Authors: Margot Dalton
Despite the physical resemblance, he certainly didn’t have the same open, pleasant look that Jon used to have. This boy seemed sullen and morose, coldly withdrawn.
Still, the unexpected appearance of him in her class was unnerving. And yet, deep down, there was a warm and unsettling feeling of excitement, too, when she looked up at the boy and remembered…
Twenty years ago, she told herself. Long ago, lost in the past.
Not even Jon Campbell remembered.
She shoved the thoughts out of her mind and finished taking attendance, then spoke to the students.
“Open your notebooks and write me a two-page essay about your goals in life,” she said amid a chorus of groans.
“What if I don’t have any?” Appleby inquired, grinning around at his fellow students.
Camilla gave the boy a thoughtful glance. “Goals don’t necessarily have to be personal, Mr. Appleby. If you have no goals for yourself, perhaps you have some for the human race, or for the planet. At any rate, I want a two-page essay on goals, and I want it to be accompanied by your full name, and your class and student number so I can begin to get to know each of you.”
Steven Campbell glared into the distance for a while, concentrating, then began to write. Although she was still badly shaken by the boy’s presence, Camilla found herself looking forward to reading his essay.
She moved around the room, up and down the tiers of seats while her students worked, and passed the time answering questions, offering advice on punctuation and style.
She paused briefly by Steven Campbell’s desk, looking down at his thick, gold-streaked hair and his broad shoulders. Even his hands were shaped like Jon’s, lean and strong, with square fingernails.
Camilla remembered those hands…
“Is your father by any chance a student here on campus, Mr. Campbell?” she murmured, wanting to hear his voice.
The boy gave her a noncommittal glance. “Yeah,” he said. “My dad’s taking some classes. My little brother and sister are here, too,” he added grudgingly, looking down at his paper.
“I beg your pardon?” Camilla asked.
“My twin brother and sister,” the boy repeated. “They’re seven years old. They’re in some kind of special class for egghead kids.”
“That’s our accelerated study group. In fact, I think I’ll probably be meeting your brother and sister later this afternoon.”
The boy nodded without interest as she moved away.
A couple of tiers higher, Camilla noticed a darkhaired girl laboring over her paper. Tears glittered in the young woman’s eyes. Camilla mounted the stairs unobtrusively to stand next to her.
“Is something the matter?” she whispered.
The girl looked up at her in anguish. “I can’t do this!”
“It doesn’t have to be a masterpiece,” Camilla said. “Just a few words about yourself and your goals.”
The student shook her head. “I mean this whole college thing. I’ve been out of school for four years, working and saving to come here. Now I’m in a panic. It’s all so hard, and there’s a ton of reading to do, and I—” Her voice broke.
Camilla knelt beside the girl’s desk and put an arm around her shoulders. “I know it feels pretty overwhelming at this stage,” she murmured, “but it’ll all fall into place within a week or two. Trust me, you’re going to feel a whole lot better after a few more classes. In the meantime,” she added, “drop by my office anytime and I’ll do what I can to help out.”
The girl looked up, her face clearing a little. “Really, Dr. Pritchard?”
Camilla got to her feet, one hand still resting on the student’s shoulder. “I was a freshman once, too,” she said. “And I was even more terrified than you are. I’ll be glad to help.”
The girl managed a trembling smile. Camilla smiled back, then moved up the steps to watch as the others toiled away at their essays.
They’re my children,
Camilla thought.
All these young people are the children I’ve never had.
Involuntarily, she glanced at Steven Campbell’s bent head and felt a deep wave of sadness.
C
ONSIDERING ALL
the bizarre things that were happening to her this term, it took a lot of courage for Camilla to head over to Gwen’s classroom after lunch and keep her appointment with the study group.
She went down the hall and knocked on the door of a comfortable suite of rooms where the gifted children learned everything from chemistry to judo.
“Come in,” Gwen called, and Camilla entered to find a lively session in progress.
The students, about a dozen of them ranging from six to ten years old, were constructing a solar system out of papier-måché, hanging their planets in proper scale from a sunlamp in the center of the room.
