When she was a very young girl she had wanted to be a beautician in the worst way. It was a natural enough desire for a girl whose parents often dressed her up and told her how pretty she was, as her mother and father had done. She was an only child, the product of a stable, loving marriage, and she brought a completeness to her parents' lives which she herself did not fully understand. The central focus of family life during the early years of her happy childhood, she grew up with the knowledge that, with no sibling rivals against whom to compete, she enjoyed her parents' attentions any time she desired them.
Her earliest memories of her childhood were of Saturday afternoons spent with her mother. They would go downtown together, just the two of them. First they would stop at the library, where her mother would pick out a book for herself. (For years her mother had read a book a week—all novels, all paperback, and all taken out on loan from the public library.) If the child had managed to finish her own book from the prior week, then she too was allowed to select another. More often than not the girl had indeed read her chosen book within the week. At first she did it solely to please her mother, who always smiled broadly whenever her daughter told her excitedly that she was ready to pick out another book. Later she found that she was also doing it to please the librarian, who was a friend of her mother's and who always took notice of whether they brought one or two books to the checkout desk, and a second book would earn a smile and a compliment from her as well. Eventually, however, the girl found that she liked to read books just for herself, and she took it upon herself to read the most age-advanced books she could understand, because she found that after reading several which were recommended for her age group, she soon became bored with them.
After the library, mother and daughter would go to the beauty salon. The girl would sit quietly in a chair in the waiting area, reading her newest book, while her mother was tended to by an assiduous staff of stylists. One woman would shampoo and cut her hair, then roll it up in big plastic curlers. While her hair dried under one of the impressively sized blow-drying machines, another woman would clip and file her fingernails, then polish them with a small brush to any one of a number of different colors. Other women waiting for their appointments would leaf aimlessly through glossy magazines, flipping from one photograph or advertisement to the next. Occasionally they would ask the cute little girl in the denim overalls and pink shirt what she was reading.
"Nancy Drew," the girl would say proudly. "This week I'm reading The Ringmaster's Secret. It's one of the early-teen series. I'm already up to page seventeen."
Was it any good? they always wanted to know.
"Pretty good," she would say seriously, "but I've read better."
The women would usually smile and look at each other with amusement before they returned to their magazines.
"Come along now, Rachel," her mother would say, after the hair dryer and the manicurist had both finished their work. "We have to go to the grocery store so we can be home by five. Your father will want you to read to him before we go out tonight."
"Okay, Mom," Rachel would reply. "Goodbye, Mrs. Anders. Goodbye, Mrs. Karbach."
"Goodbye, Rachel," they would say. "See you next week."
She was always impressed by how stylish her mother looked when she left the salon. Her mother did not work outside the house the way her father did, and during the week she rarely dressed up. But the weekends were different. Saturdays meant an afternoon trip to the beauty salon and an evening out for her parents. Standing in the doorway next to the baby-sitter and waving goodbye, Rachel did not know exactly where her parents went or what they did when they went out, but she knew from the way they were dressed that they were going someplace nice and that they were meeting people who were important. She had always wanted to go with them on these outings, just to meet new people and have some fun, but her parents told her that she was not yet old enough for that. So she decided, then and there, that she wanted to grow up as fast as she could. Staying at home with the baby-sitter, after all, was for babies.
Sunday mornings meant church—an occasion every bit as important, Rachel knew, as whatever event her parents had attended the previous evening, and on these outings she was allowed to accompany them. Judging by the clothes they wore to mass and the large number of people who inevitably went out of their way to talk with them after the service, the nine o'clock mass was an occasion not to be missed. For several years Rachel believed that her parents—her father, in particular—were as indispensable to the Catholic mass as the priest himself, given the size of the respective crowds they drew both before and after the service. It made her proud and happy to see that other adults sought her parents' company so, and those adults were always so remarkably friendly and complimentary to her. Every dress she wore was beautiful; every word she said was delightful; every funny face or playful gesture she made was adorable. Church was always a pleasant experience when she was young.
And it always began with those Saturday afternoon trips to the beauty salon. There seemed to be something magical in the transformations they performed there. Rachel was not quite sure what it was, but for some reason people were always enchanted to be near her and her family for the rest of the weekend. It was all she needed to see in order to make up her mind. "Mom," she would say, "when I grow up, I want to be a beautician."
