The Adoration of Jenna Fox (2 page)

Mother looks down for a moment so I can't see
her face, then looks up again. She smiles. One corner. Then the other. A
careful smile. "There's lots of reasons, Jenna. I can't discuss them all
right now or I'll miss the shuttle into town, but the main reason is we thought
it would be best for you to have a quiet place to recover. And our plan seems
to be working, doesn't it?"

Smooth. Practiced. I can hear it in the
singsong of her voice. In some ways it's almost reasonable, but I can see the
holes. Having a quiet place is not as important as being close to doctors. But
I nod. There is something about her eyes. Eyes don't breathe. I know that much.
But hers look breathless.

My Room

I go to my room. I don't want to. But before
she left, Mother made one last request. "Go to your room, Jenna. I think
you might need some rest." I don't need rest, and I don't want to go, but
before I know it, my feet are taking me up the stairs and I am closing my door
behind me. I know it would please her.

My room is on the second floor
—one of ten rooms on the upper level, along with an assortment
of closets, bathrooms, nooks, and other small windowless rooms that seem to
have no purpose. Mine is the only one that is clean and has furniture. The
others are empty except for an occasional spider or a piece of trash left by
the previous occupants. The lower floor has at
least another ten rooms,
and only half of those rooms are furnished. A few of the rooms are locked. I
have not seen them. Mother and Lily have rooms down there. The cottage is not a
cottage at all. I looked it up to be sure. I looked up
Cotswold,
too.
It's a sheep. So we should live in a one-room house meant for sheep. I haven't
seen any sheep here either.

My room is at the end of a long hallway. It is
the largest room on the upper level, which makes the lone bed, desk, and chair
seem small and awkward. The polished wood floor reflects the pieces of furniture.
It is a cold room. Not in temperature, but in temperament. It reflects nothing
of the person who inhabits it. Or maybe it does.

The only color in the room is the custard
yellow coverlet on the bed. The desktop is clear except for the
Netbook
that Father used to communicate with the doctors.
No papers. No books. No clutter. Nothing.

The bedroom opens into a large arched dressing
room that connects with a closet that connects with another smaller closet that
has a small door at the back, which I can't open. It is an odd zigzag tunneling
arrangement. Was my room in Boston like this? Four shirts and four pairs of
pants hang in the first closet. All of them are blue. Below them are two pairs
of shoes. Nothing is in the second closet. I run my hands along the walls and
wonder at the emptiness.

I look out my window. Across our yard and the
pond, I see curious Mr. Bender, a mere speck in the distance. He appears to be
squatting, looking at something on the ground. He moves a few steps forward and
disappears from view, hidden by the edge of a eucalyptus grove that borders
both our properties. I turn back to my room.

A wooden chair.

A bare desk.

A plain bed.

So little. Is this all Jenna Fox adds up to?

A Question I Will
Never Ask Mother:

Did I have friends? I was sick for
over a year and yet there is not a single

card, letter, balloon, or wilted
bouquet of flowers in my room.

The
Netbook
never buzzes for me.

Not even an old classmate's simple
inquiry.

I may not remember everything, but I
know there should be

these things.

Something.

I know when someone is sick that
people check on her.

What kind of person was Jenna Fox
that she didn't have any

friends?

Was she someone I even want to
remember?

Everyone should have at least one
friend.

More

I hear Lily humming. My feet fumble like they
have a will of their own, but I try to control them so she won't hear me. I
lean close to the wall and peek into the kitchen. Her back is to me. She spends
most of her time in the kitchen preparing elaborate dishes. She used to be
chief of internal medicine at Boston University Hospital. Father was a resident
under her. That is how he met Mother. Lily gave it up. I don't know why. Now
her passion is gardening and cooking. It seems that everyone in this house is
reinventing themselves and no one is who they once were.

When she is not in the kitchen cooking, she is
out in the greenhouse getting it in order. I can't eat her foods, and I wonder
if that is part of the reason she doesn't like me. She clanks pots and then
turns on the faucet. I make my move for the front door.

The hinges on the heavy wooden door squeak when
I exit, but she doesn't follow. The sound blends with the clanking pots and
rushing water. I have been no farther than the front steps of the house, except
for once when it was dark and Mother took me for a short walk to Lily's
greenhouse. Mother told me from the start that I must stay close. She is afraid
I will get lost.

Lost adj.
1. No longer known. 2.
Unable to find the way.
3. Ruined or destroyed.

I'm afraid I already am.

The noon sun is bright. It hurts my eyes. I
ease the door shut so Lily won't hear, and I hurry across the lawn. I won't go
far. I will keep the house in sight.
Careful.
The word comes again, like
a hedge in front of me, but pushing from behind, too. I pass the chimney of the
fireplace in the living room. Its top bricks have tumbled to the ground and
weeds almost obscure them. Bright green lichens creep up the remaining bricks.
I walk around the far side of the garage house so Lily won't see me. Several of
the windows are boarded up, and a whole section of shingles is missing from the
roof. Money doesn't seem to be a problem for Mother. I wonder why, in over a
year of my being in a coma, she didn't have time to make the barest of repairs.

Once I am past the garage house, I have a clear
view of curious Mr. Bender's property, but I don't see him. Our backyard slopes
down gently toward a large pond. Its waters are still. The pond separates our
yard from Mr. Bender's, and the small creek that feeds it separates our
neighbors' yards to the south, like a natural curving fence. To the north,
where the pond overflows, the creek continues, disappearing into a forest of
eucalyptus.

