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  “Huh-uh.” The answer came without hesitation, the first definitive thing she’d said, other than, Because I’m stupid. “I want to stay. I like music. I love music.”

  Glancing up, I caught a glitter of enthusiasm in her dark eyes. She scooted forward in the chair and the thick brown-black hair fell away from her face, which was suddenly bright and animated. This was not the same kid who hated English. “I see you’re good at it.” I motioned to the notes in the file. “What do you play?”

  “Oh, lots of stuff.” She was remarkably talkative now that we were entering territory outside Mrs. Morris’s English class. “Piano, guitar, the flute some, and I want to learn violin, but, gosh, that’s hard. I do vocal, too.”

  “Wow. That’s quite a laundry list.” Between that and the notes in her file, I could see why a foster kid from Hindsville had been accepted into the seventh-grade program at Harrington in her first year of application. She had an incredible talent in music. Unfortunately, her first-semester report card showed that she was behind in every other subject.

  “Did you do music here?” Her preemptive question surprised me. Normally, kids in my office were primarily interested in my ability to solve their problems with class schedules, or summer grant applications, or attendance paperwork.

  Resting an elbow on my desk, I twirled the pencil in my fingers like a tiny baton, until I caught myself doing it; then I set the pencil down. Fidgeting. Unattractive nervous habit. Showed lack of confidence. “I did. Vocal, theater, and dance. Dance was really my thing.”

  She frowned, and I saw the question on her face—the one they all wanted to ask: If you were such a good dancer, how did you end up sitting behind the counselor’s desk? Loser.

  Kids didn’t understand that fairy tales sometimes end unhappily. In a place like Harrington, where the atmosphere was so thick with high expectations that you could choke on it, nothing but one hundred percent success seemed like a possibility.

  Dell, however, looked like she already knew that life isn’t fair, and you do the best you can with the result. Her eyes met mine, dark and liquid, and I had a sense that she understood my story without my ever telling it. I turned away, caught off guard by the power of that sympathetic glance.

  Silence fell on us, and I found myself studying the old beadboard wainscot and the plaster walls with the fan-shaped sponge pattern that made it look like giant butterflies had been decoupaged to the school walls. I’d spent hours staring their lifeless wings as a student, but I’d never been inside the counselor’s office. Anything that needed to be taken up with the administration, my parents handled for me. Mostly, I worked hard to be perfect, so that my mom would stay away from the school.

  “I wasn’t gonna turn it in, you know.” Dell spoke up, and I focused on her again, aware of my sudden lapse. “The essay,” she explained. “I wasn’t gonna turn it in. Mrs. Morris wasn’t supposed to see it. I was gon … going to write another one that didn’t say …” Cheeks twitching, she arrested the comment, pulled her hands inside her sweatshirt sleeves, then finished with, “… That stuff.”

  “What stuff?” What stuff, indeed? What stuff this kid had inside her, I couldn’t imagine. She was a well so deep that the bottom was hidden in a quiet, inky darkness. No telling what was down there. The girl in the river was down there, wishing God would pluck her off the face of the Earth.

  Why?

  Pinching her lip between her thumb and forefinger, she muttered behind her hand, “That stuff about shoes and Karen and James and all.” Her lashes darted upward with alarm, and her hand fell away from her mouth. “Karen and James didn’t see that paper, did they? Mrs. Morris didn’t send it to them?”

  Her earnest expression of panic raised the barometer of concern in my mind. I’d done my final college internship in social work. When kids are genuinely frightened of their parents’ responses to things, it’s a red flag. “No. Mrs. Morris brought it to me. Are you afraid of what your foster parents would think of it?”

  Scuffing her red tennis shoes back and forth under the chair, she studied the floor. “No. But I don’t want them to see it.”