* * *
Young girls invariably grow up faster than their fathers would wish, and Rachel was no exception. Adolescence caught hold of her like a flame on dry wood and kindled in her changes of all kinds—biological, emotional, intellectual. Her mind quickened sharply as she matured, and she was unafraid to question any of the old traditions that had formed the basis of her upbringing. At first her parents parried her inquisitiveness with gentle explanations that seemed, even to one as young as Rachel, shallow and overtly scripted. Their answers were aimed, she thought, not towards the crux of her questions, but primarily toward defusing her curiosity. But rather than doing so, they served only to frustrate her. She grew bored with the routine of her parents' lives and with her own experience within it. There was no adventure in their existence; no passion to their pursuits. They seemed predisposed to simply accept the world as they had been told it was when they were her age, quietly doing the same things that their parents had done, uncritically believing the same things, too, and disregarding all else with nothing more than a disapproving shake of their heads. Unpleasant questions and contradictions, which Rachel noticed regularly and in abundance, were not a threat to them, merely annoyances that could be overcome by a practiced concentration on other things. Or so it seemed to Rachel at the time.
As her teenage years progressed, Rachel began to see the intolerant side of her father's domestic rule. No longer could her persistent questions be indulged with tenuous replies. Her unsatisfied doubts hardened into a growing conviction that the world did not conform to her ideals, and more importantly, that such shortcomings were not to be passively accepted. Her father grew ever more displeased with her and her increasingly hostile judgments, and an emotional gulf formed between them.
Rachel did not immediately recognize the depth of the differences that were pulling them apart. Her father's stern rejection of her stated opinions initially seemed little different than his reaction when she complained about her early bedtime, or failed to complete some household chore as directed. She was still too young to disobey him, and although they might argue for a time over whatever sacred truth of his she happened to discredit, eventually she would cease arguing with him in deference to his authority. But she grew tired of being the only one who was big enough to back away from a fight, and she could foresee the day, not too far distant, when that would no longer be true.
At her father's insistence she continued to attend church with her parents every Sunday morning, but she no longer enjoyed the experience. She would sit stone-faced through the service beside her parents while they recited the prayers and sang the songs along with the rest of the congregation. Afterwards she would retreat immediately to the family car in the parking lot and sit alone in the back seat while her parents chatted with friends and acquaintances outside the church.
She stayed in school through her high school years, achieving consistently high grades which she hoped would be good enough to get her into a top college. She did not dislike school the way many of her classmates did. On the contrary, she found it to be a reprieve from the ever more suffocating atmosphere that she felt at home. She found most of her teachers to be engaging and committed to the subjects they taught, and she liked many of them personally as well. An unpleasant few reminded her of her father in one way or another, and she suffered through their classes as best she could. On the whole, however, her teachers were much more open intellectually than her parents ever were. They talked easily about topics of which her parents were either completely ignorant or, more often, were simply unwilling to speak. They actively invited questions from her and her classmates, and they rewarded those students who participated in classroom discussions with higher grades and more lenient supervision. In her favorite classes she glimpsed the framework of a future that she wanted for herself—an environment in which she could express her opinions freely and be respected rather than condemned for what she thought; indeed, for being so bold as to dare to think critically about what she thought. A world in which "because I said so" was not considered an adequate defense for a position that she had chosen rightly to challenge.
She was not the most popular girl in school—her seriousness served to limit her ascension in the teenage social hierarchy—but neither was she an outcast among her peers. Her small group of friends, considered by others to be bookish but not nerdy, was tolerated by both the athletes and the troublemakers without much friction. She dated little in high school, as most of her friends were female and the boys with whom she socialized were too immature to interest her romantically. Outings with her friends typically consisted of trips to the movie theater or tickets to a concert to hear one of the bands that they all enjoyed. Occasionally she would attend a party at the invitation of someone from outside her circle who thought she was too pretty to be hanging out with her current group of friends, but she never enjoyed those events. Conversation was always difficult above the decibel level of the music as it was customarily played at those gatherings, and she only cared to shout when something important was being said, and when the person she was addressing was sober enough to understand her.
Many weekend nights she would not go out at all, preferring instead to stay in and watch a movie or play video games with her friends. During her sophomore year, a routine developed among her female friends in which they would gather once a month at one of their houses and spend the night, the location rotating each month among the members of the group. Rachel remembered the initial sleepovers as great fun. Each girl would bring her own sleeping bag and pillow and they would stay up late into the night eating popcorn and ice cream, playing games and talking endlessly and openly among themselves. She felt more comfortable within this tightly knit collection of friends than she did around any other people she knew. There were many feelings she confided to them, and many secrets she would share with them and with no others. She came to think of them as the sisters she had never had when she was growing up.
Rachel purposely delayed her turn in hosting the sleepover, primarily because she had a self-conscious feeling that her parents' house was not a place conducive to having fun. But eventually the group had worked their way through everyone else's house and she could put it off no longer. It was an unusually cold evening in the middle of winter when the girls gathered in the basement of Rachel's house, for that was the only room large enough to accommodate six sleeping bags. They made hot cocoa that night and skipped the ice cream, as they bundled up in sweatshirts and woolen socks to ward off the chilly basement air. They retired early to their sleeping bags when the cold got the better of them, but they left the lights on low so they could talk for a while before going to sleep.
