by Sarai Walker
“Bad day?” I said.
“The worst.” She told me that Dabsitaf had been approved by the FDA despite how hard she and Verena had worked to stop it. “They said the dangers of obesity outweigh the potential dangers of the drug.”
I placed my cutting board on the table across from her so I could chop vegetables and we could talk. “This isn’t over. You’ll raise awareness. I’ll help you,” I said, but she remained quiet. I sliced an eggplant as she finished her drink and poured another. After she set the bottle back on the table, she pointed to the television behind me, the sound muted. “Look at that,” she said.
A breaking news banner appeared at the bottom of the screen, announcing JENNIFER REVEALED.
I dropped my knife on the cutting board and reached to turn up the volume.
“Thank the Lord on high,” said Cheryl Crane-Murphy. “Yes, it’s true. We finally know who Jennifer is.”
• • •
Soledad
United States Army specialist Soledad Ayala was traveling in the Khost province of southeastern Afghanistan, riding in a convoy of Humvees to FOB Salerno, which they called Rocket City. She and another medic were the only two women in the unit, riding in the back of the last Humvee, dressed in dust-colored clothes and armed with M4 carbines.
The helmet strap circling her chin was going to cause a breakout; Soledad could feel the oil and sweat there, and so she reached up to wipe her skin. Outside the window it looked like Nevada or Arizona, which is what she wrote to Luz in her letters, hoping it would make them seem less far apart. Soledad told Luz about the monkeys and the sounds they made. These were details a child would enjoy, but Soledad feared Luz wasn’t a child anymore, that she’d changed. There were warnings from school about truancy and smoking. It’d been a mistake to join the reserves—Soledad had learned that too late—but after Luz’s father died she was desperate for money and wanted to go to college. She’d earned two degrees, a bachelor’s in sociology and a master’s in women’s studies, and now she was paying for them.
For hours the Humvee traveled the barren terrain and Soledad thought of Luz. She held her gun to her body, which was constricted by the uniform and the pounds of equipment strapped around her. She dreamed of taking it all off and letting cool water splash over her skin. Agnes, who was sitting next to her, remained silent, looking out the tiny window without a hint to what she was thinking. Soledad was grateful for the quiet, which she expected to continue until they arrived, but then there was a boom.
Pulse of light. Heat. Shattered glass.
Boom.
It seemed to be hours long, the boom, and she was trapped inside it, rolling around in it, feeling it echo and vibrate through her.
The boom finally stopped and in its place there was silence, a pause; outside the window she saw nothing but sand and smoke. Then she heard shouting, and men’s voices, and the jackhammer sound of guns firing. She reached for Agnes’s hands, which were trying to free her from the wreckage.
Outside the vehicle there were bodies in the dirt, and parts of bodies. Soledad left a trail of blood behind her in the sand as she looked for the wounded; she was wounded too, but walking. There was a soldier on the ground, his thigh cut to the bone. Agnes was fastening a black band above the wound as the man screamed. Soledad pinned his shoulders to the ground with her knees, her hands on his head, trying to still him as Agnes worked. They were engulfed in a cloud of choking black smoke and sand. The guns were firing, but she couldn’t see them; she could only hear them. The dying soldier looked up at Soledad. Her face would be the last thing he would see in this world, but her face was nothing special.
“Mama,” he said. He was only a boy.
Soledad wiped the sand and sweat from his forehead. She feared she was going to black out soon. The blood from the wound in her left shoulder had soaked the arm of her uniform into a deep scarlet. She returned to the truck for supplies, taking a moment to rest her head against the side of it. When she turned around a man was heading in the direction of Agnes, screaming in his nonsense language, the sounds flying from his mouth. Soledad’s gun was strapped around her and she positioned it in front of her and shot at the man as he ran through the cloud. She missed and shot again, hitting him in the back. He fell to the ground, the enemy man, silent and still. Dead.
Look out! A voice in the cloud, an American voice, one on her side, was trying to warn her. Another enemy man was moving toward her, and she shot him in the chest.
When she awoke in the hospital three days later, she didn’t remember much, but she could see the man in the cloud, falling into the dirt and landing on his back, his legs twisted beneath him. She had never killed anyone before, but it had been easy. That’s what she remembered about it more than any other detail: how easy it had been.
In the hospital in Kandahar, Soledad was treated for a deep wound to the shoulder, blood loss, and infection. Her mind returned to the cloud, the choking black smoke and sand, the Taliban fighters she had killed. Several days passed before the doctors decided she was stable enough to learn about her daughter’s rape. Luz was still alive then, but it would be more than a week before Soledad was allowed to travel, and by that time Luz would have jumped in front of the train. Soledad feared that Luz had been angry with her for leaving her with her grandmother, for not being there to make everything all right.
Where was this girl’s mother? the people at home had said.
Until her weeping trio of sisters met her at the airport, Soledad didn’t fully believe that Luz’s suicide was real. When she arrived home, a photographer took a photo that ran across the wires: Army reservist Soledad Ayala arrives home in Santa Mariana, north of Los Angeles. Soledad went into the house and closed the door. Her mother was in bed, sedated and barely conscious, being tended to by relatives from out of town. She didn’t want to see her mother, who had failed Luz.
