Lucy (15 page)

Once Harry had digested the information, he said, “I actually had a thought like that. Not that first night when I examined her. But you were so tight-lipped about why you wanted her blood back that I kept trying to think of possible explanations. And her strangeness had struck me from the first. I thought, Is this some kind of Joseph Conrad nightmare? Then I said, Naw. That couldn’t happen. Just didn’t allow myself to believe it.”

“I always said you were one of the world’s great diagnosticians.”

“It’s a sixth sense. Not something they can teach you in med school.”

“Yeah. You’re in The Stream.”

“The Stream?”

“It’s a subtle system of communication that Lucy uses. All animals use it.”

“Yes, I’ve read about this,” Harry said. “Nonverbal communication. Paul Ekman. Elaine Hatfield. Emotional contagion and micro-expressions. What’s her name? That pheromone gal at your school?”

“Martha McClintock.”

“Yeah. All the senses. Mostly people just ignore it.”

“Lucy’s taught me a lot. Amanda, too.” They fell into silence for a time, staring at their drinks. “Anyway, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner.”

“No, you’re not,” he said. “I’d have done the same thing. For Lucy’s sake.” He rubbed his five-o’clock shadow and shook his head. “What on earth was that man thinking?”

“That’s exactly what I asked myself when I first found out.”

“Was he just completely mad, you think?”

“I don’t think so. He was young, passionate, and pretty goddamned unusual. Lucy was just a concept at first. But when she started walking and talking I think he realized what he’d done. It’s in his notes. His guilt and remorse. His worry over what would become of her if he wasn’t there to protect her. Or even if he was. He loved her. He really did. And he saw what a grave mistake he’d made.”

“That poor girl. They’re going to eat her alive.”

“Not if I can help it. We’re hoping that the bright light of publicity will serve to protect her. Anyway, there’s no turning back now.”

“Have you considered going to another country? One that’s not such a police state as the U.S. has become?”

“She doesn’t want to run.”

“She’s only fifteen. You’re her mother. Stepmother. Whatever. Christ, Jenny, when you get into trouble, you don’t go halfway, do you?” Then, after a pause, “So how can I help? Come to the house anytime. You know where the key is hidden. I have my place up in Wisconsin, too. You’re welcome up there, of course.”

“Thanks, we may take you up on that.”

“I’ll be on call. I always have my beeper. Just let me know.”

“Thanks.”

He shook his head again. “That poor girl. She’s very lucky to have you.”

“Yeah, well, I guess we’ll see about that.”

22

JENNY JERKED UPRIGHT
out of a deep sleep, thinking that something was wrong. But when the girls came into focus, they were giddy with excitement. “Come on, Mom,” Lucy said. “It’s ready. You’ve got to see it.”

Jenny looked at the clock. “It’s two in the morning.”

“Not in Japan,” Amanda said. “Come on. The Internet never sleeps.”

They led her downstairs and sat on the couch, one girl on either side of her. Lucy put the computer in Jenny’s lap. Jenny yawned, and Lucy pressed the space bar. Tom Petty’s “American Girl” began over a black screen. The image dissolved to a Google Earth zoom from outer space right down into the green jungle of Congo. Then the song faded out and Lucy appeared on the screen.

“Hi, everybody. My name is Lucy Lowe and I’m only half human. You may think this is some kind of YouTube joke but it’s not, as you’ll all find out soon enough. Today is Wednesday, June twenty-fifth, two thousand and seven, and the Centers for Disease Control just took a sample of my blood.” The image flipped, and Roberta Dyson appeared, applying a tourniquet to Lucy’s arm as she continued to narrate, voice-over.

“They’re doing a genetic analysis and it’s going to prove what I’m about to tell you: That my mother was a bonobo.” Lucy’s face returned to the screen. “I’m here to tell you my story because I’d prefer that you hear it from me rather than from some government agency. So that’s why my friend Amanda and I are making this video. Say hello, Amanda.”

Tears came to Jenny’s eyes as she watched. Tears of all sorts, from joy and pride for the girls to fear of what was ahead. Right now they were as delighted as if they’d just played the biggest prank imaginable on the world. But not everyone would be amused. Amanda came into the frame and sat beside Lucy. “Hi, world. I’m Lucy’s best friend, Amanda Mather. And Lucy is sooo telling you the truth. I’m going to let her tell you how it all happened.”

Jenny watched with her heart in her throat as Lucy narrated her life story. She took her audience through it, from an explanation of what bonobos were to her father’s dream. She showed pages from Stone’s notebooks, and the girls took turns reading. “I know there’s going to be a pretty big ick factor in this for some of you,” Lucy said. “I’m just telling you what happened.” She showed the photograph that Jenny had salvaged from the ruined camp and narrated their escape from the civil war and the trip upriver. She recounted her first day of school, her wild impressions, and how Amanda had helped her.

Then Amanda followed Lucy around with the camera so that people could see her room. “This is my so-called room,” she said. She had made it her own in the year that she’d lived there. She had a love seat with flowered upholstery and a collection of stuffed animals. She had posters on the walls from movies and music groups and some photos of her and Amanda and the other kids at school. As Amanda swung the camera around to the bookshelves, Lucy grabbed one of her wrestling trophies. “Oh, and I almost forgot. Some of you will remember that I’m the Illinois state wrestling champion.”

