In the Image of Grace (10 page)

“Things just don’t seem right. Isabelle, Clarissa and
I are leading what appears to be semi-normal teenage lives and
Elizabeth never got the chance.”

“Want a seat?” Jeremy asked pointing towards the
floor.

“Yeah,” I said sitting down and leaning up against
the shelves full of books. He sat down next to me.

“You know what,” he said.

“What.”

“I think you’re doing what you’re supposed to be
doing.”

“It doesn’t feel right though.”

“It’ll take time,” Jeremy said. “And aren’t you doing
this all for her?”

“Yes, but I didn’t think it would lead to all this
madness.”

“Through the madness you shall find answers.”

I smiled at him the best that I could. “Thanks.”

“Stop thanking me,” he smiled back.

“Okay, thanks.”

Jeremy told me everything he found out about clones.
First if we were actually clones we’d all be identical genetic
replicas of our mother, just in time delay, so technically she
wouldn’t be our mother, more like our much older twin sister so
that also meant that my sisters and I were actually all twins or
quadruplets or something. Then our mother’s parents would actually
be our parents and as Jeremy said earlier biologically, our father
wasn’t our father. Some people have made claims to having cloned a
human child, but there was no scientific proof of these people’s
claims. Some animals have been cloned, but not very successfully as
many have died early due to complications.

“That’s not very uplifting,” I sighed in response
about the cloned animals dying prematurely.

“Sorry,” he apologized biting his lip and raising his
eyebrows. “I shoulda left that part out.”

“No, that’s stuff I need to know. What about other
women carrying and birthing us.”

“All your dad needed was some of your mom cells and
then he would have kinda grown them or something and then get an
unfertilized egg n take out the nucleus n stick in the cloned cells
and then he could implant it in a surrogate.”

“Jesus, we have to find our mother’s family or
someone who knew her or something.”

………………………………………………………

Isabelle, Clarissa, Jeremy and I all sat on Jeremy’s
bedroom floor. We all went to his apartment after school, so we
could try to find at least relatives of our mother or something,
anything. His room was a mess. Almost every one of his dresser
drawers were open with stuff hanging out. There were random objects
spread all over the carpet; shoes, books, an old thermos, an empty
cereal box. It looked like a good way to live to me. I sat leaning
up against his bed with a thick city phone book on my lap. We were
looking up any Fernando’s that we could find. We planned to call
every Fernando we found and we weren’t too sure exactly what we
were going to say, but it was probably going to be something like,
“Excuse me are you related to Grace Fernando.” Clarissa had a
thinner suburban phone book in front of her on the carpet and
Isabelle lay next to her on her stomach with a note pad. Jeremy sat
crossed leg next to me with a laptop in his lap. We were armed with
his cell phone and his mom’s house phone.

“You sure this is okay?” I asked. I was worried when
his mom would get the phone bill next month there’d be all these
calls to different Fernando’s. I didn’t want him to get in
trouble

“Don’t worry about it.”

“So we just go through our lists here and mark down
if they answered or not or if they just hung up,” I told them.

“Sounds good,” Isabelle agreed.

“What should I say?” Clarissa asked. She was going to
be doing the calling on his cell phone and Isabelle was going to be
marking down who answered and so on and so forth. I was going to be
doing the calling on Jeremy’s house phone and he was doing the note
taking. He was cross checking online to see if there were any
Fernandos on there and not the phone book. There always was the
possibility her relatives were unlisted, but we figured it was
worth the shot.

“Something like, I was trying to reach Grace
Fernando, maybe,” I said shrugging my shoulders.

“All right,” Clarissa replied shrugging right
back.

So we started calling. I started with the very first
Fernando in the phone book. The phone just rang and rang. I just
hung up after a while. “I wonder if we should leave a message.”

“Go ahead if you want. Just give them my cell
number,” Jeremy told me.

“Okay,” I said.

“Nobody,” Clarissa said about her phone call.

“You know,” I pondered. “Lots of people don’t have
house phones anymore.”

“Stop being such a downer,” Clarissa said. “Just keep
calling.

So that’s what we did. We continued to call one
Fernando after another. The ones that did answer said either,
“Sorry, you have the wrong number,” or “No, we don’t know a Grace.”
Jeremy and I called sixty-seven different Fernando families.
Isabelle and Clarissa called thirty-four from the suburban phone
book and nine that were online and not in either phone book. It was
on call sixty-eight when I actually got something.

