Perfect (Second Opportunities 2)

"Were you ashamed, as young as you were?" Zack asked, reeling from this new insight into her childhood.

She nodded, swallowing some water, then she put the glass aside. "I used to try to sit in the front row when I did go to school, so I wouldn't have to see the other kids' faces when they laughed at me. I convinced the teachers that my eyes were bad."

Zack hardly knew how to cope with the emotions raging inside him at the thought of her as a little child, trying to bluff her way through life in a sprawling, dirty city where no one cared. Clearing his throat, he said, "You said lack of schooling was the initial cause of the problem. Why weren't you sent to school?"

"I was a sickly child, so I missed a lot of first and second grade, but the teachers liked me, so they passed me to the next grade anyway. It's an idiotic, counterproductive thing for a teacher to do, but it happens all the time, especially to 'good little girls.' By third grade, I knew I couldn't keep up, so I started cutting school and hanging out with kids on the streets. The foster parents I stayed with had their hands full with other kids, and they didn't catch on until I got picked up for truancy. By then, I was in fourth grade and hopelessly behind."

"So you decided to specialize in hot-wiring cars and picking pockets until the Mathisons straightened you out?"

She gave him an abashed smile and nodded as she started back toward the stool she'd vacated. "A few months ago, by accident, I discovered the janitor's wife couldn't read. I started tutoring her, and pretty soon she brought me another woman, and that woman brought another, and now there are seven, and we've had to move into a regular classroom. When they first come to class, they don't really believe I can help them. They're humiliated, defeated, and completely convinced they're hopelessly stupid. In fact my hardest task is convincing them otherwise." With a soft giggle, she added, "I had to bet Peggy Listrom that I'd baby-sit for her for an entire month if she couldn't read all the street signs and shop signs in Keaton by springtime."

Zack waited until she was standing beside him, then he hid his burgeoning tenderness behind a joke. "That sounds risky."

"Not as risky as letting her go through life the way she is. Besides, I've practically won the bet already."

"She's reading street signs?"

Julie nodded, and Zack watched her eyes light with excitement. "Oh, Zack, you just can't imagine how it feels to watch them start to learn! They go right on believing they're stupid, until suddenly—one day—they sound out all the words in a short sentence, and they look up at me with such … such wonder in their eyes!" She held out her hand, palm up. "Being able to teach them—it's like holding a miracle in your own hand."

Zack swallowed against the unfamiliar constriction in his throat and forced a lighthearted note in his voice. "You're a miracle, Miss Mathison."

She laughed. "No, I'm not, but I have a hunch that Debby Sue Cassidy is going to be one." Since he looked interested, Julie added, "She's thirty, and she looks like the quintessential librarian—straight brown hair, studious features, but she has worked as a house maid for Mrs. Neilson since she was sixteen. She's smart as a whip, very sensitive, very imaginative. She wants to write a book someday." Misinterpreting the reason for Zack's grin, Julie said, "Don't laugh. She just might do it. She's already amazingly articulate for someone who's illiterate. She listens to books on tape from the library all the time. I know because Mrs. Neilson mentioned it to my father. She also mentioned that when the Neilson children were little, Debby Sue used to tell them stories that kept them still for hours. That's why I was in Amarillo the day we met," Julie finished, perching on the stool and turning her attention to her scratchpad. "I was raising money to buy special teaching materials. They're actually quite cheap, but things add up."

"Did you raise the money?"

She nodded, picking up her pencil and smiling over her shoulder at him.

Helpless to keep from touching her, Zack put his hand on her shoulder and playfully nipped her ear. She laughed, then she tipped her head sideways and lightly rubbed her soft cheek against the top of his hand.

The simple, loving gesture made Zack's spirits plummet abruptly, because it forcibly reminded him that after tonight there'd be no more gestures of any kind. He should have let her go this morning, but he couldn't, not when she would have hated him forever, and the longer he kept her with him, the harder it was going to be to let her go at all. Sending her away tomorrow, when there was a chance she'd crack under interrogation, meant that he would have to step up his departure from the United States by over a week, but it was worth the added risk to know she'd be safe from any further helicopter invasions that might not be false next time.

Trying to banish the bleak mood settling over him, he said, "Whatever we do tonight, let's make it special. Festive." It took every ounce of acting ability he possessed to keep the smile on his face so she wouldn't realize he was sending her away in the morning.

Julie thought for a moment and smiled suddenly. "How about dinner by candlelight, followed by dancing—a pretend date, except we'll have it here? I'll get dressed up," she threw in for persuasion before she realized that he didn't need any persuasion at all: He was nodding with a relieved pleasure that Julie thought was surprisingly excessive for her modest idea.

"Great," he agreed at once. He glanced at his watch. "I'll use the bathroom in your room and 'pick you up' in an hour and a half. Will that give you enough time?"

Julie laughed. "I think an hour is plenty of time for whatever transformation I can make."

Chapter 42

Having suggested the idea, Julie was suddenly determined to dazzle him with as much glamour as she could, and she spent more than an hour getting ready. Hair was one asset she possessed in abundance, and since Zack evidently gave it special notice, she washed it and blew it dry, then she styled the heavy mass so that it framed her face, falling into casual waves and curls from a side part and spilling over her back. Satisfied that she'd done the best she could with that, she pulled off her robe and stepped into a soft knit dress in a vibrant shade of cobalt blue that, on the hanger, had looked rather like a floor-length sweater with a loosely fitted skirt, blousy bodice, and full sleeves with white satin cuffs and sparkling blue crystal buttons. Not until Julie reached behind her back to fasten it did she realize there was no zipper. Although the dress had a wide cowl collar at the front, the collar draped over the shoulders and left a deep oval of bare skin exposed at the back. The deceptive simplicity of the design, combined with the modest front and dramatic back, was irresistibly beautiful, and it made her feel beautiful, but Julie stepped back from the mirror, hesitant to wear so fine—and undoubtedly costly—a dress that also happened to belong to someone else.