“Children, this is Dr. Pritchard,” Gwen told the students. “She’s going to be dropping in to play games with us and ask some of you a whole lot of questions. Say hello, class.”
“Hello,” Camilla said, smiling at them.
“Hello, Dr. Pritchard,” the children chorused, then went back to their project.
Gwen drew Camilla aside. “Look, I don’t know how you were planning to begin your study, but could you possibly take the twins for a few hours?” she whispered. “I need to work out a special program for them, but I haven’t had time yet.”
She indicated a corner of the room where two curly-haired children lay on their stomachs near the aquarium, sharing a book.
“What are they reading?” Camilla whispered back.
“A. A. Milne. They like to memorize stories.”
Camilla chuckled. “Definitely children after my own heart. Why aren’t they making planets like the others?”
“They’ve already done this same project at home with their father, working out the orbits and distances all by themselves. They’re bored with the whole idea by now. The thing is, I still haven’t had time to work out something that’s going to challenge them properly. So if you could…”
“Would I be able to include both of them in my study, do you think?” Camilla asked.
“Kiddo, if you can take those kids off my hands for a few hours a week, I’ll be eternally grateful,” Gwen murmured.
“Would it be okay if I took them down to my office? I need some time to get to know them properly before I start testing.”
“Sure. But you’ll find they’re pretty tense little
kids,” Gwen warned. “It’s hard to get them to relax and open up, unless…Jason,” she called to the group, “I think we need to move Neptune a little farther out. You’d better check the book, okay?”
She turned back to Camilla who was frowning thoughtfully.
“How about my apartment? They might be more comfortable if they could sit around in a homey setting and play with my cats.”
“That’s a good idea,” the teacher said. “Just tell me before you take them out of the building, okay? I need to know where they are.”
“Of course.” Camilla moved closer to the two children, accompanied by their teacher.
“Ari and Amy, listen to me.” Gwen stood above their prone figures. “This is Dr. Pritchard. She’s a very, very nice lady who’s going to be working with us quite a bit over the next few months.”
Two pairs of wide eyes looked up at them, green and gray, quietly watchful. Camilla was relieved to find that these children, at least, looked nothing at all like Jon Campbell.
She knelt beside the twins, then sat next to them on the carpeted floor while Gwen returned to the rest of the group.
“What are you reading?” she asked.
“Stories about Pooh and Piglet,” Ari said. “We like to memorize them.”
“Why?” Camilla asked.
“So we can say them to each other when we don’t have the book.” He pointed at one of the pictures.
“See? Pooh’s got his head stuck in the honey pot and he can’t get out.”
“Piglet’s coming to help,” Amy chimed in. “But Pooh keeps getting lost.”
“Eeyore is my favorite,” Camilla said. “I like his cheerful outlook on life.”
Ari and Amy exchanged a glance. Camilla could see the silent message passing between them and sensed to her relief that for some reason they’d decided to trust her. Ari giggled, then moved closer to lean against her. “I like Baby Roo. It’s neat the way his mother takes such good care of him.”
Camilla touched the little boy’s rounded cheek, “I like that, too.”
Amy smiled and edged toward them, pressing against Camilla’s other side. Together they finished reading the story, speaking quietly to avoid disturbing the others, and laughed over the whimsical illustrations.
At last she got up, drawing the twins along with her. “Let’s go somewhere to talk, okay?” she said. “I want you kids to help me with something I’m working on.”
Ari began to look anxious again. “We’re not supposed to go anywhere with strangers. Daddy says…”
“It’s all right, dear.” Gwen came back across the room. “Dr. Pritchard is a teacher, too, and you can go anywhere she wants to take you.”
“Does Daddy know we’re going?” Amy asked.
“I told your daddy that Dr. Pritchard will be working with you and he knows we’re all taking very good
care of you,” Gwen replied. “Now, Dr. Pritchard wants to take you to her office and play some games with you, that’s all.”
“What kind of games?” Ari asked.
“The kind of games that are your very favorite, dear. Flash cards and films, memory games, things like that.”
Ari brightened and turned to Camilla with a questioning glance.
