Truths of the Heart (2 page)

Witty, healthy, a confirmed open-to-evidence, seeker-of-truth junkie,
not a false bone in her body, Rachelle loved three things: books, sailing, and
her Persian cat, T.S. Eliot. On the other hand, she hated two things:
irrespective of right, left, or middle perspective—narrow-minded causes, and
flying in any machine that got more than an inch off terra firma.

As for her loves, first things first: T.S. Eliot was a caramel colored
Persian with immense blue eyes. Rachelle got him when, watching the local PBS
station's annual auction, they took a close up of his face. She fell in love
instantly, bid $250 and got him. T.S., then four weeks old, had from the start
such an intellectual air about him that she named him after the famous poet she
venerated.

As to the book thing, she got that from her mother, Esther. A librarian
for twenty years in Lansing's public library system, a lover of literature,
books, words, ideas, Esther often remarked, when in libraries, she felt like
the keeper of humanity. She insisted that she, when in the 'stacks', heard
voices.

Esther, Jewish, nurtured young Rachelle in the Old Testament teachings.
But Rachelle, in her twenties, had ditched the formalized intolerance she felt
all religions offered. Still, she couldn't bring herself to believe that all
this was accidental.

As to the sailing thing, Rachelle got that from her father, Eric
Zannes. Eric, raised in the Catholic faith, but had in his mid-twenties dumped
the Church. Rachelle remembered him saying, “Apostatizing the fear of hell's
damnation, bloodletting in the name of love.”

The Church had refused to marry Eric and Esther. She was a Jew. He married
her anyway and told the Bishop to “stick it.”

Eric, a passionate artist, painted mostly in oils. His work won awards
at a few local art shows and he sold an occasional piece. His landscapes, still
lifes, and portraits were admired, but he was hounded by critics: “Eric is old
school', mimics skills perfected long ago, the ole boy's fait, non nouveau,
moyenne.”

To escape it all, Eric coveted the good-weather weekends when he drove the
family to their cottage on Houghton Lake. There, on a twenty-six foot sloop he
had christened
Esther II,
Eric sailed daughter and wife over the
shimmering miles of Houghton Lake's silvery water.

Then it happened: Rachelle, eighteen, everything in her life proceeding
along like a Dick and Jane primer, felt what her father often called 'the
hammer of life'.

Eric, a month past his forty-fifth birthday, frustrated with the sick
frowns and wise cracks from art critics, fearing his work was pedestrian (he
often quoted W. Somerset Maugham's Philip Carey in
Of Human Bondage:
“In
other things, if you're a doctor or you're in business, it doesn't matter so
much if you're mediocre. You make a living and you get along. But what is the
good of turning out second-rate pictures?”), took his life.

After Eric's death, Esther resigned her library position, sold the
family bungalow in Grand Ledge (10 miles west of Lansing), and moved to the
cottage on Houghton Lake. Rachelle, just graduated from high school, entered
Michigan State. She loved East Lansing and, determined to teach at M.S.U.,
excepting for a year sabbatical to lecture at New Zealand’s University of
Auckland, she was now a full professor at Michigan State.

Her mother passed away shortly after Rachelle received her PhD.
Rachelle inherited the cottage on Houghton Lake, and the past now like used
aluminum foil folded and put in a drawer, when there was time, there was so
little anymore, she dashed the two-hour drive north to Houghton Lake to escape
and sail
Esther II
.

Wiping sweat from her elegant brow, another gust of cool wind stirred that
right-brain wallowing nightmare. She knew full well the origin of the unrest:
her upcoming marriage to Carl Bostich.

The wedding day, set for next Saturday, August 10, was to be performed
during half-time of ESPN's preseason Detroit Lions/Chicago Bears football game.
The game would be played at Detroit's Ford Field in front of 65,000 fans and a
TV audience of millions. The nuptial event was the brain child of the Lions' PR
department. They had two objectives in mind: promote newly hired Carl Bostich
(he would be teaming up to do color commentary with the “Voice of the Lions”
WJJ radio announcer Corky Dixson), and to hype sagging ticket sales. When first
broached to Rachelle, she laughed herself silly:

“You have to be kidding, start of fall classes is August 26, too tight
a turn around, forget it.” Pressed by what seemed the entire Lions' staff, she
dismissed it with a flat and final, “Not on your best day!”

But with the Lions' front office pleading, Carl pouting incessantly—it
was the only game they could fit the wedding in, alternate event scheduling,
Carl's new career needing a grand kickoff—Rachelle had relented.

