Judith McNaught (91 page)

Zack looked down at the dark-haired child and smiled reluctantly at the realization that the Stanhope

features had bred true once again; the little boy looked so much like Zack at that age that it was almost

uncanny. "Yes," he said, answering the boy's question. "Who are you?"

The little boy grinned. "I'm Jamison Zachary Arthur Stanhope. You can call me Jamie, everybody does.

My mommy named me Zachary after you. It made Grandmother very angry," he confided.

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Zack bent down and scooped the child into his arms.

"I'll bet it did," he said dryly.

In the doorway, Julie watched the tableau unfold.

She heard Zack quietly say, "Hello, Elizabeth," and she watched with a teary smile as his sister ran up the steps and flung her arms around him. Zack's brother held out his hand, his face uncertain, "I won't blame you if you don't want to shake my hand, Zack," he said. "If positions were reversed, I wouldn't."

Zack transferred his nephew and his weeping sister to his left arm and extended his right hand to his brother. Alex looked at it, took it in his, and then enfolded his brother in a bear hug, clapping Zack on the

shoulder.

Jamie looked at his mother, his great-grandmother, and then at Julie. "Why are they all cryin'?" he demanded of Zack.

"Allergies," Zack lied with a reassuring smile. "How old are you?"

* * *

Seated on the steps of Julie's front porch later that night, they watched the stars twinkling in the black velvet sky while they listened to the chorus of crickets serenading them. "I'm going to miss this place,"

Julie said quietly, leaning back against his chest.

"I know you are," Zack replied. "So am I." During the last two weeks, he'd made two business trips to California, and both times he'd looked forward to returning to Keaton and to Julie with an almost boyish

eagerness. Tomorrow, he had to fly to Austin for a morning meeting with the Texas Board of Criminal Justice, who were considering appropriate disciplinary action against Wayne Hadley. The day after that,

he was getting married.

"I wish you didn't have to go to Austin tomorrow."

He kissed the top of her head and slid his arm around her waist, "So do I."

"Don't forget to come back as early as you can tomorrow."

"Why?" he teased. "Are you planning to spring any more estranged relatives on me?" She tipped her face

up. "Do you have any more?"

"No!" he said forcefully. He saw her try to smile and tipped her chin up. "Now, what's wrong?"

"I don't like you going near anything that has to do with prisons."

Zack smiled reassuringly, but his tone was implacable. "It's something I have to do, but there's nothing to

worry about." Jokingly, he added, "If they try to lock me up, I know I can count on you to bust me out in time for the wedding."

"You're right!" she said, and so ferociously that Zack laughed.

"I'll be at your school at seven o'clock tomorrow night," he promised.

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The nostalgic smell of finger paints and paste assailed Zack's nostrils as he walked slowly down the

empty hallway to the only classroom with lights on at the end of the corridor. He could hear women's laughter as he neared the doorway, and he paused just inside the classroom, unnoticed for the moment, looking around at the downsized desks occupied by seven women at the front of the room.

Julie was leaning against her desk, surrounded by chalkboards with children's drawings hanging above them and the letters of the alphabet displayed around the room in giant size. She was already dressed for the dinner that would follow the wedding rehearsal tonight, her hair caught up in a soft chignon that made

her look startlingly sophisticated. He was admiring the way she looked in her clingy peach summer dress

when she looked up and saw him standing there.

"You're right on time," she said to him, straightening from her position and smiling at him. "We've finished our lesson for the night and we've been reminiscing

and having a private little going-away party." As she said that, she tipped her head to the small cake and paper cups on her desk and held out her hand to him.

Drawing him forward and linking her fingers through his, she explained to the women, "Zack came here tonight because he was very anxious to meet

you before we leave tomorrow night." Seven faces studied him with every reaction from outright unease to total awe. "Pauline," Julie began, "I'd like you to meet my fiancé. Zack, this is Pauline Perkins—"

By the second introduction, Zack realized that Julie was carefully making it seem as if the honor of the introduction was his, not theirs. She did that simply by telling him something special about each, and Zack

watched their tension dissipate and smiles begin to burst out.

