The Education of Giacomo Jones Ch. 06

Rance and Gia nodded.

"And as for the location for the interview, we can use the residence if you wish. It's secure and it's private, commercial vehicles come in and out of there all the time and no one will ever know. That's an option for you to consider. Also, you might have a location you prefer even more," Vangie said.

A woman in a nondescript gray sweater, jeans, a woolen scarf and a New York Mets baseball cap pulled low over her face had escaped notice as she ordered coffee at the counter. It wasn't until she wandered toward the rear of the café that she caught Vangie's eye. By then, however, Caroline Agostinelli had spotted them.

"Hi, Gia?" she said walking cautiously toward their booth.

"You must be Caroline," Vangie said, rising to shake her hand. "This is Gia Jones and this is her boyfriend, Rance Martin. I'm Evangeline Overshaw but call me Vangie. My husband is the university president, but Gia and I have become friends since ... what happened."

"More like a second mom," Gia said as Caroline took a seat in the booth beside Vangie and across from Gia and Rance.

Caroline was refreshingly devoid of pretense or guile in introducing herself. She laid out a tremendous record of behind-the-scenes achievement at the highest-rated, longest-running news magazine program in television history. In recounting her reporting, research and project management on important, Emmy-winning pieces done alongside names as legendary as Morley Safer, Mike Wallace, Diane Sawyer, Ed Bradley, Bob Schieffer and, yes, Bill Whitaker, she stressed her credentials as a worker bee, not a diva.

Whitaker's assignment to a hush-hush piece reported largely overseas was, she said, the chance she had always dreamed of to work her way up through the system at CBS and achieve the status, increased editorial freedom and income afforded to correspondents.

"So that's why I'm here in front of you right now. To ask for that chance to tell your story to the world and to do it well enough to not only do well by you and our viewers but, in doing so, to achieve a personal dream of mine," Caroline said. "Used a vacation day and flew here on my own dime. That's how much I want this."

She had won Gia over with her candor, but also her life story. She was raised in a large Italian Catholic family in Hillsdale, also in Bergen County, New Jersey, a short drive from Ridgefield Park. Gia had played soccer against the all-girls Catholic upper school Caroline had attended in the 1990s. Caroline had worked her way through Rutgers University and become the first member of her family to earn a degree, a feat Gia was less than two weeks from achieving. But what sealed the deal was Caroline's accent, her Jersey-girl manner. It was as though they had grown up on the same block.

When it came time to hear from Gia and Rance, Vangie interjected just to clarify the ground rules. Caroline had no objection to the whole conversation being off-record — that the trip never even took place unless Gia and Rance later expressly approve portions of the conversation. She heard Gia and Rance out on what they would and would not discuss for publication and agreed to it.

"So, we got a deal?" Caroline said.

Gia looked at Rance, who gave her a nod that said he had no concerns. Then she looked to Vangie, who also nodded and gave her a discreet thumbs-up.

"Caroline, anyone who knows me knows I hate being the center of attention. As Rance will tell you, I had been on the Fulbright athletics equipment management staff for nearly two years before anyone could recognize me because I wore sunglasses and a visor all the time," she said.

"I want you to understand this: I am agreeing to this interview for two reasons. The first is to help you expose whatever is badly wrong with New Jersey's juvenile corrections system and the second is to let young women know that they have a voice and not just the capacity but an obligation to stand up to evil. If you can be faithful to those objectives, we have a deal."

Caroline smiled, reached her hand across the table and shook Gia's first, then Rance's. "Deal."

●●●

You couldn't have scripted the fall semester at Fulbright University and sold it to a Hollywood studio. Fiction must impart to a viewer or reader the ability to suspend disbelief. It has to be plausible enough that the mind needn't struggle to imagine it.

A perennial football cellar-dweller winning 10 regular season games and drawing a berth to the Sugar Bowl?

A sociopathic killer freed without warning from a New Jersey juvenile lock-up and finally being brought to his end by the ultimate victim he sought out — a Fulbright honors scholar on the football equipment staff?

