“I know you will,” Mother says in her most soothing tone. “But you shouldn’t have to. Shouldn’t have to just make do, that is. Fine Christian folks like yourselves, you should be able to put your brilliant boy through school and not give it a second thought. A boy like that, captain of the baseball team, future valedictorian from what I hear, the hardest decision you all should be having to make is just which of the many fine schools he’s been accepted to is the most deserving of him. Not the other way around. You shouldn’t be waiting on the mercy of some financial aid officer to decide your only child’s fate.”
Mother knows far more about Roarke Richards than I have given her credit for. I wonder if her spies have uncovered all of the Richards family secrets. But clearly they have not, or else she would not be bargaining for Roarke to stand with me before the altar.
“What else can we do?” Mrs. Richards is asking, and I hear the hopelessness in her voice, the utter lack of imagination.
“Well, now that you ask, I do have an idea. I’m sure it will seem rather extreme. Shocking, even.”
Mother pauses and I can practically see Suzanne Richards leaning forward against the table, see her fingers fluttering over the wooden surface as she longs to take my mother’s hand. She is seeking salvation, with my mother playing the role of savior, a role Mother is all too willing to embrace.
“Go on,” Mrs. Richards says breathily.
“I don’t know if you’re aware of how seriously our ratings are flagging. It’s a travesty, actually, with all the good works that Matty and Daniel are doing overseas right now. I so wish we were reaching more people with their message of hope.”
“What on earth has that got to do with Roarke and college?” Mr. Richards asks. He is still annoyed, but the edge in his voice has gone. She has him interested.
Mother says, “We need something to keep the viewers invested, especially the young people, because we all know that they are the ones most in danger of straying, most in need of the example that we strive to demonstrate. Essie has plans to graduate early and spend next year in Manhattan. She’s already corresponded with some principals as well as with the chancellor of the New York City schools. She wants to teach poor children to read, bless her heart. Perhaps you saw her on television yesterday? No? Well, I know you don’t have daughters, but I’m sure you can appreciate that there is no way I can allow her to go to a place like that unchaperoned.”
Mother is rewarded with a “Goodness me, of course not” from Mrs. Richards.
“But we’ve also been told by our production team and marketing researchers that it’s important to viewers that Essie be able to find her own way in this world. They are most engaged with her when she is acting on her own, exploring.”
Here Mother sighs, and I wonder if Suzanne Richards has now overcome her shyness and reached out to take my mother’s hand.
Mother says, “It has been suggested that if Essie were married, if she had a trustworthy young man looking after her, then maybe we would feel more comfortable letting her go. Now, at first I said no, of course. She’s too young. It was out of the question. But the more I thought about it, the more sense it made. Who better to look after her than a husband? Who better for her to share this new adventure with?”
“I didn’t even know that Essie had been dating,” Suzanne Richards says.
“She hasn’t,” Mother tells her. “But why should a little thing like that stand in our way?”
“Our way?” Mr. Richards asks.
“Our way,” my mother says again. “I would very much like for your son to marry my daughter. It’s not romantic, I know, but I’m certain that they would grow to love each other. In the meantime, your family would be generously compensated for what I realize is an incredibly unorthodox proposition. I intend nothing tawdry, I assure you. They could live as friends, if they so desire. I’m certainly not in the habit of pimping out my youngest child.”
I close my eyes. The most disgusting thing about this is that Mother believes what she has just said.
“Now, let me just get this straight,” says Mr. Richards. “You want us to tell Roarke that he should marry a girl who is practically a stranger just so you can help your ratings and he can babysit her in New York?”
“And so he’d get to go to New York as well, don’t forget. We’d pay for Columbia. That would be written into the agreement. And we’d pay off what you owe on the store and on your house. Then, if the young people remain married for at least five years, enough to get Essie safely through college after taking next year off, both you and they would be given an additional incentive, with another bonus given for every five years they remain together after that.”
There is a scraping of chairs and I sense that my mother has stood, not Suzanne or Leroy Richards, who are both no doubt still somewhat dumbfounded.
“It’s a lot to take in and I’ve kept you too long as it is. I don’t expect an answer now. Go home and think it over. Do you have a lawyer? Excellent. We’ll meet again soon, and if your answer is yes, we’ll let the suits hammer out the details the next time we talk. Let me show you out.”
I consider hiding in the laundry room until they’ve gone but decide that seeing them in person can only help my cause, make this all seem real and less like some fantasy cooked up by an overbearing parent. I slip into the hall and away from the production office so that it will look as if I am just coming down the stairs. When I hear the door open, I turn and skip back down the last few steps and then come up short, as if I’m startled.
“Mrs. Richards. Mr. Richards. What are—?” I stop there, as if remembering my manners, and instead say, “It’s a pleasure to see you. Roarke hit quite a triple in the game today. I hope you’ll tell him hello for me.”
I smile and do my best to look like daughter-in-law material, the sort of girl you dream your son might willingly bring home someday, instead of the knocked-up used goods that I know I am.
