Mercy Falls

30

Jenny wore a plaid wool skirt and a rust-colored turtleneck. Her blond hair was carefully brushed. She appeared, Jo thought, very collegiate, probably a look she would abandon once she was actually attending college. It was just fine for her meeting at Northwestern with Marty Goldman.

His office was on the second floor of a three-story brick building with white colonnades, a block off the main campus. He looked like he’d been an athlete in his youth, but over the years a lot of his muscle had gone to fat and spilled over his belt. He wore a light blue Oxford with a yellow tie, and he rose from his desk to greet them, the skin of his face pink and shiny.

“I understand we’re your first choice,” he said after they’d finished with the pleasantries. “We’re always glad to hear that. Have you taken your SATs or the ACTs yet?”

“SATs.”

“Do you recall your scores?”

Jenny told him.

“Very impressive,” he said, with a lift of his brow. “What kind of extracurricular activities have you been involved in?”

“I’m the editor of the school paper, The Beacon. I’ve been on the yearbook staff for the past two years. I’m a member of National Honor Society, president of the Debate Club. I can go on,” she said.

“That’s just fine,” he laughed. “What is it about Northwestern that attracts you?”

“The Medill School,” Jenny said.

“Journalism,” Goldman said with an approving nod.

“I want to be a writer.”

“Well, we certainly have some fine authors among our alumni. And we have several writing programs in conjunction with Medill that might interest you.”

The talk was interrupted by a knock at the open door. A wiry young man a little over six feet tall with neatly groomed dark hair and a brooding look in his eyes stood just inside the threshold. He wore pressed jeans, a navy sweater over a white shirt, penny loafers. He stood stiffly, as if waiting for an invitation.

“Phillip. Come on in,” Goldman said, rising.

Phillip came forward with a stiff, military stride.

“Jenny, Jo, this is Phillip. I’ve asked him to give you a tour of the campus this morning. He’s a senior. I’m sure he’ll be able to answer any questions you might have. I’ve scheduled you for about ninety minutes. That should be plenty of time to see almost everything of interest and for a Coke or cup of coffee in the bargain.” He looked at his watch. “I’ll see you back here at twelve-thirty and we can talk a bit more. Phillip?”

“This way.” The young man led them out.

Jo hung back as they headed toward campus, letting Jenny and Phillip walk side by side in front. She was proud of her daughter, of Jenny’s confidence and goals, proud of the woman her daughter was and proud of who she was becoming. She relaxed and listened as the two young people talked. Jenny had a million questions. Phillip answered them all. He was polite, informative, but there was something in his voice that hinted at irritation, as if this were a small ordeal.

The Northwestern campus was beautiful, deep in colorful fall. The collegiate structures, the flow of students along the sidewalks, the energy of freedom that was a part of college-Jo remembered the feel of it from her own undergraduate years long ago. For her, college had been an escape. It wouldn’t have mattered where she’d gone. Anywhere, just to get away. She’d ended up with a full scholarship to the University of Illinois in Champaign, a campus that rose out of cornfields. She’d come well prepared to stand on her own, having spent her life standing up to her mother. There’d been nothing about college that intimidated her. The academics had been routine. Sex, drugs, and books she juggled easily and graduated magna cum laude.

After that had come law school at the University of Chicago, her first great challenge. She’d put aside the drugs and she’d also put aside men. Then came Ben Jacoby. When he stepped into her life, she was ready for something permanent, and until he said good-bye, she’d thought he was offering it.

Watching Jenny ahead of her, she hoped her daughter would have a different experience. Someone who would care about her the way Cork cared about Jo. Not that a man was necessary, because she remembered only too well how alone she’d often felt even when she was with a man. Ben Jacoby had changed that. For the first time in her life, she wanted to be with someone forever. She’d never let a man hurt her before, but Jacoby had hurt her deeply.

Maybe everyone needed their heart broken once. Maybe it had been that kind of hurt that helped her appreciate Cork from the beginning. From their very first meeting in Chicago.

It was spring. She still lived on South Harper Avenue in Hyde Park in the apartment where several months before she’d shared her nights with Ben. She came home from working late in the D’Angelo Law Library to find that her place had been broken into and she’d been robbed of her stereo and television. She called the police. A uniformed patrolman responded. Officer Corcoran O’Connor.

He filled out an incident report, then he spent a while looking over her apartment inside and out. Finally he sat down with her.

