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Jenna was laughing. What the heck happened? She wasn’t sure, but this was already too much for her.
She went into her government house. What else could it be called? It reminded her of the projects. They were nothing more than government housing to keep the poor all in one place. This house was a better-glorified version of the projects. Maybe she was bitter and looking at it through jaded eyes.
“Hungry?” Jenna asked. “Can you cook?”
“Not with your antiquated means. Can you?”
“Sure, if you like your food burned. I sort of forget what I’m doing and soon there’s smoke going through the house.”
“The voices?” He walked over to a case sitting in the corner. “Come on, let’s eat.”
Jenna followed him into the kitchen and then stood by the door when he put out an arm to stop her, reminding her of her grade school crossing guard. SaKura opened the case, and the kitchen transformed to look like the kitchen in Bella’s house. Even the refrigerator transformed, but she knew it was the fridge when he opened it and began taking food out.
“You know how to cook in this kitchen?”
“I do. My Manan told me from the time I was a youngling that one day I may be a king, but in her domicile, I was her son and would learn to take care of myself. My Papan, the king, is used to being waited on hand and foot. My Manan thought it was ridiculous. You never answered my question.”
She hoped he had forgotten that question. She took a seat at the island that was transformed, but still recognizable as an island. It wasn’t like she wanted to talk to him or tell him anything about her life that he couldn’t come to on his own.
“There are times the voices are insistent. That means things like cooking or driving became hazardous to my health and anyone who was around me. I have my license and I’m an excellent driver. Then one day after I got my license the voices were so loud… Let’s say no one died and I never drove again.”
Sakura understood more than she realized. The responsibility of a frya was great. They didn’t have the knowledge or the ability to turn down the voices and corral them when they were so young. When she was one or two thousand rotations around the sun, it would be different. That’s why the young frya’s on his planet always received a Duran when they reached puberty-ma. That period between leaving childhood and before maturity. The word teenager whispered through his mind. He always loved his translator.
“Duran?” She repeated the word that she heard SaKura say.
“The best description is that it’s one of your self-driving vehicles. They can input the destination and not worry about navigating or taking their eyes off what you call the road. They were working on a spindrift model. There’s no need now.
The sadness he was feeling flooded Jenna’s heart. She could feel the forlorn feelings, but also the anger that people who called themselves friends and worked to be trusted by the royals could betray them. She shook her head, wondering if he would ever trust again and how he could trust her government.
“I see the look on your face.” He was working with eggs, onions, red peppers, bacon, and various seasonings.
“How do you trust again after all the people who swore they were friends killed the females on your planet?”
“You don’t, but life doesn’t stop because one person or one group of people did you wrong. Take your history.” She stiffened. What could he know about their history? That was the truth? The victors write the history books.
“I’m as intelligent as I am handsome.” Jenna choked. Good thing she didn’t have anything in her mouth. She had to give him his due. She’d spent months around Rakha with Bella pointing out every charm he had until Jenna could see past him being a monster and appreciate how he looked. Now it wasn’t as hard for her to see SaKura’s considerable charms. She was leaving him, of course. Even so, the male was correct when he said he was handsome. On his planet, he was probably Prince Charming handsome.
“Let’s say the good-looking part is debatable and you tell me about the intelligent part.” She gave herself a pat on the back and promptly forgot that she found him attractive, maybe.
“Bella considers the two of you to be the best of both worlds. Not just the two of you, but anyone who was half one thing and another. It gave you a look into the lives of two races that most people couldn’t understand. The problem with that was the pure race, for lack of a better word, looked down on you. They said things like you’ll never be one of us. Which meant you were always carefully walking the line as you decided who you were. She recommended some books that she said spoke more truth than lies. It was hard to find some of those same books because they were outlawed on your planet.
She nodded. When she went to school, the curriculum didn’t cover much about the African American experience unless you took a class on that part of history. The sense of wonder and then shame when she asked her history teacher when they would be covering things like slavery, and she told Jenna that the two pages in their history book were all there was. Two pages? The anger from that day still lived in her soul but there was a sour thread of shame that lived there too. This understanding that her people weren’t good enough to be taught about. That there was no warning of what could happen again without an understanding of what was wrong. There was also an internal fight that could still be called upon if she wasn’t careful. Balancing who she was hadn’t been easy.
“Tell me, please. What do you think you know?”
“I know that your people came to this new world in chains while those who captured them rejoiced to start over somewhere new. Let’s talk about me. There was a time when our planet was divided not by color because we are all the same color.” Mostly, but it wasn’t time to go into that. “Some may be lighter or darker. But that never separated us. Regions, on the other hand, did. One part of the planet hated the other for where they came from or the natural resources they could hoard. Helping each other was not in our vocabulary. We almost destroyed our planet before the fighting and the hatred ended. That didn’t happen without effort on all our parts. The accent, the way they looked at different issues, and the words they used could distinguish them from a Northerner or a Southerner.” SaKura took the food out of what Jenna assumed was an oven and placed half on a plate in front of her.
He didn’t say anything stupid about her weight and gave her enough food to feel full. She dipped her head and said grace. If ever she needed a higher power, now was the time.
“My education went far beyond what is taught in our schools. As the king-elect or king-in-waiting, I needed to understand our people to the point of feeling like I lived back then. Why? Some of those people who lived those wars and grievances were still alive and I would one day have to deal with them,” he said. SaKura took a few minutes to eat while Jenna was trying not to choke on the food in her mouth.
She waited until her mouth was clear and she could breathe again before asking any questions. “Call me dense. I’ll be okay with that. What do you mean there are still people?” She inserted the word monster in her head. “Still living from that time.” Rakha had given her a brief history lesson, and she knew SaKura was talking about several thousands of years ago, maybe ten or more.
“The Diza are a long-lived race. There would be many more alive from that time, but as we found out, death is permanent, sometimes. We’re much harder to kill now.”
She shook her head, not understanding what he was saying. All she could think about was Methuselah and was it Moses who lived to be around a thousand? She was sure that was what she learned in Sunday school, although with life spans that barely reached one hundred, no one talked about it.
“How old are you?” When she asked Bella how old Rakha was Bella’s face paled, and she said, ‘Let’s not talk about it.’ Then casually she said he was older than her. Jenna should think of him as a grandfather. That statement made Jenna want to throw up, but he didn’t act like a grandfather.