“That’s right,” she told him. “Lots of games.”
“Better have them back here by four, okay?” Gwen called. “That’s when their housekeeper comes to pick them up.”
“We’ll be back,” Camilla promised.
She walked down the hallway, enjoying the feeling of a little warm hand in each of hers. “What’s your housekeeper’s name?” she asked.
“Sixty-four,” Ari muttered, apparently counting the tiles under his feet. “Amy, what’s the square root? Quick!”
“Eight,” the little girl said absently. “Margaret,” she added with a smile for Camilla.
“The housekeeper’s name is Margaret?” she asked.
Ari nodded. “Eighty-one.”
“Nine,” Amy said.
“Margaret has a boyfriend,” Ari said. “His name’s Eddie. He works way up north on the oil rigs. And Tom has a girlfriend, but Margaret says they’ll never get married.”
“Who’s Tom?” Camilla asked.
“He’s the foreman at the ranch.”
“Your father’s ranch?”
Amy giggled. “Once, Ari put Tom’s brand-new cowboy boots into the rain barrel.”
“They were made out of alligator skin,” Ari said. “I wanted to see if they’d float.”
Camilla laughed. “And did they float?”
Ari shook his head, looking glum. “Tom was real mad at us. He wouldn’t let me ride my pony for a whole week. But after that, he said it didn’t matter because those boots needed to shrink a bit anyhow.”
Something in the child’s voice made Camilla stop and kneel beside him again.
“Do you miss the ranch, dear?”
Ari looked away from her while Amy waited silently nearby.
After a moment, Camilla got to her feet again. “I’ll tell you what,” she said with sudden decision. “Let’s forget about those tests for now, okay? Let’s go down to the cafeteria and get some ice-cream cones.”
They spent a long time in the cafeteria choosing the flavors of their cones. Finally Ari selected pistachio and Amy took raspberry.
“What kind should I get?” Camilla asked.
The twins exchanged a glance. “Butterscotch ripple,” Amy said firmly.
“Why?” Camilla said, intrigued.
“Because you’re all white and gold,” Ari said.
“I see,” she sad, smiling.
“How long has Margaret been your housekeeper?”
Camilla asked idly while they were sitting on a rock ledge outside the cafeteria.
“A long time. Since we were babies. Look,” Amy said, pointing to a black bird worrying a scrap of bread on the grass. “That’s a raven.”
“Nevermore,” Ari croaked, then laughed. “It’s not a raven, it’s a crow. Ravens are bigger. Did you know that our daddy goes to this college?” he asked Camilla with one of the lightning changes of subject she was becoming accustomed to.
“I certainly do. He’s in one of my classes, and so is your brother, Steven.”
The twins considered this. Camilla took advantage of their brief silence to return to the topic of Jon Campbell’s household.
“Does Margaret help your mother with the cooking and everything?”
“Our mother lives in Switzerland,” Amy said, “where all the mountains are.”
“There’s mountains here, too,” Ari said. “Look, you can see them from here.” He waved his hand toward the western horizon.
Camilla felt guilty about pumping small children for personal information, but the temptation was too great. “When did your mother go to Switzerland?”
“When we were born.” Ari pulled off some bits of the cone and tossed them toward the crow.
“You mean she took you away to Switzerland?”
“No, she left us here and went by herself because she didn’t love Daddy anymore. She says he’s a selfish
pig who only cares about himself, so she went away.”
The child’s tone was flat and unemotional as he stared at the big bird.
Camilla thought about Ari’s words. The accusation against Jon Campbell seemed extreme, especially coming from a woman who’d apparently abandoned her own children. But perhaps Jon Campbell wasn’t the man she’d always thought. Maybe he was actually the kind of person who’d use his wealth and power to separate a woman from her newborn babies.
“When are we going to play games?” Ari was asking, tugging at her arm.
“Right away.” Camilla got to her feet and brushed at her skirt. “Let’s go to my office and see how much fun we can have.”
They went inside the building again. In the crowded hallway, the twins moved to each side of her and reached for her hands. The three of them walked along the corridor, swinging their arms, and in spite of her nagging fears, Camilla felt a wholly unexpected surge of happiness.