The lone heating vent from the furnace in the far corner of the basement struggled vainly to maintain a comfortable temperature, and the girls with the thinner sleeping bags shivered noticeably. Rachel went upstairs and fetched some spare blankets for them to lay over their sleeping bags, but she was short by two blankets, so she and another girl decided to zip their sleeping bags together into one double-sized bag to stay warm. It was a somewhat cramped configuration, but it served its intended purpose well. The girls giggled and joked playfully about the whole situation, and at least one raucous tickle fight broke out among them. Soon they were all snug and warm and all laughed out, and they were almost ready to go to sleep when Rachel's father came downstairs to check on them.
A frown immediately crossed his face when he saw his daughter's sleeping arrangements. "Rachel, what are you doing?" he asked.
"What do you mean?" she said.
"I mean your sleeping bags. Why are they zipped together?"
Rachel's expression hardened. "Because we were cold," she said. "What's the problem?"
"You're not sleeping like that," said her father firmly. "Now unzip those bags and close them up properly."
The girl who shared her bag with Rachel looked at her uncomfortably. Rachel could see that she was embarrassed.
"Dad, what's the big deal?" Rachel protested. "It's cold down here and we don't have enough extra blankets. This is the only way for us to stay warm."
"Don't talk back to me, young lady," her father said. "You're not sleeping like that in my house."
Rachel could feel her blood pressure starting to rise, as it often did whenever her father ended a sentence with those three words. She had never before argued with her father in front of her friends, and she did not relish the prospect of doing so at that moment, but there was no way that she was going to unzip those sleeping bags under his orders.
"Dad, we're not doing anything wrong," she said defiantly. "Leave us alone."
Her father was not accustomed to hearing such terse insubordination from his daughter, and he did not react kindly to her lack of respect. A tense argument ensued, which soon erupted into a full-throated shouting match. For several minutes they went at each other, loudly and passionately. Rachel's mother came down the stairs and attempted to calm her husband, and Rachel's friends tried to do the same for her. Her mother was in tears by the time the girls decided that they should cancel the rest of the sleepover and return to their own homes for the night. Rachel apologized to her friends as they packed up their things and got dressed to leave. She promised that she would make it up to them somehow.
"Are you happy now?" were the last words she yelled at her father that night before slamming closed the door to her bedroom. "Now all my friends think you're as big a jerk as I do."
* * *
Things were different between Rachel and her father from that day onward. Although each of them privately harbored regrets about things they had said in the heat of their argument, and they both secretly wished that the fight had never happened, they were each also convinced that the other was entirely at fault for starting it, and neither ever apologized to the other. The unfairly repressed teenager yearning to assert her rightful sense of independence from her tyrannical father could no more easily formulate words of contrition and reconciliation than could the upstanding family man who had provided for his ungrateful daughter's every need and guidance since the day she was born. Like physicists observing an experimental trial in human relativity, they saw the same event from their opposing frames of reference, and they each perceived themselves as singularly wronged.
Rachel continued to live in her parents' house until she graduated from high school, and although there were occasionally pleasant times between father and daughter, there always remained an underlying tension between them. For years Rachel's mother played the delicate twin roles of mediator between them and confidante to them both. She became adept at spotting potential points of conflict well before they arrived, and she took great pains to steer her family past them, often without revealing her hand. Rachel nevertheless realized that, had it not been for her mother's pacifying presence, she would probably have left home before her sixteenth birthday.
She turned eighteen in the spring of her senior year, and in that season of renewal she moved from childhood to adulthood quickly and confidently. Within a span of three months she got her driver's license, bought her first car, dated and broke up with her first serious boyfriend, was accepted at the college of her choice, and graduated from high school, seventh in her class of over five hundred. She did not attend her prom that year, partly because she was unattached at the time, but more significantly because the whole idea of dressing up and prancing around in high heels and an expensive gown just seemed so silly to her. Instead she spent that weekend six hundred miles away, touring by herself the campus of the college that she would be attending that coming fall.
She had wanted to make the trip alone, just her and the ten-year-old dark green Oldsmobile that she had purchased with her own money from the parents of one of her classmates. She relished the newfound sense of freedom that she felt as soon as she pulled onto the highway and left Bazelton fading into the distance behind her. It would not be her hometown for much longer, she told herself. She had purposely chosen a school that was a full day's drive away, wanting the distance to be great enough that she would not be tempted to come back every other weekend. She not only wanted to get away, she wanted to stay away. She wanted to start anew. Ahead of her lay a new life, free of the constraints of life as she had always known it—free of the chains, free of the fire. Her car could not go fast enough as far as she was concerned.
