Teresa turned the white sedan onto another highway,
this one heading due north. She’d made it out of Chicago and across the border
into Wisconsin. Once she got through all the toll booths, it had been smooth
sailing.
'How am I going to do
this?’ She asked herself over and over again. ‘What was I thinking by even
thinking I could be a journalist?’
She knew why.
She had just started
high school—a thin, shy girl with long, black braids trying to fit in at
another school. As a migrant worker, her mother moved the family frequently,
keeping up with what crops were being harvested. Teresa had lost track of the
schools she attended, the towns they had lived in. Most of the children of the
migrant workers didn’t go to school at all, but Teresa’s mother insisted she
get an education and make something of herself. At fifteen years old, she had
no idea how she was going to make that happen.
She was in English class
when the principal came over the PA system. In a shaky voice, he announced that
the president had just been assassinated in Dallas. Shock flowed through the
silent classroom like a wave on a calm beach. The English teacher started to
cry. Several female students followed suit.
How could President
Kennedy, so young and dashing, with two small children, be dead? Who would do
such a thing?
Teresa looked at the
clock.
Class would be out in a
few minutes. It was a Friday afternoon. Dallas was only thirty-five minutes
away. Maybe somehow, with someone, she could get a ride.
It had never crossed her
mind before. In that one instant, Teresa felt as if her life was laid out
before her. Her dream had always been to join the Peace Corps, but she had no
desire to go into the medical field or teaching. But suddenly she had the
answer. She would become a journalist for a big-city newspaper and cover big
news—assassinations, wars, riots. She could make something of herself and help
to make something of others.
As it turned out, she
didn’t make it to Dallas that November day. A few years later though, she found
herself in the big city attending college on a scholarship.
Teresa, the young and inexperienced journalist in my
newest novel, “The Truth Beyond the River”, most likely, I suppose takes after
me. I, too, had dreamed of joining the Peace Corps, and like Teresa, I had no
idea as a high schooler what work I would do there. I never wanted to be a
journalist, per se, but always wanted to be a writer. Fiction seemed so much
more interesting than journalism.
Like me, she is shy and insecure, but has her inner
strengths and sometimes blurts out things without thinking them through. Teresa
also has a strong sense of right and wrong, is passionate for the underdog, and
refuses to sit by while injustices occur. She is a gentle spirit.
One thing she learns through the experiences we read
about in the book is that as a journalist her job is to get to the truth and to
share it with her readers. I hadn’t thought of it as I was writing the book,
but isn’t that what many of our news reporters are lacking in these current
crazy times?
I don’t know where I came up with her first name,
but Teresa’s last name, Estrada, was the last name of a writer friend of mine
who moved away over twenty years ago and we lost touch. I did a web search of
her a few years ago and found her obituary. It about broke my heart. Life is
short; another lesson learned in my novel.
 |
| On the day of my high school graduation, full of dreams of the future. Or just hating to get my picture taken. |
No comments:
Post a Comment