“Go, Lucy,” Amanda called in the background. Then Amanda put her face in front of the camera. “And Lucy’s awesome at speed-cubing, too. Show ’em, Luce.” The camera turned and showed Lucy standing in the center of her room. Amanda’s arm reached into the frame and handed her a scrambled Rubik’s Cube puzzle. Lucy turned it this way and that so that she could see all the sides. Then in a flurry of clicking movements too rapid to follow, she unscrambled it so that all of the sides were solid colors once more.

“Awesome,” Amanda said.

There was a cut, and then Amanda and Lucy appeared, seated on the love seat among her stuffed animals. Lucy gazed into the camera and said, “So now you all know the truth about Lucy Lowe.”

“AKA Jungle Girl,” Amanda said.

“And I simply want to say this: I know some people are going to be totally freaked out by this. Some people may even hate me for being what I am. But like all of you, I didn’t ask to be brought into this world. And if there’s something wrong with what my father did there’s nothing I could do about it then and there’s nothing I can do about it now. I’ll bet a lot of you can relate to that in your own way, too. Anyway, I’m here, and I am what I am. I don’t want any special treatment. All I want is a chance to live a normal life, to go to school and contribute something to society. So, I don’t know. I think I’ve turned out to be a pretty normal girl, given all that I’ve been through.”

Amanda put her arm around Lucy. “She is. Totally.”

“So with that,” Lucy said, “I’ll let you all judge for yourselves. Whatever my genetic material looks like, I’m just me.”

“Oh, and don’t forget to check out Lucy’s Facebook and MySpace pages. They rock.”

“Goodbye, everybody. Thanks for watching.”

“Bye,” Amanda said. And they both waved.

Jenny closed the laptop. She put her arms around the girls and drew them closer. She heaved a big sigh.

“What do you think, Mom?”

“You’re the money, baby,” Amanda said.

“I think we’d better get you some new clothes,” Jenny said. “You’re going to be on television.”

At about five o’clock that morning the phone rang. A gentle rain was still falling. Lucy could hear it ticking on the maple leaves outside the window. She heard Jenny talking down the hall. Amanda slept while Lucy went to find Jenny propped up in bed.

“What? You want us to get on an airplane now?” Jenny said into the phone. “You’ll send a car …” Then: “No, it’s not that. It’s just that it’s five in the morning here. We need some sleep. Can you call back later?” She hung up.

“What’s that, Mom?”

“
Good Morning America
. They wanted to fly us to New York to be on television. How did they find out so quickly?”

“Wow. You want to go?”

“No. There’ll be plenty of time for that. Go back to sleep. You’ve been sick. Oh, and unplug that phone, will you?”

“Sure, Mom.” Lucy unplugged the phone and returned to lie beside Amanda, who was snoring. They had done the math beforehand. She and Amanda began by telling everyone in their address books, mostly kids from school. Amanda sent out open-access Tweets and announced it on her MySpace and Facebook pages. They told everyone to watch the video and then tell all their friends. Lucy had calculated that if each person told only twenty others, in just seven steps more than a billion people would know. In addition, people would be putting it on their blogs and news organizations would take notice.

By the time they all woke up again, it was nearly ten o’clock. The rain had gone, and light was streaming in through the kitchen windows. A cardinal stood on the tip of the topmost branch of the maple tree and sang his wolf-whistle call over and over. Jenny paced around the kitchen with the phone to her ear, listening to all the requests and dictating the information to Amanda, who sat on a stool at the island taking down the names and phone numbers. Lucy was at the stove making a Velveeta omelet with salsa and heating tortillas. Amanda had declared Velveeta-and-salsa omelets to be “the most ultra-yum breakfast.”

Amanda’s phone rang. She had downloaded “American Girl” as her new ringtone. She looked at the screen.

“Uh-oh. It’s my mother.” She put the phone to her ear. “Hi, Mom.”

“Have you seen the news?” She sounded angry. Amanda may not have realized that Lucy could hear her mother clearly. “Is this some sort of harebrained stunt? Because it’s not funny.”

“No, it’s not a prank.”

“Well, you come home this instant.”

“She’s my best friend, Mom. I have to stick by her.”

“You can’t have a monkey as your best friend,” her mother shrieked. Lucy glanced over to see if Jenny could hear it, too. But Jenny was still on the phone. Lucy thought: Wow, she doesn’t know the difference between a monkey and an ape. She wondered what it was going to be like out there in the world.

“Don’t say that. That’s awful. Are you drinking?”

“That’s none of your business. You come home right now.”

“No. She needs me. We have a million things to do.”

“Young lady, you’re not an adult yet, and I still make the rules around here.”

“Mother, I turn eighteen in a week. And I’m staying here. I’ll go live with Dad in New York, if you like.”

A long silence. Then her mother said, “Well, if that girl is what she says she is, you are going to regret the day you ever met her.”