That summer passed quickly for her. She worked two jobs and saved every penny she earned, adamant that she would not be forced to ask her parents for money during the upcoming school year. She rarely saw her friends; they had jobs of their own to occupy their time, and most of them would vacation with their families for part of the summer as well. None of them had chosen to attend the same college as she had. She knew that her high school friendships were falling away, but she did not let that thought depress her. High school was what it was, she told herself, but that was over now. College was a time for growth and new experiences, and she was eager to take them on.
On the day before she was to leave for the start of the fall semester, she spent the entire afternoon packing her things into boxes and bags and loading them into her car. She sorted all of her items carefully, arranging them tightly in their containers to utilize every cubic inch of space. Everything had to fit in her car at once; she could not leave anything behind for a second trip.
Her mother watched her as she packed and offered to help with whatever tasks she could assist her with. Rachel could see that her mother was upset about her pending departure. Her mother was worried about her, Rachel saw. She was nervous for her, too. But above all she was clearly sad that the day had finally arrived on which her only child would leave behind the home that she had always made for her. She sniffled a few times as she helped Rachel pack, and at one point she excused herself and went into her bedroom alone and closed the door for fifteen minutes or so, but for the most part she kept her emotions in check that day. Rachel busied herself with her packing and did not encourage any sentimental conversation. There would be time in the morning to exchange heartfelt good-byes; that afternoon she was more concerned with making sure that her car could carry everything she wished to take with her. And while she appreciated her mother's concern and understood her desire to help, at several points she found the assistance to be more of a hindrance than a benefit.
"No, Mom," she had to say more than once. "That box is for clothes. Books go in the plastic crates, remember?"
Her mother would stop herself suddenly and put a hand to her forehead. "Of course, of course," she would say, as she moved the misplaced items to the correct container. "You told me that already, didn't you?"
Rachel let these moments pass as the nervous distractions of an anxious parent. She'll calm down in a day or two, she told herself. Then another thought crossed her mind, and it caused her to smile subconsciously to herself. She'll probably be a nervous wreck at my wedding, Rachel thought.
* * *
The next morning Rachel rose at dawn, hoping to get an early start on her long drive. When she made her way downstairs she was surprised to find her mother, still dressed in her nightgown and a bathrobe, already in the kitchen making breakfast.
"I couldn't let you go on an empty stomach," her mother explained, as she set a place for Rachel at the dining room table. "Do you want juice or coffee?"
"Juice is fine, Mom," Rachel said with a smile as she sat down. She looked at her watch and decided that she was not in a hurry. Her mother had gotten up early to make her a nice breakfast; the least she could do was enjoy it.
Her mother placed a pan of hot scrambled eggs and a plate of toast near the center of the table, then took a seat across from her daughter and sipped at a cup of coffee. "Have you got everything in your car already?" she asked.
"Yes, Mom," Rachel replied. "I loaded everything in yesterday."
"You've got all of your paperwork, haven't you? Everything you need to register when you get there?"
"There is no paperwork, Mom. Everything is electronic. All I need is my driver's license."
Her mother sipped her coffee again. "You're not forgetting any of your dormitory things, are you?"
Rachel stopped eating and looked at her mother. "I'm not forgetting anything, Mom," she said patiently. "Remember the list we wrote out yesterday? Here it is." She pulled a folded piece of paper from her pocket. "I've checked and rechecked everything. You can stop worrying, I'll be fine. Now relax and have some breakfast with me."
Her mother shook her head. "Oh, I can't eat now," she said. She put her cup down on the table and began rubbing her hands together nervously in her lap. She turned her head toward the window at the end of the table and her eyes gazed silently out into the yard, but her hands continued their obsessive movement. Rachel looked at her mother more closely in the rising light of the day and saw a profound sadness play out slowly across her face. For the first time that morning, Rachel saw the puffiness that defined the underside of her mother's eyes and noticed the red tint that ringed her irises. She wondered if her mother had slept at all the night before.
"Mom, I'm not going away forever," she said tenderly. "I'll be back for Thanksgiving, and then again at Christmas. It won't be so long."
Her mother blinked back the moisture in her eyes. "I know," she said, her voice choking up. "I know you'll be back. It's just so hard to see you go at all. It seems like only yesterday you were just a little girl following me around wherever I went, and now you're going off to college on your own." She took a crumpled tissue from the pocket of her robe and pressed it to her nose for a moment. "I know you're ready to take on the world, Rachel. You've always been so independent. But it's going to take a while for me to adjust to your absence. Just look at me—you haven't even left yet and already I'm going to pieces."
Rachel gave her a reassuring smile. "You're sweet, Mom," she said, "but you don't have to worry about me. I'll always be your little girl."
"Promise me you'll call if you ever need help, Rachel," her mother said, almost pleading. "I'd like to know that every day you don't call is a day that I'll know you're all right."
