Rachel (2 page)

Rachel and I were rarely seen in public
together unless she went to a Loyola ballgame I pitched, or if I happened to
show up at a play she was in. It was hard to stay away from her, but necessary.
We didn’t talk about a future past the possibility that we could attend the
same college, provided she got a scholarship.

We met in my car, late at night after
Mom was passed out. Dad was gone often and he would have let me out the front
door anyway. The staff didn’t care, or expected no less: another irresponsible
rich brat, in a society full of them, slipping out to debauch himself on school
nights.

Rachel had a harder time of it. She had
a tough home life. Her stepfather went into a controlling fits, locking her and
her mother in the house at night. The windows were barred and the deadbolts had
inside keys he slept with. In her closet, Rachel found a trapdoor to the
crawlspace under the house. I met her on the corner. Seeing her walk even a
block in the dark in that neighborhood twisted my stomach in knots, every time.
I never got used to it. Usually, when she got into the car, I laughed from
released tension and the sight of cobwebs in her hair.
 

She attended Marlborough on a hefty
financial aid package which was still a stretch for her parents, and was
required to maintain a GPA of 3.75 or face the budget cuts and substandard
educational opportunities of the
LAUSD
. She was in
the home stretch. Smart, diligent, studious, and yes, beautiful; she would be
the first in her family to attend a top school and get a medical degree. I’d
have followed her anywhere. Business schools were a dime a dozen, and Dad would
buy me entry to the university of my choice, even if I never told him why the
choice was made. In this case, Rachel and I chose University of Pennsylvania
and crossed our fingers, she for Perelman School of Medicine, and I for Wharton
a year later. It was Ivy League, which was easy for me, and hard for her.

All this meant she didn’t have the time
or permission to drive around in my Mercedes, or run into hotel rooms with me.
But we were young, and infatuated, and on the cusp of freedom, or in her case,
death.

***

What
do you mean by “wish” then, Rachel?

Like,
hope you get something you know is impossible, but hope anyway.

I
wish I could be with you like a normal person.

What’s
normal to someone like you?

***

The backyard buzzed with activity.
Fiona, never one to miss an opportunity to invite Deirdre’s scorn, had managed
to book psychics, tarot card readers, crystal healers and a hypnotist for the
cocktail hour.

The black baby grand had been brought
onto the patio, and the four musicians Dad had plucked from some music school
in central LA set up stands and instruments. Piano, two violins, and cello.
Except the first violinist wasn’t tuning a violin. She was tuning a viola.
Hardly worth making a fuss over, except she was stunning, with full lips and
long, dark hair. She had to be five-ten in flat feet, with a chin that pointed
upwards as if daring the world to hit her on the jaw.

“She’s magnificent, no?”

My father’s voice beside me, admiring a
girl who was probably in high school. I looked away quickly.

“Jail bait, dad. Ever hear of it?” I
turned to face him. In his late fifties, he was still a good-looking guy. His
red hair had turned completely silver five years earlier, and stayed fully
attached to his head. The girls loved him. And when I said girls, I meant just
that. Girls.

“You’re avoiding me. I was looking for
some common ground.”

“Uh-huh.” I didn’t know where to start
with him. Common-ground wise, we had Rachel. That was awkward enough. I glanced
around. We were relatively alone, a situation Mom never let slide if she could.

He spoke quietly, barely moving his
lips. “You never stop wanting them that age. Every man fantasizes about the dew
on the flower.”

“You’re sick.”

“Were you not just looking at that girl?
She can’t be a day over fifteen. On the evening of your engagement, no less.
It’s time to accept reality, son. The need is biological. You can fight it your
whole life if you want to, but it will be a fight.”

He looked like he’d wanted to say that
to me for a long time. Like it was some kind of big talk every man gives their
son, and it had been denied him by my avoidance and Mom’s intervention.

“We aren’t having a meeting of the minds
on underage girls.”

“Except the one,” he said as if we had
some delightful shared history.

