The Nature of Jade

by Deb Caletti

  But I have to think of Hansa and our humans, too."

  "I feel so bad for her," I say.

  "Every elephant you see in captivity who was not born there, each is a witness to violence, abused, abandoned. Broken animals. Sometimes I do not feel like an elephant keeper. I feel like a social service worker."

  "At least they have you, Damian."

  "They have me. And I'm glad for that. But I can't help thinking of my Jum. Jum has no one."

  My task of the day is to take over Lee's place in watching Hansa after Lee goes home. Hansa had been eating sand over

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  the past few days, and there is worry that she might fatally clog up her stomach. Victor Iverly, the zoo director, thought that maybe Hansa's diet was deficient, but Dr. Brodie disagreed.

  Damian personally oversees all diets, and he had another answer. Every time anyone turned their head, Hansa would dart across the yard to a patch of dirt and start shoveling it in her mouth, causing whoever was nearby to hurry over to her in a panic, yelling, "Hansa, no!" This was what she was after, Damian said. She just loves the attention she gets, all the shouting and running. So now we have to watch her, and if she does it, just very calmly and with no fuss redirect her trunk from the dirt with the bullhook.

  I love Onyx, but I am kind of glad she is out of the yard when I get there. I think about Elaine and the morning's incident-- Elaine with her functional cargo pants and firm demeanor would have handled it, no problem--but a charging Chai would have freaked me out. It makes me remember that release I had to sign, about my death or injury. My mother started trying to talk me out of the whole thing when she saw it, until my dad told her to hand it over, bearing down hard on the pen as he signed. If I didn't take risks, he'd said, I'd end up being one of those people who live limited lives, too afraid to take airplanes and swim in the sea and ride on boats. People whose fear of death becomes fear of life. Still, there are risks, and then there are RISKS, and Onyx, beloved as she is, is a bit like this kid in my fourth-grade class--usually quiet and sweet, but once frustrated enough that he picked up his desk and threw it across the room. I think they sent that kid to Point Defiance too, and I'm only half kidding about that.

  Anyway, the dirt-eating Hansa doesn't make me nervous.

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  She's just a really large toddler. So I babysit her for a long while, and I don't mind just standing there, because even though it is February, the sun is toasty enough and everything looks bright and the tang of elephant shit warmed by the sun smells kind of good. It's a positive smell, somehow, like when you drive past a farm with your windows rolled down and it's the kind of day where your tank top makes your arms feel free and brown and healthy and the backs of your legs stick a little to the vinyl car seat. That grassy, cow-crap-and-livestock smell that means it's been a day of open windows. Life is good babysitting this elephant, and Hansa is behaving, too, except that I can tell she is watching me out of the corners of her eyes. Finally, sure enough, I turn my head, and off she jets to the patch of dirt.

  I'm probably not the best person to be safeguarding Hansa's digestive health, because the reason I turn my head is that I see Sebastian coming down the path, his jacket over one arm. Once I see him, I really don't want to turn away. I'm sorry, Hansa, if you ate extra dirt because of me. But I see Sebastian and my heart lifts and I just want to watch him, same as I used to when he was on the computer screen. I want to see him walk toward me and know that there will not be a world between us this time. Someone walking toward you is such a simple, happy-to-be-alive thing.

  Bo is with him, asleep in the backpack. Bo's cheek rests against Sebastian's back. Sebastian waves when he sees me and I wave back, then go to retrieve Hansa from her dirt feast.

  "Is she digging holes?" Sebastian asks.

  "Worse. Eating sand."

  "Oh, man, Bo used to do that. Out on the beach. Once, he the 122

  was rolling something around in his mouth and I stuck my finger in and fished around, and he was sucking on a rock." Sebastian laughs. "Yum," I say.

  "You'd think I never fed him, the way he was going at it."

  "Maybe they're tastier than we think. Do you live near the water? You said 'the beach.'"

  Our back-and-forth stops. He pauses. "Well, I did . . . I. . . Not now."

  I've said something wrong, hit a tender place. Awkwardness butts in; it's a rude person shoving to the front of a line. Maybe he'd had an upsetting divorce. Maybe his wife left him. Maybe a thousand things. Maybe I am too eager to get information. Maybe I am pushy.

