The Nature of Jade

by Deb Caletti

  "They sure are excited over that tree," Sebastian says.

  It's true. In the time it took for me to change and come out to see Sebastian, Tombi and Chai are already throwing it around. You should have heard the noise. Like thunder and happy elephants.

  "And they're getting great exercise," I say. "But I wouldn't be surprised if that tree lights up like Christmas." It looks as if it's about to get tossed, in the direction of the electric fence.

  "Will they get hurt?"

  I'd asked Elaine the same thing. "Nah. They'll just pick it up and throw it again. In a day or two, they'll get bored and we'll have to haul it out."

  169

  "Like Bo with a new truck. He's so into trucks right now, I'm worried he's going to end up with a CB radio and a girlfriend named Wanda who works at a diner."

  I smile. See, these are not the kind of conversations you'd have with an Alex Orlando. Sebastian thought about things, filtered them through his own sea-boy lens.

  "I'm glad to see you," I say. And I am. My insides are all cheery again. He's erased all the ugly feelings about Dad being angry, about Mom and her sudden, nutty interest in history books.

  "Where is Bo?"

  "At home. I've got a weird schedule this week, because Derek, the owner, is on vacation. So I probably won't be here in the next few days. I wanted to tell you that."

  "Oh," I say.

  In a second, my backstage mind has already opened up the door. Thoughts fill in the crack of his hesitation. He does think I'm too young. And maybe I was the only one who'd been having a good time the other night. I was stupid to ask about Bo's mother and all. I'd moved too fast. I should have lit Raphael, at least.

  "So that's why I came by."

  "Well, thanks."

  Sebastian runs his hand through his curls. "Jade, I ... I'd really like to see you again, you know? I just feel kind of bad to ask, with Bo and all. ..."

  "I had a great time, Sebastian. I really did. It was my kind of night."

  "No way."

  "Really."

  "Tiffany's so into parties and all that. . . I'm just surprised. It was my kind of night, too."

  170

  "It was cozy. I like cozy."

  "Well, then, I'm going to go ahead and ask you for dinner. At the houseboat this week, if you can.

  I've got the night off, Wednesday, and Tess has got a new group she meets with. But, it'd be the three of us. Bo . . ."

  "Sebastian, it's fine. I'd really like that."

  "This is new for me. Dating with a kid . . . It's really bizarre."

  "I'd love to come."

  "Sevenish? Macaroni and cheese?"

  "I'll bring the hot dogs."

  He laughs. "That's great. That's terrific."

  I ignore the mind-snag, the realization that he used Tiffany's name in the present tense. I mean, she isn't going to parties anymore, is she? I banish the thought. Grief has got to play all kinds of tricks on you. Maybe it's hard for him to imagine she's really gone. I let it go; instead, I just let the Sebastian-happy fill me. The relief of not messing up after all. It practically lifts me from my shoes. I am flying when I go home. Sure as Jake Gillette's skateboard parachute.

  171

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Animal kin sometimes appear to feel each other's pain. An entire pod of whales will beach itself so as not to abandon a beached clan member, and chimpanzees will touch, pat, and groom a family member who has been a victim of aggression. A grandmother lemur once attacked the mother of her grandchild, after the mother ignored and rejected the injured infant . . .

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

  "A barbeque? But it's raining."

  Why'd I say barbeque? Why not just dinner? Why did lying make you so stupid? It's like there's some eerie morality department of your brain that just tries to trip you up and teach you a lesson.

  "Well, you know, Alex's dad will probably just jet in and out with the food."

  "Kind of strange to have it midweek," Mom says.

  "It was a spur-of-the-moment thing. No big deal."

  "I just wish you felt you could have your friends here sometimes."

  "I do. I will. I would. They just have this big house, I guess, so people go there." "Oh."

  "One of those places with a living room no one goes in. You know, like it should have a red velvet rope across the

  172

  doorway and a plaque telling about the furniture." Mom is quiet.

  "I can never understand having a room no one uses. A whole room just to look at but that you still have to dust."

  This seems to make her feel a little better. "I know it," she says.

  "It's stupid. What a waste."

