I don’t move.
‘Lost?’ he says.
I look back at my house. I look at my hands. I turn them over and examine both sides. My name is Jenna Fox. ‘No,’ I answer. I step forward.
He holds out his hand. ‘I’m Clayton Bender. You the new neighbor?’ He nods toward our house.
New? What is new to him? Is a year new? ‘I’m Jenna Fox. Yes, I live over there.’ I reach my hand out to him and we shake.
‘Your hands are like ice, young lady. You still acclimating?’
I don’t know what that means, but I nod and say yes. ‘I saw you from my room. I saw you squatting. You’re curious.’
He laughs and says, ‘You mean you’re curious.’
‘My grandmother thinks so.’
He laughs again and shakes his head. I wonder if laughing is another curious thing about him. ‘Well, Jenna, you saw me squatting because I was working on this. Come take a look.’ He turns and walks a few feet away and points to the ground. I follow.
‘What is it?’ I ask.
‘I haven’t named it yet, but I think it will be Pine Serpent. Maybe not. I’m an environmental artist.’
‘A what?’
‘I create art from found objects in nature.’
I look at the hundreds of long pine needles, each perfectly aligned with the next, each end carefully pushed into the loose soil, forming a curved snake that flows in and out of the ground. I want to reach down and stroke it, but I know that would destroy it. I don’t see the point. He has spent all morning creating something that will be blown away or trampled by tomorrow. ‘Why?’ I ask.
He laughs again. Why does he do that? He is more curious than I am. ‘You’re a tough critic, Jenna Fox. I create art because I need to. It’s just something in me. Like breathing.’
How can a pine serpent be in him? Especially one that will not last. ‘This will be gone by tomorrow.’
‘Yes, it probably will. That’s the beauty of it and what makes it even more wondrous. At least to me. It’s delicate, temporal, but eternal, too. It will go back into the environment to be used again and again, in nature’s canvas. I just rearrange parts of nature for a short time so people will notice the beauty of what they usually ignore. So they’ll stop and—’
‘But no one will see it here.’
‘I take photos when I’m done, Jenna. I’m not that temporal. I have to eat, too. You’ve never heard the name Clayton Bender?’
‘No.’
He smiles. ‘Well, I suppose some of my work’s not well known, but early in my career I created an icicle sculpture in the snow. White on White. That one made my career. It’s hard to go into an office building or doctor’s office without seeing it. Not my best, but the best known. White goes with everything, I guess. That’s what mostly paid for this place. I sure couldn’t afford it now.’
‘Your house cost a lot?’
‘All these do. You can’t get houses like the ones in this neighborhood without a small fortune these days. But I got mine for next to nothing right after the big quake. You’re too young to remember but—’
‘Fifteen years ago. Southern California. Nineteen thousand people died. Two whole communities vanished into the ocean, and all major transportation systems were crippled as well as water flow to the southern half of the state. It was the greatest natural disaster our country has ever seen and, along with the Aureus epidemic that followed three months later, was considered the triggering event for the Second Great Depression, which lasted six years.’
I’m stunned. Is that the word? Yes, stunned. I don’t know where all the facts came from.
Mr Bender draws in his breath. ‘Well! You know your facts, don’t you, Jenna? You a history buff?’
Was I? Am I? I am still absorbing how easily the facts flowed out of me. ‘I must be.’
‘Well, you got your facts straight. I got this house dirt cheap, because of all those terrible things. But now everyone’s forgotten about the earthquake and the scientists say it’ll be a few hundred years before we have another nine-pointer, so the prices have gone back through the roof.’
‘Ours is in bad shape. I don’t think it could be worth much.’