Impressed by her tact, he straightened after shaking the last woman's hand and stood beside Julie at her desk. The moment of awkward silence was broken suddenly by a young woman in her midtwenties with a small baby in a carrier on the desk beside her, who Julie had introduced as Rosalie Silmet. "Would you

… like some cake," she burst out awkwardly but with determination.

"I never turn down cake," Zack lied with a smile to put her at ease, then he turned to the desk and sliced himself a piece.

"I made it myself," she volunteered hesitantly.

He was turning back with a piece of chocolate cake in his hand when he saw Julie silently mouth one word to her. "How?"

"I—" her thin shoulders straightened. "I
read
the recipe!" she declared with such pride that Zack felt a funny clutch in his chest. "And Peggy drove us here," she added, tipping her head to the woman named

Peggy Listrom. "Peggy read all the street signs we passed on the way out loud."

"He doesn't care about that!" Peggy Listrom said, blushing furiously. "Anybody can read street signs."

"Not anybody," Zack heard himself say, because at that moment as he looked at the women with their eager–hopeful expressions, he would have done
anything
to make certain they left that classroom feeling

special. "Julie told me she couldn't read for a long time."

"She
told
you that?" one of them said, dumbfounded that Julie would have confessed it.

He nodded. "I admired her tremendously for having the courage to change it." Switching his gaze to
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Peggy Listrom, he added with a grin, "Now when you learn how to read maps, will you let me know the

trick of it? I get lost the minute someone unfolds a map."

Someone giggled, and he added, "Who brought the punch?"

A hand went up. "I did."

"Did you read the recipe?"

She shook her head with so much pride that Zack was mystified until she added, "It's from a can. I read the label. In the grocery store. It cost one dollar and sixty-nine cents. I read that, too."

"May I have some?"

She nodded, and Zack felt that same funny clutch as he poured some of the red liquid into a small paper cup. He was so preoccupied that he spilled some of it on his shirt cuff, and Rosalie Silmet shot to her feet. "I'll show you where the bathroom is, so you can put cold water on it."

"Thanks," he said, afraid to hurt any tender feelings by declining. "I must be nervous tonight about meeting Julie's students," he joked. "I'm afraid she'll call the wedding off if you don't like me," he added as he started out of the room on Rosalie Silmet's heels, and he felt like he'd accomplished something wonderful when the room exploded with laughter.

When he returned, the party was winding down, and everyone was worried that Julie would be late for their wedding rehearsal. "There's still enough time,"

she told them as Zack stood on the sidelines, sipping his punch. He noticed Rosalie Silmet lean over and whisper urgently to Debby Sue Cassidy, who shook her head. So far, Julie's protégé—a young woman with straight brown hair tucked behind her ears and held in place at the crown with a barette—hadn't spoken much, Zack realized, and he wondered what could possibly impress Julie so much about her. The others were so completely appealing.

"Julie," Rosalie said, "Debby Sue wrote a good-bye poem for you, but now she won't read it to you."

Realizing immediately that he was the reason, Zack started to appeal to her, but Julie's voice interjected, soothing and encouraging. "Please read it for me, Debby."

"It's not very good," Debby said desperately.

"Please."

Her hands shook as she reluctantly picked up a piece of paper on her desk. "It doesn't rhyme."

"Poems don't have to rhyme. Some of the most wonderful poetry on earth doesn't rhyme. No one has ever written a poem just for me," Julie added. "I'm honored."

Debby seemed to gain courage from that, and her shoulders squared. Casting a last apprehensive glance

at Zack, she said, "I called it 'Thanks to Julie."'

When she began to read, her voice gained more strength

and emotion with each word:

I used to be ashamed.

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And now I am proud.

The world once was black

And now it is bright.