  She's still quiet, though. Like she's tried to file away sad, but can't quite close the drawer. "Alex told me he thinks you're cool," I say. It's shameless, and my insides fold up with guilt, but I know this is the big parental prize, something that makes them inexplicably happy.

  "Really?" she asks.

  "Who knows why," I say.

  She socks my arm. "Well, just make sure the meat's cooked all the way," she says.

  It's raining really hard when I get outside, and I duck into Mom's car and then see we're out of gas. I stop by the 76 station. The old guy at the counter whose nametag reads ROGER greets me with a Yooit Wahine, (Greetings, Female Surfer) as he rings up my gas and the package of hot dogs I've just remembered that I said I'd bring.

  I wind my way toward the water of Lake Union, peer in between the banks of trees to find the right dock. I park in a strip of gravel, swing open a gate, walk through a gnat cloud and down the ramp. For anyone who's never seen a houseboat, they really aren't boats at all. They are houses built on floating logs or cement, and they don't move from their location like a boat would. They stay put, if you don't count the ups and downs of moving with the sways of the water. It's getting dark,

  173

  and tiny Christmas-like lights in yellow and red are draped overhead, running the length of the dock. Most of the houses are snug cottages, shingled or painted bright colors and adorned with hanging flower baskets and pots. There are several two-story houses with modern angles, though, too, and all of the houseboats are separated by thin bits of water strewn with sailboats and kayaks.

  For a neighborhood with no ground, there are a lot of gardens--climbing vines and roses and hanging baskets of fuchsia.

  I look for Sebastian's house, Number Three, as a cat winds its way around my ankles and another plunks himself in my path. A dog hears my footsteps and appears in a window to bark. Someone calls his name-- "Sumatra!"--tells him to quiet down. I can see the end of the dock up ahead, and the sprinkle of white city lights on the other side of the water.

  I find Number Three. It's a combination of styles, a narrow two-story house, but old looking.

  Painted red with blue trim, a small, crow's-nest deck on top. Pots of plants decorate the platform the house floats on--there's a palm tree, some ferns and marigolds. A cement Buddha sits in one leafy pot, a bullfrog in another. An ancient, half-rusted watering can with a whirligig on a rod sticking from it is propped in one corner.

  I step onto the float, and feel it dip with my weight. There's a set of rubber yellow gardening clogs by the front door, and a tiny set of rubber rain boots painted with dragonflies and insects. A grass welcome mat sports a sunflower. After I knock, I realize something: I have tapped three times on the doorframe, just like at home.

  At the sound of the knock, I hear little running steps, and Bo's shout, "Da!" Then bigger steps, and the door opens and

  174

  there is Sebastian in this new place, this homey and wonderful new place. Bo grasps him around the knees again.

  "You made it," he says. "It's okay, Bo. It's Jade." He picks Bo up so that he can peek at me from the comfort of Sebastian's T-shirt.

  "Hi, Bo," I say. "He said 'dad,'"

  "I know it. It blows me away. First, that lately he's got these w
ords for things. Second, that I'm his dad. Come on in." He steps aside. "A dad is the guy that does the taxes, you know? Not me."

  "This is such a cool house," I say. A denim couch and a rocking chair are crowded in with a table and Bo's toy chest. Big windows look out onto a wide canal of water that eventually opens into the lake. Colorful, plump pillows are strewn on the couch, and there's a tall bookshelf that follows the staircase to the second level. Black-and-white photos in every shape and size cover another wall. There's a woodstove, and a viney plant that's making its way up and around a side window.

  "It's my great aunt's place. Tess's sister. Mattie and her partner came into some money and bought a bunch of little houses all over. They're living in Santa Fe now."

  "I love Santa Fe," I say. "At least by the pictures. I've never been." I think of my college application, my Abe homework. University of New Mexico, the one I had chosen to apply to. A piece of me that is actually there, right at this moment.

  "They love it too. Mattie's taking some time off.... They've got this amazing adobe house there.

  Anyway, let me show you around. The grand tour takes about thirty seconds."

  The house is small. It makes you want to take careful steps and sideways moves, but it also feels sturdy from years of love

  175

  and use. "Ta-da, the kitchen ..." Painted in green and yellow, with cups of all colors hanging over the counter. There's also an Indian rug on the floor, and horseshoes along the tops of the walls.