Suzanne’s eyes dart toward Mother and then back to me. “Your mother has just been telling us about a plan of hers.”
I can’t let her say any more than that or else I’ll be forced to either storm up the stairs in protest like a normal teenager or come out directly in support of arranged marriages. Neither seems like a good idea at this juncture, not when what the Richardses really need is some time to sit with the idea, time to think about the money. Once they’ve done that, I very much suspect they’ll stop caring what I think or how strange all of this must seem.
Instead I giggle, a little too maniacally, so I stop abruptly and then say, “Oh, Mother’s always making plans. She’s where I get it from, I guess. Did she tell you I might get to go to New York City next year? I’ve only just begun my research, but apparently the high school graduation rate there is less than seventy percent. Can you imagine? And since it’s been established that early childhood literacy greatly impacts school performance well into adulthood, isn’t it obvious that someone has to step up and teach these children to read? Inspire them to dream of a better life for themselves and for their families? Each and every one of those children should have an opportunity to change this country for the better. They only need someone to help them take those first steps and learn the value of hard work and perseverance.”
I am talking too fast, and moreover, what I am saying is complete and utter nonsense. Mother looks aghast, but Suzanne Richards, so sweet, so in need of hope, nods at me with tears in her eyes.
“Bless you, child,” she tells me and then she and Mr. Richards leave.
When they are gone, Mother leans back against the door and faces me.
“Well,” she tells me, “that just might have worked. I think we may find you a husband in time after all.”
* * *
—————
That night I sit on my bed and retrieve the phone I practically stole from Liberty Bell’s camerawoman from where I have hidden it
beneath my mattress. I turn it on, and while I wait for it to power up, I press it between my hands to steady them. It is still too soon for me to promise anything, I know, but I can’t wait any longer. I scroll through Margot’s recent calls and there she is, under Libby B. I hear a door close down the hall as my parents shut themselves into their room. The house is still. Growing up, it had never really been quiet, not like this. Lissa would be yelling at Caleb to turn down his music or at Jacob to stop bouncing his ball against the wall between their rooms.
Mother would say, “Boys will be boys, Elizabeth. Just ignore it.” She was always Elizabeth to the others. She was Lissa just with me.
The boys were always allowed to be boys. That was a precedent that was set early on, when even Daniel and Matty were still around most of the time. They would come and go from college, but they were usually home on weekends to drop off a hamper filled with dirty laundry or to eat an entire refrigeratorful of food. They had the run of the house. They were kings of the castle. They were not ever once told no. It was different for Lissa and me. We were made to do the chores that our brothers skipped out on, no matter what their reason. We picked up the slack. We covered. We bent ourselves to their wills.
The quiet is unsettling, even though Lissa has been gone for almost four years. It still sounds alien, that vacuum where there should be something. What? I don’t know. Just something. But instead there isn’t anything at all.
I press the Call button and Liberty Bell picks up on the second ring. I do not even give her time to say hello before I speak, knowing that when I do, things will be set in motion that I will have no power to stop even if I wanted to. The same thing happened when I went to the library. Even when I was standing there, I almost walked away. My voice is barely more than a whisper and I cannot say all I need to say here, in my room, with my parents so nearby, but still I am afraid that I will lose my nerve if I don’t speak right away.
I hear a buzzing of traffic and loud voices when the line connects and I ask for the one thing that might end the quiet, fill the emptiness I feel inside.
“I need you to find my sister, please.”
Liberty
I am half a block from my apartment when she calls. I weave through the Friday-night crowds outside O’Leary’s Pub and try to step away from them and into the street, but someone is throwing up near the curb. Mama would say he’s airin’ the paunch and shake her head with disapproval. Once, when Lee Sherman puked in front of the post office, she actually made the sign of the cross in the air and turned and walked in the opposite direction. Mama never did care for excess, especially when it came to a man who didn’t know how to hold his liquor. As I break out of the throng, I begin to jog. I can barely hear Essie over the voices behind me and the fact that some driver chooses that exact moment to lay on his horn only makes it worse. I let myself into the small square entryway of our building and fumble with my keys, the phone cupped between my ear and my shoulder.
“Don’t hang up,” I tell her as the rest of my belongings clatter onto the floor. “Balls!” I exclaim, then quickly apologize as I pick up my things and eventually get my fingers on the correct key. It sticks in the lock at first, of course, because our landlord doesn’t know the difference between a screwdriver and his own dick and also because he’s counting on my getting annoyed and finally fixing the deadbolt myself. I lean my weight back while holding the handle to pull the door tight and only then can I get the key to turn. Inside, I sit on the stairs and extract a notebook from my bag, rather than tackling the two flights up to my apartment.
“Sorry about that. I was just outside. I didn’t hear you. What was it you said?”
The voice that comes through the phone is small and I am reminded once again of just how young Essie is. It is what I was trying to explain to Mike when I got home last night, though I didn’t exactly do a bang-up job of it.
“My sister,” she says. “I need you to find her.”