“I’ve got to be honest with you. There’s very little chance of recovering your stolen property. No serial numbers, almost impossible to trace. But I’d like to make some recommendations for the future. First of all, I’d get a better lock on your front door.”

“He didn’t come in the front door. He came through the window.”

“I understand. But almost anybody could break in through the front door if they were so inclined, so I’d get a good dead bolt. Now, about the windows. I think you should put bars on them.”

“I don’t relish the idea of living in a jail,” she said.

“Ever been in jail?”

“No.”

“It won’t feel like a jail, I promise. I understand you object to having to barricade yourself, but that’s the reality of your situation. In a way, you’re lucky. This time, they only stole from you. Next time, they might be after something different.”

“As in rape.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I don’t know that I can afford bars on the windows,” she said.

“You don’t need them on all your windows. I’ve checked around back. You’re on the second floor, so you’re fine there. But in front, with the porch and that elm, you’re vulnerable. Really, your landlord ought to be the one who puts them on. If you get flack from him, I know where you can get them at a reasonable price.” He cleared his throat. “And I’d be glad to install them.”

“You?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Please stop calling me ma’am. And why would you do that?”

“I know you volunteer your time helping people who can’t afford a lawyer. I’ve seen you in the storefront office on Calumet.”

“Yes.”

“You do it, I’d guess, because you believe it’s the right thing to do. Considering your situation here, I just think it’s the right thing to do.”

She studied him. He looked a little older than she, maybe twenty-six or twenty-seven. His hair was red-brown, shorter than she preferred on a man, but that was probably a dictate of the job. He wasn’t handsome, not like Ben Jacoby or many of the others she’d been with, but there was a sincerity in his face, in his words, in the sound of his voice, that was attractive.

“That’s it?” she asked with a sharp edge of skepticism. “You’d do that without expecting something in return?”

He capped his pen and scratched his nose with it. “You cook?”

Halfway through the ninety minutes that Marty Goldman had allotted for the tour, Phillip took them out to a long, grassy point on which nothing had been built. Lake Michigan lay to the east, a stretch of blue that looked as enormous as an ocean. Several miles south, clear in the crisp air of late morning, rose the Chicago skyline, as beautiful as any city Jo had ever seen.

Jenny stared at it for a long time. “Now I know what Dorothy felt like when she saw Oz.”

“This is where I come when I need to get away,” Phillip said.

“You like it here?” Jenny asked.

“It’s my favorite spot.”

“No, I mean do you like Northwestern?”

There was a breeze off the lake with a slight chill to it. Jenny hugged herself, and Phillip, without making anything of it, moved to block the wind.

“I wanted to go to school in Boulder,” he said. “I love to ski.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“This was my father’s preference.”

“That’s the only reason? I’d never go somewhere just because my father wanted me to.”

“Lucky you,” he said coldly, and turned back toward campus. “We should be going.”

They stopped at the student union. Jo ordered a latte. Phillip did the same. Jenny didn’t usually drink coffee, but she ordered a latte as well. They sat at a table for a few minutes.

“What’s your major?” Jenny asked.

“Pre-law.”

“You want to be a lawyer?”

“My father wants me to be a lawyer.”

“What do you want to be?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Because you’re going to be a lawyer like your father wants.”

“He pays the bills.”

“I don’t know,” Jenny said. “To me, that sounds like a recipe for an unhappy life.”

“You’re a lawyer,” Phillip said to Jo. “Do you like it?”

She didn’t remember telling him that she was an attorney, but maybe it had come up in his conversation with Jenny and she’d just missed it.

“Yes, I do,” she replied.

“I’ve never known a happy lawyer,” he said. “We should be getting back.”

At the door to the admissions office, he stopped. “This is as far as I go. I have a class to get to.”

“Thank you, Phillip,” Jenny said. “We really appreciate your time.” She shook his hand.

“Look,” he said, “I apologize if I seemed rude. I’m a little stressed these days.”

“You were great,” Jenny said.

“Yeah, well, good luck. If Northwestern is really what you want, I hope you get it. Nice to meet you,” he said to Jo.

Inside, Marty Goldman’s secretary asked them to wait a few minutes. Mr. Goldman was still with someone.

“How did you like the campus?” she asked. She was a small black woman who spoke with a slight Jamaican accent.

“It’s beautiful,” Jenny said.

“Isn’t it? And your guide?”

“He was fine.”

“Good. He’s not one of our usual group. He was a special request, as I understand it. His father, I believe. You must be friends of the family.”

“And what family would that be?” Jo asked.

“Why, the Jacobys, of course.”