Unlocked

  UNLOCKED

  by Rebecca Barnes

  Chapter ONE—SATURDAY MORNING

  Clara awoke at the usual time on Saturday morning unaware that her life was already gone. She lay in bed to give the sleepiness time to fade away, and stretched her body from head to toe in a quiet groan the way a person who has had a perfect night of rest frequently does. She thought about Michael, the boy who sat across from her in geometry class. She liked the way he smiled. Not only did the corners of his lips turn upward, but so did the corners of his eyes. He smiled this generic but handsome smile publicly and often, but Clara especially appreciated his subdued half-smile. This smile, she had observed, was reserved for times when he found something genuinely funny. She liked this one better. Clara stretched again and thought of the crack in his voice when he nervously answered a question in class. She thought of the way his dark hair bounced in his steely eyes as he frantically looked back and forth between his scribbled notes and the whiteboard, while his left hand made futile attempts to keep up with Mr. Wilkinson’s lectures about the Pythagorean Theorem or how to calculate the area of three-dimensional shapes.

  I will help him, she thought as she rolled over to one side, I’ll text him today and offer to study with him; surely he’ll agree. That boy needs all the help he can get. She already had his number from a class project last month; all she needed was the guts. Clara slowly sat up and reached out toward her nightstand for last night’s glass of water the way she always did in the morning. “A little hydration goes a long way,” her mother always said. Clara rolled her eyes and sipped.

  When Clara’s feet finally found the floor, her toes sank into the rug that covered her creaky hardwood floors. She hated when her feet, toasty from being under her heavy down comforter all night, made harsh contact with the cold, bare floor, so she had chosen a new rug when she had recently redecorated her room. For a moment, Clara had a fleeting thought beneath the surface of her consciousness that the thick zebra print rug possessed a slightly different texture than usual, but the idea was gone before it ever fully formed. She rose and made her way to the upstairs bathroom which was just down the hall from her brightly painted bedroom. Her mother had thrown a fit when Clara had chosen hot pink and aqua, and she certainly did not approve of anything boasting zebra print, but it was Clara’s 14th birthday, so with reluctance, she relented and had allowed her only daughter to ruin her pretty pale walls with a more “grown up” decor.

  Clara absent-mindedly stepped off of her soft, warm rug on to the icy floor the same as every morning. Startled, she pulled her foot back and slipped on her cozy, pink slippers. With her feet protected from the bare floor, Clara scuffed her way across her room to her door which she found slightly ajar, figuring she must have forgotten to close it when she came in from babysitting late last night.

  The Coolson’s kid was cute, but he was wild. Carson was a five-year-old shooting ball of energy. The boy never stopped moving, and neither did his mouth. Occasionally, Clara would test him to see if he could stand still while telling her one of his many endless stories, but he simply could not do it. He would start mindlessly shifting from one foot to another, progressively moving more and more until he was literally walking and talking in circles. “The quicker the walk, the quicker the talk,” his parents told her when she had first come to babysit Carson a few months before. That was no lie.

  In the few hours she had spent babysitting him last night, he had convinced her to play airplane by lying on her back and lifting him off the ground with her feet so that he was “flying” through the air. When he wasn’t an airplane, he was a wrestler, and he had practiced pile-driving profusely on Clara.

  At least they pay well, she shrugged, noting the soreness in her shoulders as she pulled her door the rest of the way open, making her way slowly and silently down the hall save for the shuffle-and-scuff of her favorite slippers. Clara pulled open the bathroom door and closed it behind her. She twisted the lock and opened the medicine cabinet above the porcelain pedestal sink. She slung her wavy brown hair up into a loose ponytail just like she always did before she brushed her teeth. She hated finding minty-fresh strands of hair during 2nd hour English. When she raised her hands above her head to complete this task, she noticed soreness in her triceps in addition to her shoulders and decided she had participated in a bit too much aviation and wrestlemania with little Carson last night.