“I’m going to need you to stay away from
my wife, and if there are children, especially if there are children—“

He got that look. The one like he was
being electrocuted. It was hard rage directed forward. I’d only seen it once
before, days after I found out what he was and I saw him touching Theresa’s arm
when he spoke to her.

“Do not ever presume that I don’t have
boundaries, son.”

Much as an animal won’t shit where they
eat, he’d never touched any of my sisters, but when I flew at him I didn’t know
that. We may have been evenly matched the day he laid a chaste touch on
Theresa, but at my engagement party, I was older, taller, and less fearful.

“You will never be alone with my
children,” I said. “Those are
my
boundaries.” I took a gulp of my whiskey. Too much. The drink would never last
if I kept doing that. But I needed to do more than let the liquid touch my lips
when I stared at him over the glass.

“I wanted to just elope somewhere far
away,” I said, seeing Mom coming up behind him, “so there would be no problems
with Jessica’s family. But it wasn’t possible. I’m sorry you’ve been insulted
in the process. Truly.”

He smirked, because he knew the kinder
tone and change of subject must have come for one reason. He and I had come to
blows after Rachel’s accident, and I’d taken a handful of pills. Mom didn’t let
us alone in the same room if she could avoid it. Over the past seven years, she’d
run a pretty tight interference. I had to admire her aversion to conflict. It
had kept her in a state of blissful, drunken ignorance that my sisters and I
had sworn to protect until death.

Dad took the opportunity to clap me on
the back just as the string quartet started warming up.

“No worries, son. No worries. It was
just business. Can’t win at it and make friends, too.”

I smiled, not mentioning the tens of
millions in payoff money that had drained him to the point where only shady
deals kept him afloat. Nope. It was all smiles when Mom reached us. Dad put his
arm around her and I made it a point to shake his hand like a gentleman so she
would enjoy the rest of the evening.

“Jonny! Come over here?”

“Come on!”

“This is perfect!”

It was the sound of a gaggle of sisters.
Four rushed up in green dresses and varying shades of strawberry chignon.
Margie, Sheila, Leanne, and Theresa. Their voices became a cheering chatter.

“You have to see the hypnotist.”

“He’s going to relax you.”

“You’re too tense.”

“A teepee and a wigwam!”

“It’ll only take a second.”

The drink was taken from my hand and I
felt myself being pulled to a guy in a fedora and handlebar moustache sitting
by one of our chaise lounges.

“Hang on, hang on…” I held my hands up
in surrender.

“What?”

“It’s fun!”

“Chicken.”

“Bok
bok
bok
.”

They were beautiful, each one of my
older sisters. A huge pain in my ass, each in a different way, but all
precious. And annoying.

“I need to use the restroom. If he
relaxes me too much I’m going to have a problem, if you know what I mean.
That’s all.”

Margie, the oldest and most practical,
who didn’t believe in anything but money and death, took charge, spinning me by
my shoulders. “Go. Then you’re back here or we’re dragging you out for a
crystal cleansing.”

I walked to the house, making a point of
not looking at the stunning brunette plucking her viola. Not easy. She had the
kind of face one stared at. But I glanced over, and there was Dad, talking to
her, leaning over in a way that seemed respectful and dignified, getting her
comfortable. I wondered if he did it to spite me, then remembered he simply and
shamelessly liked fucking girls too young to drink legally. It had nothing to
do with me. Which meant I’d be unable to get him away from her. I couldn’t say,
‘Okay Dad, you’re right, high school girls are hot. Now can you step away?’
because then he’d take her to bed for sure. I couldn’t try and cut in or he’d
make a light hearted competition of our pursuit. And I couldn’t cross-check him
through the windows or I’d ruin my own party, and I’d have to explain to my
fiancée why I was protecting the honor of an underage girl I’d only glanced at.

I got past them and into the house. I
needed another drink, but my excuse to Margie had been real. On the way to the
hall bathroom, I spotted the pianist from the quartet. A blonde with faded acne
and an odd, melancholy confidence.

“Excuse me,” I said.

“Yeah?”

“Your friend? On the viola?”

“Monica?”

“Tell her no flirting with the guests or
hosts. Understand?”

