Judith McNaught (4 page)

"
J
ulie," she said from the doorway, "Would you come in please." As Julie closed the door behind her and walked forward, Terry added cheerfully, "Your time in our testing program is over. All the results are

in."

Rather than sitting in a chair, her young patient took up a position in front of Terry's desk, her small feet planted slightly apart, hands jammed into the back pockets of her jeans. She gave a jaunty, dismissive shrug, but she did not ask about the results of the tests, because, Terry knew, she was afraid to hear the answers. "The tests were dumb," she said instead.

"This whole program is dumb. You can't tell anything

about me from a bunch of tests and talks in your office."

"I've learned a whole lot about you, Julie, in the few months we've known each other. Would you like me to prove it by telling you what I've discovered?"

"No."

"Please, let me tell you what I think."

She sighed, then gave an impish grin and said,

"You're going to do that whether I want to hear it or not."

"You're right," Dr. Wilmer agreed, suppressing a smile of her own at the astute remark. The blunt methods she was about to use on Julie were completely different than those she would normally use, but

Julie was innately intuitive and too streetwise to be fooled with sugared phrases and half-truths. "Please sit down," she said, and when Julie had slumped into the chair in front of her desk, Dr. Wilmer began with quiet firmness. "I've discovered that despite all your daring deeds and your show of bravado to your companions, the truth is that you are scared to death every moment of every day, Julie. You don't know who you are or what you are or what you're going to be. You can't read or write, so you're convinced you're stupid. You cut school because you can't keep up with the other kids your age, and it hurts you terribly when they laugh at you in class. You feel hopeless and trapped, and you hate those feelings.

"You know you were passed over for adoption when you were younger, and you know your mother abandoned you. A long time ago, you decided that the reason your birth parents didn't keep you and adoptive parents didn't want to adopt you was because they all realized you were going to turn out to be

'no good' and because you weren't smart enough or pretty enough. And so you cut your hair like a boy's, refuse to wear girls' clothes, and steal things, but you still don't feel any happier. Nothing you do seems to matter, and that's the real problem: No matter what you do—unless you get into trouble—it doesn't matter to anyone, and you hate yourself because you want to matter."

Dr. Wilmer paused to let the last part of that sink in and then she thrust harder. "You want to matter to someone, Julie. If you had only one wish,
that
would be your wish."

Julie felt her eyes sting with humiliating tears as Dr.

Wilmer's relentless verbal thrusts found their mark, and she blinked to hold them back.

Her rapid blinking and damp eyes weren't lost on Terry Wilmer, who saw Julie's tears as what they were—confirmation that she'd hit raw nerves.

Softening her voice, Dr. Wilmer continued, "You hate

hoping and dreaming, but you can't seem to stop, so you make up wonderful stories and tell them to the little kids at LaSalle—stories about lonely, ugly children who find families and love and happiness someday."

"You've got everything all wrong!" Julie protested hotly, flushing to the roots of her hair. "You're making

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me sound like some—some wimpy sissy. I don't need anybody to love me and neither do the kids at LaSalle. I don't need it, and I don't want it! I'm happy—"

"That's not true. We're going to tell each other the complete truth today, and I haven't quite finished."

Holding the child's gaze, she stated with quiet force:

"The truth is this, Julie: During the time you've spent in this testing program, we've discovered that you're a brave, wonderful, and
very smart
little girl." She smiled at Julie's stunned, dubious expression and continued, "The only reason you haven't learned to read

and write yet is because you missed so much school when you were ill that you couldn't catch up later on. That has nothing to do with your ability to learn, which is what you call being 'smart' and we call

'intelligence.' All you need in order to catch up with your school work is for someone to give you a helping hand for awhile. Now, besides being smart,"

she continued, changing the subject slightly, "you also have a perfectly normal, natural need to be loved for what you are. You're very sensitive, and that's

why your feelings get hurt easily. It's also why you don't like to see other children's feelings get hurt and why you try so hard to make them happy by telling them stories and stealing things for them. I know you

hate being sensitive, but believe me, it's one of your most precious traits. Now, all we have to do is put you in an environment that will help you become the sort of young woman you can be someday…"

Julie paled, thinking the unfamiliar word
environment
sounded like an institution, like, maybe, jail.

"I know just the foster parents for you—James and Mary Mathison. Mrs. Mathison used to be a teacher, and she's eager to help you catch up with your schoolwork. Reverend Mathison is a minister

—"

Julie shot out of her chair as if her backside had been scorched. "A preacher!" she burst out, shaking her head, recalling loud lectures about hellfire and damnation she'd heard often enough in church. "No, thanks, I'd rather go to the slammer."

"You've never been in the slammer, so you don't know what you're talking about," Dr. Wilmer stated, then she continued talking about the next foster home as if Julie had no choice in the matter, which of

course Julie realized she didn't. "James and Mary Mathison moved to a small Texas town several years ago. They have two sons who are five and three years older than you, and unlike the other foster homes

you've been in, there won't be any other foster children there. You'll be part of a
real
family, Julie.

You'll

even have a room of your very own, and those are both firsts for you, I know. I've talked with James and

Mary about you, and they're very anxious to have you with them."

"For how long?" Julie asked, trying not to get excited at what was probably only a temporary thing that

wouldn't work out anyway.

"Forever, assuming you like it there and that you're willing to follow one strict rule they have for themselves and their children: honesty. That means no more stealing, no more lying, and no more cutting

school. All you have to do is be honest with them.

They believe you'll do that, and they're very, very anxious to have you be part of their family. Mrs.

Mathison called me a few minutes ago, and she was already on her way to go shopping for some games and things to help you learn to read as quickly as possible. She's waiting for you to go with her and pick out things for your bedroom, so it will be just the

way you like it."

