Lucy by Laurence Gonzales

Lucy’s bed was empty.
Quando men vo solettaper la via ,
La gente sosta e mira
E la bellezza mia tutta ricerca …
ricerca in me ,
Da capo a pie’ …
    Jenny rose and followed the voice down the hall and into her own bedroom. She went to the open window and looked out into the garden. Lucy sang sadly while picking strawberries from the bushes that grew against the fence. She wore not a stitch of clothes. With a gasp, Jenny grabbed her robe and ran downstairs. She hurried out and down the stone path, calling out in a cheerful voice, “Good morning, Lucy!”
    “Good morning.” Jenny wrapped the robe around Lucy’s shoulders. “Do I have to wear clothes even in the garden?”
    “Yes, dear, you do. Sorry. I know it’s silly. I wish it weren’t so. But we’re not in the rain forest anymore. The neighbors wouldn’t understand.”
    “Why do people live so close together?”
    “I think greed is the answer. People bought the land, divided it up, and sold it.”
    “Wouldn’t you rather live in the forest?”
    “Yes, I guess I would. But I teach at the university, and it would take too long to get there. And then my mother gave me this house. She got old and couldn’t handle it anymore. So here I am.”
    Lucy gazed at the sky. “Those are airplanes? Like the ones we were in?”
    Jenny followed her gaze and saw the tic-tac-toe of contrails from the airliners passing overhead. “Yes. Exactly.”
    “They’ve put the sky in a cage.”
    “You’re right. They have put the sky in a cage.” Jenny tied the sash on the orange robe. “I’m so happy to see you up and about. Come on, Lucy. Let’s go in and get something to eat.”
    Lucy sighed, “Oh, all right.” So like a normal teenager: Exasperated.
    They went back up the stone walkway among the prairie grasses and toward the kitchen. A few minutes later, Jenny was making oatmeal.
    “Lucy. What were you doing in that tree? Did you make that nest?”
    “Yes. I made it.”
    “Why? How?” Jenny recalled the moment when she’d first seen it. She had been reaching for an image in her mind, but the urgency of the situation had prevented her from completing the thought. What was it?
    “I slept like that sometimes. In the forest. I was afraid of the cats, and it was safer up there. I learned a lot of things like that from the bonobos.”
    The bonobos, Jenny thought. Of course. They made nests like that each night and slept in the trees. It would make sense that Lucy had learned to do the same, growing up in the jungle. With Dr. Stone’s feeding station, the bonobos were always nearby.
    “Want to eat outside?” Jenny asked.
    “That sounds delightful. I’ll take things out.”
    They sat at a wrought iron table under the maple. Lucy drenched her oatmeal in honey from a pot that Jenny’s mother had given her. It had a picture of Winnie-the-Pooh on it.
    “May I please have one of your bananas?”
    “Certainly, Lucy. I want you to feel at home. Take whatever you like.”
    Lucy went back into the kitchen and returned with a banana. She sat and bit the end off without peeling it.
    “Lucy, what are you doing?” Lucy looked up, puzzled, her mouth full. “Don’t you peel them?”
    Chewing self-consciously now, Lucy shook her head, uncertain. She swallowed. “Sorry. That’s how we all did it at home.”
    “No, it’s quite all right. I was just thinking … Maybe wash it first … Never mind.”
    But Lucy was no longer paying attention to Jenny. She was staring intently at a squirrel that was sitting on a branch, screeching. “There’s a big hawk up there.”
    “Really?”
    “I don’t see it yet. But listen.”
    Jenny shrugged it off, thinking only that Lucy had learned to be especially alert in the jungle. She watched Lucy as she listened and ate with such intensity. At the shelter, Jenny had seen a few teenage girls with such an air of fierce concentration. But Lucy was so gentle and kind and innocent seeming, unlike some of the girls at the shelter,