Rachel hesitated. Her heart sank at the thought of the pledge that her mother was requesting, for she was not certain that it was a promise she could keep, but at that moment she was unable to refuse. "Okay, Mom," she said. "I promise."
Her mother's countenance brightened considerably at these small words from her daughter's lips. She looked at Rachel almost bashfully. "I know it must seem silly to you for your mother to be so worried about you," she said, "but that's the way we are. It's a mother's prerogative to worry about her child whenever she wants. You'll understand how it feels when you have children of your own someday."
Rachel was willing to leave it at that. Her mother was right in a way—she didn't really understand why her mother felt as she did at that moment. Her worries seemed more than a bit excessive, but as far as Rachel was concerned she was entitled to have them if she felt so inclined. Rachel was simply glad to see that she had been able to put her mother's mind at ease.
She finished her breakfast and looked at her watch again. "I should be going now," she said.
Her mother got up from the table before she did. "I'll go and get your father," she said. "He'll want to say goodbye before you leave."
As her mother climbed the stairs, Rachel rinsed off her plate and glass and silverware in the kitchen sink and placed them in the dishwasher, then she went into the living room to wait. She did not sit down, preferring instead to stand at the picture window and admire her car as it waited in the driveway, packed tightly to the roof and sitting low on its tires, pointed toward the street.
After a minute or two had passed she heard footsteps coming down the stairs. She turned to see her father, wearing a bathrobe over his pajamas and slippers on his feet, as he entered the living room. Her mother followed closely behind him.
"Your mother tells me you're ready to go," he said.
"Yes, Dad," said Rachel. "I'm all set."
Her father looked past her toward the car in the driveway. "Looks like the car is packed pretty well," he observed.
Rachel nodded. "Yeah," she agreed. "It is."
Her father paused. For a moment there was an awkward silence between them. "Well," he said finally, "you've got a long drive ahead of you, so we won't keep you. Have a safe trip."
"Thanks, Dad. I will." Rachel stepped toward her father and they hugged each other lightly. It was an embrace that was made not so much from any strong desire to do so, but simply because it seemed the appropriate thing to do. Rachel then turned and hugged her mother, who returned the embrace more strongly and planted a series of kisses on her cheek.
"Goodbye, Rachel," said her mother. "Please drive safely. And call us when you get there, will you?"
"Yes, Mom. I'll call."
Her mother followed her as she left the house and walked her to the car. They hugged once again, then Rachel slid into the driver's seat, fastened her seatbelt and started the engine.
"I love you, dear," her mother said, as Rachel put the car in gear.
"I love you too, Mom. Bye bye."
Rachel took her foot off the brake pedal, and the car rolled slowly down the long driveway. She stopped at the curb and looked both ways before carefully guiding the heavily loaded car onto the street. As she turned and drove away, she looked in her rearview mirror and saw her mother standing on the edge of the curb, watching and waving one hand high above her head as the vehicle moved on. She remained in Rachel's rear view for several blocks, then the car crested a small hill and she dropped away abruptly behind the road. Shortly thereafter, Rachel saw the sign for the entrance to the highway. She steered the car onto the ramp, pressed her foot down firmly on the accelerator, and felt the engine eagerly respond to her command. Soon she was cruising easily northward, her elbow resting assuredly out the driver's side window which was rolled all the way down beside her, the unshackled freedom that she had sought so stridently for so long blowing in vigorous gusts all about her.
* * *
"You've got a lot to learn, Rachel."
She heard the words on a regular basis from the girl down the hall. They had met soon after moving into the same dormitory for Rachel's freshman year, and the two young women had become fast friends. Allison was a sophomore, a year and a half older than Rachel, and she knew all things about college life of which Rachel was still ignorant. She knew which professors taught the most desirable courses and which were to be avoided. She knew where to acquire used textbooks for half the price of new ones. She knew which student organizations had respectable charters and which were merely excuses for drunken debauchery. To Rachel, Allison was a walking orientation manual for a university novice such as herself.
At first Rachel was not certain that she liked Allison. The older girl was very opinionated on virtually every subject of conversation, and although her manner could not accurately be described as condescending, Rachel occasionally tired of being told how much she did not know. But her annoyance was always short-lived, for Allison was a great help to her during her first few weeks on campus. She was the first friend Rachel made at the school, and that made up for a lot. Rachel benefited highly from her companionship and her guidance. And while Allison introduced her to some of the other returning sophomores in the dorm, and Rachel made some friends of her own among the freshmen, she seemed to connect more closely with Allison than with any of the other girls she met. Something about Allison made Rachel feel that the two of them had much in common. As time went on, the pair spent more and more time together, and eventually Allison's authoritative ways grew less bothersome to Rachel.