  “Are you afraid it would hurt their feelings?” Looking at the file, I noted that there were several pages of information behind the admissions form—a letter from the foster mother, a report from a social worker in Hindsville, transcripts from her former school. Information haphazardly added by the previous counselor at Harrington, who had retired unexpectedly after the fall semester, creating the job opening I had filled. On the corner of Dell’s admissions form, a tiny yellow dot indicated that there was additional information in a confidential folder. I wished I’d taken time to look it over, rather than letting Mrs. Morris bring her directly into my office.

  Dell nodded. “Yes.”

  “And what would happen if you hurt their feelings?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Are you afraid to find out?” She responded with a questioning glance, and I added, “Are you afraid to find out what would happen if you hurt your foster parents’ feelings? Do you worry about it?”

  Lacing her fingers in her lap, she tightened her grip until her knuckles turned white. “I just don’t want them to see that stuff I wrote, OK? Nobody was supposed to read it. Mrs. Morris shouldn’t of brought it to you. She hates me and she wants to get me kicked out.”

  “On the contrary, Mrs. Morris brought the essay to me because she was concerned about you.” Though knowing Mrs. Morris, I figured Dell was probably correct. Mrs. Morris liked only the right kind of kids, the bound-for-the-philharmonic kids from good families. I couldn’t, of course, admit that to a student. “She was worried about some of the things you wrote.”

  Squirming in her chair, Dell cast her gaze toward the door like an animal in a trap. “That was private stuff. It don’t mean-”—pausing, she gave a frustrated jerk of her chin and corrected—“doesn’t mean anything.”

  “Sometimes the things we write for ourselves mean the most of all.” I handed the essay across the desk to her. “When we don’t think anybody’s going to read it, we can say what we really mean. We don’t have to be a certain way to make other people happy.”

  Taking the paper with a sigh of relief, she folded it into the smallest possible cube and tucked it into her pocket. Clearly, it was headed for the nearest trash can.

  “There’s nothing wrong with writing down what you feel, Dell,” I said. “It’s a good idea to get those things out on paper.”

  “Yeah, unless you do it in Mrs. Morris’s class.” The observation made me chuckle, and her lips twitched upward.

  “True enough. Sometimes it helps to talk about those issues with someone, though.” Her eyes met mine, and I again had the feeling I’d only skimmed the surface of a lake. There were things she didn’t share with anybody, and probably not even with herself. She had a sense of desperation, an obvious need to keep everything tamped down. “I’d like to know about the girl in the river. If you decide to write more of her story, I’d like to read it… . We could talk about her—the girl in the river, I mean—maybe understand what she’s feeling a little better. But it’s your choice. Nobody’s going to force you to do anything, all right?”

  “ ’Kay,” she answered, blinking at me, first surprised, then doubtful. “Are you gonna call James and Karen?”

  “No.” I folded my hands on the desk. “Did you want me to?”

  Her expression said that I was nuts. “Huh-uh.” She started to get up, then sat down again, crossed and uncrossed her thin arms. “Are you gonna call anybody?”

  “I wasn’t planning to. Do you think I need to call somebody?”

  She eyed me narrowly again, trying to figure things out. Like most kids I’d met during my short stint with the foster care system, she was accustomed to being powerless in the world of adults—a pawn, a case study, a number and a file. Turning her head to one side, she watched me from the corner of her eye, trying to discern the catch. There’s always a catch, her look said. “If I
don’t come back here, are you gonna call somebody?”

  “If you don’t come back to my office, you mean?”

  “Yeah, if I don’t write more of the story, are you gonna call somebody?”

  “No.”

  “If I write some more, are you gonna tell people what it says?”

  “No, Dell. As long as no one is in imminent danger, what’s said in this office is between you and me. If we both decide, at some point, that there’s someone else we need to talk to—say, a teacher you’re having trouble with, or another student, or your foster parents—we’ll do that together. You and I together, all right?”

  Considering it momentarily, she said, “All right,” then stood up, walked to the door, and hovered there with her fingers on the handle. “Can I go now?”

  I checked my watch. “Yes, you may. You should be just in time to catch your ride home.”