“A
VITALLY IMPORTANT
part of creative writing,” Camilla told her senior class, “is the ability to give your reader a sense of place. This is accomplished by means of descriptive passages, but they have to be used sparingly or they’ll overpower the narrative.”
“Like garlic salt,” one of the students suggested, and Camilla smiled.
“Like garlic salt,” she agreed. “A little bit is delicious, but too much will spoil the dish. As you work your way through the reading list, I think you’ll find that all of the great writers are masters at description. Now, for your next assignment, I want you to take some time this weekend and do a couple of pages describing the most beautiful place you’ve ever seen.”
Hands shot up all over the room. “Can it be an imaginary place? What if it’s something that’s only beautiful to me, but nobody else? How many words should the essay be?”
She moved around the room to answer their questions, conscious of Jon Campbell watching her steadily from his seat at the back.
This was the fifth session of this class, and she was
becoming accustomed to having him nearby. But it was still disturbing to see him lounge in his desk as he watched her with that thoughtful blue gaze.
By now, though, Camilla was convinced that the man really didn’t remember. Maybe the incident had meant so little to him that he’d forgotten it as soon as it happened.
Or maybe, like her, he’d repressed the past, buried all of those memories in some deep place where they were never disturbed.
She still had hopes that he might be intimidated enough by the major assignment he’d been given to drop the course altogether. But even this faint hope was beginning to fade. Jon Campbell didn’t appear to be a man who was easily intimidated, and his written work showed a surprising degree of skill.
The main problem for Camilla was that her own dark vault of memory seemed to be opening, slowly but relentlessly.
For instance, the nightmares were creeping back, although it had been years since they’d last haunted her. She found herself waking abruptly at three in the morning, drenched with perspiration, shaking in terror.
And there were other disturbing flashes of memory that leaped at her from unexpected places, things so much at odds with the carefully controlled life she’d made for herself that she could hardly bear the pain….
“That’s all for today,” she told the class with a glance at her watch. “I’ll be in my office this afternoon if any of you want help related to your major
research papers. Thank you, and have a nice weekend.”
She went to the desk and began to gather her papers, conscious of Jon Campbell’s approach. Her senses seemed to be so finely attuned to this man that her body had some mysterious way of knowing when he was nearby. The fine hairs on her forearms actually lifted, and her pulse quickened.
“I’ve seen a lot of beautiful things in my life,” he said quietly. “It’s hard to choose just one.”
What did he mean by that?
She forced herself to look up him, but his eyes were mild and steady, not at all threatening.
Camilla hefted an armload of books and started for the door. “Why don’t you describe something at your home?”
“My home is a ranch on the dry prairie.” Jon fell into step beside her. “A lot of people wouldn’t think there was anything beautiful about it.”
His sleeve brushed against her arm, and she could smell the pleasant masculine scent of clean skin and shaving lotion. She closed her eyes briefly, struggling to maintain her composure. “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, Mr. Campbell.”
“It sure is.” She could feel him looking down at her, but she was afraid to meet his eyes again. “I understand you’ve met my kids,” he added.
“Yes, I have. All three of them.” She paused by the door. “The twins are helping me with some research I’m doing into the development of reading ability. And Steven is in my freshman English class.”
“Actually, I have four kids,” he said with a smile. “The only one you haven’t met is Vanessa. She’s sixteen, in twelfth grade.”
“Is she as bright as Steven and the twins?”
“I think so.” His smile faded. “I wasn’t aware Steve was in your English class. He doesn’t seem to tell me things anymore.”
Camilla was urgently tempted to ask the man some questions. She wanted to know a lot more about that handsome, unhappy boy who looked so much like his father. And the shy, brilliant twins, and their mysteriously absent mother…
Enrique Valeros passed them with a timid nod, stumbling a little as he went into the hallway. He carried a huge pile of library books, and his face was pale with fatigue. Camilla and Jon watched in silence as the dark-haired boy moved down the corridor with an unsteady gait.
