IT HAD ALL seemed so clear to Becca when she left the house. Her mother, hearing the side door, had come outside and asked where she was going. To Northbrook Court with Kim and Mimi, Becca said. Karen frowned with sleep-heavy eyes. She didn’t believe her daughter, but was too tired to start another battle. Be home in time for supper, was all she said, besides the usual, who’s driving (Kim’s mom, Becca said quickly) and don’t charge more than twenty-five dollars, you’ve maxed out your credit for the month.
Karen was afraid her daughter was going off to pour her woes on her boyfriend Corie’s chest. She was afraid that Becca’s anger and confusion over her aunt could quickly turn into a more resolvable passion, and she didn’t want her daughter to have sex so young. If she’d known that Becca, picking up her bike, was riding neither to Corie’s nor Kim’s, but to the train station, that she was on the 11:49 to Chicago—well, how could it have made her more worried than the idea of inexpert teen gropings, no condoms, no pill, nothing between Becca and a baby but the laws of chance?
After her outburst at her mother’s cruelty in not wanting to bail Luisa out of jail and bring her home, Becca had returned to her own room. She planned to keep vigil until her father’s return, but fell immediately asleep, waking only when Harry’s Mercedes crunched on the gravel below her window at nine-thirty. She ran downstairs to eavesdrop outside the breakfast room.
“Dr. Stonds was at the station, too,” Daddy was saying. “You probably don’t remember, but he operated on Mother’s brain tumor.”
Mom’s voice, a murmur telling Daddy that Becca was sleeping. Daddy’s rasping voice dropping to a husky whisper. Stonds’s granddaughter … crazy homeless woman … (then, exasperated, more loudly) oh, who in hell knows what Janice thought she was doing? Yes, she was drunk. No, I left her in jail. You don’t need bail, disturbing the peace they let you out on your own word, but they’re holding her a few days until she dries out … hospitalization … fed up …
Becca crept back upstairs. Aunt Luisa in jail. His own sister. If she had a sister … No, she’d have a brother, he’d be in line to inherit Minsky Scrap Iron, to be crowned the new King of Scrap, as Aunt Luisa liked to call Daddy. There was nothing wrong with owning a scrap business, it was good for the planet, recycling other people’s rusty junk that they didn’t care enough to look after. When she first met Corie she almost beat him up for making fun of Daddy’s work. The kids in her school, their fathers were lawyers or doctors, they didn’t understand the value of meeting a payroll, but there was only Becca, and Daddy didn’t think he was being prejudiced, but, sweetheart, I just can’t see a girl in that rough neighborhood, It’s hard enough on me. Your grandfather never needed to use a gun, and I’ve had to take up marksmanship, not a job for a nice Jewish boy, let alone a girl.
Becca was going to be a veterinarian. Besides her dog Dusty she looked after a trio of hamsters, a tank of goldfish, and two cats, Once, when Dusty cut his paw on a broken bottle that some jerk dropped in the park, Becca held him while Dr. Kalnikov stitched him up. Dr. Kalnikov said she had a natural rapport with animals.
If she had a brother, she wouldn’t leave him in jail, especially if he was a sensitive artist, used to pampering. Mom was right, Becca hated Aunt Luisa showing up drunk, but Luisa needed looking after. Prostitutes with knives, she’d seen that on TV, women’s prison was no joke. What if someone cut Luisa in the throat and she was never able to sing again? Because of the Holocaust it was very important always to support human rights and civil rights; Harry and Karen gave a lot of money to groups like the ACLU and the First Freedoms Forum, but what about Luisa’s civil rights?
It was at that point that Becca decided to take the train to Chicago. She looked up the First Freedoms Forum address and set out. By the time she reached the city her confidence began to wane. She had been to Chicago, of course, many times—to shows with her parents, down to the South Side to visit the scrap yard—but she’d never come alone. When she was with Karen the crowds seemed exciting, but buffeted now in the cross-tides of commuters she felt frightened. She had never noticed how dirty the station was, either, with its unwashed floors, Utter dropped everywhere. The vaulted ceiling was miles away. Some tired designer had stuck particleboard cubicles into the enormous space to house fast-food restaurants. They looked like the toys of an unkempt giant, dropped randomly between the benches and ticket counters.
