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helping to support her family. She felt guilty for having it so much better. And really, she couldn’t imagine going to school and not seeing her best friend every day.
    But there was nothing Carolyn could do about it, and that was what happened.
    When Rachel’s mom died, Terry and Rachel moved into a two-family house on Mayfield Road, above an auto parts store. Her dad came back for the funeral and claimed ownership of the house, which he eventually sold before moving the two boys to Minnesota. Rachel found a job as a receptionist at a dentist’s office, and it was there that she met a woman who worked for Jenkins Realty. This woman convinced her to become the office manager, took her under her wing, and made sure she got her license.
    Rachel was a natural at real estate. She truly enjoyed helping people find just the right home, allowing them to envision how their house would look with new wallpaper, curtains, and the right places for their furniture. Despite her lack of a diploma, she was a whiz at math, and could estimate the monthly mortgage costs better than most mortgage brokers could. At this time, with interest rates up around 20 percent, it was tough to sell houses, but Rachel was always one of the top performers in her office.
    So Carolyn enrolled in college, at John Carroll University, but lived at home and commuted to school. She saw Rachel at least once a week, and they made a point of talking on the phone every single day. They helped each other through all of the travails of life as only sisters could. Mrs. Hamilton insisted Rachel get her GRE, and Carolyn drilled her the night before the test, which Rachel passed with flying colors.
    By this time, Rachel could afford her own place, which was fortunate because Terry had moved in with Tommy Staziak, a hard-drinking Polish guy who—guess what?—drove a forklift truck for a living. It wasn’t long before she was pregnant with Tommy’s baby. The sins of the mother were visited upon the daughter. Rachel tried her best to like Tommy, but he just reminded her too much of her father. By the time baby Cheryl was born, Tommy was starting to dabble in hard drugs and would disappear for days at a time.
    In order to support herself and the baby, Terry had to work several jobs, so Rachel fell into the same old pattern of taking care of others, only this time it was a little baby girl. By the time Cheryl was walking, she was spending as much time with Rachel as with her mother, and that meant she was spending a good deal of time with “Aunt Carolyn.”
    By Wednesday of most weeks, Carolyn would call and ask, “Rach, what do you want to do this weekend?”
    “I don’t know, sweetie, what do you want to do?” was the usual reply.
    Often they would double date, or just go to the movies together. Neither of them had found anyone special, but both were confident that eventually the right guy would come along.
    Then one Saturday morning, upon entering a diner to have breakfast, they noticed a familiar face on the top of a stack of newspapers. There, right on the front page of the
Cleveland Plain Dealer
, handsome as could be, was Danny Turner. He’d finally made the big time.

C HAPTER 4
    The Price of Fame
    Fame is a bee
.
    It has a song—
    It has a sting—
    Ah, too, it has a wing
.
    —Emily Dickinson
    A BOUT A MONTH after Barney died, and the saws were stolen from Tager’s, Tony decided it would be a good idea to nip a twenty-dollar bill from the cash register while the manager, Phil, had his back turned. Unfortunately, something told Phil to turn around right at that instant, and he grabbed Tony’s hand before he could stash the bill in his pocket.
    “What do you think you’re doing, bozo?”
    “I wasn’t really gonna take it. I just wanted to see if I could trick you,” was the best Tony could muster on such short notice.
    Tony couldn’t believe Phil would be such a rat as to tell Tager about a minor infraction such as this, but it was the very next thing