“That poor kid always looks like he’s dead on his feet,” Jon observed. “His hands were shaking again today. I wonder if he’s sick, or taking drugs or something.”
Camilla frowned. “No, I don’t think it’s drugs,” she said at last. “His written work is beautiful, very concise and disciplined. It’s particularly impressive for somebody for whom English is a second language. The students who abuse drugs tend to be rambling and disconnected, although,” she added dryly, “they always believe that their work is wonderfully eloquent.”
“Then why do you think Enrique’s so tired all the time?”
“I don’t know.”
She felt a treacherous urge to move closer to Jon Campbell, to nestle against the man and feel his arms around her. It was surprisingly pleasant to stand here with him like this, talking and hearing his voice in reply.
Abruptly the years fell away and she was seventeen again, overcome with a stormy passion she’d never expected to feel….
“Goodbye, Mr. Campbell,” she said hastily, starting down the hallway toward the administrative wing. “Have a pleasant weekend.”
“H
I
, G
RETCHEN
.” Camilla stopped at the bursar’s office and dropped her books onto the counter with a sigh. “I wonder if you can tell me something about one of my students.”
“As long as it’s not classified.” Gretchen’s tanned face was bright with humor. “What do need, Dr. Pritchard?”
“Whatever you can tell me about a boy named Enrique Valeros. Where he lives, whether he’s on scholarship, that kind of thing.”
Gretchen got up and took a file from the bank of metal cabinets, then sat down at her desk to leaf through it. “No scholarships,” she reported after a moment. “And it looks as if he’s in the country on some kind of conditional visa.”
“Conditional?”
“Apparently he has to stay in college and continue to get good grades or he’ll be deported, even though he told the Immigration Service he’d be killed if he went home.”
“Where’s home?”
“Nicaragua.”
“Hmm.” Camilla tapped her fingers on the counter. “And he’s got no sponsors? A church group that’s helping him, anything like that?”
Gretchen looked at the file. “Not that I can see. No sponsors, no relatives. Enrique seems to be all on his own.”
“Can you give me his address and phone number?”
“No phone number, but I can tell you where he lives.” Gretchen read the address aloud.
“Not exactly a terrific neighborhood,” Camilla murmured, writing it down.
“You can say that again,” Gretchen said dryly. “But I doubt if the poor kid can afford anything better, when he’s carrying a full load of classes. Unless he’s got a money tree in his apartment, or some kind of fairy godmother.”
Camilla looked at the other woman in concern. “I wonder how he’s managing to look after himself,” she said thoughtfully.
O
N
F
RIDAY NIGHT
, Enrique closed the convenience store at midnight. He washed the floors, cleaned the windows and countertops, totaled the cash in the till and took it next door to the night-deposit box, then
came back and prepared all the coffeemakers for the next morning.
Finally, numb with fatigue, he gathered his pile of books and left the building, locked the door carefully behind him and walked a few blocks down the street to the service station where he worked five nights a week from one o’clock until seven in the morning.
With any luck, his shift would be quiet and he’d have time to tackle some of his growing mountain of homework, maybe even snatch a few minutes of sleep between customers. Enrique nodded timidly at the attendant who was going off shift, then settled himself in the little booth and opened his books on the table, getting ready to work on his creative-writing assignment.
The most beautiful place he’d ever seen…
Enrique dropped his face into his hands and let himself drift for a moment on a warm tide of memory. He thought of the swimming hole outside the village where he’d grown up, the richness of the green canopy overhead, sunlight that glimmered on the water and the distant echoes of birdsong in the forest.
A big new car pulled up to the pumps and Enrique rushed outside to wash the windshield. The driver held a can of beer, belching loudly as he searched through his wallet for a credit card.
Enrique carried the gold card back to his cubicle, marveling at the awesome power this bit of plastic represented. He wondered what it would be like to possess such a card, to hand it over with easy care-lessness
and know that it would pay any expense you wanted.
Like a key to a magic kingdom, Enrique thought wistfully.
He rubbed his aching back and watched as the car pulled away and swerved across a couple of lanes, speeding down the street into the darkness.