A few more steps and I see Mr. Bender, sitting
on his haunches, like I have seen three-year-old Jenna sit in the video discs.
It is an odd stance for a grown man. He clutches something in one hand and
stretches out his other to something on the ground. He is so still, it stops
me.

Curious. Odd. Strange. Mother was right was
about him.

I walk farther down the slope until I am
stopped by the pond. I start toward the forest. The trees are spindly but
numerous, and only a few yards in, the pond stops and spills into the creek.
The flow is barely stronger than Lily's kitchen faucet and only a few inches
deep at most. I step on dry stones that rise above the trickle to get across to
the other side, and I walk up the slope of Mr. Bender's yard. I should be
afraid. Mother would want me to be afraid. But other than Mother, Father, and
Lily, Mr. Bender is the only human being I've seen since I woke up. I want to
speak to someone who doesn't know me. Someone who doesn't know Lily or Mother.
Someone outside our own curious circle. He sees me coming and rises off his
haunches. He is tall, much larger than I thought. I stop.

"Hello," he calls.

I don't move.

"Lost?" he says.

I look back at my house. I look at my hands. I
turn them over and examine both sides. My name is Jenna Fox. "No," I
answer. I step forward.

He holds out his hand. "I'm Clayton
Bender. You the new neighbor?" He nods toward our house.

New? What is new to him? Is a year new?
"I'm Jenna Fox. Yes, I live over there." I reach my hand out to him
and we shake.

"Your hands are like ice, young lady. You
still acclimating?"

I don't know what that means, but I nod and say
yes. "I saw you from my room. I saw you squatting. You're curious."

He laughs and says, "You mean you're
curious."

"My grandmother thinks so."

He laughs again and shakes his head. I wonder
if laughing is another curious thing about him. "Well, Jenna, you saw me
squatting because I was working on this. Come take a look." He turns and
walks a few feet away and points to the ground. I follow.

"What is it?" I ask.

"I haven't named it yet, but I think it
will be
Pine Serpent.
Maybe not. I'm an environmental artist."

"A what?"

"I create art from found objects in
nature."

I look at the hundreds of long pine needles,
each perfectly aligned with the next, each end carefully pushed into the loose
soil, forming a curved snake that flows in and out of the ground. I want to
reach down and stroke it, but I know that would destroy it. I don't see the
point. He has spent all morning creating something that will be blown away or
trampled by tomorrow. "Why?" I ask.

He laughs again. Why does he do that? He is
more curious than I am. "You're a tough critic, Jenna Fox. I create art
because I need to. It's just something in me. Like breathing."

How can a pine serpent be in him? Especially
one that will not last. "This will be gone by tomorrow."

"Yes, it probably will. That's the beauty
of it and what makes it even more wondrous. At least to me. It's delicate,
temporal,
but
eternal, too. It will go back into the environment to be
used again and again, in nature's canvas. I just rearrange parts of nature for
a short time so people will notice the beauty of what they usually ignore. So
they'll stop and
—"

"But no one will see it here."

"I take photos when I'm done, Jenna. I'm
not that temporal.

I have to eat, too. You've never heard the name
Clayton Bender?"

"No."

He smiles. "Well, I suppose some of my
work's not well known, but early in my career I created an icicle sculpture in
the snow.
White on White.
That one made my career. It's hard to go into
an office building or doctor's office without seeing it. Not my best, but the
best known. White goes with everything, I guess. That's what mostly paid for
this place. I sure couldn't afford it now."

"Your house cost a lot?"

"All these do. You can't get houses like
the ones in this neighborhood without a small fortune these days. But I got
mine for next to nothing right after the big quake. You're too young to
remember but
—"

"Fifteen years ago. Southern California.
Nineteen thousand people died. Two whole communities vanished into the ocean,
and all major transportation systems were crippled as well as water flow to the
southern half of the state. It was the greatest natural disaster our country
has ever seen and, along with the
Aureus
epidemic
that followed three months later, was considered the triggering event for the
Second Great Depression, which lasted six years."

I'm stunned. Is that the word? Yes,
stunned.
I don't know where all the facts came from.

Mr. Bender draws in his breath. "Well! You
know your facts, don't you, Jenna? You a history buff?"

Was I? Am I? I am still absorbing how easily
the facts flowed out of me. "I must be."

"Well, you got your facts straight. I got
this house dirt cheap, because of all those terrible things. But now everyone's
forgotten about the earthquake and the scientists say it'll be a few hundred
years before we have another nine pointer, so the prices have gone back through
the roof."

"Ours is in bad shape. I don't think it
could be worth much."

"It's been empty for years, but it won't
take much to get it fixed up. I'm glad to see someone finally in it. When I saw
you all moving in a couple of weeks ago, I was happy to see the place finally
filled with a family."

"Two weeks ago? We've been here longer
than that."

Mr. Bender's brows dip. "Of course. Yes,
you must be right. I lose track of time," he says.

But I sense he doesn't believe me. Maybe he
doesn't want to argue. Neither do I.

"Are you going to take a picture?" I
point to
Pine Serpent.

"Not yet. I need to wait for the sun to
get a little lower. And if I get lucky, I'm going to coax a few birds to pose
with it. A modern-day lion-and-lamb thing."

"You have birds?"

"Here. I'll show you. Over this way."

He walks the slope toward an overgrown garden.
Broken slabs of flagstone create a winding pathway through sprays of lavender,
untamed boxwood, and lacy umbrellas of anise. A short distance in, the garden
opens into a circular grassy area with a hewn-log bench at its center. Mr. Bender
sits and-reaches beneath his seat for a small covered bowl. He scoops something
into his palm. "Sit," he says. I do.