Toward the middle of that first year, Allison began to introduce Rachel to some people who did not live in their dormitory. Some of them were students at the university who lived in other dorms or had apartments off campus. Most of them were upper class or graduate students whom Allison knew from the previous year. Others had left school after graduation and had taken jobs nearby, but remained in contact with Allison and her friends. Rachel was particularly impressed when Allison introduced her to a young assistant professor of humanities who had just joined the faculty that year. Rachel recognized the woman's name from the college course catalog, and she had been planning to enroll in one of her classes for the spring semester.
Those first encounters seemed merely social. Allison would be meeting one or two friends for coffee or lunch, or a late-night snack at the student center, and Rachel would tag along at Allison's invitation. The conversations were mostly free and light-hearted. They talked about what they had done over the summer and shared details about the courses that they were currently taking. They swapped stories about events that had occurred during the previous year, and they brought each other up to date on the activities of mutual friends who had since moved away. Rachel endured a period during which she felt very much the outsider at such gatherings. Allison was always the most talkative one among them, and her history with her friends, along with her fellowship with Rachel, gave her a natural position from which to remain the center of conversation. Occasionally Rachel would run into one of these new acquaintances around campus and they would stop and chat for a while. When she would later meet them again in the presence of Allison and the others, Rachel felt more at ease. Slowly she acquired a sense of equal standing among these new friends and no longer saw herself simply as Allison's hanger-on.
Rachel and Allison developed a routine of going out for an inexpensive lunch each Sunday. Allison knew of a local pub that served two-dollar hamburgers and fifty-cent beers on Sunday afternoons. Usually Allison would stop by Rachel's room around one o'clock and they would walk to the pub together. On one particular Sunday in early spring, however, Allison did not show up at her normal time. At one-thirty Rachel walked down the hall to see if her plans had changed.
She knocked on Allison's door to announce her arrival, as was her habit, then turned the knob and pushed the door open. Inside she found her friend pacing back and forth across the room, a telephone held tightly to one ear, deep in conversation with whoever was on the line. Allison looked up as Rachel came in and quickly cupped a hand over the mouthpiece.
"What is it?" Allison said abruptly.
Rachel saw that she was interrupting. "I'm sorry," she said. "I just wanted to see if we were still having lunch today."
"Forget lunch," said Allison. "Something else has come up."
"Okay, no problem," said Rachel, as she started to back out of the room. "I didn't mean to disturb you."
"Wait a minute," Allison said, uncupping her hand from the phone and waving Rachel back into the room. "Hey, you guys," she said into the phone, "do you mind if I bring Rachel along with me? I think we can use her."
Thus it was that Rachel was accepted into Allison's circle of friends at an entirely new and deeper level. That afternoon they met at the apartment of one of their group, fourteen of them in all. Rachel had been introduced to each of them at one time or another, but she had never before seen all of them gathered together at once. In fact, until that day she had not realized that everyone in attendance knew each other, for she had come to think of them as separate smaller collections of friends, in numbers of two or three, rather than as part of a single, larger group.
The friends congregated in the living room of the apartment. Arranging themselves in a rectangular manner around the periphery of the room, each took a seat anywhere they could find one. Four of them squeezed onto the sofa, while others grabbed chairs from the dining area or the bedrooms, and the rest sat on the floor. Rachel settled into an inconspicuous spot on the floor near one corner of the room. On their trip over from the dorm Allison had provided only a brief summary of the reason for this meeting, saying that everything would become clear once they got started, so Rachel did not feel qualified to participate in any discussion at the outset. She preferred instead to sit quietly out of the way and listen to the others to get a better sense of the group and its purpose for meeting.
What Allison had told her was this: the university had just announced the engagement of the state's senior senator to deliver the commencement address at the school's graduation ceremonies that year. The senator had served in Congress for more than twenty years and was a well-known political figure not only in his home state, but nationwide as well. He was also a recognized champion of politically conservative causes who suffered opposing viewpoints with little deference. His speeches tended to be sharp and forceful, and, save for the skills of his appointed speechwriters, would have lacked for anything approaching political correctness. Allison made it clear that everyone in her group was opposed to the senator's positions and that they planned to discuss what they might do to express their opposition publicly. "Pay attention, Rachel," Allison had counseled her. "This could get very interesting."
Once they were assembled, Rachel noticed that no one in particular seemed to be in charge of the meeting, but Allison and the assistant professor did most of the talking. The tone of the discussion was unlike any of their prior meetings. That afternoon they talked in sober, serious voices that befitted the deliberations of a jury more than the idle chatter typically exchanged among college students.
"As I see it," said Allison, giving form to the discussion, "we have two choices as to how we proceed. We could raise a full-bore protest immediately and try to get the Board of Regents to take back their invitation. Or we could just make a formal complaint now, knowing that that won't force the Board to do anything, and then hit the guy hard when he shows up."