  A couple appears with a small child and a baby in a stroller. The man, in a baseball cap, says the usual. See the elephant, Jakey? See? Say Hi. Say hi, elephant. Jakey ignores Dad, picks a leaf off of a tree. Mom rattles the ice in a drink she's carrying. Let's go see the monkeys, she says.

  They're not so boring.

  "That's what their neighbors say about them," I say to Sebastian.

  "This one guy threw an empty Fritos bag in there once. I wanted to kick his ass."

  "Or dump garbage on his lawn."

  "Really." The uneasiness is gone again.

  "Bo's just sleeping away today," I say.

  "He's been a monster. He's just resting up for more, I'm sure."

  "This one too," I say, nodding my chin in the direction of Hansa. "See her looking at me?" I ask.

  "She's watching me."

  "She sure is," he says.

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  "The minute I turn my head, she'll go cruising over there." I keep my head straight, watching Hansa. It's easier that way. Sebastian is so close to me that my heart is going nuts--not in the usual, full-anxiety mode, but in this new, soaring, zipping, full way, same as those planes at air shows. The fence is between us (always something between us), but I am near enough to smell his breath, and I think he's just eaten a mint. Little poofs of freshness bounce in my direction.

  "Bo does the same thing with the telephone. And the remote control. Or my grandma's record albums. Or just about anything."

  "It must be exhausting."

  "Oh, man."

  "Your grandma helps you?"

  "Yeah. She lives with us. She watches Bo while I'm at work. She saved us, she really did." He looks away, rubs his jaw line with his hand.

  The question sits between us, large and unspoken, just like, well, an elephant in the room. The question about her, the mother, the one who had given Bo that white-blond hair so unlike Sebastian's brown curls. I want to ask. I want to know. I'd lived with the mystery of him for months now. But I don't want to go to the tender places when we barely know each other. Maybe he needs to cross bridges carefully too. He is here, I am here, both of us in front of the camera, and that's all that matters for now.

  Hansa has lost interest in the sand. She wanders away. Damian was right--our calm reactions take away all the fun. "She's going off to think up more trouble," I say. Sebastian smiles. He has the perfect smile, meaning slightly imperfect, just

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  a little off. There's something about exact, white, ordered teeth that seems insincere.

  "I should let you get going," he says. "You're busy."

  "I'm about done," I say. "I'm heading home." I can't tell him what I am heading home to--AP

  American Government, Calculus, AP English. Schoolwork. Maybe a phone call from Hannah so she can tell me about some shoes she bought, or an IM from Michael asking about what pages we're supposed to read. Dinner with Mom and Dad. My life seems so far from what his must be.

  My life seems so young.

  "Have you worked here long?" Sebastian asks.

  "Just a few months," I say. "Do you come here a lot?" As if you don't know, Jade.

  "I used to come every day, or, you know, when I could. I'd bring Bo after work. Or just myself."

  At night sometimes. You'd climb the fence. You'd watch the stars. You'd tilt back your head and look at the sky. You'd think it over, whatever it was.

  "Just to see these guys?" I say.
"Or all the animals?"

  "These guys," he says. "I read a book that hooked me. This man studied elephant troupes and then ended up raising an abandoned calf. So good, it made me want to see them in person."

  "Sounds great."

  "I could lend it to you," he says. "I'd love that."

  "I'll bring it next time," he says.

  "Thanks," I say. We hit the sudden conversational roadblock, that place where you're talking along just fine with plenty of road and ideas before you, when, all at once, bam. The silence of the end of the line. Your brain races away like mad, trying to think of what to say next, but all the possibilities are fading

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  fast, same as trying to remember a dream after you've woken up. No, too late.

  "I'll leave you to your visit," I say.

  "Okay. Well, bye."

  "Bye."

  "Jade?" he says. "Good to see you again."

  "You too," I say. Casually, though my insides feel anything but. I wave, walk to the elephant house. I hang up my overalls and dissect the conversation, and I remember how I asked too many personal questions and how he had seemed uncomfortable, and then there was that awkward silence when no one said anything about Bo's mother.