A serial-rapist professor who had pressured scores of female students into accommodating him sexually until he made the fatal error of trying to proposition the same young woman who brought about the aforementioned sociopathic killer's bloody death?

And a romance for the ages between that 19-year-old woman (on the cusp of turning 20) who was about to graduate at the top of her class in the the fall commencement with a degree in microbiology and start grad school and a similarly bright football player on the winningest team in school history.

You can't make this stuff up. And because of it, the eternal somnolent village of Fallstrom and the campus were buzzing with energy. The town and the school were the talk of news and sports media.

It seemed that a tornado of concurrent events had consumed them since September, but now things were accelerating even faster in the chaotic end to the semester. And so it stood on Dec. 18 as Gia Jones awaited in the tunnel of another Fulbright sports arena, the Moultrie Coliseum, at the front of a log queue of robed candidates for graduation. And when all the grade-point numbers were finally crunched, Gia's was four one-hundredths of a percentage point higher than that of the salutatorian, a visiting student from Israel.

It was a moment she felt compelled to remember. She set her iPhone to its video setting, hit record and panned it around the cavernous basketball venue — the floor filled with folding chairs that were about to be filled, the riser before them festooned with forest green and gold drapes, flags of the United States and South Carolina and the lectern where Gia would give her valedictory address before the hour was over. She panned the camera back around, this time at the crowd of moms, dads, brothers, sisters, grandparents, lovers and friends still staking out seats to watch their special student in the pinnacle moment that everything since the first day of kindergarten had pointed toward. Among them, at what would roughly be the midcourt seats by the time Fulbright played host to Wofford in basketball the next night was her love, Rance Martin, Rance's parents, Gia's own mother and a slightly balding, lean and striking man in a gray tweed sportscoat and black turtleneck sweater.

Well, I'll be damned, Gia thought to herself as she attempted to zoom in on her video. Emmett Burson's photos on LinkedIn, Facebook and the Gartlan Realty website didn't do him justice. Not bad, Ma. Not bad at all.

It was at that moment that Emmett noticed what he surmised to be Gia and pointed her out to Callie and to Ed and Lorrie Martin. Rance had already spotted her and texted her a mushy note. Callie squinted, then smiled and waved discreetly to her.

Two months earlier, Callie was in the grips of one of her life's lowest points in Fallstrom and on Fulbright's campus as her daughter struggled with the mental and emotional trauma of gothic violence that had stalked her and come to a grisly conclusion literally a few feet over Gia's body as she crouched over a wounded classmate. Now, as she watched her daughter not only become the first in her family's history to earn a four-year college degree but finish at the head of the class at an elite private university, she seemed galaxies distant from the dark recent past.

The Fulbright student orchestra's herald trumpets signaled the start of the processional, and was the cue for Gia to put away her phone, correctly position the mortarboard and tassel on her head and lead the grand march of graduates into the arena. Applause rose from the surprisingly large crowd. Ten minutes later, the processional came to a close and graduation candidates stood in front of each seat until Arthur Overshaw, in his robe and various academic vestments asked them to take their seats.

A full half-dozen individual awards, recognitions and medals were conferred by various colleges within the university on students who had exhibited extraordinary achievement. Late-night talk show host Stephen Colbert, a South Carolina native, had given an appropriately sober message with his usual comic twist to the graduates in challenging them make America great again in their own way by being good Americans knowledgeable about and vigilant in defense of the Constitution and rejecting a slide toward autocracy.

Then President Overshaw rose to present the valedictory. But when he reached the lectern, his halting cadence made it clear that he was struggling with his emotions.

"Normally, I recite remarks scripted by my staff about an amazing student I've scarcely had the chance to know. Today, that isn't the case. Circumstances unimaginable and regrettably horrible brought Gia Jones into my life, and my wife and I have been extraordinarily blessed by that experience."

An expectant murmur came from the crowd. On the floor, camera crews from local television stations and a "60 Minutes" video and audio team jockeyed for position along the path Gia would walk to ascend the stairs to the riser and the dais. On scaffolding to the rear of the arena floor, behind the graduates, a phalanx of TV cameras with zoom lenses were aimed at Overshaw and the spot where Gia would momentarily stand. For the world, this would be the first public words this famous yet private teenager had spoken since October's terror.

