The Adoration of Jenna Fox (25 page)

I feel my fists relax, my joints loosen.
"I think it was good luck that you were my first friend, Mr. Bender."

"First?"

"That's right. Jenna's first friend,
ad."

His eyebrows raise.

"After Disaster."

He laughs, his curious Mr. Bender laugh, and
then suggests a walk in his garden.

We reach the circular clearing where he feeds
the birds. "Here," he says as he removes his jacket. "I've been
borrowing Clayton Bender's identity for thirty years. Let me share it with you
for a few minutes." He places his jacket on my shoulders and then takes my
palm and rubs it with his own. "Turns out that birds have a better sense
of smell than most people thought."

We sit on the log bench and he fills my palm
with seed, and even though it is only for the briefest moment, a sparrow lands
and flies away with a beak full.

"See? They're used to you now. Next time
you won't need me."

I decide that sometimes definitions are wrong.
Even if they're written in a dictionary. Identities aren't always separate and
distinct. Sometimes they
are
wrapped up with others. Sometimes, for a
few minutes, maybe they can even be shared. And if I am ever fortunate enough
to return to Mr. Bender's garden, I wonder if the birds will see that piece of
him that is wrapped up in me.

Listening

The silence

darkness

nothing

please

let us go

Help us

   Jenna.

              
We need you.

                          
Hurry, Jenna.

                                      
We need you.

Screaming. I hear screaming. My own screams.
Theirs.

But no one can hear. A place so dark no one can
hear. Except me. "Help! Please! Somebody!"

"Jenna! Wake up!"

Father is holding me. Mother sits at the end of
my bed. I am in a place of light and touch again. "You were
dreaming," Father says, squeezing me.

"No," I say. "I was . . ."
Impossible.
Father's face is lined, tired. Fear. Mother is perched, waiting, her hair a
bird's nest.

"You were what, Jenna?"

"I was listening."

"To what, darling? What?" Mother
asks.

"To Kara and Locke. They're calling me. I
heard their voices."

Father brushes my hair from my face and touches
my cheek. "That's impossible, Angel. You were only dreaming. That's
all."

I don't argue. There would be no point. But I
didn't dream the voices. I heard them. Fresh and now. Somehow, someway, they
found me. They need me.

But I need them, too.

In the flash between darkness and light,
between
dreamworld
and reality, I cross a boundary. I
remember the accident.

The Accident

Every detail. Sharp, like claws.

It wasn't the Bio Gel, the searching
neurochips
, or any of the shortcomings of my new self. It
was me all along. The grieving me. The shocked me. The in-denial me. But now,
Kara and Locke are forcing me to remember.

I sit in the dark, a sliver of light from the
hallway slashed across my bed. I listen to the faint wheeze of air entering and
leaving my chest. Breathing. A new kind of breathing. Because of that night.

Keys flying in the air.

My fingers outstretched.

My fingers were
throwing
the keys. Not
catching them.

"I can't drive, Locke," I told him.

"You're the only one with a car," he
complained.

"If you don't drive, Jenna, then we don't
go," Kara added. "We need you!"

"I'm not driving without a license.
Besides, my voice commands aren't even programmed into the car yet. I couldn't
start it anyway."

"Kara could drive," Locke says.
"And starting it's not a problem. There's an override. You must have a
code or keys around here somewhere."

The kitchen drawer. Where Claire keeps all the
extra keys.

I could have pretended I didn't know
where they were.

I could have distracted them.

But I didn't.

I opened the drawer and pulled them
out.

"Yes!" Locke says and snatches the
keys from my hand. He throws them to Kara. They wait for my response. I
hesitate. Wondering. Thinking. But not for too long. I nod.

So we went. Kara drove.

I gave her the keys.

I let her drive my car that even I
wasn't supposed to drive yet.

Mother and Father were away for the night.
Maybe I was eager for a fall, the thing I feared most. I had been easing toward
it, testing the water, not sure what I wanted, except not to be everything I
knew I wasn't.

It was a party. A stupid one. We were bored.
Uninvited. No one knew us. We didn't know any of them. It was crowded. Tight
circles of strangers were drinking and smoking, oblivious to us. Crashing the
party was a thrill that lasted five minutes. We were about to leave. But then
the unexpected happened. A fight broke out. We didn't know what might happen
next. We were out of our neighborhood, out of our league. We were scared and we
ran. I had the keys in my purse. Locke and I were on one side of the car. Kara on
the other. "Hurry, Jenna! Hurry!" It was dark. I frantically searched
the black cavern of my purse for the keys. When I found them, I threw them to
Kara, my fingers outstretched, trying to be sure of my aim.

There was yelling. Shouts. We were out of our element.
Panicked. We were only rule followers pretending to be renegades. Other cars
screeched away.

"Go, Kara!" Locke yelled from the
back seat.

She did.

When we made it to the highway, the adrenaline
that streaked through us subsided and our fear was replaced with laughter. I
hadn't noticed that Kara's foot was still firmly on the accelerator. None of us
did. The curve came up so fast. She braked, but it was too late. The car spun,
hit the graveled shoulder. There were last-minute shouts.