And now, in six days, always there, looming like Godzilla over Tokyo,
the monster wouldn't go away except for times when she took control, like now.

She focused her thought to, just three weeks away, the launch of her
new Com. 501 class. The course would consist of sixteen credit hours over two
semesters, emphasizing creative expression in the written word. She recited the
syllabus: “A passage to the imagination, a journey of ideas, not to what is,
but to what might be. Art that inspires the moral imagination.”

If successful, the curriculum would become a permanent offering of the department.

Just then, from her belt pack, her cell phone rang. She looked, the caller
ID read Carl. She answered, “Hi, Carl.”

“Hey babe, what's going on?”

“Just taking a jog, how about you?”

“I tried to call the house, phone just kept ringy dingy, what does that
tell you, dear?”

Rats
, “I must have
forgotten to turn on the answering machine.”

“RIIIGHT. Babe, we can't be forgetting things like that now can we?”

“Sorry. What are you doing?”

“Brushing up on player stats, then going over to the Niner stadium with
Cork for the game. What time is it there?”

She looked at her Timex: “Three.”

“Noon here.”

Rachelle said, “Nervous?”

“Bout what?”

“The game.”

“Nah, piece a cake, playing for keeps.”

She knew better. “How do you think the Lions will do?”

“The Lions suck this year.”

“How's the weather in little cable-car land?”

“Huh?”

“Tony Bennett….”

“Christ, that fag.”

“How's it otherwise?”

“Rain, fog, cold, my nose is plugged up ever since we landed and my arm
is killing me, back too.”

“Sorry.”

With a touch of sarcasm, he added, “How's the weather in beautiful
Lansing?”

“Beautiful.”

“You're going to listen to the game aren't you?”

“Where is that again?”

“Babe, where have you been? Lansing it'll be on WLSC-AM.”

“Oh, good, I'll listen.”

“And don't forget, flight gets in tomorrow afternoon, 5:30, meet me at
the baggage claim, curb side.”

“Please.”

“And I'll want to get something to eat, then hit the rack. Don't forget
to paint your toe nails, know what I mean?”

“Hope you're not too tired.”

“Never. All ready for next weekend?”

“I'm psyching myself up.”

Pause, “What's that mean?”

“Nothing, be good, have a wonderful game and a safe flight, see you tomorrow.”

Pause, “Did you forget something?”

“Like what?”

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

“Love you babe, bye.”

CHAPTER TWO

His crew cut hair the color of seasoned leather, Carl Bostich's
receding hairline belied his age—twenty-seven. Just over six feet one, he
weighed two hundred and fifteen pounds. His swamp-water green eyes looked at
you like he knew the answer before you asked the question. Sports announcers
often noted that his hands “look like a bunch of ripe bananas.”

Carl and Corky, passengers in a clunking Checker Cab, the San Francisco
stadium ten minutes away, Carl ignoring the no smoking sign and placing a Kool
King cigarette between his thin lips. He lit up with a Bic throwaway lighter.
The cab driver, knowing his passenger's celebrity, said nothing.

Carl had taken up smoking to calm a “why-me” obsession that had its origin
in a fluke accident. Media headlines, etched in his memory like a ghoulish
joke, said it all:

CARL BOSTICH INJURED, MAY NEVER PLAY AGAIN

BOSTICH OUT FOR GOOD

LIONS LOSE STAR QUARTERBACK

So too etched, were the press reports:

CHAPTER THREE

After her jog, Rachelle returned to her Bessey Hall office, tidied up
her desk, and walked to the faculty parking lot where she coaxed her lime-green
Saab sedan to life. She had bought the car show room new, paid it off in three
years, become emotionally attached.

Pulling out of the parking lot, she felt a bit of nostalgia. She turned
and drove west to Grand Ledge. In fifteen minutes, turning on Tulip Street, she
slowed and stopped in front of a white bungalow that had been her childhood
home. She noted that the house was in need of a paint job. And the maple in
front had grown so very high. She remembered her father mowing the lawn.

On the drive back to her house on Lake Lansing, hungry, she stopped to grab
some 'rabbit food' at a Wendy's salad bar. At a window table, eating, her cell
phone rang. She looked at caller ID—Carl. She answered, “Hi.”

Carl: “Hey babe, where you at?”

“Just grabbing a bite to eat.”

“Where?”

“Wendy's.”

“I hate them joints.”

“Where are you?”

“Forty-niner’s stadium.”

“That must be exciting.”

“Playing for keeps, babe. Don't forget to catch the game, it'll be on