Liar (9 page)

“Micah?” Lisa says loudly.

I look up. “Sorry,” I say.

“Do you know the answer?”

“Um.”

“Do you know the question?”

“I'm sorry,” I say. “I was thinking about Erin Moncaster.”

She nods. “Many of us are. But we have to go on with this class. My question was, What are some of the words that are generally acceptable to use now that were forbidden by the Production Code?”

“Um,” I say again. I have no idea. I try to think of a word that might have been bad in the olden days but isn't so much now. “Damn?” I ask.

“Sort of,” Lisa says, and begins to explain. I tune out.

I'm trying to remember which one was Erin. Was she black or white? Kind of a white-sounding name. I don't pay attention to the freshmen except to be glad that I'm not one. A few more months and I'll be out of here; they have years to wait.

I'll be honest: I don't really care about Erin. Maybe that's why I'm not afraid? Erin isn't Zach. Her going missing isn't going to bring him back. Part of me is mad that people are talking about her. As if she's as important as Zach. As if they've forgotten him.

I hate them. By the end of a day filled with talk and speculation, not to mention rumors that she and Zach were together, I start to hate Erin, too.

Zach hasn't even been buried yet.

BEFORE

I only did the DNA testing because the results went to our homes, not to the school. Because Yayeko promised that we didn't have to share the results with the class if we didn't want to. I probably shouldn't have done it. I was curious.

But when the results came, I hid them in a drawer unopened. I didn't want to see the proof of the family illness in black and white. I certainly wasn't going to share the results with my biology class.

But I was there for the day everyone—except me—shared their results.

No one was 100 percent anything.

I could have told them that without the expensive testing.

The whole class buzzed with it. Calling out their results. Laughing. Only a few of us sat quiet. Me, one. Zach, another. He was in back. I was toward the front. But I could hear his quiet.

Brandon didn't believe it. Or said he didn't. But his 11 percent African made him happy. He started joking about basketball. As if a drop of African DNA would suddenly give him a crossover dribble.

“Oh, please,” Tayshawn said, looking at Brandon as if he were something foul stuck to the bottom of his shoe.

“Eleven percent!” Brandon said.

“Which makes you 89 percent dickhead,” Tayshawn said.

Everyone laughed. Brandon started to respond but Tayshawn was louder. “Says here I'm 23 percent white. That mean I'm gonna be a stockbroker who can't dance? Please.”

Brandon laughed like it didn't bother him. But it did. The look he gave Tayshawn was savage.

“What do you think these numbers mean?” Yayeko Shoji said into the brief silence.

No one put a hand up.

I knew what it meant: that no one is exactly what they think they are. We all have every kind of DNA floating in us: black, white, Asian, Native American, human, monkey, reptile, junk DNA, all sorts of genes that do not express.

I have the family illness. My brother doesn't, nor my father. But who knows what will happen if Jordan has kids? His genes are as tainted as mine.

“You think these numbers are meaningful?” Yayeko looked around the room, making eye contact with each of us.

“Well,” Lucy said tentatively, “I guess not. Because even though it says here 10 percent Asian and 3 percent African, when I fill in the next form that asks for race I'll still write ‘white.' ”

There were murmurs of agreement around the classroom.

“There's no space on those forms for percentages,” Tayshawn said. “You only get to be one thing.”

Yayeko nodded. “Indeed. Additionally, these tests are not currently reliable.”

The murmurs got louder. Brandon squawked. “Why'd we do it then?”

Yayeko held up her hand. “The test's ability to identify your DNA is dependent on what DNA is available to the company.”

She turned to the board and started drawing a DNA spiral. The light caught particles of chalk floating in the air. I could smell it, taste it on the tip of my tongue.

“This test was done,” Yayeko said, “by comparing your DNA”—she pointed to the spiral she'd drawn—“with the DNA in that particular company's database. What percentage of the world's DNA do you think they're likely to have? Five percent? Ten? Fifteen?”

Brandon looked at Will. No one said anything. I couldn't imagine it would be a very big percentage. The world is so big. There are so many people in it.

“Less than 1 percent,” Yayeko said at last. “Considerably less. So they have a very small database of DNA. A database that does not contain the DNA of everyone in the world.”

She waited a moment as we digested that. I was wondering how they could tell us anything at all about ourselves if they had so little data. I still wasn't going to open my results.

“They take their DNA from ‘pure' sources—African, European, and Asian groups where there's been relatively little marrying into different groups. But there are very few ‘pure' people left in the world. Many people argue that these tests work from a faulty premise.”

The class was silent. What was Yayeko saying? That the test couldn't tell us anything? That there was no such thing as race? I looked around the room and saw lots of frowning faces. All except Brandon, who was doodling on his hand.