Squelching her flare of delight, Julie said, "They don't know that I've been busted, do they? I mean, for

truancy?"

"Truancy," Dr. Wilmer said pointedly, stating the horrible truth,
"and
attempted grand theft, auto. Yes, they know everything."

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"And they still want me to live with them?" Julie countered with cutting derision. "They must really need

the money Family Services pays to foster parents."

"Money has nothing to do with their decision!" Dr.

Wilmer shot back, the sternness of her voice offset by a faint smile. "They are a very special family.

They aren't rich in money, but they feel that they are rich

in other ways—with other kinds of blessings, and they want to share some of those blessings with a deserving child."

"And they think
I'm
deserving?" Julie scoffed.

"Nobody wanted me before I had a police record.

Why

would anybody want me now?"

Ignoring her rhetorical question, Dr. Wilmer stood up and walked around her desk. "Julie," she said gently, waiting until Julie reluctantly raised her eyes,

"I think you are the most deserving child I've ever had the privilege of meeting." The unprecedented, glowing compliment was followed by one of the few physical gestures of affection Julie had ever known: Dr. Wilmer laid her hand alongside Julie's cheek as she said, "I don't know how you've stayed as sweet and special as you are, but believe me, you deserve all the help I can give you and all the love that I think you're going to find with the Mathisons."

Julie shrugged, trying to steel herself against inevitable disappointment, but as she stood up, she couldn't

quite douse the flare of hope in her heart. "Don't count on that, Dr. Wilmer."

Dr. Wilmer smiled softly. "I'm counting on
you.

You're an extremely intelligent and intuitive girl who'll

know a good thing when she finds it."

"You must be really good at your job," Julie said with a sigh that was part hope, part dread of the future.

"You almost make me believe all that stuff."

"I am
extremely
good at my job," Dr. Wilmer agreed.

"And it was very
intelligent
and
intuitive
of you to realize that." Smiling, she touched Julie's chin and said with gentle solemnity, "Will you write to me once in a while and let me know how you're doing?"

"Sure," Julie said with another shrug.

"The Mathisons don't care what you've done in the past—they trust you to be honest with them from now on. Will you be willing to forget the past, too, and give them a chance to help you become the wonderful person you can be?"

All the unprecedented flattery wrung a self-conscious giggle from Julie who rolled her eyes.

"Yep. Sure

thing."

Refusing to let Julie dismiss the importance of her new future, Theresa continued somberly, "Think of it,

Julie. Mary Mathison has always wanted a daughter, but you're the only little girl she's ever invited to come live with her. As of this moment, you get to start all over with a clean slate and your own family.

You're all shiny and brand new, just like you were as a baby. Do you understand?"

Julie opened her mouth to say she did, but she seemed to have a funny lump in her throat, so she nodded

instead.

Theresa Wilmer gazed into the huge blue eyes looking back at her from that enchanting gamin face, and

she felt a constriction in her own throat as she reached out and brushed her fingers through Julie's tousled

brown curls. "Maybe someday you'll decide to let your hair grow," she murmured, smiling. "It's going to

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be beautiful and thick."

Julie found her voice at last and her forehead furrowed into a worried frown. "The lady—Mrs.

Mathison, I mean—you don't think she'll try to curl it and put ribbons in it or anything dopey like that, do

you?"

"Not unless you want to wear it that way."

Theresa's sentimental mood lingered as she watched Julie leave. Noticing that she'd left the office door slightly ajar and knowing her receptionist was at lunch, Theresa straightened and walked over to close it

herself. She was reaching for the knob when she saw Julie go out of her way to pass by the coffee table without actually stopping and then step out of her way again in order to pass the receptionist's vacant desk.

Lying on the coffee table after she left was a large fistful of purloined candy. On the receptionist's cleared

desk, there was one red pencil and one ballpoint pen.

A feeling of joy, pride, and accomplishment made Theresa's voice husky as she whispered to the departed child, "You didn't want anything to spoil your nice clean slate, did you, sweetheart? That's my girl!"

The school bus pulled to a stop in front of the cozy Victorian house that Julie had let herself think of as her home during the three months she'd lived with the Mathisons. "Here you are, Julie," the kindly bus driver said, but as Julie stepped off the bus, none of her new friends called good-bye to her like they usually did. Their cold, suspicious silence compounded the stark terror that was already making her

stomach churn as she trudged up the snow-covered sidewalk. Money that had been collected from Julie's class for the week's lunches at school had been stolen from the teacher's desk. All of the kids in her room had been questioned about the theft, but it was Julie who had stayed in at recess that day to put the finishing touches on her geography project. It was Julie who was the main suspect, not only because

she'd had the perfect opportunity to steal the money, but also because she was the newcomer, the outsider, the kid from the big bad city, and since nothing like this had happened in her class before, she

was already guilty in everyone's eyes. This afternoon, while waiting outside the principal's office, she'd

heard Mr. Duncan tell his secretary that he was going to have to call Reverend and Mrs. Mathison and

tell them about the stolen money. Obviously, Mr.

Duncan had done so because Reverend Mathison's car

was in the driveway, and he was rarely home this early.

When she reached the gate in the white picket fence that surrounded the yard, she stood there, looking at the house, her knees shaking so hard that they banged together at the thought of being banished from

this place. The Mathisons had given her a room of her very own, with a canopy bed and a flowered bedspread, but she wasn't going to miss all that nearly so much as she was going to miss the hugs.

And

the laughter. And their beautiful voices. Oh, they all had such soft, kind, laughing voices. Just thinking of never hearing James Mathison say "Good night, Julie. Don't forget your prayers, honey," made Julie long

to fling herself into the snow and weep like a baby.

And how would she go on living if she could never again hear Carl and Ted, who she already thought of as her very own big brothers, calling to her to play a game with them or go to the movies with them.