I heard you cry
out to Jesus. For me. I thought you should know. That people in a coma can
hear." Her fingers tighten around the bag in her hands. Her eyes are fixed
on me, but she doesn't speak. "Did you know I heard you?" I ask.

She opens her mouth, but her words seem to be
stuck in her throat. "No," she finally says. "I didn't
know." She swipes a strand of hair from her cheek. "I need to
go," she says. "I need to go."

Ethan is not in the courtyard as promised, but
after several misdirected attempts, I eventually find him at the
lavanderia
, the ancient washing basins next to the gardens.
I don't even know what I will be doing for my community project. Rae just
seemed to be satisfied that I could work with Ethan until I found a project of
my own. We must devote eight hours per week to it.

"Finally," he says when I arrive. But
before he spits out his cold greeting, I catch something. A smile? Not so much
around the mouth but in the eyes. I'm learning amazingly fast. He probably
doesn't even know I saw.

"I got a lecture this morning, thanks to
you," I tell him.

"How so?"

"Apparently
dickhead
means more
than annoying."