  “My foster mom picks me up.” She brightened with an affection that was obvious. Clearly, she looked forward to being out of school for the day and back with her foster family. “She runs the Jumpkids after-school arts program, so I have to help her with the little kids. We go to a different elementary school every day of the week.” Suddenly there was no sign of the girl who had been sulking about Mrs. Morris’s English class. This kid, the after-school arts helper, didn’t seem anything like the girl in the river.

  “I’ve heard of Jumpkids,” I commented. “Sometime, I’d like to see how it works.”

  Her mouth lifted into a wide smile that was dazzling in its contrast to her former gloom. “That’d be cool.” Then she bit her lip, losing the enthusiasm, worried, no doubt, because I’d learned things she didn’t want her foster parents to know.

  “What’s said in this office stays in this office.”

  Her posture relaxed. “ ’Kay.” Opening the door, she let in the sounds of the hallway—lockers slamming, kids talking, clothes rustling, shoes squealing on the old wooden floors. “Thanks,” she muttered, then disappeared into the fray, leaving the door ajar.

  Watching her go, I took out her confidential file and started reading it. There was an unusual amount of information—as if quite a few people were invested in the fate of this one girl. Looking at her application forms, I could see why. She was musically talented to a degree that caused even the stodgy curmudgeons on the admissions committee to use words like “gifted” and “prodigy.”

  … . extremely gifted musically …

  … . talented, particularly for a low-socioeconomic child …

  … . in my opinion, a prodigy heretofore thwarted by a disadvantaged environment.

  I recommend admission be granted, despite the child’s obvious lack of past academic achievement. Given the quality of instruction at Harrington, she will no doubt …

  Only one committee member expressed any reservations.

  … . my concern is that Dell appeared extremely stressed during the interview process. Certainly this is normal for children in such a demanding situation, but Dell was very inanimate, overly focused on silently and continually checking the reactions of her foster parents, who seem genuinely interested in her welfare, but perhaps unaware of the obvious social difficulties mentioned in the report from her former school and apparent during her interview. Given this child’s difficult and isolative history, I wonder if consideration should be given to tabling her application until next year. I have no doubt that Harrington is the best place for her musically, but I wonder if, considering her recent placement in foster care and other issues, Harrington, with its inherent demands, is the best place for her as a person …

  The door squeaked, and I looked up to find Mrs. Morris entering my office. Out of habit, I covered the papers on my desk, then reminded myself that I wasn’t a kid writing contraband notes in her English class anymore. “Yes, Mrs. Morris?” I felt fourteen again, despite my determination not to. Something about my former English teacher’s withering glare was ingrained in my psyche, like one of those horror movies you never forget. “May I help you?”

  “The essay.” She fanned her fingers back and forth against her palm, as if she were confiscating chewing gum from a student. The disgusting thing was that my heart jumped into my throat. Her nasal voice scratched up and down my spine like one of her thick, yellow fingernails, leaving an itchy trail of chalk dust.

  “I returned it to Dell.” The comment sounded amazingly calm and self-assured, considering that I was confronting my worst teenage nightmare.

  Mrs. Morris’s face went pale, then flushed red again, her eyes widening and her mouth squeezing into a thin downward line. “You did what?”

  “I returned her essay to her,” I repeated, struggling to appear pleasant. I was rapidly moving from intimidated to angry and insulted. “We talked about it, and she assured me that she never intended to hand in that essay, and she would write another one for you.”

  Ramming her fists onto her coat-hanger hip bones, Mrs. Morris flared her nostrils. “How dare you!” she screeched, and three kids passing in the hallway stopped to look. “I intended for you to …”

  Motioning for the teenage audience to move on, I waited until the coast was clear before standing up. Even at five foot six, I towered over my former nemesis. “Mrs. Morris,” I came around the desk to assert my territory. “I am the counselor here. You brought the matter to me, and I took care of it as I thought best.”