Soledad sat in the living room, feeling unattached to her surroundings, as if she were viewing the scene from afar. She’d traveled back from the war, moving through time and space, but she hadn’t completely crossed over. Her body was at home, but some part of her, some essential part, had been left behind.
She experienced the cloud of sand and smoke, the sound of gunfire, the killing of the Taliban men, the days she was unconscious in the hospital, and the news of Luz, raped and dead. It had all happened at once, in a flash; it was a big jumble, a black cloud, and she was caught inside it. She hadn’t been due to go home for another four weeks; she hadn’t prepared herself for the transition from that world of violence and death to her home in California. She learned after her first deployment that leaving the war meant crossing over from one state of mind to another, that there was a shift from soldier back to mother. Now she was only the mother of a dead girl.
Why wasn’t this girl’s mother supervising her? the people in town had said.
When the formalities of the funeral were over, she sent her mother to Texas with her sisters and the rest of her relatives. Two of the young men who’d raped her daughter were out on bail and they were going to die, she was sure of that. She’d killed before, it was easy. She was only a medic, and a woman, but she’d been trained to kill the enemy. That’s what she’d done and would continue to do.
Leaving the war meant crossing over. The mind of a soldier wasn’t the mind of a mother, but she wasn’t a mother anymore. When she was in Afghanistan, something had crossed over in her, and when she went home, it didn’t cross back.
• • •
A QUIET SETTLED OVER CALLIOPE HOUSE the day after the Jennifer revelations became public, as if we were holding a moment of silence for the mother who’d lost her daughter, which was at the root of everything. The story was still taking shape; some questions were answered, but many others remained. Information about Soledad stuffed the papers and airwaves, much of it speculation. There was no news about Leeta, but she hadn’t been lying when she told her roommate she knew the identity of Jennifer.
After a mornin
g engrossed in the news, I had the kitchen to myself in the afternoon. I slid a tray of cupcake batter into the oven. That Leeta was connected to me and also to Jennifer—Soledad—was unreal. I didn’t know how to think about something that was so far removed from anything I’d experienced. For the rest of the day I wanted to pretend that they didn’t exist, but as I went through the messages in my inbox, I discovered I didn’t have that option.
The messages were mostly from new girls who’d sent their addresses, requesting books. One girl suggested a high school edition of Fuckability Theory, an idea I said I would pass on to Marlowe, amused at the thought of her replacing every occurrence of fuck and its variations.
Working my way to the top of the inbox, I found two names I recognized, Hannah and Jasmine. They’d written several times to discuss Marlowe’s book, so it wasn’t unusual to see email from them in my inbox, but these messages were different. The girls explained that they’d received weird correspondence in recent days, each time from a different, vague email address, with subject headings such as “Revolution!” and “Rise Up!” In one of the messages, the girls were advised to cancel their subscriptions to Daisy Chain and donate the money to Reproductive Justice, a nonprofit group. In another, they were encouraged to skip school and engage in acts of civil disobedience. Hannah forwarded the most recent one to me:
From: account7
To: Hannah_hannaH
Subject: Fight Back!
The police and the “justice” system don’t take violence against women and girls seriously. If you’ve been assaulted or harassed, take the law into your own hands. Form vigilante groups with other girls. Sign up for self-defense classes, but don’t just use the skills defensively. Go on the offensive!
Hannah wanted to know if these messages were from me. “Oh my God,” I said under my breath, slamming my laptop shut. I recalled Julia’s response when I asked her why Leeta wanted the spreadsheet: Maybe Jennifer’s army is looking for new recruits. No. I scoffed at my own wild thoughts. I was becoming paranoid like Julia.
And yet, something nagged at me.
As a woman being hunted by the FBI, Soledad had better things to do than email Kitty’s readers, but her network was large and Leeta was out there somewhere. Maybe someone in the group wanted to reach out to these girls—at the heart of “Jennifer” was Soledad’s own lost girl. There was a certain degree of logic to it. I wondered if this could be traced back to me or to Julia, and what would happen if it was.
“What’s burning?” Sana was standing in the doorway, next to the refrigerator. I didn’t know how long she’d been there watching my rising panic. I’d forgotten about my cupcakes and now opened the oven, a gush of smoke blinding me. I slid the pan of charred cakes onto the stovetop.
“Are you all right?” Sana said, a question she asked too often and not without reason. We were still slightly awkward with each other the day after our argument.
“I have a lot on my mind, you know, with all the stuff in the news.” I used a knife to flick off the burned top of a cupcake, then pinched a chunk of the moist part underneath, blew on it, and ate it. I was hungry and I didn’t want to face Sana, so I stuffed my mouth. She took the tray away from me and dumped the cakes in the trash.
“Things aren’t so dire that we have to eat ruined food, are they?”
I licked the crumbs from my lips. She was waiting for me to say something, to explain why I was acting odd, but I would have to lie and I didn’t want to do that. I couldn’t tell her about the messages until I had more time to think about the situation. If I mentioned it to Sana it would become a brouhaha, and I couldn’t deal with that. I needed to keep a lid on this and Julia’s book and my suspicions about her. The lid on the pot was already rattling, about to blow off. Everything I worried about was linked to Julia.