"Through no intent or desire of her own, she became known to us all over this semester, and despite the grievous circumstances of it, she made us all proud through the steadfast character and quiet example she set. But I've had the opportunity to see this closer than most, and I can tell you without qualification or reservation that I don't think I've ever seen a more courageous a young man or woman than our valedictorian has shown us that she is," Overshaw said, speaking without notes or a teleprompter.

He paused to swallow and calm his quivering chin.

"Most of you will never know all that she's done for Fulbright University and our students, especially our women. She is what I would hope all students aspire to be. She will always be a hero to me. To the faculty, administration and graduating class of December 2022, I present our valedictorian, Giacomo Maria Jones."

The instantaneous roar momentarily unsettled and disoriented Gia as she rose to take the stage. Her heart raced, her head pivoted quickly around. She had expected polite applause — the kind you might hear after a birdie putt at a golf tournament. Not this. She collected herself and resolved to walk confidently, with purpose, onto the stage, but the scene became only more surreal after embraced President Overshaw and then stood at the lectern and looked out to see an alarmingly loud standing ovation. She glanced over the standing graduates the point where her mother stood with both hands clasped at her chest and Emmett Burson's supportive arm around her shoulders.

That's when it all hit home with her and she allowed herself to be personally touched by a moment this rare, this profound. Tears spilled from her eyes, and she briefly hid her face in her hands before she replicated her mother's posture, clasped her own hands over her heart and then extended her hands to the crowd in a gesture of heartfelt thanks. Finally, she gestured for the assembled thousands to take their seats. She would save her words of gratitude for the end of her remarks.

●●●

"As students, as young people, we too easily indulge the illusion that we are the undisputed masters of our journey, captains of our ship in life. I decided I was going to be a life sciences researcher and that all I do, every turn I take, every connection I make will only advance me toward that goal," Gia said, only occasionally relying on bullet points of her speech text on the rostrum before her. "And that was true until the semester that began just four months ago, though it feels like four years."

It was during that time, she said, that she met the love of her life. She didn't name Rance — he asked her not to — but most everyone in the arena at that moment knew whom she was talking about. Given the acclaim thrust upon them by events outside their control, not knowing Gia's boyfriend was Rance would have been, at least round Fallstrom, akin to not knowing Jay-Z's relationship to Beyonce or Prince Harry's relationship to Megan Markle. Rance sat quietly in the stands between his parents and Callie, a Fulbright baseball cap pulled low over his brow.

"Soon thereafter, an evil that I believed had been put behind me long ago in my childhood reemerged and caused irreparable harm to so many people, including two innocent souls murdered right here in our community, and I ask that we remember them unto God now and often," Gia said. "By now you know how this malignant person met his end as he tried to kill me along with a sister student."

"What you may not know is this: Fulbright had my back," she said. The university and law enforcement did what they could to stop Geno Millions once law enforcement knew his target was on the campus, she added. Had it not been for extraordinary steps by every office at Fulbright, from the president's suite to campus security to the athletics equipment managers, the support of fellow students and the patient love of an extraordinary young man, her journey toward her dreams might have been wrecked by the mind-twisting horror of October.

"President Overshaw and Vangie: thank you for far more than I can articulate in these fleeting moments today. To professors who showed so much compassion and support, to coach Hemphill and our 10-win Fulbright Generals, to our incredible student body, you have strengthened, humbled and inspired me more than you will ever know," she said.

"And to my family — my mom Calvita Jones sitting somewhere over there," she pointed in the direction of the stands to her right as the graduates on the floor craned their necks and applauded, "... and to my other family — you know who you are — who showed me unconditional, nurturing love beyond anything I could have imagined a few short months ago, know that I love you with all that I am."

Gia had packed much into her seven-minute address, thanks largely to the lyrical gifts of Vangie Overshaw. And she took one last look from the podium at her classmates and their loved ones, mentally photographing the tableau.

"So now the challenge ahead for us as the winter graduating class of 2022 is to pursue our dreams, to make our journeys, and to persevere through hardships, through disruptions, even though evil itself, but never feel as though you must do it alone," she said. "We are family. We are strong. We are Fulbright!"

