Exo: A Novel (Jumper) (3 page)

Then I remembered the hand pawing across my front and the hips pushing at me.

“You
are
angry about something.”

I nodded. “This guy grabbed me from behind in Central Park and groped me.”

Mom’s eyes widened and she looked closer at me, up and down. “Are you all right?”

I touched the top of my head. “Bit of a bump here.”

“He hit you?”

I shook my head. “I jumped up, like I do. Took him fifteen feet in the air, but my head—” I bumped my own chin from below with my fist. “—hit his jaw.”

“What happened to him?”

“Broke his jaw, or dislocated it. He was unconscious when I left. I called the police on his phone and backed off until they found him.”

“You could have just jumped away,” Mom said. “The
other
kind of jump.”

“He had his arm across my throat,” I said. “He might have come with me.” I sighed. “I didn’t even think about it, really. Just happened. At least this way he’s not likely to grab anyone else for a bit. Hopefully even longer than that. I think he had a Baggie of cocaine. At least he had a Baggie of white powder. Hopefully the police will bust him.”

Now that Mom had assured herself I was okay,
she
was getting angry. “They might not search him at all. After all, as far as they know,
he’s
a victim. Unless you told the police he’d attacked you.”

I shook my head. “No. I just described his injury and his location.”

“Did he just come out of the bushes or something?”

“He followed me. He tried to pick me up on the A train and when I was having none of it, he tried to grab my ass, but I yelled at him to keep his hands to himself. There were plenty of witnesses. I
thought
he got off the train at Times Square, but he must’ve gotten right back onto the next car. Then when I got off at Columbus Circle—” I shrugged. “It was my fault.”

“What?” Mom sounded really angry suddenly. “Honey, it was
not
your fault.”

I held up my hand. “Oh, no. Not my fault that he attacked me. I’m with you on that. He deserved everything he got, maybe more. It was careless of me, though. I put in my earphones and was listening to music. I don’t think he could’ve snuck up on me otherwise.”

Mom closed her eyes and took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. “Ah. I see. Yes, you should be careful. You know what your father would say it could’ve been—”

I finished the statement, making air quotes with my fingers, “—
them
.”

Mom nodded. “Yes. It could’ve been a loop of wire and a hypodermic.”

I nodded. “Yes. Believe me, I thought about that, too. I’ll be more careful.”

“You should tell your father about it.”

I winced. “Do I
have
to? You know how he’ll get.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Keep it brief. You don’t have to tell him about the earphones. Tell him about breaking the guy’s jaw—he’ll
like
that.”

*   *   *

She was right. When I described being attacked, Dad’s eyes narrowed and I could see his jaw muscles bunch as he ground his teeth together, but when I described the condition of the guy’s jaw and his fifteen-foot drop, he smiled.

But he also asked me to Bluetooth the picture of Mr. Daidone’s driver’s license from my phone to his.

“Just want to check on his status. Find out if they busted him for the coke or not. Whether he has priors, especially for sexual assault.”

“What are you going to do, Daddy, if he does have priors?”

“Not much. But I’ll know he’s probably not one of
them
.”

“One of them wouldn’t have
priors
?”

“If they did, they’d be made to go away, but really,
their
people don’t get caught in the first place. Not usually.”

“I thought you just wanted to make sure he paid, uh, for what he did.”

His face went still but there was a tic by his right cheekbone.

“Oh. You
don’t
approve of his behavior,” I ventured.

His eyes narrowed and for a moment, he seemed like someone else—someone a little scary. He pointed at me. “Just be careful, okay?” Then his face relaxed and he was back. “Speaking of that, let me see your wrist.”

I held up my left arm and he said, “Very funny,” so I peeled the Band-Aid back on my right wrist. The blister had popped a few days before and in its place was a swollen scab.

“It’s doing better,” I said, though, to be truthful, it looked a little worse than the blister had.