  As she reached for the knobs to turn on the water behind the muted lavender and cream shower curtain her mother had chosen, seemingly in retaliation, the same day Clara had chosen her rug and new paint colors, she realized her calves were aching too. Instead of her usual quick Saturday morning hose-down as she liked to call it, she opted instead for a long, hot bath. She quickly twisted her ponytail up into a bath-time bun and inspected her body for soreness. Her arms and neck ached, she already knew that, and her calves were tight and crampy. Clara twisted her back slightly to find mild stiffness there too. She undressed and sat on the side of the oversized tub waiting for it to fill. She dipped her sore legs into the warm water and wondered if this is what old people meant when they said, “this body isn’t what it used to be”. She sunk the rest of the way into the sudsy water to soak her aching body. Well, at least I got twenty-five bucks out of the deal, Clara thought to herself and half-smiled.

  Instantly, her thoughts turned again to the dark-haired boy in geometry. Michael played, and played well, on the basketball team, but he wasn’t a “jock”. He was quiet and shy. He tried to succeed in school but despite his best efforts never did very well. He was different from the other boys at Edison High, and Clara liked that about him. He didn’t speak much, except to stutter incorrect answers to questions when he was unexpectedly called on, or when he politely raised his hand and asked to be excused from class to use the restroom, which he frequently did. He was awkward, but handsome. Somehow, that combination had made Clara’s heart flutter, her knees go weak, and all that other stereotypical stuff. It was the perfect combination to make her fall in love with him. Now she just needed to tell him.

  The thought of revealing her feelings for another human being made Clara shiver, even in the steaming water that covered her body. She longed to be close to people, but she moved so often that in the end, it was easier to be detached, to avoid making connections. Every time she made a real friend, the kind you could tell anything to, her father’s job relocated him and his family to another town, in another state, which may as well have been another planet as far as Clara was concerned. The older she grew, the harder it became to make friends. By fourteen, people already had their friends, and it was difficult, impossible, really, to integrate into an already formed social group. And besides, getting close to someone just meant losing them. It always ended with tears. Always. It was unfair, but it was life. Clara’s friendless, lonely life. Clara’s boyfriendless, lonely life.

  The water felt amazing and soothed her aches. Clara was beginning to feel a little more refreshed and awake. A little more like herself. As this happened, it made her realize how drowsy she had been this morning; how fuzzy her mind had felt, extra fuzzy…like her zebra print rug. I said I would text him and I will, she thought. But what will I say? “Hey, I noticed you suck at geometry. Want me to help you not suck so bad?” or “Finals are next week. You’ll never pass without me!” That’ll be great, Clara mused sarcastically. But I will text him. I will.

  When Clara was satisfactorily shriveled from soaking the stiffness out of her muscles, she toweled off and slipped into the robe she kept in her bathroom. She dropped her dirty clothes down the laundry chute in the hall as she padded her way back to her bedroom to dress.

  Clara slipped on her favorite Saturday attire. She had no real friends and therefore no real plans other than to binge watc
h The Secret Life of the American Teenager or engage herself in an 80’s movie marathon, so she donned her softest gray yoga pants, fuzzy socks, and an old college sweatshirt that had belonged to her dad twenty years ago. She left her hair in its bun and went to scope out the kitchen for something teenager-y to eat—cold pizza leftover from dinner on the run a few nights ago or Pop Tarts, whatever she could scavenge that wouldn’t take too much effort.

  Clara paused by her bed to pick up last night’s glass of water. She took it downstairs to the kitchen in her fuzzy-socked feet. Her mother hated when she left dishes in her room, even when it was just a glass of water. Bacteria, or something.

  “Germaphobe,” Clara grumbled aloud. She didn’t understand why her mother was so worried about germs. Clara had never been sick a day in her life. Seriously, like ever.

  “That’s because I make you take care of yourself, Clara,” her mom would argue.

  “Whatever you say, Mom. Whatever you say,” would be the answer.