I used to walk head bent

And now I stand up tall.

I used to have dreams.

But now I have hope.

Thanks to Julie.

Zack stared at her, the simple, expressive words reeling through his mind, the punch forgotten halfway to

his mouth.

He watched Julie smile and ask to keep the poem and he saw her hold it to her chest much as she'd held

his wedding ring in Mexico City. The party broke up, and he said all the appropriate things and watched

them troop out of the classroom.

While Julie cleared out her desk, he sauntered over to the bulletin board on the side wail, but his mind wasn't on the children's drawings of spring flowers in front of his eyes. He kept remembering that poem he'd just heard, the one that said exactly what he felt about Julie, and he kept thinking of her in Colorado, holding out her hand to him, her face filled with wonder and awe as she tried to make him

understand:

"Oh, Zack…
watching them discover they can read
is like holding a miracle in your own hand."

A rubber band missed his ear by a fraction of an inch and bounced softly off the bulletin board, and he glanced up thinking something had fallen from above his head. The second one whizzed by his temple,

even closer than the first one had been, and he turned around, smiling and trying to shake off the poignant feelings he had. Julie was leaning against her desk, a rubber band cocked on her fingers as she drew a bead on him. "Nice shooting, Wyatt," he tried to joke.

"I've been taught by experts," Julie returned with a slight smile, but she wasn't the least bit deceived by his attempt at humor. "What's on your mind, Mr.

Benedict?" she enquired softly as she dropped her arm

and effortlessly switched her target to a book on the back desk. And hit it.

Her briefcase was packed and closed and Zack walked toward her, uncertain how to answer her question.

She obviously knew what was on his mind, because she tipped her head to the side, crossed her arms over her chest, and asked innocently, "How did you like my ladies?"

"I—your Debby Sue Cassidy is something else.

They're all—not what I expected, is the best I can say."

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"A few months ago, you couldn't have made any of them say a word if you were here."

"They seem pretty confident now."

"You think so?" she asked with a funny, dubious sound in her voice. "If they'd known you were coming

tonight, I wouldn't have been able to drag them here.

The butcher's wife is coming to our wedding reception, the parents of all my students are coming to our reception, the
church janitor's
wife is coming to our reception. But I could not make one of those women believe that I wanted them to be my guests, and I've spent more time with them than most of the others. That's how much self-esteem they have.

After I came back from Colorado with the money I'd raised in Amarillo, I ordered specialized tests designed to gauge their abilities."

"How do you test someone who can't read?"

"One on one. Verbally. With the right materials it's simple. And you don't call it 'testing' because they're so insecure they fall apart at the mention of the word. Do you know what I found out?"

He shook his head, mesmerized by her zeal and humbled by her caring. "I found out that Debby could

already read at the third-grade level and two of the others have moderate learning disabilities, and that's why they can't read. And do you know what they need as much as they need to be taught that?" When he shook his head again, she said achingly, "They need
me.
One person who cares. God, they—they
bloom
when another woman believes in them and spends a little time with them. It doesn't have to be a teacher—just another woman. The future of that baby of Rosalie's depends completely on whether or not

Katherine, who's taking over from me, can keep Rosalie believing in herself and learning. If she can't, that

child will grow up on welfare and the fringes of poverty, just as her mother has done. There are a few groups starting up around the country, some of them funded by corporations, and one of them called

"Literacy. Pass It On." has a national program that is devoted exclusively to women. I didn't know about it until a couple of days ago."

Listening to her, watching her, Zack didn't know whether to offer to write a check or teach a class.

"I know Rachel decided she couldn't give up her career as soon as you were married, and I—I have to tell you now I want to keep teaching in California, Zack. Adult women, not children. I want to get involved in that program," she said a little desperately.

"And that's why you wanted me to come here tonight," he said dryly, thinking how absurd the comparison was between Rachel's unbridled, self-centered ambition and Julie's desire to help her own sex.