Her look went from offense to curiosity,
as she craned her neck to see past the sitting room windows. The set up for the
quartet was just about visible.

“Oh, crap.”

“I’m serious.”

“She’s not like that really,” her words
ran together. “I mean she’s just started seeing my brother, but she’s not a
flirt like that at all. She’s barely even friendly.”

Caught between the desire to know more
and the desire to run away, I simply walked quickly and rudely down the hall
before I heard another word about that woman.

Girl.

***

I never let myself truly fall for
Rachel. I’d always felt bad about that. I’d trapped her, protecting myself from
that moment I’d see her and my father in the same room. Unfortunately, all that
guarded emotion didn’t pay off. At Sheila’s party, Rachel had shown up with
Theresa, and Dad was still there. When I saw them together, I felt like my
spine was being ripped out. She was giving him what-for with her finger
extended and mouth demanding something through gritted teeth and intense,
burning eyes.

He took whatever verbal abuse she was
dishing out with the serious air of a guy who didn’t give a shit. This man was
impossible to understand unless you saw him work a room, his uncanny appeal,
the way he didn’t look like a fifty year-old man in a party full of kids. The
way he melted into any situation. The magnetism I never understood was
illustrated over and over again, even as he refused advances when Mom was
around, and always left open a maybe as soon as she turned her back.

As I got closer to them, I got
disproportionately angry. Rachel wasn’t supposed to be there. That was the
rule, and it was in place because seeing her in the vicinity of my father made
me consider patricide with a cold, collected calm that scared me.

My peripheral vision closed in on her as
I navigated the crowd. It’s possible the multiple bong hits were making me
paranoid. There was zero danger of her falling into his clutches that, or any
night. But I didn’t want him to know I was just short of loving her. I didn’t
want him to have information he could use, because he’d use it to hurt me. He’d
pulled strings to keep Margie from a man he found threatening, destroying a law
firm rather than have her work there. He’d do it to me, but as the only male of
eight children, the damage would come faster and I’d fare far worse.

“Rachel,” I said when I reached her. Her
pale brown eyes were tear-streaked, and her beautiful mouth cut into a line of
rage. “Come on, let’s go.”

My father smiled as if I was rescuing
him from an embarrassing incident.

And that was the last I remembered of
that night.

***

On our backs, in the grass of Elysian
Park, where my family would never find us, Rachel and I stared at the clouds.
She liked to wonder what it would be like to be me. She thought I had not a worry
in the world. Yes, my father was a fucking sociopath, but he didn’t stick his
fingers inside me like hers had, and he didn’t scream and hit and lock me in
the house like her stepfather had. And for me, whatever I endured would end
when my trust fund spread its legs at twenty-one. For her, the light at the end
of the tunnel had not appeared.

“Do you wish for things you can’t buy?”
she asked.

I looked over at her. Blades of grass
sat in the foreground of my vision, slashing her face, which was turned to me.
Her eyes were tobacco brown, wide and light, catching the sun inside them.
“You’re fascinated with money,” I said.

“I think I am.” She smiled. “It’s made
you different, you know. You’re fearless. It’s exciting, kind of. Watching you
is like watching someone who’s really, truly free.”

I laughed. I never felt free in my life.

“What do you wish for?” I asked.
“Besides money.”

“You make me sound like a
golddigger
.”

“You are, but you’re terrible at it. I
think a few more years and you’ll be sleeping with the right guy.”

She flung herself on top of me and
pinched my sides. I laughed and rolled her over until I had her pinned.

“Tell me what you wish for, and if it’s
any part of my body, your wish will come true at the Regency Hotel in forty
minutes.”

She giggled and turned her face to the
sunlight. “Free, Jonathan. I wish to be free.”

I unpinned one of her shoulders to pluck
a seeded dandelion out of the grass.

“Blow,” I said, holding the white
puffball in front of her.

She blew hard, and the seeds went into
my face. We laughed, and blew the rest of the seeds off together, wishing her
free from the constraints of her family and her scarcity. They floated away on
their sinuous parachutes, like little messengers to God, saying take me, take
me, take me. Set me free.