  The lamp is made out of an old gas can--mobil is still painted on the side, along with a red, winged horse. The windows are steamy, and a pot with a lid boils on the stove. "Mac 'n' cheese?"

  I ask.

  "Well, no. I actually cooked. This is the one thing I know how to make. Maybe I shouldn't admit ability in case it's awful. Chili?"

  "Yum. Oh, and I brought hot dogs."

  "You'll be Bo's friend for life, now. Bo--gogos!"

  "Gogos?" Bo seems worried he heard wrong.

  I take them out of the bag and show him. He reaches out, and I hand them over.

  "Maybe we can put those in the fridge. Okay, Bo? You do it." He sets Bo down, opens the rounded door of the old refrigerator. He pats one of the shelves. "Right here, bud. Then we'll have them for dinner." Bo places them on the shelf. '"Atta way, bud." Bo runs off to the living room, the plastic of his diaper chsh chshing as he moves. "That's a victory lap," Sebastian says.

  "Did you notice how nothing is on the bottom shelves?" He opens the door again to show me.

  "He can open this. One day, Tess found his trucks in there and the apples all over the floor. We figure he's got about a minute and a half alone, max, before he gets into trouble. He's doing this climbing thing too. If you can hear him, it's okay, but if he's quiet. . ."

  "Oh, man," I say.

  "Exactly. I found him sitting in the middle of the kitchen table once."

  176

  Sebastian continues the tour. "Dining room." A wood kitchen table with three chairs and a high chair, all looking out onto the kayaks in the water outside, and a pair of fishing poles on the dock.

  "Bathroom." I poke my head in. A tiny wood-wrapped room with a small claw-foot tub and a porthole for a window. "Study." He gestures to the wall of books and I smile. "Now, upstairs."

  We pass Bo, who is fishing through his toy box, taking out all the toys one by one. "I just picked up all those, of course," Sebastian says. We walk up the narrow stairs. Through one arched doorway is a tiny bedroom that is all quilt-wrapped bed and view, and another small bedroom, obviously Bo's, with a crib and toys and a bright, woven wall hanging. "He's almost getting too big for his crib," Sebastian says. "And here's my room." It's not a room, exactly, but a bunk. A doorway and three laddered stairs to reach a bed on a platform. A shelf above the surrounding windows holds photographs and train cars and metal sculptures of animals. "Mattie's decorating, but I don't mind," he says.

  "What a view," I say.

  "You get used to the motion. Sometimes it's a surprise to see that everything out there is rocking up and down." "I bet."

  "Up those steps?" He points to a wall ladder. "There's a deck. But if Bo hears them creak, he'll want up, and he'll have to be wrestled down."

  "That's okay," I say. "Another time."

  "Oh, shit--dinner," Sebastian says. He jogs down the stairs and I follow. He trots to the kitchen and lifts the lid and stirs. Yanks open the oven door and takes out a pan of cornbread with a towel, warm, sweet smells following.

  177

  "You made that? He cooks, too?"

  "Tess's friend, Max? He taught me how, but I didn't pay attention. This is 'add water and stir.'"

  "Can I help?" I love it here. The cups above the counter, the wicker chairs at the table, the old California license plate hanging over the stove. Sebastian cutting hotdogs into small, Bo-size pieces.

  "Nah. I got it covered."

  I wander back out to the living room, examine the wall of pictures. "Hey, Sebastian, is this you?"

  I call. Curly-haired little boy. Overalls. Standing in a sprinkler fully dressed. Mini-Sebastian eyes.

  He pokes his head out of the kitchen. "Which one? I'm in a lot of them."

  "Sprinkler."

  "Oh, yeah."

  He appears next to me. "And there. That's Tess and me and my sister, Hillary, fishing at Tess's old place where we used to live, Ruby Harbor. That's Tess on her motorcycle."

  "Oh, my God." Tess, a gray-haired, strong-looking woman wearing jeans and a bright orange shirt, atop a Suzuki.