She stepped from behind the lectern and bowed toward fellow graduates who rose to cheer her one last time as she departed the riser for her seat. Rance's family, Callie and Emmett Burson stood with them.

It took 20 minutes to cycle the graduates across the riser to receive folders with a placeholder diploma (the real thing on parchment would arrive weeks later in a leather binder). Rance had already left his seat to navigate an obscure hallway and staircase to the portal off the Moultrie Coliseum floor through which Gia and the other newly minted alumni would pass once Art Overshaw had officially pronounced them graduates and the recessional began. She spotted Rance before he could recognize her in her gown and mortarboard, broke ranks and ran into his waiting embrace just off the coliseum playing surface.

He held her tightly, and her arms wrapped around his massive neck just as tightly. She was radiant, beaming with a happiness and pride and sense of acceptance that would have seemed impossible two months earlier.

"I am so proud of you," Rance whispered in her ear. "I love you."

Behind the two of them, a cameraman for CBS News recorded the sweet moment, part of the B roll that would air in the piece Caroline Agostinelli would present to the world five Sundays hence on "60 Minutes."

●●●

The unmarked box trucks, SUVs and vans that pulled onto the concrete tarmac to the rear service entrance to the presidential mansion at Fulbright went unnoticed. There are often sizable events hosted by Art and Vangie Overshaw that have to be staged and catered in the 8,000 square-foot, two-story Georgian villa or the manicured front grounds, so all those unmarked delivery vehicles queued outside the gate during the holiday season didn't seem odd to anyone.

Nobody could see the elaborate lighting that the CBS crew had staged in Art Overshaw's library and study. On this Sunday morning, no one was paying attention to the fact that Rance Martin and Gia Jones had entered the fenced compound. Caroline Agostinelli had roamed freely all over town for three days, reveling in the anonymity she would soon forfeit after her interview was broadcast. It would be among the top "gets" of the year, perhaps behind Ukrainian President Volodomir Zelensky, when it aired nationally shortly after an NFL playoff semifinal game, the winner of which would play in the Super Bowl.

It was only the second time in Rance Martin's life that he had worn makeup. The other was as in a supporting role for his senior class play back in Chattanooga. This was different. A makeup artist with a staggering palette of powders, creams, brushes and foam wedges dabbed and dusted his face as Renoir might have tended a canvas.

Now, sitting side-by-side and, as they were coached, upright in uncomfortable, straight-backed chairs on a priceless Persian rug in the middle of Overshaw's dark, oaky library, they conversed nervously with Caroline as technicians made last-minute adjustments to the lighting, ran sound checks on the body microphones of the interviewer and interviewees and fiddled with a baffling array of cameras, one of which moved at a deliberate pace on an arc-shaped track from in front of Rance and Gia to their sides, its lens always trained on the young couple.

Together with Vangie Overshaw, they had reviewed interview ground rules with Caroline over dinner after graduation the previous evening. There weren't many. Caroline agreed not to push for details of the gory and traumatizing moments when police rifles blew Geno Millions' brains into a pink mist. Caroline would ask no questions that compromised the security of her mother, now having accepted an offer to sell her New Jersey home and move South, near Emmett Burson — and absolutely, under no circumstance, no mention of Callie's burgeoning romance. There would be no mention of Rance's family back in Chattanooga, only that he had grown up the son of a prominent Tennessee attorney.

Finally, the cameras were recording, the clapperboard served to mark the take and sync the audio, and the interview began.

"What you endured is beyond what most people ever experience outside of maybe combat in a war. How are you coping with this?"

Gia hesitated. She had planned to give a sunny answer, but it wasn't the truth. These high-definition cameras, tightly framing her face, can spot disingenuity and magnify it. She would speak her truth.

"There are days. There are days and times when I just want to shut everything down and run off to a place where no one can find me. On those days, the images of that moment, the memory of what happened, the people who lost their lives to this monster, ... everything that I've boxed up and sealed tightly and shoved into my mind's basement try to spill out and take over," she said.