heavy security doors using a selection of keys from the enormous key chain in the inside pocket of the neon blue purse, and then haul herself up five floors to the very top. Jennifer Jenkins’s apartment was the highest, furthest apartment possible in the building, Jenna thought sourly as she limped, overheated and panting, to the door of #15. She had to try each key in each of the three locks on the door, but eventually she made it inside, and closed the door with a satisfying
thump
on the city.
For a moment she simply stood there, her back against the door, breathing.
There was a fan blowing from one of the two windows in front of her, in the area that comprised most of the living space in the studio apartment. Jenna hated studio apartments, on principle. She took a few moments to investigate the one she found herself in, which she accomplished by pivoting around on her heels. It was tiny. A bathroom to the left and a kitchen to the right, and one big room to live in. It should have felt like a cell – the way her own studio apartment had felt those three dire years she’d lived in one – but this apartment didn’t feel cell-like at all. It took Jenna a moment to figure out why.
It was the pale yellow paint on the walls, she decided, that made the space seem bigger, somehow, and happier. It was also the fact that the place was spotless. Not a speck of dust. Fresh flowers in a vase on the cute mantel above a faux fireplace, and living plants in the kitchen. Between these plants and the ficus in the office, Jenna suspected that Jennifer Jenkins could actually grow things, which she found amazing, having neglected even cacti to death in her day. The futon couch was carefully made up, rather than left open and piled high with clothes and assorted debris, as had been Jenna’s way. A quick glance proved that the refrigerator was filled with the kinds of things people who knew how to cook assembled – ingredients rather than takeout containers and pizza boxes. The walls were not plastered with old pin-ups from
Tiger Beat
, but featured pretty prints from the Metropolitan Museum of Art and a few artsy, black and white photographs.
And, of course, more pictures of the woman who looked way too much like Jenna.
Jenna trailed her fingers across the photos in frames on the mantel. A trio of laughing girls, all in their early twenties. Pets. The beach. A mountain somewhere and lush green trees. A college graduation, flanked by beaming parents.
As Jenna stared at the parents, the penny finally dropped.
Because she knew them.
She knew them, just as she knew the girl in the pictures with them – she must have known it at once, though she’d been too disoriented to take it in. How else to explain the resemblance? The name?
Because the parents were Jenna’s grandparents.
She was looking at photos of her favourite aunt Jen. Jennifer Jenkins
was
Aunt Jen.
Jenna sank down on the futon, feeling dizzy, and pulled off her ankle boots. She let them clatter to the floor in front of her, then thought better of it and lined them up neatly beneath the futon. No need to unleash Hurricane Jenna all over this pristine little place.
Had her aunt woken up to find herself in the chaos that was Jenna’s life in the twenty-first century? The messy office would be a mere precursor to the wreck of her apartment, though at least Jenna had a separate bedroom. Poor Aunt Jen must want to kill herself right about now, sitting nearly twenty-five years in the future in Jenna’s dusty, overstuffed home, surrounded by piles of crap and dirty dishes.
Was this why Aunt Jen had always suggested that Jenna learn how to pick up after herself?
Neatness can never be a bad thing
, she’d told Jenna this past Christmas, apropos of nothing. Had she been waiting for this to happen – and hoping to keep Jenna from inflicting her messy ways on her life?
Was this why Aunt Jen had never grown impatient with Jenna’s Eighties obsession the way everyone else
thump
on the city.
For a moment she simply stood there, her back against the door, breathing.
There was a fan blowing from one of the two windows in front of her, in the area that comprised most of the living space in the studio apartment. Jenna hated studio apartments, on principle. She took a few moments to investigate the one she found herself in, which she accomplished by pivoting around on her heels. It was tiny. A bathroom to the left and a kitchen to the right, and one big room to live in. It should have felt like a cell – the way her own studio apartment had felt those three dire years she’d lived in one – but this apartment didn’t feel cell-like at all. It took Jenna a moment to figure out why.
It was the pale yellow paint on the walls, she decided, that made the space seem bigger, somehow, and happier. It was also the fact that the place was spotless. Not a speck of dust. Fresh flowers in a vase on the cute mantel above a faux fireplace, and living plants in the kitchen. Between these plants and the ficus in the office, Jenna suspected that Jennifer Jenkins could actually grow things, which she found amazing, having neglected even cacti to death in her day. The futon couch was carefully made up, rather than left open and piled high with clothes and assorted debris, as had been Jenna’s way. A quick glance proved that the refrigerator was filled with the kinds of things people who knew how to cook assembled – ingredients rather than takeout containers and pizza boxes. The walls were not plastered with old pin-ups from
Tiger Beat
, but featured pretty prints from the Metropolitan Museum of Art and a few artsy, black and white photographs.
And, of course, more pictures of the woman who looked way too much like Jenna.
Jenna trailed her fingers across the photos in frames on the mantel. A trio of laughing girls, all in their early twenties. Pets. The beach. A mountain somewhere and lush green trees. A college graduation, flanked by beaming parents.
As Jenna stared at the parents, the penny finally dropped.
Because she knew them.
She knew them, just as she knew the girl in the pictures with them – she must have known it at once, though she’d been too disoriented to take it in. How else to explain the resemblance? The name?
Because the parents were Jenna’s grandparents.
She was looking at photos of her favourite aunt Jen. Jennifer Jenkins
was
Aunt Jen.
Jenna sank down on the futon, feeling dizzy, and pulled off her ankle boots. She let them clatter to the floor in front of her, then thought better of it and lined them up neatly beneath the futon. No need to unleash Hurricane Jenna all over this pristine little place.
Had her aunt woken up to find herself in the chaos that was Jenna’s life in the twenty-first century? The messy office would be a mere precursor to the wreck of her apartment, though at least Jenna had a separate bedroom. Poor Aunt Jen must want to kill herself right about now, sitting nearly twenty-five years in the future in Jenna’s dusty, overstuffed home, surrounded by piles of crap and dirty dishes.
Was this why Aunt Jen had always suggested that Jenna learn how to pick up after herself?
Neatness can never be a bad thing
, she’d told Jenna this past Christmas, apropos of nothing. Had she been waiting for this to happen – and hoping to keep Jenna from inflicting her messy ways on her life?
Was this why Aunt Jen had never grown impatient with Jenna’s Eighties obsession the way everyone else
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