Under the Same Stars by Libba Bray(121)
Jenny watches them climb; then she takes in the squat for what she knows is the last time. The Turkish-rug curtains. A-Blitz’s stolen boom box. The three-legged Biergarten table with all four of their names carved into the wood. The various pots on the concrete floor to catch the runoff from the leaky roof. It’s ugly and scarred, damp and dirty. It’s alive and exciting and full of memories, like the photo pinned to the wall. The one of Jenny and Lena outside the Hansa studio. The timer managed to catch them at just the right moment: Lena staring defiantly into the camera. Jenny looking at Lena. And behind them, the wall and the phrase Don’t die in the waiting room of the future.
Jenny cannot imagine ever loving anyone as completely as she does Lena. Her heart is not just bruised but broken and she doesn’t know how the pieces of it could possibly fit back together. Maybe they never will. Like Rat’s shattered-glass art, there will be pieces of her left over, pieces that must remain here.
“It’s a nice photo,” Anke says, coming to stand beside her.
“Yeah. It is.”
“Heroes, right?” Anke says, and Jenny’s not sure how to take that. “Okay, Dallas. Send me a postcard. Tell me if you meet the Ramones, ja?”
Anke climbs the stairs after the others, and Jenny knows it’s as close to a goodbye as she’ll get. A minute later, she hears Lena’s voice drifting down from above, filling the day with wild ideas. She unpins the photo, shoves it into her pocket, and quietly lets herself out.
* * *
By the time Jenny reaches her apartment building, the dread has returned. Adrenaline, hot, electric, vaguely nauseating, roller coasters through her. She pauses outside Frau Hermann’s apartment, but Frau Hermann is not home to save her; she is in Bremen with her baker. Helga is so surprised to see Jenny that she drops the glass vase she is holding, recovering it at the last minute. “Gott in Himmel!” she gasps.
Jenny’s mother sprints out from her living room calisthenics workout wearing tights and a leotard. Without her makeup, lashes, hairpieces, all of the adornments, she seems transparent, a thing made of cellophane.
“Jenny? What’s wrong? Why are you here? Was there a problem at the airport? Why didn’t you call us?” She pauses just long enough to take in the state of Jenny. “My God. What happened to you?
Jenny has had all morning to rehearse what she could say to bring the fewest repercussions. But all she can do is cry. “Mom…,” she blubbers. “Mom.”
Her mother’s arm is around her. “Helga, could you bring some juice, please?”
* * *
After she tells them the full story of the night, Jenny can hear her parents in the living room, arguing. Her father, livid; her mother, making her case, softly. Her mom perches on the edge of the sofa like a nervous sparrow while Jenny’s father paces, drinking bourbon even though it’s barely noon.
“This could have been an international incident!”
“She could have been hurt, John.”
“Do you know how this would affect my promotion? If I’d had to get my daughter out of the GDR?”
“Well, we wouldn’t want to affect your promotion.”
“What the hell does that mean, Susan?”
“Nothing. I just think there’s a lot more to this, emotionally, than you know.”
“Emotions are the problem. What I know is that she’s out of control.”
Her father wants to send her to the boarding school in Connecticut. Her mother thinks it’s better for her to be with her old friends. Neither of them suggests asking Jenny what she wants.
“Ray is working on the emergency passport. We can send her to the airport with Otto—”
“That’s okay, I’ll go with her.”
“Otto can do it. He’ll walk her to the gate this time and make damn sure she’s on that plane.”
“John. I said I’ll go.”
“You can’t even keep her in line, Susan!”
“Stop trying to keep me in line, Jonathan! I’m not one of your accounts!”
Jenny has never heard her mother speak to her father this way. Through the crack in the pocket doors, she sees her father in his chair with his drink, her birdlike mother standing above him. Not a sparrow; a hawk. Her voice is pure steel. “I will take my own daughter to the damn airport, John!”
* * *
It takes two days and lots of calls to get the emergency passport. Jenny is booked on a flight to Dallas leaving at 8:00 p.m. Her mother is taking her. Jenny has packed up her remaining things for real this time and Otto has put them in the Kofferraum. Jenny tucks the picture of her with Lena outside the Hansa studio into her travel bag, and that’s the last of it. Her mother strides in, an envelope in one hand.
“I almost forgot. Frau Hermann left this for you.” She drops it off and sweeps out again in a cloud of Lanvin perfume. “We’re leaving in five minutes if you need to use the bathroom.”
The envelope is bulged at one end. When Jenny tears it open, an acorn falls out. The acorn looks very old. Jenny brings it to her nose. It smells of earth and shade and sun.
It smells of all that is necessary for growth.
* * *
After an earlier shower, the sun has come out fine and strong; it lends Berlin a glow that matches Jenny’s memories of it. Her eyes are hungry to remember every kiosk, every pockmarked building, every dirty street, every bit of razor wire and graffiti.