Becca thought about turning tail and running home, but Aunt Luisa was still in jail. She had to show there was one Minsky with compassion. She gritted her teeth and asked a cop how to find LaSalle Street.
Her courage ebbed still further as she waited in a cramped antechamber for someone to be willing to talk to her. When a young man in khaki pants and a rumpled white shirt finally came out, he did nothing to set her at ease. He stood over her with his arms crossed, looking at his watch, his files, anything but her, until she could barely get out any words.
Before she finished he told her she should be at a legal aid clinic if she couldn’t afford a lawyer. Triple-F only took cases with some constitutional significance. Like what? Oh, free speech, illegal search and seizure, that kind of thing.
“Well, my aunt’s free speech rights were violated,” Becca said wildly, picturing Luisa singing one of her arias in public, and being told to shut up.
The young man gave an exaggerated sigh, and said that Luisa’s behavior constituted a public nuisance, not protected speech. Becca by this time was close to tears.
Another attorney, a woman about her mother’s age, stopped to listen to them. “Just call over to the station for her, Stefan. Or I’ll do it if you’re busy…. Luisa Montcrief ? The diva? Are you sure she was arrested, honey?”
“Yes, she’s my aunt.” And to her own embarrassment Becca started to sob.
Stefan scuttled away as from an open sewer, which made the woman smile. “They sure don’t like any PDEs, do they? Oh—displays of emotion. Public or private depending on the circumstance. Stay here and I’ll make a couple of calls for you.”
She handed Becca a box of tissues and disappeared into the inner offices, where she was gone for some time. Becca excused herself shyly to the receptionist and was directed to a ladies’ room. She washed her face and carefully outlined her mouth again in the black lipstick Karen hated.
When Becca returned to the reception area, the woman was waiting for her. She had a man with her, an older one, who looked more like Becca’s idea of a lawyer than the young man: his hair was gray, he wore a suit, and he had a serious face with intense eyes. In fact, he looked at Becca so seriously that she thought at first he might be going to chew her out for wasting their time.
The woman introduced him: Maurice Pekiel, a senior attorney, free speech expert. She herself was called Judith Ohana. Judith had persuaded the state’s attorney to release Madame Montcrief, but, looking Becca in the eyes, your aunt is quite ill; to be blunt she’s suffering delirium as the result of alcohol withdrawal. It would be quite unpleasant for Becca to see her now. In fact, the state’s attorney had released Madame Montcrief to a bed at County Hospital until they could calm down her seizures. After that, well, it would be up to Becca and her family to decide whether they felt like bringing her home.
Becca flushed with misery … for her impulsiveness in riding downtown; for exposing herself, her family, to public scrutiny; for taking Judith Ohana’s time on a problem which now looked tawdry, not urgent; for being fourteen and not knowing what she thought or felt about anything in the world around her. She got up to leave, trying to mumble a thank-you so they wouldn’t think she cared about their opinion.
“But you’ve brought a pretty little problem to our attention,” Judith said. “Mr. Pekiel wants to look into it. The woman who was arrested with your aunt was having a religious vision at that hotel garage. We might want to support her. It could be that her religious liberty takes precedence over issues of public disturbance—well, not to bother you with technical language—but it could be she has a right to be down there, if that’s the only place she can practice her religion. So we wanted to thank you for letting us know about such an interesting situation. And can you give us your phone number? It’s always possible we might need to get in touch with you.”
By the time Becca got home she had forgotten both her fight with her mother and her airy lie about going to Northbrook Court.
“I got Aunt Luisa out of jail. And she’s in the hospital, so don’t worry, she isn’t coming here.”
A furious Karen demanded the whole story. By the time it came to an end, Becca was grounded for three days. She stalked to her room, haughty, a princess among commoners, then raced to call Corie and Kim, to show off what a heroine she’d been.