"You would have to have a really massive protest to get the Board to change its mind," said the professor. "Those guys are stubborn and they don't like to be embarrassed, and backing down on this invitation would definitely be a major embarrassment, not to mention the financial implications."
"What financial implications?" asked Allison.
"The senator funnels a lot of federal grant money into this school," said the professor, "and the Board doesn't want to jeopardize that. He's their biggest patron in Washington; that's how he got this speaking engagement in the first place. When he says 'jump,' the regents say 'how high?'"
Allison thought for a moment. "Okay," she said, "it sounds like a full-scale effort is not what we want right now. Let's talk about what we would need to mount an effective demonstration at the commencement."
"The first thing that I would suggest you do," said the professor, "is pick a single message that you want to convey by your protest. Your protest has to be about something, and it has to be something specific. You can't just be against everything this guy is for and for everything that he's against—that's too general. Even though that may be true, you don't want to be seen waving signs and chanting slogans about every issue under the sun. That would only make you look amateurish and disorganized. You have to pick one issue and one issue only, and then stick to it. Come up with a single criticism and then repeat it over and over again. That way the press will have something definite to concentrate on when they write about it."
"Okay, sounds good to me," said Allison.
"So what do you guys feel most strongly about?" the professor asked. "Gun control? The environment? Affirmative action?"
The others in the group exchanged glances around the room. It was clear that they had never before sifted through the gritty sand of their feelings toward this man.
"What do you guys think?" asked one girl.
No one spoke immediately.
"I don't know," said another. "There are so many things I want to throw back in this guy's face, you know? It's hard to pick just one."
"Abortion," said Allison finally. "If it's got to be about only one thing, I think it's got to be about abortion."
"Yeah," said another girl supportively. "That's good."
"I agree," said another. "Abortion is topic A right now. It could decide the next election." The others nodded their approval.
"All right," said the professor. "Abortion it is. Now the second thing you need to think about is location. The commencement address will be given at the stadium. Are you going to protest outside the stadium, or are you going to do it from within the ceremonies themselves?"
"If we do it from inside it would probably be more effective," said Allison. "I like the idea of shouting the guy down while he's on the podium. It would be great if nobody could hear a word he tries to say."
"That's true," said the professor, "but you may have some difficulties there. For one thing, the number of protesters would have to be smaller. They only admit graduating seniors and advanced degree candidates and their guests into the ceremonies, so your protester pool is limited there. Secondly, they check each student for contraband before letting them in. You wouldn't believe how many students try to smuggle in water balloons and flasks of alcohol every year. I'm sure they would confiscate any signs or other paraphernalia you might try to take in."
Allison's face curled in a frown. "You're right," she said. "I hadn't thought of that. I guess we should plan for a demonstration outside the ceremonies, too. That might work out well, now that I think about it. We could do something for the media. You know, give them something more interesting to show on TV than the usual boring graduation stuff. But I still think we should nail that bastard while he's at the microphone. I think that would be sweet."
"That's fine," said the professor. "I think you can do both, you just have to have a plan. It's going to take a lot of work and a lot of people to be effective."
"How many people do you think we'll need?" asked Allison.
"Hundreds, at least."
"Hundreds?" Allison was taken aback.
"At least," repeated the professor. "Maybe a thousand. This is the big time, Allison. You're talking about a United States senator. This man has been the target of protesters for most of his career. He's not going to be impressed by a couple of dozen college kids trying to make noise at a ceremony of this size. The graduating class is close to five thousand, and on average they will each have four guests in attendance. That's twenty-five thousand people in the stadium. You'll look very weak if you try this with only a small group of people."
Allison sighed loudly and shook her head. "Wow," she said soberly, as she looked around at the others. "It looks like we've got a lot of work to do in the next two months."
"Do you think we can do it?" asked one of them.
"I don't know," Allison replied bleakly. There was a wide streak of doubt in her voice. "Off the top of my head, I would say that we could probably round up about a hundred people just by calling around to our friends and others we know. So if we set a target of, say, five hundred people, that means we would still have to recruit another four hundred in less than ten weeks. That's a tall order."
"Sounds impossible to me," said one. "We've all got a full load of classes, so any recruiting would have to be done in our spare time."
"I don't see how we can make those numbers by June," said another. "There just aren't enough days between now and commencement."
The group grew quiet. A sense of depression seemed to settle over them as they contemplated the size of the task facing them. For the first time that afternoon, the group seemed unsure of itself.