  Clara entered the empty kitchen and placed her water glass in the sink subconsciously aware of the television hum from another room. Her parents typically didn’t watch tv in the morning. Her father usually scanned the headlines online, and her mother refused to watch the news at all. She said there was too much violence in the world, and she didn’t want it gunking up her home. Yet, it was the news that was humming.

  Clara pulled opened the fridge. Her first choice for breakfast was slightly stale pepperoni pizza from two nights ago. She knew it would still be in there waiting for her, since her parents had gone out to dinner together last night while she babysat. They didn’t typically eat leftover pizza, anyway, but when the door swung open and the light clicked on, there was no pizza to be found. With her head still in the ice box, Clara called to her mom.

  “Mo-om! Where are the leftovers from Luigi’s?”

  No answer.

  “Mom!”

  Still, no answer.

  “Did you throw out the pizza? I was going to eat it!”

  A voice so near it startled her and caused her to jump, bumping her head on the freezer door, chastised, “Clara, honey, that pizza was stale. It was probably crawling with bacteria. I got rid of it this morning.”

  “Ugh!” Clara snorted, her head still in the fridge scavenging for sustenance. The back of her skull was throbbing and already forming a goose egg. “Well, now what am I supposed to eat?”

  “Sit down, and I will make you something.”

  Clara was slightly surprised by the offer, but didn’t argue. She sat down at the island and pulled her phone out of the waistband of her yoga pants. She stared at it for the longest time while her mother banged and rattled in the kitchen, fumbling with breakfast. I said I would text him, and I will, she thought. Right now. I will. Still, she gazed at the phone, unmoving.

  Finally, after several minutes of working up the courage to text him, she entered her passcode to unlock the phone and searched her contacts. Rather, she tried to search them. Once she clicked the icon and pulled up an empty file, she realized her phone must have crashed. Her contacts were empty—the few she actually had were gone.

  Great, Clara thought, Just wonderful. I finally get the guts to say something to Michael, and my phone loses his number. What is it with the universe!

  “Mom!” Clara grumbled, not looking up, “ My phone crashed. All my contacts are wiped out.”

  “I’m sure it’s fine. Just restart it,” answered her mother as she scooped scrambled eggs onto a plate and began buttering the toast that had just popped up.

  Clara was too busy to notice. She was still fully engaged in trying to fix her phone. She popped the battery out, back in, and restarted her phone. “Nope. No contacts.”

  “Let me see it, Clara. I’ll see if I can fix it.”

  “Really, mom?” Clara questioned in her patented fourteen-year-old-girl tone.

  “Really, Clara.” Her mother said, mimicking her frustrated daughter. “Here, trade me.”

  Clara used her inborn teenager superpower to expertly navigate her way through the kitchen without taking her eyes off her phone. She intended to trade her currently useless piece of so-called “technology” for the hot plate of eggs and head over to the table to eat them. She met her mother near the toaster where she waited with the breakfast she had just prepared for her daughter. Clara took the plate and began to hand the phone over to her mother after pressing a few more buttons in the hopes of restoring her contacts. Finally, she looked up from her malfunctioning device.

  The heavy white dining plate Clara had just been handed shattered on the porcelain tile at Clara’s feet. The eggs splattered her fuzzy socks and the surrounding area; a few pieces even smattered the front of the stainless steel dishwasher and began to slide down it. Clara’s phone crashed to the floor as well, shattering the screen and sending the newly replaced battery skidding into the island where she had just been sitting perfectly safe and perfectly content, except for the fact that her phone was a useless hunk of junk, moments before.

  The woman standing before her in the kitchen, the woman who had just cooked her breakfast, the woman who answered to “Mom”, was most certainly not Clara’s mother. The woman standing before her was a complete and total stranger.

  Chapter Two—Clara’s Beginning

  PUSH!