“The company looks for markers in our DNA that they have identified as African or Asian or Europe an or Native American. But with so little of the world's DNA mapped, the odds that they are correctly identifying the markers in your DNA are not high. Say they identify one of your markers as African. It may be that they are identifying your unmapped marker from another part of the world with their mapped marker from somewhere in Africa.”

“Does that mean if the test says you've got no African DNA, it's wrong?” Sondra asked. She's very light-skinned. Lighter than Chantal even, several shades lighter than me. White people usually think she's white, despite her relaxed curls and full lips. She'd been still since reading her results. Like me and Zach she hadn't said a word.

“Definitely,” Yayeko said firmly. “If we did the test with a different company using a different database your results would change. Biologically speaking, the so-called races have more similarities than they have differences. There is only one race: the human race. Sickle-cell anemia is sometimes called a black disease because it is more common in people of African descent, but it is also relatively common in those of Mediterranean, Middle Eastern, and Indian descent. We are one race.

“Right now, what you know about your ancestry and cultural heritage is likely to be more true than anything a test like this can tell you. That may change if we ever get to the point where all the world's DNA is mapped. But right now, you are what you think you are.”

I thought about my family and found myself nodding. Sondra was, too. I've seen her parents. Unlike mine they're both black. I wondered what my DNA test looked like, but I still didn't open the envelope that night.

FAMILY HISTORY

Jordan and me?

We hate each other. He thinks I should be locked in a cage; I think he should never have been born.

You think I exaggerate? That siblings often say they hate each other, but don't mean it?

You're wrong. We hate each other. Like Cain and Abel. Siblings fight and kill each other all the time. I read about brothers who fought on opposite sides of the Civil War. Fought and killed each other.

Jordan's worse than that. It's not that we believe different things, it's that he doesn't smell right. There's something wrong with Jordan. I think he's a bad seed, but Mom and Dad won't believe me. He steals from me. Sneaks into my room and takes things. I told him I'd kill him next time he did it.

So he took Zach's sweater.

AFTER

I love my mom more than my dad, though sometimes the fractured un-American way she talks is embarrassing. She doesn't nag me the way he does. She doesn't always take Jordan's side.

At breakfast Dad starts in again about my going upstate. We're all squeezed into our tiny kitchen, around the table that's not a whole lot bigger than a school desk. There's barely enough room for our plates. Our bikes are hanging upside down over our heads 'cause there's nowhere else to put them. If I get up too quickly I forget they're there and bash my head. Unfortunately Jordan's still too short to get clobbered. He'll grow.

If I stretch out my right arm, reach past Jordan, I can almost touch the fridge. When we sit at the kitchen table you can no longer open the pantry door. My feet are tucked up under my chair because the food processor, coffeemaker, and toaster live under the table.

“I hate the Greats,” I tell Dad, shoving bacon into my mouth. “Don't,” I snap at Jordan, who's just elbowed me in the process of twisting to pick up the toast he dropped. “Brat.”

“Leave it, Jordan,” Mom says. “I will clean after. You do not want to be late for school.”

“Yes I do!” Jordan says, sticking his tongue out at me.

“
I
do not want you to be late for school. Stop with these wriggles! Eat your breakfast. You have ten years, not two!”

“No, you don't, Micah,” Dad says, ignoring Jordan and Mom. “You always have a wonderful time up there.”

“No, I don't. I always run away and hide so I don't have to be anywhere near them. Or my stupid cousins.” I'm keeping my elbows firmly by my side so I don't whack into the wall or Jordan's sticky mouth. Not that I object to hurting him, but I don't want slimy syrup all over my elbow.

“Jordan! Stop!” Mom takes the maple syrup away.

“But I don't like bacon without sweet.”

“Your bacon, it
drowns
! You have ten minutes to finish. We must go.
Vite
!” Mom walks Jordan to his school on her way to the posh one where she teaches French. Every school day she battles to get him out the door.

“I think it would be good for you to get away, Micah. With everything that's been going on. Fresh air—”

“You mean with . . .” I falter. “With him being dead?”

Dad nods. “Yes. Zach was your friend. You're taking it hard.”

“She mourns, Isaiah,” Mom says. “We must allow her this.”

“Zach's a fart!” Jordan says. I am tempted to strangle him right there at the kitchen table. I would love to watch his head fall into his syrup-drowned bacon.

“Quiet, Jordan. You must act your age,” Mom says, squeezing out of her seat, avoiding the bicycles, putting her plate in the sink, and the maple syrup in the fridge.

“There's much more space upstate,” Dad says.

“There's more space in a coffin than there is here!” I imagine Zach stuck in one. The bacon loses flavor. I'm chewing dust.