  I go to the bathroom to wash my hands, and then I see that I have a very noticeable set of brown mascara spider tracks under each eye, and I just about die. Shit, I'd sneezed when I was in the dusty pen, and should have checked then. I convinced myself I've completely screwed up because a) I'm a conversational imbecile, and b) I looked awful and had been acting like I looked great. He probably won't even come back. God, I'm an idiot. I unwrap a cough drop partly out of habit and partly because I'm suddenly feeling this steel ball in my chest.

  And then I remember all the good things. He'd been glad to see me again. He was going to lend me his book. And that mint. A breath mint. A breath mint means you care.

  I say good-bye to Damian, to Delores in her little ticket box. The sun is just in those beginning stages of going down, when it spreads magic light on everything. An orangey glow warms the trees and sidewalks and even makes the garbage-can lids look beautiful. Jake Gillette's parachute, too, is golden and

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  glowy, and gives me that bittersweet sense that time is passing. The "76" ball at the gas station glints in its slow twirl. I don't see Titus in his pineapple shirt, but I do see Mr. Chen coming home from work. The fountain is on in the center of our building complex, and the grass is yellowed with twilight. "Beautiful day," I say to him.

  "Ah, yes," he says, as he hauls his laptop from the backseat. "In spite of being rag-dolled at the office." Rag-dolled--to be drilled, rolled, and tumbled by a wave. He'd seen Riding Giants, too.

  I hurry through an average, non burnt dinner. Dad goes downstairs to work on his train, Mom leaves to call volunteers for the Winter Art Walk, and Oliver heads to his room to read The Ultimate Narnia Fan Handbook. I'm anxious to get through my homework, and I ignore the message from Jenna, who wants to talk about Kayla and what a bitch she is. I think she actually said "witch" in the voicemail, but if that's what she means, I don't see what difference the vocabulary makes.

  I finish my homework by about ten fifteen, and it could have taken me longer, but I want to have some time to think, so I rush. After I pack everything away in my backpack, I clear my dresser of all the patron saints except for St. Raphael. I give him front-and-center billing.

  Raphael flickers, and I sprawl on my bed and look through my lava-lamp frame, at the stars glittering, at the wisp of a cloud drawing across the sky like the tip of a paintbrush. I hold up the moments with Sebastian, gaze at them again with a gentle eye, with careful hope. I do the necessary work of falling in love, that time spent alone with your imagination. I close my eyes, remember the smell of mint, the

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  baby's cheek against his back, his smile, not quite perfect.

  The scent of a blown-out match, melting wax, fills my room. St. Raphael, patron saint of meetings, of young lovers. Patron saint of joy.

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  CHAPTER NINE

  During a sparring match between chimpanzees, female chimpanzees will stand on the sidelines, wave their arms, jump up and down, and screech their encouragement. In other words, chimps have cheerleaders . . .

  --Dr. Jerome R. Clade, The Fundamentals of Animal Behavior

  "Didn't you have a friend with a car?" Kayla asks. She's going home with Hannah, and we are climbing the stairs of the bus. I see Michael and Akello, and I walk down the aisle and sit down in the seat behind them.

  "She got a job after school," Hannah says. They take the seat across the aisle from me. The three of us never would have fit in one, because Kayla has brought her pom-poms, which she holds on her lap and clutches like an old lady with her purse.

  "I haven't ridden a school bus since we had a field trip to Pioneer Village in the eighth grade,"

  Kayla says. She bounces on the seat a little, making her pom-poms chsh-chsh. "I never get why these things don't have seat belts."

  "I never got that either," I say.

  "Where'd Jenna get a job?" Akello asks. "I need a job." "Her church," I say. "That's out," Akello says.

  "If I had a job, I'd never keep up my grades," Michael says. The bus rumbles to a start, lurches forward in takeoff.

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  "I always thought it'd be funny, you know, when we have to job-shadow? To do a priest or something," Kayla says. Actually, it's mildly funny for once.

  "The pope," Hannah says. They both crack up.

  "Pope for a day," Hannah says. She's on a roll.