“I’m sorry you feel that way.” Amanda hung up without saying goodbye. She put her chin in her hand and bit her nails.

“That sounded rough,” Lucy said.

“My mother can be so ignorant.”

“Would you really move to New York?”

“Of course not.”

Jenny was still listening to messages, now writing down the numbers on Amanda’s notepad. She finished and set the phone on the island.

“What?” Jenny asked, looking at Amanda.

“My mother. She wants me to go home and have nothing more to do with Lucy. Which is so not going to happen.”

The doorbell rang.

“What the—” Jenny said. “Who is that? Amanda, will you go upstairs and look out the window? See if you can see who it is. But don’t let them see you.”

“Okay.”

As Amanda ran upstairs, Lucy asked, “Mom. What?”

“I don’t know. There are a lot of nuts out there. And I have no idea what your legal status is. I don’t know. I don’t know. You’re only fifteen and I am a little scared.”

“Amanda’s mother called me a monkey.”

“You heard?” She caught herself. “Duh. Of course you heard. Well, you see? We don’t know how people are going to react. We have to be careful from now on. People with guns shooting up college campuses. I mean, who knows what might happen?”

With all the excitement of making the video, Lucy had forgotten about the risks. Working all night together, she and Amanda had been swept along with the feeling of taking control of the situation and doing something bold and exciting. Now Jenny’s words snapped Lucy back to reality.

Amanda came running down the stairs with her finger to her lips. “There’s like a thousand reporters on the lawn and they’ve got satellite trucks and everything.”

“How did they find us?” Lucy asked.

“I’m in the book,” Jenny said.

“What book?” Amanda asked.

“The phone book. You’ve probably never seen one, right?”

Amanda looked puzzled. “No, I think my mother has one … somewhere.”

“What’re we going to do?” Lucy asked.

“I’m going to tell them to get the hell off my lawn,” Jenny said, standing up and marching to the door.

Amanda and Lucy listened as Jenny chewed someone out, saying, “She’ll do it when she’s good and ready. Now I’m going to call the police if you don’t get off of my lawn.” She slammed the door. Lucy and Amanda were giggling behind their hands as Jenny came sweeping into the kitchen looking angry. Jenny stopped, glaring at them, and then she laughed, too.

“I guess you told them,” Amanda said.

“Damned straight. Nobody tramples on my
Koeleria cristata
and lives to tell the tale.”

The phone was ringing again. Jenny turned to Lucy and said, “Give me your phone.” Lucy handed it to her and Jenny dialed. A moment later, she said, “Harry. I need you.”

Lucy heard him say, “I’ll just transplant a few more hearts and be right over.”

“I’m not joking,” Jenny said.

“I know. I figured things might get dodgy, so I got someone to cover for me today. There in a jiff, doll.”

Jenny hung up and said, “Come on. Let’s pack. We’re not going to get any peace here.”

Half an hour later, they were waiting in the garage when Harry phoned. Jenny opened the garage door and Harry’s car rolled in. She quickly closed it again.

“This is totally bangin’,” Amanda said. “I feel like I’m in a movie.”

The girls laughed as they loaded the car and got in. Jenny opened the garage door and Harry pulled out. As he drove down the alley, a group of reporters came jogging up from the other end. Lucy looked around at the crowd and felt a chill. Amanda turned around, too.

“People are chasing you,” Amanda said.

“They’re just reporters,” Harry said.

“They’re chasing you, too,” Lucy told Amanda.

Then Amanda and Lucy exchanged a grim look.

As she watched the reporters, Amanda said, “Wow. This is pretty hairball.”

Late that afternoon, Jenny sat in the kitchen and watched Harry work, while the girls explored the secret spaces of the old house like two puppies. Harry brought out a great steel wok for a stir-fry. Jenny began to cut lemons to make fresh lemonade.

“I suspect it’ll be all fun and games for a while,” he said.

“Yes. The latest public obsession.”

“I assume you have a plan. For when things get ugly.”

“Yes, I do.”

“Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know. What about Amanda?”

“She and Lucy have been inseparable. She’s deep in.”

“But when things turn bad. What will happen to Amanda then?”

“She’ll be with me. Until she wants to leave.” Jenny knew where Harry was going with this, but she didn’t have a better answer.

“I’m afraid for you, Jenny. I was always afraid for you in the jungle, but now I feel it even more.”

“Well, why don’t you come with us to New York and we’ll get this show on the road?”

“New York, is it?”

“Good Morning America.”

“I can’t. I’m sorry. I have surgery.”

“It’s okay.”

“Dinner in thirty minutes. Maybe you could find out where the girls have disappeared to.”

Jenny shook her head, laughing. They sounded like an old married couple. She began wandering through the labyrinthine house, thinking about what might have been.

Harry’s house offered a deeper insight into who he was. He bought it when he was a young doctor. Jenny had only just met him and teased him that it was probably haunted. The old woman who owned it before him had died in there. It was hung with heavy maroon drapery. Deeply stained threadbare Oriental rugs covered the battered hardwood floors. When Jenny made fun of them, Harry had said, “My dear child, this is a silk Tabriz.”

“Yes, but the moths have chewed it to shreds.”