"Cooney, Caroline B - Janie Johnson 03 - Voice on the Radio" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cooney Caroline B)

Vinnie said to him, "Remember I had Derek Himself ask for volunteers 'cause we need more disc jockeys?"
Reeve nodded.
"Guess how many people called in?"
"How many?"
"Eleven. Guess how many said they wanted to be just like you? Go overnight from pathetic lame freshman to campus star?"
"Eleven?"
"You're pretty conceited, fella." Vinnie grinned. The 'phone lit up. "Hi, you've reached WSCK, We're Here, We're Yours, We're Sick," said Reeve grandly, "how may I help you?"
Vinnie held up ten fingers. Reeve went wild beneath his shrug. Ten people wanted to be Reeve. Eat your heart out, world, thought Reeve. I'm the only one.
"Listen, I just have one question," said the caller in a childish voice. They all said that. Listen, I just have one question.
Listen, I have all the answers, thought Reeve.
S S S
Jodie was telling Janie about the day she and Stephen had gone into New York City thinking they could find Hannah.
"How'd you get away from Mom and Dad?" said
Brian, awestruck. Mom and Dad would never have allowed Jodie and Stephen to go into New York City alone.
"We lied," said Jodie, and Brian was thrilled and stunned that his good, decent older sister and his difficult, moody older brother had had this pact between them, this lie, this adventure.
"And did you find her?" said Brian seriously.
"Bri, get a life. How could we find her? There are seven million people in New York City."
"Then what made you look to start with?"
"Remember the police report? She'd been arrested in New York two years before? Of course, back then they didn't know she was the kidnapper, they just thought she was a common hooker, they wouldn't figure out who the kidnapper was until Janie figured it out. Stephen and I thought she might still be in New York, so we went there."
Brian had been to New'York with school groups. He hadn't been able to find the Metropolitan Mu-'seum, never mind one particular woman out of seven million. He forgot about being so nice to his sisters that they would agree to go to Faneuil Hall with him. "Pretty stupid to think you could find her."
"We felt stupid all day long," Jodie agreed, "but we also felt okay. It's hard to describe. At the end of the day, I didn't want to murder Hannah. Or you either, Janie."
Janie made noises of irritation. "I don't see why you had fantasies of murdering me. I had no choices in this whole thing. And besides, what if you had found Hannah? Nothing could be worse.
Do you realize what we would go through if Hannah appeared? A trial."
It would be Hannah accused in court, but it would be Janie's mother and father who were tried, by television, and radio, and newspapers, and neighbors.
"We'd be on CNN for a year," pointed out Brian. He thought this was cool, but he knew his parents and Janie's parents didn't. They'd die first. Hannah might deserve a trial, but they didn't, and there was no escape once these things began.
Brian thought of himself on the witness stand, being calm and handsome and knowledgeable. Of course, he wouldn't be called. He'd been a toddler in diapers when it had happened. His mother had literally kept the twins on leashes; little harnesses as if they'd been dogs pulling carts. Brian hated to look at photographs of himself on a leash.
How quickly Janie and Jodie left the fascinating topic of Hannah. Brian wanted Janie to talk about what her Johnson parents thought when they thought about Hannah. Were they full of guilt? Anger? Horror? What did they say out loud to the daughter they had acquired by theft?
He listened to his sisters talking, enjoying the plural: two sisters. But they were boring, which was the habit of girls, talking about the personalities of boys instead of anything interesting, so Brian stared out the window instead. Turnpikes at night were like girl talk: not interesting.
0 5 5
Jodie was a good driver. They drove north on 395, rural with little traffic, and picked up the Mass
Pike, where a steady thrum of trucks pushed them faster and faster toward Boston.
Janie wondered when she would develop a desire to drive. She felt stunted sometimes, as if the discovery of her two families had cut off something essential; kept her a child while everybody around her grew up.
Janie knew suddenly that the Johnsons were all playing house: her mother, her father and her- staying little, staying inside.
She played with the radio dial. Both New York and Boston came in clearly. She loved thinking about Reeve on radio. She loved thinking about Reeve. Boston sounded so romantic. While Jodie was touring colleges, Janie could be with Reeve. She thought of wedding gown fabric: satin, lace, velvet, brocade. She thought of veils and gloves.
She laughed to herself in the dark of the car, but it was no joke. She dreamed of a life with Reeve. In this life, he was not just standing with his arm around her; he had his arms around all the players in this sad game, and she and they loved him for being sturdy. She thought of him in terms of wedding vows: for better or for worse. He had certainly seen her worst, and had waited calmly for her best to return.
One thing she knew. Reeve was sick of calm. He'd like some wild in their relationship.
Janie pretended Reeve was next to her, and she snuggled up to his invisible heat, warming herself on his invisible chest.
S S S
Reeve was tired of gentle janies. He'd rehearsed truly wrenching janies for tonight. It would be his best night. People phoning 'in would get busy signals.
He waited for ten o'clock.
Derek was offering a prize to the listener who could answer a Boston music trivia question.
Prize~
A phrase Reeve associated with Martin Luther King filtered through his mind. Keep your eyes on the prize.
What was that prize, for Reeve?
He did not need freedom. He had too much of it. The prize, for Reeve, was not to use his freedom.
The prize is not a million listeners, and money, and fame, thought Reeve. The prize is shutting up.
If he shut up, nobody would hear his really good j anies.
Besides, I won't get caught, he told himself.
Anybody who worries about getting caught knows he is wrong. Reeve did not want to think about right and wrong. He just wanted to enjoy his new place in the world. He resented Martin Luther King for appearing in his mind, righteous and judging.
He whispered prize to himself, turning the prize back into a pair of Derek's tickets.