The Adoration of Jenna Fox (19 page)

"I know you have the patience of a rapidly
decomposing
turd
, Dane, but I will get to my reason
for meeting here. Not that I need one. Sunshine is plenty for most
people."
Allys
adjusts her position on her rock,
unaware of how much satisfaction she has brought to Ethan and Gabriel. Maybe
even Rae.

"Before the FSEB stepped in to regulate
science labs, bio-engineered plants and transgenic animals were being
introduced into the food chain at the rate of dozens of species a year. Since
these posed no direct health concern to humans, the FDA was approving these
introductions at an alarming pace. But
—"

I know where she is
going. I shouldn't interrupt, but my mouth is speaking before I can decide not
to. "But no one looked at the effects of these new species intermingling
with native populations? That's the danger, isn't it?"

"Exactly," she answers. "They
didn't even consider the possibility. That's why regulation is key."

"To make sure we don't produce any lab
monsters?" I offer. "Ones that might
get
out in the world and
taint the original species? Is that what you mean?" Ethan stands and leaps
to an adjacent rock to get my attention. He wants me to shut up. Do
Allys
and my secret frighten him that much?

"Well, Jenna," she answers, "I'm
not sure
taint
is quite the right word. It's more like making sure
native populations aren't put at risk. It's already too late for so many
species, which is why the work of the Federal Science Ethics Board is so
—"

Ethan leaps to another rock, his hands flying
over his head at the same time. "But that's the sticking point, isn't it,
Allys
? Even the FSEB has its share of scandal. Payoffs.
Conflict of interests. Sleeping with
—"

"Ethan! What federal agency doesn't have
its problems? All the things you're mentioning were early in its history."

Rae watches intently. She seems gratified that
a simple science lesson has turned unexpectedly passionate.

"Besides,"
Allys
continues, "those issues have been worked out. And now, without their
careful monitoring, who knows what labs would be unleashing on the world?"

I stand. "Probably a lot of illegal
things," I say. "Freakish things." I walk toward
Allys
. "Dangerous things." The freakish me, my
delivery, my timing, everything about me, off. Different. Unleashed.

"Right,"
Allys
says. She stares at me. Quiet. Wondering at my opinion? Or my awkward stance?
Or the fact that I am only an arm's length away, meeting her stare. Her mind is
racing.
What is wrong with Jenna Fox? Something is different.
She senses
it. I can see it in every eyelash, every contraction of her pupil. She is
searching. Trying to fill the gaps between her own synapses. Am I really that
different from her?

Time is suspended. I can feel the breath of
Ethan, Rae, and Gabriel, held between us.

"Why are we here?" Dane's voice cuts
through.

Allys
turns to face Dane. She spits her
words out at him. "A short
forty
years ago, you hopeless moron, you
would have been underwater. Look at the top of this ravine! This was once a
river. In just forty short years, thanks to transgenic intervention and its
domino effects, this tributary has become a mostly dry creek bed. So that is
why we're here,
Dane.
End of lesson!"

I look at the sparse trickle. I look at the dry
boulders. I look at what science has done.

To me. To the ravine. And finally, to
Allys
.

Yes.

End of lesson.

Red

My fingers brush along the hangers in my
closet. First my shirts, then my pants, all varying shades of blue. Sturdy.
Neat. Functional. None with a fraction of the flair that I saw in Rae's
clothes. These have no personality at all.

Even Gabriel, who wants to fade into the
background more than any of us, looks like a strutting peacock compared to me.
Yesterday, when we climbed back out of the ravine, Dane and Gabriel were the
last ones out. No one saw what happened. Dane claimed he lost his footing, but
it was Gabriel who went down. His shirt was nearly ripped off his back. Back in
the car, Gabriel fumed. He knew it wasn't an accident, but all he said was,
"This was my favorite shirt."
My favorite shirt.
It struck me
then. I don't have a favorite shirt. And now suddenly it seems so very
important.

I pull out two shirts and compare them.
There is no reason to like one more than the other. They almost look like lab
attire. The only thing I like is
—

The color.

A memory catches me.

Kara and I are shopping on Newbury
Street, running in and out of tiny shops on a rainy spring day. We finally
hunker down in our favorite. Kara chides me
, Jenna, I refuse to allow you to
buy another blue skirt! Your whole closet is blue!

My favorite color was blue.

And Kara's favorite color was red.

Claire may have had to choose my clothes
hastily, or maybe she chose them because they wouldn't draw attention, but at
least she tried to get a color she knew I liked. But that day almost two years
ago, Kara talked me into the red skirt. She was right. It was a change I
needed. What happened to that red skirt? Couldn't Mother have packed my clothes
and brought them from Boston? Or maybe that was part of the secret. A gravely
ill, bedridden Jenna would have no use for short red skirts or floppy flowered
hats, or jewel-trimmed blouses, and that invalid picture had to be preserved
for prying eyes. Besides, a new, improved, and shorter Jenna would need new
pants anyway. Ones that wouldn't drag and reveal her lost two inches.

I ache for that red skirt now.

And I ache for the day I bought it with
Kara.

Sliver

The lane to Mr. Bender's house is quiet. A
breeze rustles golden leaves end over end along the gutter. The same breeze
cuts across my face. It is cold, but I don't shiver. It's only California cold,
not Boston cold. Mother and Father claim I will never feel that cold again.

Maybe.