Life wasn’t so bad, he told himself firmly.
This was Friday night, which meant he had no classes tomorrow and no early bus to catch. After his shift, he could go home, lie down on his cot and grab a few precious hours of sleep, then work on his assignments until it was time to head over to the convenience store for his five o’clock shift.
Enrique lived in the basement of an old apartment building where he had a single room behind the furnace and did some basic maintenance work in exchange for a reduced rent. Even with these primitive living arrangements, as well as two jobs that were virtually full-time, he barely managed to pay his tuition and buy the books he needed for his classes. Food was a luxury, and entertainment was unheard of.
He sighed and trudged back into the cubicle, trying to concentrate on the most beautiful place he’d ever seen. But the lines of the notebook blurred in front of his eyes, and his hands were shaking so badly that it was difficult to hold the pen.
O
N
S
ATURDAY MORNING
, the Campbell family enjoyed a rare opportunity to eat breakfast together
around the big oak table in the kitchen.
Margaret put a platter of pancakes in the middle of the table and brought a jug of warm syrup from the microwave, then paused to pour orange juice into the glasses at the twins’ plates.
“Drink your juice,” she said.
“It’s got stuff in it,” Ari told her. “I hate the squidgy stuff.”
“That’s pulp, you silly,” Vanessa said. “Margaret just squeezed the oranges a few minutes ago.”
Ari turned in his chair to glare at his older sister, who returned the look evenly.
The small boy was the first to look away.
“Little monster,” Vanessa muttered in triumph, helping herself to a tiny pancake from the edge of the platter.
Jon reached for the syrup jug and addressed his older son. “Did you have a good time last night, Steve?”
With a distracted air, Steven glanced up from a book lying open next to his plate. For a moment he gazed blankly at his father.
“Last night,” Jon repeated, his voice hardening a little. “You didn’t get in until past two o’clock, so I assume you were having fun. What did you do?”
The other children were suddenly quiet, their squabbles forgotten.
Steven’s handsome face darkened briefly. “I went out with some friends,” he said. “Okay?”
“I don’t know if it’s okay. Have I met these
friends?”
“For God’s sake, Dad. We just moved here a few weeks ago. Do I have to bring every guy I meet over here for your approval?”
“That would be nice,” Jon said quietly. “I asked you what you were doing, Steve.”
“Oh, for…We were driving around. Okay? We went to a movie, then had some burgers and rode around for a while. I would have been home on time but I ran out of gas and had to walk to a service station. Is that what you want to hear?”
“I want to hear the truth, son. That’s all.”
Steven got up, wadded his napkin into a ball and threw it on the table, then stalked from the room. In a few minutes they heard the roar of his yellow Mustang and saw the cloud of dust as the car pulled onto the graveled access road, heading for town.
Jon watched the disappearing plume of dust. These challenges between them were getting more frequent all the time, increasingly edgy and tense now that Steven was almost as tall as his father.
“What’s that book, Daddy?” Ari said, clearing his throat nervously. He indicated a volume at Jon’s elbow, bristling with notes and markers.
“Pride and Prejudice,”
Jon told him. “By Jane Austen.”
“At
breakfast?”
Vanessa asked with a grimace of distaste.
“Dr. Pritchard gave all of us our individual research assignments yesterday. I have to compare the
work of five modern British novelists with five others from the nineteenth century.”
“Wow,” Vanessa muttered with a rare show of sympathy. “That’s brutal, Daddy.”
“I know. This English class is going to be a lot more work than the others.”
“Why don’t you drop it?” Vanessa asked. “I heard lots of people are dropping classes.”
“Well, I’m not one of them, Van. I believe in finishing things once I’ve started them.”
She shrugged and wrenched the syrup jug away from her little brother.
“I can’t wait to go to the ranch,” Amy murmured, her face shining with happiness. “I just can’t
wait.
When are we leaving, Daddy?”
“In a few minutes, pumpkin. There’s lots of work to do out there this weekend. Tom needs help getting the yearlings ready for market, and we have to buy a few loads of feed, too. But I’ll sure be burning the midnight oil with all this reading I have to do.”