“My trip was unfun.And I’m supposed to compartmentalize,and usually, I can do that.But this time, I’m not finding it easy.”
“I know you’re Carolyn’s sister.I know you don’t let shitgo.I know you got serious issues with the way people deal with theircarry-ons.But other than that, I don’t know dick about you, Georgiana, sogottasay, I don’t know what any of that means.”
“The story I’m on,” she explained.“The story I have towrite tonight and turn in so they can post it in the morning.It’s not a funstory.And I should lock it tight where it’s supposed to be, until I let it outto write it, and then lock it back up and move on.I can do that, normally.I’ve actually been on worse stories, and I could do it.This time, for somereason, it’s messing with me.”
“Story you’re on?”
“I’m a journalist.”
That explained the not-letting-go part of her personality.
“The Post?The News?”he asked.“Westword?”
“No.Online.National.Or international.TheWorldist.We’re redefining news.Or bringing it backto its roots.LikeViceon HBO.Where it’s about news, information.Not graphics and makeup and hairstyles and graying men with bushy mustachesstanding up in front of screens with attractive women thirty years younger thanthem who’ll be cast out the second they reach a certain age, but the guy willbe up there until he keels over.News that is not news because it’s shaping anarrative, even if that narrative is hooey crafted carefully to gain ratings.But a narrative isn’t news.Isn’t information.It’s a point of view.And newsdoes not have a point of view.”
Well, shit.
He’d heard ofTheWorldist,and after getting over its relatively stupid name, he’d checked it out.When hedid, not only for their video reports, but their written ones, for the lastyear or so, if he wanted the real story, he went there.To the point he had asubscription.
“That’s the problem,” she carried on.“My job is not to havea point of view.My job is to gather facts and write them in a manner they’rerelayed in a way that people can understand them.The end.But this story, Ihave a point of view.It happens.I’m human.But this one…”
She had more to say, she just didn’t say it.
“What’s this one?”he asked quietly.
“The student loan crisis.”
“And?”
“Well, there’s aid.Not a lot of it, but there’s aid.Thething is, you can’t tap into it if your parents have money.”
“Yeah, and that makes sense.”
“Yeah, it does.The thing is, some parents aren’t parents.But the aid agencies regard them as parents.So, say your mom looks after youin all ways, including financially, and you’re barely scraping by.But you wantto go to college.She can’t pay for it.You can’t pay for it.You apply for aidyou can’t get because your dad’s a high-powered attorney in DC, who makes sevenfigures, but he’s not given you or your mother a single dollar or even seenyour face or asked to do so since he took off when you were two years old.Buthis salary is calculated, and you have no shot at aid.So you have two choices.Don’t go to college, or eventually start your life weighed down by cripplingloans.And it’s alarming how many kids pick door number one.”
“College isn’t the only choice and it isn’t the only road toa good life,” he told her.
“You’re correct,” she replied.“But schooling to learn to bea plumber, an electrician, a hair stylist, an HVAC tech, a vet tech, a massagetherapist, and the list goes on, isn’t free either.”
She was right.
“So, you’re back from DC after meeting with a filthy-rich,deadbeat dad whose kid is deciding not to go to college because he’s adeadbeat,” Dutch surmised.
“Yeah.And he wasn’t big on the way our chat went, and Iassume with his demonstrated prowess in the courtroom he has a great command ofthe English language, but in communicating that to me, he chose to use wordsfar worse than the ones you use.”
“You blindside him?”he asked.
When she answered, the snap in her tone was back.
“Of course not.I told him the article I was working on andwhy I wished to speak to him.Prior to me flying out, he had a great manythings to say about ‘making your own way in the world,’ when he’s a trust fundbaby, his college and law school were paid for by his folks, and his parentsalso have chosen not to claim the results of his first marriage, a marriagethey did not approve of.He thinks she…his daughter, that is…will improve hercharacter by having to work for her future.Not that he has any clue what hercharacter is, considering when he left her, she couldn’t form sentences.”
Dutch was of a mind, if you had it, and it didn’t make themspoiled brats, you gave it to your kids.Otherwise, what was the point ofhaving kids in the first place, if you didn’t give them the things they neededto have a decent life?If you didn’t give them whatever you had to in order togive them a good life from the start until you dropped dead.
What his mother had given him and Jag.
What Hound had given them.
What Chaos had given them.