"Turn!"

"Kara!"

"Stop!"

Kara was crying and screaming, desperately
turning the steering wheel. We were tossed about, none of us bothering with
seat restraints in our rush to leave the party. The car skidded, then rolled
when the shoulder turned to cliff, a blurred, chopped nightmare where sound and
light cut through us. I was screaming, flying. Tumbling. Glass sprayed like a
thousand knives, and the world had no up or down. The fear was so complete it
webbed together our screams and motion. Blinding white heat and light. Flying
free and the sickening thud of my skull on soil. Or was it Kara I heard,
landing next to me? And then the sudden sharp contrast of quiet sounds, like
tinkling crystal. Dripping. Hissing. A drawn-out crackle. And soft moans that
seemed to hover in the air above me. And finally just blackness.

I never saw Kara and Locke again.

I heard them. For a few seconds I heard their
breaths, their sighs, their screams. I heard them. Like I do now.

And for all those months, in the dark place
where I waited to be reborn, not knowing if I would ever see light again,
between my own voiceless cries and pleading, those were the sounds I heard over
and over again, the hellish sounds of Kara and Locke dying.

Self-preservation

They are my witnesses. They alone know that I
didn't drive.

Someday, sometime, someone will come for me.
And I will have Kara and Locke to help me. Save me.

I can keep them.

The entitled Jenna.

How bad could it be to exist in a box forever?

The Last Disc

The cut-glass panes of the living room cabinet
prism my reflection into a dozen distorted pieces. I search those pieces, the
borrowed blues, reds, and violets, blended with glimmering flesh. I look for a
shine, a difference. But I see nothing that says I am different from Dane.

Versions of me and my friends are trapped where
I never want to go again. And I won't help them. Blues. Reds. Violets. Flesh.
Fragments. Almost human. The same reflection Dane might have.

I turn from the cabinet and go to the credenza
that takes up a large portion of the living room wall. I rummage through the
drawer, looking for Year Seven /Jenna Fox, the year where I can watch a girl
who was still a child and didn't know about expectations. A year when blue
birthday cakes and surprises were all that mattered. Year Seven, probably the
last year before I knew I was special.

Mother has straightened the drawer and the disc
is not where I left it. I run fingers along the file of discs, searching for
it, when I notice something else. The camera. It is at the back of the drawer
in a space that has been saved for it, but it has been jarred. A disc has
partially popped out. I reach in and pull it loose and look at the label.

JENNA FOX / YEAR SIXTEEN----DISC TWO

It shakes between my fingers. This is the last
disc. The real last disc.

This is the one Lily wanted me to watch.

A Recital

Jenna floats across the stage. Her movements
are precise. Her arms are curved in a graceful arch. Her feet pointing, her
legs extending,
arabesque, Jenna . . .

. . .
chassé
,
jeté
entralacé
. .
.

. .
.
plié
. . .
pas de
bourrée
, pirouette, Jenna.

All at perfect angles, perfect timing. She
raises
en
pointe
,
her balance pure elegance.

But her face is dead. The performance is all in
her arms and legs and muscles, and none of it is in her heart.

I remember that night, the feel of the slipper,
the ribbon snug at my ankles, the tight bodice of my costume that showed off my
perfect tiny waist, the moisture forming at the nape of my neck. I remember before
I even see it repeated on the disc. I remember looking out into the audience
that night, my performance almost complete, and seeing Lily in the second row
and the disappointment in her eyes and how that shook me and gave me permission
all at the same time for what came next.
Relevé
,
relevé
.
My well-trained muscles and bones were
speaking to me, ordering me to perform.
Relevé
,
Jenna.
But I was frozen. The music passed me by.
Relevé
,
Jenna!
The audience is fidgeting. Uncomfortable. Hoping that the moment can
be salvaged. I'm not sure it can. I am looking at Lily's eyes on me, but I am
seeing us at her kitchen counter just a few days before. I was complaining
about my upcoming recital.

"Who are you, Jenna? How can
anyone know if you don't show them?"

"I'm tempted. Just once I'd
like to let it out.
"

"And what would you do?"

"While I was there onstage, I'd
move in all the ways I've dreamed of. I'd stomp and grind and swing my hips and
show them all."

"So what's stopping you?"

I remember she was serious, and I remember
looking at her like she was crazy.
"It wouldn't be appropriate. I'd let
too many people down."

"
You mean your parents. I think they'd
live.
"

The audience is holding its breath. The music
has stopped.

Relevé
, Jenna!
My muscles are demanding action.

Stomp! Grind, Jenna. Swing your
hips!

And then I feel it. My calves stiffen. My heels
lift.
Relevé
.
And then a quick hop to
en
pointe
.
Hold. Hold. Down to fourth position,
plié
,
and bow. The audience heaves a single
sigh of relief, even though I am completing my dance long after the music has
stopped. Their zealous applause erases the gap.

I have delivered. That is all that matters.

Pieces

A bit for someone here.

A bit there.

And sometimes they don't add up to
anything whole.

But you are so busy dancing.

Delivering.

You don't have time to notice.