  "Mom got it for Dad, but he thought he was too old for it, so Tess bought it off them." He points to a separate grouping of pictures, on the space next to the window. "That was my great-grandmother, Lettie. And Mattie and her partner, Lou. Tess and her daughters--Mom and Aunt Julia. Mom painting." Sebastian's mom has brown hair pulled into a ponytail. She is pretty, with a kind face and a paintbrush clenched playfully in her teeth. These pictures, mothers and daughters and sisters-- they make me think of elephant clans.

  178

  "She's an artist?"

  "Mostly for fun. She's sold a few." He points to the main wall again. "There's my dad." Standing next to a swimming pool and wearing a funny long bathing suit, hoisting a water wing like a barbell.

  "They all look so nice."

  "You know, they are nice. That's my Aunt Julia again, Mom's sister, and her husband, Tex Ivy, and their twins." A really beautiful, long-legged woman in cutoffs. Her husband, an outdoorsy guy who looks a little like Abe, with his long hair and bristled cheeks. One girl and one boy, about four or five, both beautiful like their mom but with their father's hair. "The twins are monsters. Good thing they're so cute."

  "And look at you there," I say. It is one of the typical high school dance pictures, the kind Mom has plenty of, with Sebastian looking kind of goofy, actually, in a tux, his arm around a girl with straight blond hair.

  "Don't look. God, I look stupid."

  "Not your most relaxed. Is that Tiffany?"

  "Yeah."

  "Jeez, Sebastian, she's gorgeous." She is, too. Perfect nose, the kind of cheekbones you see in magazines. Tall but thin. This smile that's Tampax-ad happy, free. It's weird to see her. That was her, alive. Now she's dead. Bo's mother. Sebastian's lost love.

  "She used to do a lot of competing--you know, beauty pageants. Her parents made her at first.

  She hated it. I felt so sorry for her. I was like, eleven, and I wanted to save her. Hide her in my room, or something. She was so .. .fragile to me. She seemed like glass." He cups his hands in front of him, holding something delicate. "Later, she just gave up and got into it. It was 179

  sad. She wasn't the same person who just wanted out, to live like a normal girl instead of on some perpetual stage. She got to liking all that stuff. From this really sweet uncertainty . . . She changed. It took me a long time to see it."

  "Wow." It leaves me speechless. I mean, I've been told I'm pretty, but no one would put me i
n an evening gown and a tiara. "She really is gorgeous."

  "Jade? You know what? I think you're the beautiful one."

  It's not a beautiful-one, high-self-esteem thing to do, but I actually laugh.

  "I mean it. Tiffany was so focused on her looks. It got . . . ugly. She got ugly, to me."

  It seems kind of mean. To say all this about this girl, now dead. I try not to look at the picture too hard, but I want to. Same as I used to look at those pictures of my great-grandmother's sister, who died of pneumonia all those years ago. See, Tiffany didn't know when she was standing there that she wouldn't be for very much longer. That she'd get pregnant and die. I'm looking at her when I know the end of the story but she doesn't.

  "Bo sure does look like her."

  "I know." I watch Sebastian for signs of sadness, but he seems okay. He seems happy, really. "I think we're ready for dinner," he says. "Come on, Bo!" Bo has taken all of his trucks from his toy box and has lined them up on the carpet.

  "No," Bo says.

  "Dinner. Gogos."

  "No."

  "Power tripper," Sebastian says. "He knows about eight or ten words, but that's his favorite.

  Close your ears, Jade." He swoops Bo up and Bo screams. He zooms Bo to his high chair 180

  and plunks him in. Tosses the hot dog bits on his tray in a flash, and Bo suddenly stops screeching.

  "You have that down," I say.

  "Man's got to be quick."

  I move around in the tiny kitchen, help carry out the bowls he's laid out, and the silverware. I sit in one of the wicker chairs, and Sebastian brings in the rest of the dinner.

  "Cheers to our first meal together," he says. We clink our soda cans.

  Bo munches on his hot dogs, which he smashes up toward his face. Sebastian gives him pieces of cheese, some crackers. A sippy cup of something that smells sweet and sticky, apple juice maybe.

  "You have this handled so well," I say. "You just think, Young father . . . You know, that you'd be tearing out your hair."

  "Oh, I do that," he laughs. "I do a lot of that. This is a show of togetherness to impress you."

  "But you know what to do. How do you know what to do?"