Dad made a noise in the back of his throat, but didn’t gainsay me. “So, what are you going to do? We could probably get a used Orlan suit on eBay, but it would probably be too big. Don’t think we’re gonna spend twelve million on a new NASA flight-rated EMU.”

I shook my head. “I’ve been doing some research. There’s a team at MIT doing lots of work toward a Mars EVA suit, and this other guy in New Haven who just lost his funding.”

Dad rolled his eyes to the ceiling, then blew out through pursed lips. He glanced at my wrist again, and I covered the scab back up.

Finally he said, “Okay, give me the details.”

*   *   *

Jade came out of Hatfield Hall, where, according to Tara, her accelerated elementary French 101 class met. She was in a cluster of other girls and they were talking up a storm, but not English.

Some of their accents were clearly American and some reminded me of the streets of Paris. I tagged along behind the group, waiting for my opportunity. They moved toward the Campus Center, a thoroughly modern silver building totally at odds with the red brick nineteenth-century buildings all around.

Well before they got there, Jade said, “
Au revoir
,” and split off toward Elm Street.

From studying the map, I knew that Northrop House, her dormitory, was on the other side. I caught up with her as she waited for the light and said, “
Comment allez-vous
?”

She glanced sideways at me, and then jerked back, nearly stepping out into traffic.

“Cent?”

“
Mais oui.
”

“Wow. What are you doing here? Tara told me she’d seen you, but that was back at Krakatoa.” Unstated was the
two thousand miles away.

I nodded. I hadn’t told Tara what I had in mind. I wasn’t sure it was a good idea myself, and I
knew
Dad wouldn’t think so. “Yeah. Tara really misses you.”

Jade sighed. “Yes.”

“You’ve got a walk signal,” I said, tilting my head toward the light.

“Oh. Right.” She didn’t say anything else until we’d crossed. “Are those people still after you, from before?”

I made a show of yawning. “Always.”

“Does that have anything to do with why you’re here at Smith?”

I shook my head. “No. I’m here for the same reason I saw Tara: to see how you’re doing.”

She reached out and touched my arm. “Okay—you really are here? Not my imagination?”

I hugged her and felt her stiffen, then clench me tightly. When I let go, her eyes were wet.

I smiled. “Maybe you have a really good imagination.”

“Come on up to my room. My roommate’s gone home to New Jersey for the weekend.”

“Sure.”

In her third-floor room, I sat on her desk chair and she sat cross-legged on her bed. The room wasn’t huge, but it was cozy. Her roommate was a bit of a slob but the mess stopped midway across the room, where a line of masking tape ran across the floor.

I glanced down at the line, my eyebrows raised.

“Yeah, she’s a bit of a pig, but she’s really nice. She just doesn’t care about, uh, being tidy. At the beginning of the semester we squabbled about it a little, but once I started moving her stuff back to her side of the room,
she
put the tape down and she’s really good about keeping her stuff on that side.

“Still, next year I can have a single room. I’m really looking forward to that.”

I asked her about her classes. It was only her first semester and she wouldn’t have to declare before the end of her sophomore year, but she was seriously considering international affairs and public policy.

“So you like it here?”

She nodded and starting crying.

Damn.

“Homesick?”

She nodded. “They’re different here. Everybody talks too fast and interrupts each other and you really have to be pushy to be heard in group discussions. And the food is bland.”

“Ah. No chile?”

“Not like home.”

In my time in New Prospect I hadn’t gotten
used
to the red and green chiles. Still, I understood.

“No friends?”

She shrugged. “My house is friendly enough, I guess.”

I pushed a little, “No
special
friends?”

She frowned at me then said, “What? I’m with Tara!”

I blew out a deep breath. Relief, I guess.

“Sorry,” I said. “Sometimes when people go away to college, they change. Long-distance relationships are really hard to maintain. Even when one person still wants the relationship, sometimes the other one…”

She was staring at me. “You aren’t talking about Tara and me, are you?”

It was my turn to tear up a bit. Unable to talk I just flipped my hand over, palm up.

Her cell phone chirped and she glanced down at it, read the screen, then smiled.

