Nature of Jade (25 page)

During that time, I had stopped feeling the way I had for a long while--like a hamster 228

on one of those wheels, running, running, running, his heart beating like mad, in his little wire cage. I had always felt like I was being chased, but I was on that wheel, and the only one chasing me was myself. Now, I wasn't looking over my shoulder, or trying to see the future, living for some other time. It was just nouj.

I finally felt a lack of fear, a sense that the most important things were safe. But instinct, as Abe says, is not a foolproof system. Sometimes it is a map we hold upside down. I was lulled into peace by a rocking boat, by the smell of muffins baking, by the love of a young father, and I forgot to imagine a beautiful young woman and her parents, driving in their BMW to an attorney's office, to the expensive building that housed the private detective they'd hired to find Sebastian.

I forgot to imagine all the ways the pieces of your life can be endangered. Just as the beaver by the dock was gathering and building his dam branch by branch, stick by stick, building a new life in a new place, there would be another dam elsewhere being taken apart--piece by piece or all at once, by a predator, by a storm, or just by the daily movements of the water.

We are sitting at a Starbucks table--two, actually, pushed together. It is decorated with swirls and contemporary hieroglyphics, cave drawings done by a factory, painted in black on tan, shiny wood. Michael raises his cup.

"I've got something to tell you guys," he says.

"You're gay," Hannah says.

"Shut up. This is serious," Akello says.

"Tell us," I say.

"I got accepted into Johns Hopkins."

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I have a swell of feeling. My heart just fills--pride, excitement, that satisfaction of knowing that someone's hard work, at least, has paid off. I might have been wrong, but I could swear his eyes were teary. My throat closes. I grab his hands.

"You did it," I say.

"I know it. I can hardly believe it," he says. "I got the letter yesterday."

"That is so fantastic," I say.

"You earned it, Michael," Jenna says.

"Hey, if I get sick, there's no one I'd rather have figuring out what the deal is," Akello says.

"You're going to be a kick-ass doctor."

"This is so great. This is just so great," I say.

"The thing I never got," Kayla says, "was why it's Johns Hopkins. Are there two of them? I mean, what's with that?"

"I know it. It's weird," Hannah says.

"See, this is what can happen when you work hard," Jenna says.

"To Dr. Jacobs," Akello says, and taps his cup against Michael's.

Michael smiles. Just shakes his head as if the news hasn't yet sunk in. "They've got something like forty libraries." "Wow," I say.

"Speaking of library . . ." Kayla says.

Hannah laughs a little.

"Shut up, Kayla," Michael says.

"Shut up, Kayla"? From Michael? What is this? Kayla's mouth drops open, her straw halfway to her lips. Everyone is silent. Jenna traces a swirl on the table with her finger. A coffee grinder blasts on at the counter. Somewhere in my stomach, a

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sick feeling is starting. They all know something I don't. That's what's happening. I can see it now. Maybe there's a part of me that understands what's coming. Instinct buried. Buried no longer, because now is the time to look. Here it is.

"Really," Akello says. "You are such a bitch."

"Go back to where you came from," Kayla snaps.

"What's going on?" I say.

"Nothing. Ignore them," Jenna says. "Come on, you guys." "Don't you think she should know?"

Kayla says. "Kayla, don't," Hannah says.

"Know what?" That sick feeling--it's moving. Working its way from my stomach to where it knows it belongs--my heart. "Your mother and Mr. Dutton." "What?"

"Shut up!" Michael says. "Don't even listen to her." "Michael," Hannah says. "You know, maybe . . ." "Someone had their tongue down someone's throat, is what I heard," Kayla says.

"What?"

"Brittany Hallenger caught them," Kayla says.

What I feel then is the ground, and it seems like it has been moved, taken away. My head feels strange, too, like I could black out. Like there's no oxygen, suddenly, an important connection from lungs to heart to brain snipped.

"Let's go," Jenna says.

"Come on, Jade," Akello says.

"We're not finished," Kayla says. "Lunch isn't even half over."

Michael and Akello get up. Jenna, too. I go with them, and we get in the car and leave Kayla and Hannah sitting there. We

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go from the cool air conditioning to the sunny May air, the stifling heat of the car smelling of warmed vinyl.