A man answered the phone. “Hello.”

“Hello,” I said. “I was wondering if you could tell
me if you know Grace Fernando.”

“Is this some kind of joke? Who are you? What do you
want?”

I didn’t respond, all of a sudden I didn’t know what
to say. Isabelle sat up and Clarissa scooted in closer. They could
tell I had something.

“Speak,” Clarissa whispered to me.

“Um, I was looking for Grace.”

“Why? Why now?” They guy asked real quick and
snippy.

“I’m her daughter,” I said very slowly, so I wouldn’t
startle the guy on the phone with my news. The next thing I heard
was the dial tone. He hung up on me. I put down the phone.

“What?” Clarissa asked.

“He hung up on me. He knows her.”

“How do you know?”Asked Isabelle.

“He asked me why and why now. Should I call
back?”

We all just kind of looked at each other.

“I’m going to,” I said hitting redial on the phone. I
listened to the phone ring and ring and I was about to hang up when
the guy picked up.

“Hello,” he said wearily.

“Hi,” I responded. “I’m not joking.”

“What do you want?”

“I want to know about my mother.”

“I haven’t heard from her in years.”

“About seventeen?”

“How do you know she’s your mother? Are you looking
for money?”

“No, answers,” I said.

“Why now?”

“I just found out she was my mother. I’m looking for
her.”

“I don’t know where she is.”

“Can you tell me about her?”

“Look kid, I don’t know if this is for real or what,
but I’m going to hang up now.”

“No,” I shouted.

“Look honey, I can’t help you.”

“I need to talk to you.”

“No, no you don’t.”

“My sisters and I,” I started saying.

“No, you have the wrong person. If she actually had a
daughter there’d only be one.”

“There were four of us. She only knew about the
one.”

“I don’t know why you’re messing with me here.”

“Sir, if you met us you’d understand.”

“No,” the guy replied.

“Well,” I said. “We’ll just come to your house. We
have your address right here.”

I heard the guy take a deep breath.

“Tomorrow, around one.” He then hung up.

“Oh my God, he said tomorrow at one. We go meet him
tomorrow,” I told everybody.

“That’s good,” Jeremy said.

“Yes, should we really go?” I asked Jeremy and my
sisters.

“Hello, yes,” Clarissa said.

“What if he’s,” I started to say.

Then we heard, “Jeremy,” and then again louder,
“Jeremy!”

“What,” he screamed. “My mom,” he then said to
us.

“Get your ass in here,” his mother yelled back.

“I’ll be right back,” he mumbled getting up.

“We should be going anyways,” I said getting up with
him. We were all getting up to leave when his mom showed up in his
doorway.

She looked at Jeremy and then she looked at Clarissa,
Isabelle and me. “Why do you have three girls in your room?”

“Working on something for school,” he answered
shrugging.

“I don’t want any funny business going on,” she
ordered pointing at him with a long red polished finger nail. She
scanned my sisters and me. Her eyes slowly went up and down me and
then across to Clarissa and Isabelle. “Triplets,” she said like a
statement and not a question.

“Actually, no,” I answered. “We’re all a year
apart.”

His mom made a humphing noise. “Make sure you take
out the trash before you leave tonight. I’m going over to Gayle’s
now.”

“All right,” Jeremy replied pushing his hair out of
his face.

His mom left and the four of us stood in his room.
“My mom doesn’t have the best social skills.”

We all slipped on our coats, gathered our bags, left
his room and walked to the front door. Clarissa and Isabelle
already walked out and Jeremy grabbed my hand. “Hey,” he said. “If
you think you can slip out tonight I’m doing this thing at this
place called Subsurface, if ya wanna come, it’s like this all ages
thing. Maybe it’ll help get your mind off stuff for a while.”

“Sure, what time?”

“Eight, just tell whoever’s at the door that I gave
you the okay.”

“Okay,” I said with a kiss goodbye. I walked down the
steps and gave a wave.

Clarissa and Isabelle were outside waiting on the
sidewalk. Clarissa gave me a big grin. “You two are so cute,” she
squealed

“Do you think I could go out tonight?”

“Yah, who’s gonna notice. You have the key. I’ll make
sure the alarm is not set,” Clarissa reassured me.

“Do you to want to come?”

“I’m sure the invitation is just for you,” Isabelle
affirmed.