  Incensed, she sucked in air through a tight, lipless “O,” flailing a hand toward the hallway. “That girl is disturbed, suicidal, on top of her obvious academic problems. She doesn’t belong here.” Her voice echoed through the open door, and I tried not to imagine who might be listening outside.

  “Fortunately, Mrs. Morris”—my composure flew out the window, and I clenched the desktop behind me to keep from saying something I would later regret—“neither you nor I choose who belongs here. I will, however, do my level best to help the children who are here, and I hope you will, too.”

  Lowering her chin, she delivered a disdainful glare over the top of her reading glasses. “We can best help Harrington kids by removing those”—she blinked in a pointed way that let me know we were now talking about me, not about Dell—“who don’t have what it takes to live up to this school’s standard of excellence. Our mission is to produce artists here, Ms. Costell, not middle school guidance counselors.”

  I was momentarily stunned, at a loss as to how to respond. My nemesis looked pleased. She’d tapped into an old wound, and she knew it. Something inside me twisted and ached, and tears prickled in the back of my nose. Swallowing hard, I dug my fingernails into the desk and answered in the flattest tone I could muster, “Fortunately, Mrs. Morris, the world needs both.”

  Hissing through her teeth, she spun around. “Not from this school, it doesn’t.” With a furious yank on the front of her sweater, she disappeared through the door.

  I kicked it shut, listening as her squeaky grandma shoes stalked around the corner toward the principal’s office. Now there would be trouble. The evil queen of English was on a roll, and I was standing in the road.

  Sinking into a chair by the wall, I let my head fall into my hand, the argument replaying in my mind.

  “I am the counselor here… .”

  “Fortunately, Mrs. Morris, the world needs both… .”

  Who was I trying to fool?

  Oh, yes, the lifelong quest of professional ballet means nothing to me. I’m happy to have become a guidance counselor, serving up the next generation of Harrington hopes and dreams… .

  What a crock.

  Chapter 2

  My cell phone rang just as I was putting away files and preparing to leave the office. It was my father, of course. His daily four-forty-five p.m. call.

  “Just called to check on you, Julia. See if you’d be home soon.” His voice sent me rocketing back to adolescence, and I pictured the stern-faced father of my childhood, sitting at his desk in his business suit, white shirt, conservative tie, brown hair cut short and nea
tly combed with a dash of greasy kid stuff. My stomach sank like a stone thrown into the ocean, then swayed back and forth on invisible currents of emotion.

  “Sure, Dad. I was just packing up.” There’s something inherently pathetic about moving back in with your parents at twenty-seven years old. Even more so when they seem happy about it. All those years of struggling to break free and form my own identity, down the drain.

  There was a pregnant pause on the other end of the line. “Good … Well, listen, Mom and I have a charity event tonight with Bethany and Jason. We’re going to meet Jason’s parents at this thing, so there’s not much chance of slipping out early. Probably be gone the whole evening.”

  “Sounds like fun, Dad.” This, at least, was progress. “You two need to get out more. You haven’t been anywhere since”—since I got out of the hospital and moved home—“well, for a long time, anyway.” Guilt needled me for a dozen different reasons, not the least of which was that, for the last three months, my parents had surrendered their active social schedule to stay home and babysit me. “It’s good timing,” I added, to reassure him that I could be left home alone and the world would not come to an end. “I have a lot of work to do tonight.” Reaching into the file cabinet, I pulled out a federal grant application booklet and Dell Jordan’s file.

  “But you are coming home?” Trepidation rose in his voice. “Mom and I were hoping you’d sit with Joujou. You know, her bladder isn’t good. She wets all over when she’s left by herself.”

  Great. Just me and Mom’s neurotic Pekingese, spending Thursday night together in front of Dad’s new plasma TV. “Yes, Dad. I’m on my way home.”

  “Good. Great.” The words conveyed obvious relief. “Just a minute, sugar.” He paused while someone came into his office and asked a question about an upcoming Microsoft stock split. “So, you get some rest this evening,” he said finally. “Mom made dinner for you there at the house. Chicken Florentine, I think.”