Do I really want to live for two hundred
years? Then again, do I want to live for only two either? Is that decision up
to me? I am nearly eighteen. Eighteen what? An eighteen-year-old. thing that
can make a choice? If Father really believes what he says, that there is a most
important ten percent, then one day I may make the choice to go to Boston. Kara
and Locke are in Boston.

A gust whips my hair across my face, and I
startle, stopping in the street, closing my eyes but still seeing, remembering
the feeling, brushing strands from my face two years ago, the saltiness, the
crispness, the foamy spray of a nearby crashing wave, the sound of gulls
overhead, the feeling of sand between my toes.

These memories descend out of nowhere, giving
me pieces of who I was, but their significance is lost. I sigh and resume my
walk, not knowing if this memory is important, or just more of the jumbled
trivia of Jenna's life, like sock shopping. Maybe that is all any life is
composed of, trivia that eventually adds up to a person, and maybe I just don't
have enough of it yet to be a whole one.

My half-filled memory is pocked with extremes:
flashes of surgical clarity paired with syrupy slow searches for basic words
any four-year-old would know, moments of startling insights followed by fits of
embarrassing denseness, vast gaps where I can't even remember what happened to
my best friends, and then glimpses from my infancy that should never be
remembered. But then when I am feeling the least human, I remember kissing
Ethan and feeling intensely alive
—more alive
than I think the old Jenna could have ever felt. Would that make a difference
to the FSEB?

In dark, silent moments in the middle of the
night, alone, I count the number of times my chest rises, watching with
detached interest this thing that I am, knowing my breaths don't  
take  in  oxygen
—it  is 
only  for  show.   I am  almost
impressed with
the rhythm of it all, in a repulsive sort of way.  And then it leads me,
unexpectedly, back to a place where I can almost feel my fingers touching who I
used to be. Jenna. The real Jenna.

I wonder. Is there such a thing? A real Jenna?
Or was the old me always waiting to be someone else, too?

Hurry. Jenna. Hurry.
Kara's and Locke's voices won't let
go.

Or maybe it's me who won't let go.

I jiggle the latch on Mr. Bender's gate and
swing it open. His house reminds me of Thoreau's Walden. It is larger, but
still rustic and natural, overgrown with landscape, banks of wild white roses
tangling across the porch roof. He doesn't answer when I knock. I walk around
to the side and down his long driveway. I see him examining a window on his
garage house.

"Hello," I call.

He turns and waves. "Good to see
you."

I walk closer and see the window is shattered.

"You broke it?"

"Someone did." He says
someone
like
it's a name.

I look inside. Tables are overturned. Paint is
thrown against walls. An upholstered stool is slashed and the stuffing pulled
out and tossed. But it is the aqua-colored car parked within that stops me. The
dusty cover has been partially ripped away to reveal an old and obviously
out-of-commission car.
I've seen that car before.
But I don't know
where. Maybe in a photo? Or maybe I've only seen one just like it.

"Did you call the police?" I ask.

"No. I don't want to get them
involved."

"Because of your secret?"

"I have to weigh the risks. This isn't
worth it. I can clean this up in a few hours, and the monetary loss isn't more
than a few hundred dollars. What bothers me most is they didn't take anything
—at least as far as I can tell. I have tools worth
thousands of dollars in there. They didn't want that. Just the sick pleasure of
destroying something that belongs to someone else." Like the first day I
met him, he looks off in the distance toward the white house at the end of my
street, and he shakes his head.

"I can help you clean it up," I say.

"Not now. I need a cup of tea. I'll do it
later."

"May I ask a favor, then? Can I use your
Netbook
?"

He hesitates.

"Mine's broken," I add. It is only a
small lie.

"Let's go."

With a few carefully worded inquiries, the
facts spit forth freely. Mother and Father would be horrified. I am equally
horrified, knowing that this is another suspicion confirmed
—they are still keeping secrets from me. Important ones. Are there
others? Nothing is denied by Mr. Bender's
Netbook
as
it was with mine. He brews a cup of tea and gives me privacy as he shuffles
through some proofs. News clip after news clip fills in holes and at the same
time creates new ones. They wrap around me in ways I hadn't considered. I feel
. . . what? Mother's breathlessness? The need to look away? My bioengineered
blood pooling at my feet?

I lean back and stare at the screen. "You
knew about Kara and Locke, didn't you?"

Mr. Bender sets aside his proofs and nods.

I stare at the screen, absorbing word by word a
sliver of my life that changed everything.

In spite of a pending civil action,
the district attorney's office reports that it has no plans at this time to
prosecute Jenna Fox, 16, daughter of Matthew Fox, founder of Fox
BioSystems
, based here in Boston. There were no apparent
witnesses to the accident. Passenger Locke Jenkins, also 16, died two weeks
after the accident without regaining consciousness. Kara Manning, 17, the
second passenger, sustained severe head trauma when she was thrown from the car
and as a result could not give investigators any information. She died three
weeks following the accident when her family removed life support.

My fingers shake. I press the key to bring up
the next page.

Fox, who didn't yet have a driver's
license, is
semicomatose
and still in critical
condition. The severity of her burns and injuries makes it impossible for her
to communicate or give authorities any details about the accident.
Investigators say they can't rule out the possible involvement of a second car,
but it appears that high speeds and reckless driving contributed to the car
veering off Route 93 and tumbling 140 feet down the steep incline. The hydrogen
in the tri-energy BMW, registered to Matthew Fox, exploded on impact, leaving
investigators little evidence to piece together events from the evening of the
crash.

I close Mr. Bender's
Netbook
.