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CHAPTER FOURTEEN
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FALCO
We sat waiting in the drive through line of Krystal, famous in Nashville for their small, addictive hamburger sliders. I hadn’t yet told Jane Doe what the plan was but marveled at the fact that she seemed at ease with her situation. I wished I knew what was going through her head. She seemed to be just going with the flow, dealing with whatever situation she happened to face.
The sweatpants and sweatshirt Waldrip had given her were at least two sizes too big on her and hung loosely around her shoulders. I had a feeling her pants would fall off her hips if the draw string hadn’t been cinched so tightly.
I moved forward in line. There was now one car ahead of us.
“I’m going to get four regular sliders, some fries and a coffee,” I said, knowing my delicious Bibb salad sitting in the back seat was going to waste. “How about you? You want hamburgers?”
She shook her head.
“Cheeseburgers?” I asked.
She raised her eyebrows and nodded.
“Three?”
She smiled and used her index finger to point up.
“Four?”
She continued to point upward.
“Five? Six?”
She smiled and nodded.
“You’re going to eat six Krystal burgers?”
She nodded and smiled, covering her reddening face with her hands in faux embarrassment.
“You’re gonna get the runs, you know that, right?”
She giggled. It was the first time I heard her voice. It made me smile.
“Fries?”
She shook her head.
“Onion rings?”
She nodded.
“So, runs and horrible breath to boot, huh? Coke?”
She nodded again.
I pulled up to the speaker.
“Thank you for choosing Krystal. Order when you are ready,” an electronic voice called out.
“I’ll take one order of onion rings, one order of fries, a medium Coke, one coffee, four regular hamburgers with extra onions and six cheeseburgers . . .”
I paused, looking at Jane Doe, “Do you want extra onions?”
“Yes, but no mustard on the burgers,” she replied.
My mouth gaped open . . . she spoke.
I smiled at her. She smiled back and shrugged slightly.
“No mustard on the cheeseburgers,” I said to the small, gray metal box.
Three minutes later, I took the freeway entrance heading south toward Franklin. Jane Doe tore into her burgers and fries like she hadn’t eaten in days, which may very well have been the case.
“Why didn’t you tell me you could talk?” I asked her.
“I did,” she replied. “I don’t like mustard.”
There was an accent in her voice. I could tell English was not her first language but she was pretty articulate. Danish? Swedish? Russian? I was horrible with accents but this one sounded all too familiar. Shit . . . what was happening? I knew that voice.
I looked at her again.
“Who are you?” I asked.
She smiled at me, then reached up and removed her wool cap, allowing a full head of thick red hair to tumble around her shoulders.
I gasped, taking in a breath and holding it. The accent; the red hair; the freckles; the pale blue eyes. I couldn’t believe it . . .
“I wish to thank you,” she said, “for all that you have done for me. You are my American hero.”
“Did you call me your . . . American hero?” I asked. My early teenage years instantly flashed before my eyes.
“Yes,” she replied. “You have always been my American hero . . . Jackie.”
Jackie? No one had called me Jackie since . . .
Oh, dear god! It was if all those years of therapy had created a giant dam, suppressing my unpleasant memories, and now the dam was bursting open and the memories came flooding back into my brain. The Russian girl with the odd accent. The foster girl, and my first . . . my first love. The woman sitting beside me . . . was . . .
“Irina?” I said. “Irina Petroski?”
She smiled, “So, you do remember.”
“Of course, I remember, but I didn’t recognize you at first . . .”
“I understand,” she said. “When I first saw you approach me, I tucked my hair under my hat and covered my freckles with soot. I didn’t want you to recognize me, but it’s me, Jackie. It’s Irina.”
Irina’s appearance had changed, but the hair, the pale blue eyes, the freckles, the accent, it was unmistakable.
It was her—there was no question.
Everything else came flooding back to me. The train station; the altercation with Billy; me walking her home; seeing her foster father fondling her; me sitting with her at lunch, drawing stares of disapproval from all the other kids . . . and the whole traumatic mess that followed which left me emotionally scarred for years afterward.
“I have so much to ask you, Irina,” I said.
“I wish to talk, yes,” she replied. “How much longer to your house?”
“Well, I’m not taking you to my home,” I replied.
She froze mid-bite. She looked up at me. There was a look in her eyes—fear, uncertainty, disappointment.
“Where are you taking me?”
“It’s someplace safe and warm,” I said, suddenly embarrassed. “It’s a homeless shelter in Franklin.”
“No! No!” she screamed. “No shelter. We go to your house, Jackie, ok?”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Irina?” I said. “I think it would be better . . .”
“No, Jackie, no shelter. Please, Jackie. Please don’t leave me . . . again.”
“I didn’t leave you,” I replied. “They took you away, remember?”
She began crying uncontrollably, “Please don’t leave me, Jackie. I couldn’t take it.”
“Ok, Irina, ok,” I said.
Irina’s pleas took me back to a time, twenty years ago . . . I remembered everything now.