which made her feel better at once, since
she
did not chew gum and this therefore definitely was not her own life – and, last but not least, a wallet. Gingerly, Jenna fished the wallet out, took a bracing sort of breath, and flipped it open.
She almost screamed.
Almost.
Jenna kept herself from shrieking out her horror by biting down hard on her own lower lip. And between that and the picture on the licence, she was scarred for life. The sudden, shooting pain in her lower lip, though it made her eyes water, did nothing to dispel the horrific sight of a person who looked entirely too much like Jenna, sporting painstakingly sculpted bangs and what amounted to a mullet.
A mullet
, Jenna thought as a dull tide of horror swept through her. A
hairsprayed
mullet with height as well as lustrous frizz on the end.
Hideous, hideous, hideous
. If Jenna had been asked to describe what her worst nightmarebad-hair day would entail, it was the hair she saw on the driver’s licence in her hand – hair that might as well have been on her own head, that was how much she and Jennifer Jenkins resembled one another.
She would never get the sight of it out of her mind. Never.
Jenna forced herself to close the wallet, and threw it back into the neon blue depths of the purse. The horrendous mullet danced before her in her mind’s eye, however, taunting her. Duncan Paradis’s voice grated as he bellowed orders to some poor subordinate – maybe he was talking to his wife, it was hard to tell. Jenna felt shaken. She tried to shrug it all off, along with another lungful of BO that seemed to come from the seat beneath her, and looked out the window to the city streets.
It was like looking into a kaleidoscope.
Outside, the city looked the same – and profoundly different. It was still New York City, but it wasn’t the New York City Jenna knew. First of all, it was much, much dirtier. There were too many homeless people on the sidewalks, and garbage in the streets. Times Square, which Jenna thought of as practically a Disney theme park with an amusing red-light-district past, was rife with porn theatres and obvious junkies. Jenna was almost dizzy as she realized that the cab was headed down Sixth Avenue, but instead of the superstores she knew, there were only warehouses. She saw what looked like a Keith Haring mural as the cab roared past a warehouse, but then her attention was drawn to the SILENCE=DEATH posters thatcovered the dilapidated structures. Her stomach clenched, and her breath went shallow, as if her body was accepting a truth she wasn’t ready to face.
As the taxi rounded a corner, Jenna saw a black on yellow street sign instead of the ubiquitous green and white signs she knew, and before she could process that fact and wonder why it bothered her so much, she saw the World Trade Center loom up before her, the towers standing proud and tall to the south. Jenna felt her breath whoosh out of her at the sight of them, and wondered how she’d managed to forget how they’d dominated the sky. She felt a kind of panic rise inside her, clawing at the back of her throat, and knew she was close to tears, or worse. She pushed it all aside, and concentrated on other details – strange-looking advertisements for half-remembered products, like a huge Maidenform ad that featured a leggy blonde who was practically chunky in comparison to the models Jenna was used to feeling badly about. The cars surrounding them on the street were ancient-looking: wide and long. Jenna told herself to breathe, and shut her eyes to keep the strangeness at bay.
Duncan Paradis finished talking on his phone, and turned his attention to Jenna. The fine hairs on the back of her neck stood straight up and her stomach knotted. She opened her eyes and snuck a glance over at him. His expression was not comforting, so she returned her attention to her lap.
‘Look at me,’ he demanded then, and Jenna did, because she didn’t like to think what he might do if she
she
did not chew gum and this therefore definitely was not her own life – and, last but not least, a wallet. Gingerly, Jenna fished the wallet out, took a bracing sort of breath, and flipped it open.
She almost screamed.
Almost.
Jenna kept herself from shrieking out her horror by biting down hard on her own lower lip. And between that and the picture on the licence, she was scarred for life. The sudden, shooting pain in her lower lip, though it made her eyes water, did nothing to dispel the horrific sight of a person who looked entirely too much like Jenna, sporting painstakingly sculpted bangs and what amounted to a mullet.
A mullet
, Jenna thought as a dull tide of horror swept through her. A
hairsprayed
mullet with height as well as lustrous frizz on the end.
Hideous, hideous, hideous
. If Jenna had been asked to describe what her worst nightmarebad-hair day would entail, it was the hair she saw on the driver’s licence in her hand – hair that might as well have been on her own head, that was how much she and Jennifer Jenkins resembled one another.
She would never get the sight of it out of her mind. Never.
Jenna forced herself to close the wallet, and threw it back into the neon blue depths of the purse. The horrendous mullet danced before her in her mind’s eye, however, taunting her. Duncan Paradis’s voice grated as he bellowed orders to some poor subordinate – maybe he was talking to his wife, it was hard to tell. Jenna felt shaken. She tried to shrug it all off, along with another lungful of BO that seemed to come from the seat beneath her, and looked out the window to the city streets.
It was like looking into a kaleidoscope.
Outside, the city looked the same – and profoundly different. It was still New York City, but it wasn’t the New York City Jenna knew. First of all, it was much, much dirtier. There were too many homeless people on the sidewalks, and garbage in the streets. Times Square, which Jenna thought of as practically a Disney theme park with an amusing red-light-district past, was rife with porn theatres and obvious junkies. Jenna was almost dizzy as she realized that the cab was headed down Sixth Avenue, but instead of the superstores she knew, there were only warehouses. She saw what looked like a Keith Haring mural as the cab roared past a warehouse, but then her attention was drawn to the SILENCE=DEATH posters thatcovered the dilapidated structures. Her stomach clenched, and her breath went shallow, as if her body was accepting a truth she wasn’t ready to face.
As the taxi rounded a corner, Jenna saw a black on yellow street sign instead of the ubiquitous green and white signs she knew, and before she could process that fact and wonder why it bothered her so much, she saw the World Trade Center loom up before her, the towers standing proud and tall to the south. Jenna felt her breath whoosh out of her at the sight of them, and wondered how she’d managed to forget how they’d dominated the sky. She felt a kind of panic rise inside her, clawing at the back of her throat, and knew she was close to tears, or worse. She pushed it all aside, and concentrated on other details – strange-looking advertisements for half-remembered products, like a huge Maidenform ad that featured a leggy blonde who was practically chunky in comparison to the models Jenna was used to feeling badly about. The cars surrounding them on the street were ancient-looking: wide and long. Jenna told herself to breathe, and shut her eyes to keep the strangeness at bay.
Duncan Paradis finished talking on his phone, and turned his attention to Jenna. The fine hairs on the back of her neck stood straight up and her stomach knotted. She opened her eyes and snuck a glance over at him. His expression was not comforting, so she returned her attention to her lap.
‘Look at me,’ he demanded then, and Jenna did, because she didn’t like to think what he might do if she
Similar Books