“Elizabeth? She’s still at Northwestern, isn’t she? She’s supposed to graduate in May.”
“That’s what the papers say,” Essie replies.
“But it’s not true?”
I hear a sigh. “It may be true. I don’t know. I haven’t spoken to her since she left.”
“When was that?”
“When she left for school. We haven’t spoken since she left for college her freshman year.”
My pencil stops then and I hold it just above the notepad that is open on my knees. I am confused.
“But she was in your Christmas card, I’m sure of it. She’s been in the stills used to promote the show every season even after she moved away.”
“But her image is not to be used in the live video,” Essie intones as if she is reading, “out of respect for her wishes to remain off camera. That’s what the PR statement says, or something like it. But she wasn’t even in those photos, not originally. She was Photoshopped in.”
“Why?” I ask.
“You don’t really care about the answer to that, do you? It’s too obvious. She’s in the photos because if she were missing, then people would start asking the really interesting question.”
“Which is?” I say, even though I already know the answer.
“Why doesn’t Lissa want to come home?”
I start writing again and as I do, I say, “And you don’t have any idea why this might be?”
“I have one idea, but I hope I’m wrong,” Essie tells me. “Find her. Tell her that I need to talk to her and that I hope she’ll talk to you.”
“What if she doesn’t have anything to say?”
“Then at least ask her if she’ll come to see me. We’ll figure out the where and when once we confirm the pre-wedding interview schedule.”
“So there’s definitely going to be a wedding, then?” I ask.
“There has to be,” Essie answers. “The show must go on, or so they say.”
All of a sudden I am scared for her. “Essie, they can’t make you get married. I hope you know that.”
“Oh, they’re not making me do anything. Not anymore. From here on out, I’m calling the shots.” Her voice is angry. “I don’t want you feeling sorry for me. Not for one second. Tell me that you understand.”
I open my mouth to say one thing and reconsider, then close my lips tightly for a moment. The truth is, I know exactly how she feels. So I tell her, “I understand. About that anyway. But I don’t understand what it is I’m supposed to be doing here.”
“You’re helping me the same way that I’m helping you,” she says. “If you want to get the interviews, then you’ll find Lissa. You get her to talk to me if not to you. Then, if I’m right about why she went away, there will be just one more thing that I’ll need you to do.”
“And what’s that?” I ask, and this time I have no idea what it is she’s thinking.
“I’ve read your book,” she tells me, as if this is an explanation. “I think it may be time to write another.”
* * *
—————
I climb the stairs in a rush once the line goes dead, taking them two at a time and grossly overestimating my fitness level. My chest is burning when I burst through the door and find the apartment empty. Mike must still be out with his law school friends, celebrating or else drowning their sorrows after today’s exam; both activities look about the same. Just as well. I don’t need any distractions. I put the kettle on to boil and then pull out my laptop. It’s been a while since I’ve read anything about Lissa Hicks that was not directly circulated by the publicity team at Six for Hicks, but this had never bothered me. She was in school. She was trying to fly under the radar. It was exactly what I would have done in her position. It didn’t mean there was anything amiss.
Even if what Essie says about Lissa not having been home since starting college is true, that still doesn’t mean there’s a story there.
A teenager hating her parents for putting her on television thirteen episodes a year and then reaping the profits is hardly shocking in and of itself. In fact, it’s barely noteworthy. All teenagers hate their parents. There’s no real outrage in that. Now, if she were trying to sue them for damages, for mental anguish and suffering, like the tightrope kid from The Circus Is in Town, then that would be a different matter. Then there would be a paper trail, legal documents to beef up the narrative, instead of just a rich and whiny teenager angry about all the ways that Mom and Dad have completely and totally ruined her entire life.
Also, how old would Essie have been when Lissa left? Twelve? Thirteen? Probably there had been some fight that she was not privy to at the time. A boyfriend of Elizabeth’s that her parents didn’t approve of, which would basically have been any boyfriend of any kind. Maybe she was experimenting with pot or alcohol or Molly, the usual things, maybe even with more hard-core drugs. Even if she has track marks between her toes, I don’t particularly care. That’s her business. Not that it wouldn’t be a hit with Sid. We all know scandal sells. But I don’t want any part of it. Still, if Essie wants me to produce her sister so they can have a heart-to-heart, I’ll do what I can. As far as I’m concerned, Elizabeth is probably the most normal family member that Essie has and it sounds like that girl could use a little bit of normal in her life.
I do a quick search and come up with nothing. Apart from the official promo material from the show, there are only a few pictures of Elizabeth since she left home. One shows her sitting on the grass outside the library, the wide stone building and its tall arched windows framed by the blue sky behind her. Her head is bent over a book, her brown hair falling forward and partially covering her face. I used to sit in practically the same place myself, last year when I was at Medill. Most of the other journalism students steered clear of the undergraduate hangouts, but I always liked the view from that particular patch of lawn. I check the date. Fall of her freshman year. So she was at Northwestern three and a half years ago. Tell me something I don’t already know.
The Book of Essie Page 6