More like living them. I’d be willing to bet Rachel Jost didn’t own a watch. “Thanks, T. See you back at the house.”
Two hours had passed since Ainsley had last put food in his mouth, which meant the boy’s blood sugar was plummeting. He whined about making another stop until I told him where we were going. Buona Beef is a Taylor Street original, straight from the downtown Chicago neighborhood where real Italians have lived and cooked since before the city had indoor plumbing. The suburban copy isn’t totally authentic, but they serve a decent beef sandwich “joo-zee, wid peppas.” It was one of the few signs I’d seen that civilization had crept west with the population.
“There she is.” Ainsley pointed as we rolled into the lot.
Rachel Jost was sitting at a picnic table in the dusty grass that edged the parking area. She’d changed from her dark gown, white apron and bonnet, into jeans and a shirt that would blend at any mall. Her braid was tucked down the back of her collar, disguising the length. But everything she wore was a size too big, and her shirt was mis-buttoned; the tail long on one side, collar cock-eyed at her neck. Her feet were bare, her heavy farm boots abandoned nearby. She looked like a runaway in stolen clothes. I doubted it was ignorance of modern clothing that rumpled her. It looked to me like grief, that great disheveler.
Ainsley brought both cameras from the van. Rachel eyed them like attack dogs.
“What are those?” she asked bluntly.
“This is my assistant, Ainsley Prescott. He helps me make the TV show.” I sat down beside her on the wooden bench. Ainsley sat down at the second table with the cameras. I settled in for a wait. Sometimes an interview only happens if you’re willing to sit first. I doubted we’d get any footage but maybe I’d get an idea about where to go next.
Ainsley was rapt. He stared at the girl with the expression of a big game hunter on his first safari. I wasn’t sure if he had work or recreation in mind. The girl was pretty enough. She made me think of that statue of The Little Mermaid-classic features, solid feminine curves, all frozen forever in a permanent state of yearning.
She glanced at Ainsley and blushed.
“College, how about you get us some Cokes?”
“Sure. Do you drink Coke?” he asked her tentatively.
Rachel nodded without making eye contact. Her arms were wrapped tight around her middle in the teen-girl hunch that disguised the shelf of the bust, while otherwise fortifying the heart. I wondered if she’d called my house today hiding in the same bush where I’d first seen her.
Together, we watched Ainsley walk into the restaurant.
I started with the simplest question. “Why did you call, Rachel?”
“My father won’t tell me what happened.” She straightened and took a breath. “To Thomas.”
“You mean yesterday, after the fire truck took him down?”
“The fire truck that was on the other side of the field?” She wrinkled her nose in confusion.
“Yes.” I drew the word out, hoping to see comprehension. No such luck.
“Before that.” She blinked at me and looked away. “My father wouldn’t let us watch. He ordered everyone to stay away from the fence for the day. The younger children weren’t even allowed out of the house.”
“Oh.”
She waited for me to say it.
“You want me to tell you?”
She nodded, fast.
“It won’t be easy to hear.”
Her eyes were dark and wide and wiser than I’d have wagered. “If I wanted easy, Miss O’Hara, I would have stayed at home.”
True enough.
“He killed himself,” I told her softly, pretending to be completely absorbed by the coming and going of cars through the parking lot.
She didn’t move at all. I glanced over every five seconds or so, watching her face shift to whiter and whiter shades of pale. There was the sound of air moving, a whiney hiss. I couldn’t say if it was going in or out.
“You still with me, Rachel?”
“Ja,” she whispered. “My fault.”
We’d never come to terms on metaphysics, but I tried anyway. “What happened to Tom was a terrible thing. But how could it be your fault?”
“So many wrongs. I don’t know how-” She spoke simply, her voice thin and high. “I am alone. Help me.”
“How?”
“My father and the bishop, they speak of love and forgiveness but do not offer it.” She started to squirm, looking at me, looking away, twisting where she sat. “It is not gess. But how can I obey? How can I be humble before those who break the laws?”
Talking to people for a living makes for curious dichotomies. I’ve interviewed a thousand people, most of whom are still a mystery to me, but every now and then, I’ll have a moment of perfect understanding with a total stranger.
“The world is unfair, Rachel. You find a way to live with it. That’s all you can do.”
“How?” She looked at me, really studied my face as if I was saying something new. Something she hadn’t heard before. Her face was almost unreal, it was so fresh, clear of makeup, earrings, hair doodads. She still had a hint of baby-fat double chin, a last trace of innocence.
“How do we live with unfairness?” I repeated, rejecting the accurate, inappropriate answers flashing across my mental big screen: alcohol-sex-drugs. “People are different. You kinda have to feel your way along. Fall down a few times. Try again.” I laughed at myself. My ineptness. “Sounds like learning to ride a bike, doesn’t it?”
“No,” was all she said, over and over. The teenager’s anthem.
Could you blame ’em?
Across the restaurant parking lot, Ainsley was jockeying with the door, holding it open as an older couple entered. Nice manners.
Wish I had been the one sent for drinks.
I felt as if something had locked me down, forcing me to search for words that might connect with Rachel. “I guess I survive unfairness by listening to other people’s stories. I bear witness. Then, I’m not alone.”
She didn’t say anything, but I caught the tiniest nod of recognition.
“Cokes all around!” Ainsley announced.
Rachel looked up at him as if he’d just beamed down onto the planet.
“Great timing, College.”
Rachel held her drink with two hands and ducked her head to sip. There was a furious sort of concentration on her face.
“Hungry?” Ainsley asked, exactly like they do at Irish wakes.
“No one but you, is my guess.”
He waggled his eyebrows and shoveled another handful of fries in his mouth.
“Get your camera box,” Rachel said. “I will tell you a story.”
“You want us to interview you on camera?”
“No way,” Ainsley whispered.
Rachel made a pinched-lip nod. The look on her face explained everything. Every teenager who’d ever lived had worn that expression, I’ll get you yet, oh mighty parent.
“No,” I interjected. “Beside the fact that you’re a minor, your father will have a cow.”
“He has many cows,” she replied with a frown. “It cannot be worse between us. I am eighteen now, a month ago. Thomas told me I’m free to make all my own choices with this age. Is this true?”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t believe him. It didn’t seem possible. To decide such important things, without others, without question.” She did an odd sideways duck of her face that turned into a sip of her drink. I’d seen her do it twice and suddenly realized it must be the way she hid her face behind the stiff brim of her bonnet. It wasn’t only shyness. She seemed ashamed. I wondered if the camera were a punishment she meant for herself, as well as her dad.
She straightened her spine and announced, “I am ready.”
Ainsley raised eyebrows-of-concern in my direction.
“Are you sure?” I asked her, soft and serious.
“Yes. Do not look so worried,” Rachel assured me. “I am not confirmed. It is not so bad. I will tell you what I know of Tom. In return, someday, you will tell me what you know. We have a bargain?”