Finally Rachel's voice was heard from the corner, breaking the silence. "We can't let him get away with this," she said. She spoke unabashedly, her eyes focused on the floor in front of her, almost as if she were only talking to herself. When she looked up she saw that everyone's attention had turned toward her, and so she felt obligated to speak up more strongly. "Come on, you guys," she said with encouragement. "I think we can do it if we really apply ourselves. There are fourteen of us here, and we've got two full months to get ourselves organized. A lot can be done in two month's time. We might be surprised to learn what a group like this can accomplish if we really set our minds to it."
Allison looked at Rachel intently. "You sound like you really want this protest to happen, Rachel," she said.
"I do," Rachel replied earnestly. "I really do. I never heard of this senator before today, but I know his type. And everything about him makes my blood boil. The more I think about him, the more I despise him, and the more I want to let him know just what I think of him."
Allison's face broke into a broad smile. "Now you're talking," she said, reinvigorated. Then she addressed the group as a whole. "You know," she said, pointing toward Rachel, "with that kind of enthusiasm, I think we might be able to get this protest off the ground after all."
* * *
The next two months were a whirl of activity for Rachel and Allison and their friends. The planning for their commencement day demonstration and the recruiting of a sufficient number of like-minded participants occupied most of their waking hours. Their coursework suffered that semester as a result of their preoccupation with other goals, but for the most part the grades they posted were passing, if not commendable. In the meantime, every spare moment they could find was devoted to their newfound cause. They spent entire days in the library poring over background information on the senator who would be their target. The most incriminating data were printed on flyers advertising their cause, and these were posted ubiquitously on bulletin boards and telephone poles around campus and throughout the surrounding community. Recruitment meetings were held at the student center, at various sororities and fraternities, and in every dormitory on campus. Volunteers distributed leaflets at basketball games and other sporting events, and they accosted students between classes outside the busiest academic buildings.
Rachel maintained a list of contact information for every new recruit on her computer, and every week she reported the latest head count to the group. The first few weeks produced little progress, as the group was still learning the skills of successful persuasion and motivation of individuals from a predominantly apathetic culture. Thereafter, however, as the early recruits came forward and lent their labor to the cause, the recruitment effort gained momentum. Rachel and Allison were thrilled with their growing success.
A week before commencement day, the group held a final strategy session. Rachel was happy to report that her list contained four hundred and sixty two names, and they were recently signing up new participants at a rate of ten per day. Rachel and Allison received a hearty round of applause for their efforts, and the group made final preparations for their confrontation with their foe. They had eighty-four graduates and guests who would attempt to shout down the senator from the audience during his address. The rest of their group would march near the stadium entrances by which most of the attendees would enter and leave. Five thousand flyers had been printed up on bright red paper listing the senator's crimes. Everyone in attendance would be offered one. Allison had prepared a set of talking points, which she gave to each member of the group and instructed them to memorize. They were to be recited verbatim by any members who were approached by the news media. The meeting adjourned with a sense of anticipation and excitement among the group.
Rachel had difficulty falling asleep that night. She hoped that all of her effort would prove successful, although she could not say precisely how such success might be measured. She did not hold any illusions that this demonstration would effect a change in the senator's position on any issue, abortion or otherwise. Nor did she expect that her group would receive much favorable coverage in the press. For lack of any other goal more tangible, Rachel resigned herself to the hope that their demonstration would be an embarrassment to the senator. Politicians were sensitive to public embarrassment, she told herself. If they could just succeed in making this one man look bad, perhaps others of his kind would take notice. Perhaps in the long run the monarchs of power would learn their lesson.
The next day, Rachel returned from one of her exams to find a letter from home in her mailbox. The brief note was written in her father's hand. It read like a telegram, in short, clipped sentences:
Took your mother to the hospital yesterday. The doctors suspect Alzheimer's. Please come to see her when you can.
It took a day for Rachel to decide whether she would go home to see her mother immediately after she finished her exams or remain on campus for the protest, which was three days later. To stay through the commencement might delay her trip for several days, however, for although the group did not plan to violate any laws, the possibility of arrest could not be ruled out. Her mother would want to see her, she knew it in her bones, and that knowledge told her what she had to do. After discussing the situation with Allison, Rachel decided with mixed emotions to withdraw from the demonstration that she had worked so hard to organize. One less body, they reasoned, would not make or break the impact of their rally at that point.
On a drizzly Thursday morning, Rachel set off alone on the long drive back to Bazelton. That Saturday afternoon, the commencement ceremonies took place under a clear blue sky. The senator appeared as scheduled and addressed his audience in a strong, confident voice. The demonstrations went off as planned. The senator received polite applause when he concluded his remarks, shortly after the demonstrators were roundly booed as they were marched from the stadium by the campus police. Several of the more aggressive protesters were arrested for disorderly conduct, and afterward there were calls from some in attendance to expel from school those students who were responsible. Rachel read about it in the copy of the local newspaper that Allison mailed to her the following week.