Rachel (Songs of Submission #5.5)(3)

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.”