The three of us walked down the sidewalk to the bus
stop.

“So, we’re going tomorrow?” I asked still unsure.

“Yeah,” Clarissa said like it was the obvious
answer.

“What if he’s just some weirdo?”

“What are the chances of him being some weirdo and
also knowing that she’s missing,” Isabelle said adjusting her
backpack.

“I guess,” I sighed looking at all the brick
apartment buildings as we walked and at all the tall full grown
trees that lined the sidewalk. The trees blocked any chance of sun
peeping through between them and the apartment buildings. We got to
the end of the block, crossed the street at the light, and waited
for the bus.

I got off the EL and walked down the wooden stairs
and through the turnstile out onto the sidewalk. I looked in both
directions and went left because to the right it looked more
residential. To my left I saw a busy intersection with cars and
people going through it. There were little shops lining the street,
with a place called Crash Taco and a coffee shop where inside it
looked like they were having an author’s reading. A woman with
frizzy hair sat on a stool with what looked like could have been a
manuscript in her hand and everybody was sitting around intently
looking at her. Across the intersection there was a building with
large paintings of what looked like feet in the windows. I walked
down to the main intersection and looked up at the little green
street signs. I found the street I needed and turned left again. I
didn’t have to walk far to see where I had to go. Attached to a
white building was a long, length wise sign that read Subsurface.
There was also a line of people along the buildings in front of it.
I assumed it was the line I needed to be in, so I went and stood in
back of the last person.

The line was teenagers and people in their twenties.
There was quiet a collection of people. There was shaggy hair,
spiky hair, green hair, black hair with bleached streaks, there was
various piercings and tattoos on some, there were corduroys and
jeans and workpants and skirts over pants. There were tall guys and
skinny girls and girls that could easily beat you up and guys the
girls could have easily beat up. They were wearing Buck Baylors and
combat boots and tall boots and Docs and Mary Janes. They were
covered in small black jackets, jackets with super fuzzy hoods,
work jackets and no jackets and just sweaters. There was people
with beards and bad skin and some with super skin, some with too
much makeup, others none. I found the variety of people
fascinating. I had the slightest idea if I fit in. I wore my Buck
Baylor’s with jeans and a gray tee-shirt all under my brown jacket.
I might have looked too clean. My shoes weren’t even dirty.

On the sidewalk passer-bys stared at everybody in
line; couples out for a stroll, others on their way to the noodle
shop, yuppies in khakis. The air was crisp and the sky was clear. I
blew out my breath and saw it hang in the air. The line quickly
moved forward. I got to the front and there was a bald guy with
large black glasses at the door.

“I was told to tell you that I have the okay.”

The guy just kind of looked at me.

“To get in,” I said. I wasn’t sure if he knew what I
was talking about.

“I know,” he said. “Give me your hand.”

I gave it, my hand to him and he stamped it. A
fluorescent yellow monkey face looked back at me.

“Go on,” he said waving me in.

Once inside it was dark. I almost needed night vision
goggles. There were people all standing and mingling about. Small
tables were sporadically placed about with kids and their drinks at
them. A long cushiony booth like thing ran the length of the wall
and next to that was a set of stairs. In the back was the bar and
since it was an all ages show, the place for me to get a pop. I
pulled off my hat and shoved it in my coat pocket and slid my coat
off and draped it over my arm. I wasn’t quite sure what to do, so I
found a little empty table that went around a pole and leant up
against it. I was supposing you stood around until something
happened, but I wasn’t too sure what that something was. Music was
playing in the background and everybody was talking, but it wasn’t
too loud. I recognized a couple people I’d seen in the hall at
school. One was the girl with unfortunate skin that was in my
division. She was with a guy who wore a once piece blue jumpsuit,
an interesting choice of apparel for going out. I was going to go
over and say hi, but I decided that if she saw me and wanted to
talk to me she would come over. Near me were a couple of girls who
were dressed like they were from a 1950’s sitcom. They had on
rolled up jeans, with white collared shirts and their hair in these
little bouncy ponytails. The one girl had a kerchief wrapped around
her head. They were having a conversation about the musician whose
music was playing in the background at the moment. The one girl
said she was going to go to Omaha, Nebraska to be in his presence,
so she could absorb the music and the other girl informed her that
he had moved to New York. No, he moved back the other one said and
that was the end of that. I didn’t know who it was they were
talking about, but I did like the music.