“I’m still concerned about you,” Sana said. “I’m just putting that out there, into the universe.”
I wrapped my arms around her, squeezing her tight, hoping this would convey how much I appreciated her. She squeezed me back. I rested my cheek against her shoulder, the yellow of her blouse and the citrus scent of her soap transporting me away from this kitchen and away from thoughts of Jennifer, to somewhere simpler, like the lemon trees in my mother’s yard. I was reluctant to let go of Sana and this reverie. We continued to embrace, no line between us. “I’m sorry I haven’t been myself lately,” I said, but this wasn’t entirely true—I didn’t know what it meant to be myself anymore.
When the hug ended, she didn’t push me to say anything more, even though I knew that’s what she wanted. She left the kitchen and returned to her desk, leaving me alone, my laptop on the table, unavoidable. I would have to open it again.
From: PlumK
To: JuliaCole
Subject: SOS
Julia,
I need to speak with you urgently. DO NOT IGNORE THIS MESSAGE!
—PK
Within minutes, I received a reply—an indication that something was wrong.
From: JuliaCole
To: PlumK
Subject: Re: SOS
Let’s meet tonight at Café Rose. 10:00. I need another favor.
J.
Of course.
When I arrived at Café Rose, Julia was sitting at a table in a back corner, drinking espresso despite the late hour. She was the Austen version of herself, with flawless makeup and straight hair, pale skin, boots with heels. I couldn’t see what she was wearing underneath the trench coat, but I assumed it was her Austen uniform. I thought of her chest under that fabric, covered in roses and thorns.
“What’s with the eye makeup?” she said when I sat down. “Taking beauty tips from our favorite fugitive, are we? That would make a great article for Daisy Chain. ‘Get the Jennifer look!’”
I was conscious of the server hovering nearby. “The T-shirt already exists, so why not?” I said quietly.
“Jennifer as fashion statement, stripped of all the violence and bloodshed, available at Neiman Marcus.”
“Camo will be in style soon.”
“No doubt.”
This banter seemed to be a relief for both of us. The server requested my order and when she was out of earshot, Julia and I both leaned in. “Someone is emailing Daisy Chain readers, telling them to revolt and rise up,” I whispered.
“It’s not a problem,” she whispered back. When the server appeared with my wine, Julia and I straightened up, smiling at her pleasantly. I took a drink slowly, peeking at Julia over the rim of my glass.
When we were alone at the back of the café again, Julia continued, explaining that the Austen network had been under sustained attack for weeks. “Email accounts have been hacked, subscriber information downloaded, everything. This works to our advantage. They will never connect those email addresses back to you and me. Don’t worry.”
I relaxed a bit, taking another sip. “But I’ve been emailing the same girls on my own. It might seem like an unbelievable coincidence.”
“There’s nothing criminal about that. You worked at Austen for years. You developed a connection with the girls, blah blah blah. Trust me, this is the least of our worries.” That phrase—our worries—was loaded with meaning. I didn’t know why I was included in it.
“What about this favor you want?” There was no reason to lounge by the pool—I dived right in.
“Not yet.” She tapped her fingers on the table, surveying the café over my shoulders. I’d always laughed at Julia’s paranoia, but now if she was scooped up in a net, I’d be scooped up too.
“Relax,” I said, glancing around.
“I can’t relax. The heat has been turned up.”
“What heat?” She didn’t answer but fanned herself with a menu. “What did you think when you heard the news about Jennifer?” I wanted to gauge her reaction.
“It’s shocking,” she said, still peering around, not appearing shocked.
“Was it actually news to you, Julia?”
Her focus returned to me,
her eyes narrowing beneath her smudged charcoal lids, her Bambi lashes. She moistened her lips with her tongue, amused. “I remember when I first met you in the Beauty Closet,” she said. “You were so timid. I remember you blushing when I asked you what color your nipples are. Now look at you.” She reached over the table and picked up my drink. My bottom lip was imprinted on the glass, a furry caterpillar in gloss, just below the rim. Julia drank from the same spot.
“I remember that meeting as well. You were shifty then, as you are now.”
She slid the glass back to my side of the table. “As much as I’m enjoying this conversation, it’s time to discuss the favor.”
I considered taking another drink from my glass, but didn’t. “You should have I need a favor printed on your business cards.”
“I trust you. I don’t trust many people,” she said, seeming sincere. “Meet me in the bathroom in two minutes.” She stood up, straightening the collar of her trench and disappearing into the bathroom. I waited a couple minutes, then followed.
“At the end,” Julia said from behind a stall door. There were three stalls. The first two were empty. I opened the door to the third stall and squeezed inside, which wasn’t easy. Julia and I stood chest to chest in the cramped cubicle.
“I’m in deep trouble, Plum,” she said, her usual swagger replaced with something like desperation.
I wanted to back away from her, but there wasn’t room. “I’m not sure I want to know, Julia.” I had wanted to know before, but in this moment I was afraid.