  Melanie Marcel had endured a grueling thirteen hours of labor. Hard labor. Before that, she had labored silently, calmly, secretly for another seven, contracting and counting and breathing. Mark had thought his pregnant wife was still sleeping when he slipped out of bed that Friday morning, showered, dressed for work, and poured his freshly brewed Folgers. Just as Melanie heard the front door close behind Mark, she felt another wave of pressure in her swollen belly. She smiled to herself, hoping this was it…the real deal. She held her tight abdomen, let out a sigh and thought with a nervous, sleepy smile, I’ve waited so long. So, so long.

  Mark had been employed by BioTech, a fertility research lab, since he had graduated from Duke University with a Master’s in Animal Reproductive Sciences at the age of twenty-four. He met Melanie in the fall of his first year at BioTech. She was an office assistant at the lab where he had been hired. She was tall and strikingly beautiful. He was instantly in love. He wasn’t sure if it was because he hadn’t had time to so much as look at a girl for the six years he’d spent at Duke, or if it was because she was so gorgeous, not to mention sweet-natured and intelligent, but he didn’t care. He dated her, married her, and wanted to have children with her.

  Ironically, they had struggled with that last part of the plan for years. They visited their primary doctor who determined that if there was a problem, it lay with Melanie, so he referred her to her OBGYN for further testing. After lengthy and invasive procedures, her OB realized Melanie’s infertility issues were out of his scope, and he then referred her to a fertility specialist. After Clomid, hormone injections, and three failed In-Vitros, Mark and Melanie were ready to call it quits. Not only was the whole process leaving them emotionally bankrupt, they were in danger of financial bankruptcy as well.

  “We could always adopt,” Mark offered, knowing that’s not what either of them really wanted. They had nothing against adoption, and eventually would probably grow to love the idea and wonder why they didn’t think of it sooner, but now, in this moment, after investing two years in fertility treatments and another year trying naturally before that, they wanted nothing more than to conceive their own child. They were too invested to look at other options.

  When they had all but given up on Plan A, Mark called Melanie from work. She had taken the day off to wallow. One good, long day off lying in bed, eating a carton of ice cream and watching the Lifetime Movie Network until she couldn’t cry anymore, and then she’d be fine—back to work Tuesday with a smile on her face despite her barren womb. It was well into Monday afternoon, and when Melanie saw that it was Mark calling, she began to worry knowing his cell didn’t get good reception in the lab and he normall
y didn’t have time for personal calls, anyway. She took a deep breath and answered, half expecting to hear mayhem and destruction in the background. She didn’t.

  “Mel, you’re not going to believe this. The trial at work, the one we keep trying to get into?” Mark yipped breathlessly into the phone.

  “Yeah…?” Melanie hesitated, not wanting to get her hopes up. She had almost lulled herself into accepting that she would have to let go of the last of the hope she had been hanging on to.

  “Melanie, we’re in. You need to come in right away. I’ve already called the fertility specialist’s office and requested your file to be sent over. I’ve just sent Karen to pick you up. Melanie, can you believe it?”

  He was answered with Melanie’s silence, which was dabbed with the murmur of bad acting in the background.

  “Mel? Are you there? Did you hear what I said?”

  More silence. More bad acting.

  “Melanie!” Shouted Mark, concerned about what might be happening on the other end of the line.

  “Is this real life? Mark, is this really happening?” Melanie asked, too shocked to believe what she was hearing. This was their last hope at conceiving a child on their own. BioTech had been working on innovative new fertility and DNA treatments for years, and this new trial was promising. Mark wasn’t working directly on the trial, except to run some labs occasionally or crunch some numbers, but he knew enough about it to know that it had already proffered definite success. They had applied, and applied, and reapplied, being denied each time due to the fact that they were both employed at the company. Finally, after months of paperwork and denials, they were in. Finally. “How?” She questioned, “Why now?”

  Reluctantly, Mark explained that the misfortune of others is what led to Mark and Melanie’s good news. “Turns out, three women were unsuccessful during phase two. They need healthy, primed candidates to take their places pronto. You’re healthy. You’re primed. So, they asked if we were still interested.”