“Sorry,” Ainsley offered, sinking down next to me. “I misunderstood. I didn’t think she’d want to talk on camera if she didn’t want to talk in front of me.”
“Not again, that’s for sure.”
“What did we lose?”
At least he said “we.” “Oh, stuff like she was pretty much sleeping with Tom Jost and if she’d agreed to marry him, he wouldn’t have killed himself.”
“No way.” He was so full of Disney-earnest shock, the sick feeling in my stomach doubled. “She looks so innocent.”
“She is innocent.” I couldn’t decide whether to laugh or punch him. This business makes it very clear: what you think you know, based on what you think you see, tells more about who you are, than what you saw.
“Listen up, College Boy.” I rolled my head and cracked off the tension building in my right cross. “That was one. You get to three, I tell Uncle Richie you and I are breaking up, and you are going back to baby J-school classes. Got it?” Journalism school would beat the impulse for privacy out of him.
“Yeah. I got it.”
“Good. Here’s rule numero uno: never, ever turn the camera off. You hear me? You’re walking backward into traffic or running for your life-I don’t give a shit-you keep taking pictures. You work for me, you will die with your finger on the trigger. Are we clear?”
“Clear.” He didn’t sound too upset. Either Ainsley was one of those kids who didn’t let much bother him or he got yelled at so often, he was immune. “Anything else?”
“You know the old saying, ‘seeing is believing’?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Well, here’s a clue, it means believing as in faith.”
Ainsley frowned. “I don’t follow you.”
“What you see is you, College. Whether you’re looking in a mirror, or at some Amish girl-next-door, whatever you see, describes the inside of you.”
He took the hint, pulled in his chin, packed the equipment without a word and drove home the same way. Every so often he’d give me a sideways glare.
He was mulling it over.
My whole career has been about making pictures that would break enough hearts to change the world. All I ever saw were tragedies.
7:12:04 p.m.
Tonya rushed out to meet me as soon as Ainsley pulled into the driveway back at the house. As much as you can rush in heels.
“Hot date?” I asked, getting out of the truck.
“We’ll see. Tell you about it next week.” She smiled toward Ainsley but he didn’t bite. “Baby’s out back.” She tossed her evening-knapsack into the backseat of her car and blew me a careful air kiss, so as not to ruin her lipstick. “You watch her close, you hear?”
“I’m on it.”
How she folds those long legs, in those high heels, into that midget Escort is an eternal mystery.
That was all the goodbye I got from either of them. Ainsley roared off.
The party lights hanging around the living room window were plugged in. The TV was on. I could see everything because I’d pulled the curtains down the day I moved in. Unlike my sister, I never could stand my mother’s old Woolworth’s lace anywhere in sight.
My father was a drunk. I know most people say alcoholic nowadays, but he was old-fashioned. Drunk suited him. Friday nights, he liked to hit the Pete’s Tap on the way home from work. If he made it to the door, he’d inevitably drop his keys, curl up on the front stoop and nap. In the morning, Mother’d open the door to take in the milk and call, “Come grab his ankles, Magdelena. Let’s get him inside before the neighbors see.” Mom always claimed I got the ankle end because it was lighter. I think it was because half the time he’d pissed himself. Once we’d lugged him inside behind a closed door, she’d go to the window and peek around the lace sheer, checking up and down the street to see if we’d gotten away with it.
I never put curtains on my windows.
Once I got inside the house, the first thing I did was check the thermostat. Even living in this house for months, all through the dry blaze of a midwestern August, walking into the place still made me shiver. It was still my sister’s house-her dopey chili-pepper party lights, her basket of nursing magazines, her crocheted granny blanket over the back of the couch. The place was a hash of hand-me-downs and modest extravagances. Personally, a decent-sized television didn’t count as extravagance, but for her it did.
The living room walls were thumbtacked with Jenny’s art projects, some so old they’d dried and yellowed at the edge. Fragments would occasionally drop off if someone brushed the wall by accident. Once an entire sheet cracked and crumbled to the ground, a painting of two stick figures and a pair of stick flowers; Jenny cried in her room for hours afterward.
I walk carefully through this house.
The light from the television bounced across the unlit living room and gave everything the familiar blue flicker of the electronic hearth. Tonya liked to have the TV on, whether she was in the room, watching or not. She lived alone in a little apartment in Wrigleyville and I suppose the voices and the flickering lights masked neighbor noise and made the place feel lived-in safe. The white noise of the machine did not comfort or bother me. Surrounded by stimulation all day long, the ability to ignore it was part of my job description.
Jenny had not learned that trick yet. Whenever I saw her cross a room with the TV on, she’d lock eyes on the screen and freeze midstep. My sister had set all kind of rules about television time for her-how much, what channels, what time of day. Those rules had evaporated since I’d arrived. They were ancient history whenever Tonya took the remote in hand. Sometimes Jenny’s reaction bothered me, which was why I’d started getting her to count commercials and promos. I figured she’d grow out of it. I did notice after Tonya spent time with us, Jenny often chose to play on her own out in the yard or in the driveway. Through the glass door to the patio, I looked for Jenny. It was nearly dark outside and colder than it looked. No sign of her. I thought of Rachel. Who would be looking for her as dusk settled?
I buttoned my jacket and wandered into the backyard. Found her sitting in the birch tree-a big old tree, with papery white bark and leaves that September’s chilly nights had recast in sunlight yellow. In the gloaming, the white tree stood apart from the rest of the yard, melting into the dusk. The thickest bottom branch had grown almost horizontal to the ground. It’d be an easy climber.
“Hey. I’m home.”
Jenny looked down at me. “Hey. You’re home.”
“Kinda late to be climbing trees, isn’t it?”
No answer.
I switched to the imperative. “Time to come in. I’ve got to go into the station tonight and do some work. Pack up something to keep you busy and we’ll head over. I’ll show you around. Make some popcorn. There’s a video player. You’ll like it.”
“Okay.” She flipped onto her stomach and her feet twitched in the air, looking for a place to land. “Tonya’s leg was really hurting today. Why does her leg hurt because of her back?”
“The injured nerve starts in her back. It’s all connected.”
“That guy who died, the one in your picture, remember? Do you think it hurt?” She slipped down to the lowest limb and jumped.
“Huh?” I caught a breath, nervous and suddenly aware of dangers everywhere, the sharp stick pointing toward her face, the rock right behind her head, the smallness of her bones. My threshold for fearlessness had shifted; it made me irritable. “When?”
“You know, when he got dead.”
“Sure. I think it hurt.” I herded her toward the chili-pepper lights surrounding the backdoor. This line of questioning was definitely creeping me out.