“Tara?” I managed.

“Yeah. She just got to the coffee shop.” There was a two hour time-zone difference. She lifted the phone again. “Wait until I tell her you’re
here
.”

I held up my hand, to keep her from texting.

“If I could bring Tara to you, right now, would you like to see her?”

“
Not
funny,” she said.

I jumped across the room to the window seat.

It was a good thing she was seated on the bed. She would’ve fallen off the chair.

“What the fuck?!”

She looked scared. I smiled, though I didn’t feel like it. “There’s a reason those people were, and will probably always be, after me and my parents.”

“What are you?!”

“Cent, remember?” I walked slowly back to the chair and sat down again. “I’m your
friend
. Just a girl who can do this
extra
thing.”

Her eyes were wide still, but her breathing slowed.

“So I meant it, when I asked if you’d like to see Tara.”

*   *   *

Tara was not surprised to see me but her eyes were wide when I walked up the stairs to the mezzanine of Krakatoa.

She held up her phone. “Jade just texted that I would see you in a moment.
She’s
got your number and
I
don’t?”

I shook my head. “She doesn’t have my number. Come on.”

“Come on? What’s up? Where are we going?” She pulled her backpack closer and slid her notebook into it.

There was no one else on the mezzanine. I let her stand and sling her backpack over one shoulder before I did it.

Tara screamed when she appeared in Jade’s room, and collapsed, but I was ready and eased her to the floor, and then Jade was there, clinging, and they were both crying.

I left the room the normal way and found the floor’s communal bathroom.

I stared in the mirror. The expression on my face was bleak.

I’d jumped into a
different
dorm room three weeks before.

Joe and I had been seeing each other only on the weekends—so he could get into the college groove properly—but I’d wanted him bad that night and I figured he could make an exception.

Apparently so did he, ’cause he wasn’t alone in his bed when I got there.

When I returned to Jade’s dorm room, I tapped gently before pushing the door open.

They were both sitting on the bed, side by side, no space between them. Both of them looked at me with large eyes.

“All right?” I said.

They looked at each other and involuntarily smiled, but when they looked back at me, their smiles faded.

“And they
all
moved away from me on the Group W bench,” I said. “Don’t make me sing. You won’t like me when I sing.”

Tara giggled and some of the tension went out of Jade’s posture.

“Let’s go get something to eat. I hear Northampton has
great
restaurants.”

They hesitated and I added, “Don’t make me hungry. You won’t like me when I’m hungry.”

And they both laughed and they stood and it was all right.

TWO

Millie: Tell him to stay longer next time

Assisted living.

Until recently Millie’s mother, Samantha Harrison, had lived in a nice apartment but wore a med-alert necklace to call for help. A health aid checked on her mornings and afternoons and a cleaning staff came through daily. She used a walker to go down to a group dining hall where she gossiped with friends, or to the activities lounge where she’d tutor people in the finer details of standard Stayman contract-bridge bidding. She’d play, too, but as a Gold Life Master, she had very little local competition.

Now she was in the attached nursing facility, bedridden.

Millie paired the two in her head. She couldn’t help it.

Assisted living and assisted dying.

It was a death trap in other ways, too.

At 4
P.M.
Millie grabbed a taxi at Wichita Mid-Continent Airport and took it to the retirement community near Buffalo Park, on the west side of the city. Wearing a wig and dark glasses and carrying flowers, she checked in with the front desk. She gave a false name for herself and said she was visiting Agnes Merriwether.

“You know the way, dear?” asked the receptionist.

Millie nodded solemnly. She didn’t feel like smiling and she was pretty sure they were used to that here.

Agnes was an early onset dementia patient whose failing cognitive abilities were supported by an all-too-healthy body. She barely recognized her own immediate family and the staff was quite accustomed to her not recognizing more remote family and friends.

It was painful for Millie. There was less and less of an actual personality there, but Agnes still ate, keeping up a healthy weight, and she could move her limbs for the physical therapists. She would probably linger for years.