"I don't want them in my car," Jenna says.

"I don't want them in my life," Michael says.

"I hope she chokes on her fucking Frappucino," Akello says.

No one speaks on the ride back. No one speaks, and Jenna squeezes my hand, and Akello offers to carry my backpack. Which means it was true. What Kayla had said back in the cafe, it was true.

I sit through Biology and Government, and I get through by trying to focus on each and every word that is said. If I look out the window of the class, I'll see my mother's car in the parking lot, and I cannot, cannot, cannot (count the words on my fingers, starting with my thumb) think of that, or of the library or of Mr. Dutton, do not, do not, do not. I walk home. I don't take the bus. I count sidewalk tiles. I don't go to the zoo, can't face the elephants and their warmth and love and family life right then. I don't know what to do. I have no idea. I just open the door of my house, and it seems like a strange door. One of those bizarre moments when a familiar object seems completely foreign.

I have no plan. Maybe my backstage mind has a plan, because I drop my backpack to the floor with a thud when I hear her in the kitchen. Her, not Mom. Just her. In the kitchen-- our kitchen, Dad's kitchen, this family's kitchen.

I am in the doorway. She's emptying the dishwasher, of all things. I don't know why this seems so extraordinary and why it pisses me off so much. The dishwasher--it seems so innocent. It's innocent to put away our glasses and forks after kissing another man.

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"Good day at school?" I say. The sarcasm drips from my words like an icicle from a rooftop.

"Yes," she says. She turns, eyes me warily. She holds a plate in her hand.

"That's what I heard. I heard you had a really good day." The anger--it's there. Suddenly, it's there, in a boiling rush. So much anger, it scares me. I don't know how much is there, how much I have inside. I didn't know that rage could sweep up like a wave, washing over everything else, drowning good things. It is bigger than I am. God, it's huge.

"Jade. What is the matter with you?"

"You disgust me."

She just stands there with her mouth open.

"Mr. Dutton and his books. The librarian, for God's sake. What a Goddamn sex symbol. You were seen, do you know that? Seen and talked about. You embarrassed me. You humiliated me."

"Jade." She is frozen there, shocked. Holding that plate. She has her jeans on, and the white blouse, opened too far at the neck. Silver jewelry. Is that what she wore? Was there more? Had she slept with him too?

"Who saw?" she says finally.

"Who saw? Who saw? That's what matters here?" There is guilt in those words. "Are you having an affair with him?"

"Jade, no! It's not that! It's not. . . what it seems."

"Oh, what--you were rehearsing for the school play? You're probably in my school play now, too, right?" I want to cry, but I don't. Anger is taking all the space. It overtakes every piece of me.

Mom's face twists. "I'm sorry." She bends over, grasps the 233

plate to her stomach. A sound escapes: grief. Just this cry of grief.

My heart wants to feel pity, it tries to, but I shove it away. Goddamn her. What was she thinking How could she want to wreck our lives? '"I'm doing this for you, Jade,'" I mock. "'I'm doing all of this for you.' For me. Right." My voice rises. I'm yelling. My throat is raw with rage. "You were doing it all for you. It was never about me. You, you, you! If you wanted to do something for me, you would have left me alone. You would have let me have room to breathe."

I am screaming at her. This is not me. This is some cyclone inside, a furious evil person. I turn and run. Up the stairs to my room. I slam the door so hard I can hear one of the pictures that hang along the stairwell wall drop to the floor.

I sit at the edge of my bed. Clutch my pillow. My heart is pounding so hard. For a moment, I fear I won't catch my breath. She'd taken my air, yes, she had. I concentrate. Desert. Calm. In, out.

Goddamn her. In, out.

"Jade, please." Her voice comes through the door. None of this is happening, which is a good thing. It's at a distance. It isn't my life falling apart.

"Get away from me."

"I want to explain." Muffled voice. Crying. "Explain to Dad."

I count this phrase on my fingers. Explain to Dad. Explain to Dad. Explain to Dad. Breathe.

"Nothing happened. Nothing is going to happen. Jade! Jade, I was so lonely. I am so lonely." She is crying hard now. "He was ... a friend to me. Okay? He took interest in me."

"Obviously," I say.

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"Please," she cries. "Please . . . My life. It's always been so . . . decided."