  "It could be the prize on some radio station. Be the seventy-seventh caller and you could win,"

  Kayla says.

  "Call in when you hear . . ." Hannah says.

  "'Jive Talkin'" by the Bee Gees," Akello says. Michael and I laugh. Hannah and Kayla stare.

  "Do you guys want to go to the movies with us tomorrow night?" Akello says.

  "Saturday?" Kayla asks.

  "Yeah, that'd be right, since today is Friday," Akello says. Michael whacks him on the arm.

  "What?" he says. I like that about Akello. He doesn't get the social rules--Don't insult the intelligence of a cheerleader, no matter how tempting--or else he just doesn't care.

  "Par-tee," Kayla says. "We're busy." Kayla is in "the popular group," obviously, since she is a cheerleader. "Popular group" is a phrase that's slightly embarrassing to use. If you use it, you aren't in it. I always think it's kind of weird how everyone knows who this group is and who it isn't. How does it form, anyway? It's not like there's some sign-up sheet. But you know and they know. I never can figure out what the separating factor is. It isn't just pom-poms or looks. Take Hailey Nelson, for example, with her orange hair and plain face, who is as popular as they come; and Renee Desiradi, who is gorgeous and shy and who no one pays attention to. Someday she's going to be famous and they'll show her yearbook picture

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  on television and none of us will even remember her. No, what I think it comes down to is who asserts a sense of dominance, just like baboons. It isn't necessarily the strongest and biggest and best-looking baboon that'll be the leader, but the cockiest and most self-assured, the one who assumes he'll win any fight. I guess we tend to believe people's high opinion of themselves, whether it is earned or not. And don't go buying into that psychology BS that says overly confident people only act that way because they don't feel good about themselves inside. They feel great about themselves. They can be stupid, irresponsible, a smart-ass, with failing grades or a sex-will-save-me pout, and will still walk around with the self-esteem a Nobel Prize winner should have but probably doesn't.

  I'm thinking we ought to rethink the whole self-esteem thing. It should almost be a dirty word. I mean, look at Kayla. She has the intelligence of a tree stump, and its sense of humor. She's less about real attractiveness than she is about advertising, like those cereals with zingy boxes and toys inside and that make the milk turn cho
colate but taste disgusting. The weather had turned rainy again, and she's still wearing this tiny T-shirt and this tiny skirt with rhinestones on the back pocket, like she's Western Barbie. Humiliating, only she'll never realize it. She's the kind of girl who shows how hot she is because she has nothing else to offer, who doesn't realize that hotness has an expiration date. Yet, I'm still a little nervous talking to her, like she's holding a lottery ticket she just might or might not decide to hand over to me. It is nuts, if you stop to think about it. I give her this power, and it's kind of like voting some idiot into office. But, hey, we're good at that, too.

  "Sorry we can't go to the movies," Hannah says. Now that 131

  they'd become friends, Hannah is hooked to Kayla like life support.

  "I mean, you guys can come," Kayla says. "To the party. If you.

  "Sure," Michael says.

  "It's at Alex Orlando's," Kayla says. "You know where he lives."

  "Oh, yeah," Michael says. He has no idea, I am positive. He'll have to Map Quest it. This seems particularly humiliating, Michael sitting at his computer, typing in Alex Orlando's address that he'd found in the phone book. "You'll come, Jade."

  "I don't know. Probably," I say. This I know: It's easier to say yes and cancel later then to say no when people are right there. Lying on the spot is an acquired skill. Already, I am feeling the heavy ball forming in my chest, this weighted hand pressing down. It's new-situation anxiety, this time, rather than about-to-die anxiety. Mom would love it, me going, but, hey, my skirt with the rhinestones is at the cleaners.

  My inner turmoil isn't noticed. In fact, everyone has already moved on. Akello has pulled out his Twain reading for English, and Michael is writing something down on his calendar that I can only imagine--ALEX'S PARTY--in stubby pencil. Hannah and Kayla are talking without saying anything. Their conversation goes like this:

  Hannah: Uh-huh.

  Kayla: It was like, ugh!

  Hannah: I know.