I say nothing. I pick fuzz off of my bedspread. Build it into a pyramid.

"Your dad . . . I've been . . . alone. A long time. Roger was kind to me. I felt like ... I remembered I was a human being. A woman."

I don't want her to say that. I hate that she says that. Right then, I hate that word, woman. It sounds dirty.

"I'm going to tell Dad," I say. "Of course I'm going to tell him. He should know." I don't know if that's true or not. That I will tell him. That he should know.

"Jade, no. I'll tell him. I'm going to tell him." She is crying. "Let me." Her words come in bursts.

"What happened today-- it was my fault. I'm sorry someone saw. I'm sorry I did it. That was all that happened. I swear to you. That was all. It won't happen again. I love you. I love all of you."

She is sobbing, hard. "God. Oh, God," she cries.

I rise from the bed. I open the door. Mascara drips down her face, which is red and puffy and small-eyed. Tears have dampened her blouse. Pain radiates from her body in waves. Maybe I should put my arms around her. Maybe I should, but I don't.

"I'm sorry for you," I say.

And then I shove past her. I take her car keys, swipe them off the counter. Hey, otherwise she might use them to see her lover, the librarian. I get in the car. I get the hell out of that place that's supposed to be my home.

I drive until I reach the water. I park the car, but by then it has already started. It's too late. I grip the steering wheel, fighting

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the feeling of no air. No air and the reality of what has happened are colliding forces, a shaking earth causing animals to flee and buildings to fall, and the sea to rise in one overpowering wall of water. I guess I manage to get the car door open, because an eternity later, Sebastian is standing there, the mail in his hand. "Jade?"

"Are you all right? What's going on?"

I can t. . . "Come here. Come here. It's okay." He helps me from the car. "Panic. I can't. . .

Breathe." "It's okay. It is."

He holds me to him. Strokes my hair. I think I might throw up. I can't throw up. It would be horrible if I threw up. But I might. His hand is firm, rhythmic. He strokes my hair. "Breathe with me," he says. "There, now. Like this. It's okay. See? You're okay. Everything is fine. I've got you."

The desert. His arms. The timeless, endless desert. Love, timeless and endless, too. Breathing, in and out. I start to cry. And he just keeps me tight in his arms and kisses my hair. "It's all right,"

he says.

Tess is home, but heading out. She changes her mind. She hangs her little knapsack-purse over the chair and pours me a glass of ice tea with a slice of lemon and listens with a care that is both efficient and gentle.

"Lost hearts," Tess sighs.

"Don't be sorry for her," I say. "After what she did." Tess sighs again. Bo wakes from his nap in the other room,

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calls out "Da!" and Sebastian goes to him. "Jade," Tess says after a while. "You know how much I care about you. But you want everything to be either black or white. I've noticed this. You want to put things into separate compartments--right, wrong, good, bad. But not much works that way.

Even black and white--mostly, it's just shades of gray."

"Are you saying what she did was okay? 'Cause if that's what you're saying, I don't agree."

"It was hurtful, yes, it was. But right or wrong? Was your dad wrong to spend so much time alone? Was your mom wrong to feel lonely? Were they wrong to grow apart?"

"They have Oliver and me."

"I don't know. The older I get, the more I just see how we've all got the same struggles, and then all I can feel is compassion."

"She chose to kiss that man, and that was wrong." I don't understand how Tess can't see this.

"And where is the beginning of that wrong? Where is the start of that thread? Good luck finding that. Go back eons. Did she do it because of him? Did he do it because of her? Because of their parents? Because of their parents' parents? Because of some deep, archaic need?" Tess is getting a bit worked up. Her eyes are blue and focused, and she leans into me so close I can smell her clean, laundry-soap scent.

"Maybe she did it because she made the choice to."

"Does the river make the choice to erode the rock?" Tess says, eyes blazing.

"I feel like I've walked in on open-mic poetry night down at the Flamingo," Sebastian says as he rejoins us. Bo is sweaty from sleep. Still groggy, his head rests on Sebastian's shoulder.

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"I'm trying to tell her that everything is so interconnected that it is often impossible to sort out who impacts who, and how."

"'Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.' Or something like that, right? I got a C in physics," Sebastian says. He winks at me.