Wishing Pearl Read online

  “Okay. This is real school, right? I mean, this counts for college and everything, right?” What if she’d made a huge mistake and had disqualified herself from college by coming to a fake school?

  “Oh, definitely. Everything you do is fully accredited, just like anywhere else. You don’t have to worry about that at all.”

  Olivia sure hoped Patty knew what she was talking about.

  “Now, it looks like most of the girls are ready for drills. Want to jump in with them or do the assignment first?”

  Olivia shrugged. “Whatever you think.”

  “Well, then you go ahead and sit by Kira. She’s in the same book as you and doesn’t have a partner at the moment.”

  Perfect. Olivia slumped into the seat beside Kira and closed her eyes. Could the day get any worse?

  Patty stood in front of the room of paired-up girls and held up a timer. “Okay, spread the flash cards out in front of you. When the buzzer goes off, you see if you can beat your opponent by solving the problems on more cards than she does. As you get the answer right, snatch the card into your pile, and we’ll count them at the end. Ready. Set. Go.” Patty clicked the button.

  Kira stared into Olivia’s eyes and pressed her hands and forearms over the cards.

  “What are you doing?” Olivia kept her voice low and calm. “I can’t see the cards. Move your arms.” She glanced at Patty, who was watching the timer. The other teams were scurrying through their races, but Kira wouldn’t budge. Olivia sat back in her chair. If Kira wanted to act like a child, there was nothing Olivia could do about it.

  “Five more seconds.” Patty held up the timer.

  Olivia crossed her arms and waited for the buzzer.

  Kira’s steely eyes glinted with smug confidence as she swept the cards into her lap and gathered them in a pile. “I win.”

  That’s what you think.

  Chapter 19

  Come on in, Olivia.” Tammy gave her a big grin and gestured to a puffy tomato-red chair on the other side of her desk. “Have a seat. How’s your day going?”

  “Fine.” Olivia sat on the edge of her seat, wringing her hands in her lap.

  “Don’t be nervous. I don’t bite.”

  “I don’t know why I’m so jittery.” Olivia spoke slowly and signed her words.

  “It’s normal to feel anxious about talking to someone about your personal life and thoughts. Especially a relative stranger.”

  Olivia nodded and fought back tears. “It makes no sense that I’m about to cry.” She made the motion for tears. “We haven’t even started.”

  “You’ve got a lot bubbling just under the surface. Part of you is scared to face it, but the other part is so ready to let it all go. This will be an ongoing process, so don’t think we’re going to be able to fix everything today, or even this month.” Tammy reached a hand across the desk to touch Olivia’s shoulder. “It took a lifetime for you to get to this point. Give us some time to work out a breakthrough. Okay?”

  “Deal.” She’d try, but Olivia had no idea how much she would tell Tammy. Maybe everything. Maybe nothing.

  Tammy reached across her desk and pulled her spiral notebook closer to her body. “I do have a few ground rules. Number one is complete honesty. If you aren’t honest with me, there’s really nothing I can do to help you. Right?”

  Omission wasn’t really a lie though. “Makes sense.”

  “Number two is effort. You need to put forth your best effort every single time. Don’t hide from the difficult things—let’s hit them head-on, together. Got it?”

  “Got it.” Maybe.

  “Number three is confidentiality. I’m obligated to protect your privacy and never discuss you with anyone outside the staff here at Diamond without your permission—you should know, though, that I am free to discuss anything I need to with Ben and that the staff prays together for you every day. On the flip side, I’d appreciate confidentiality, too. I might share things with you as part of our therapy. That information should stay in this room.”

  “Sounds fair.” Olivia signed by tapping her fingertips together.

  Tammy opened her notebook to a new page and poised her pen to write. “I’m going to ask you a few questions. I’m not really going to delve into your answers today. They’re mainly meant to give me a kind of jumping-off point so I know where to direct our time together in the future.”

  Olivia squirmed. Here comes the fun part. Might as well get it over with.

  “First of all, I’ve read your details and I’ve heard your story, but I’d like you to tell me why you’re here. I don’t need a play-by-play of your actions and mistakes; I’m looking for more of an understanding of what you’re looking for.”

  Good question. What if Olivia didn’t even know exactly what she hoped to find? She supposed she could just say that. “That’s the thing, I don’t even know what I’m looking for, really.” She gazed at her shoe while Tammy waited for more. “I guess the short answer is that I’m searching for God.” Olivia made sure her lips were readable and dragged the side of her flat hand along the length of her face.

  Tammy gave a confused squint. “Short answer?”

  “Yeah. I mean, I’m hoping to find God. But I really have no idea how to do that or what He’ll even look like when or if I find Him. I don’t feel Him, see Him, hear Him.” Olivia threw up her hands, almost forgetting to sign her words. “I see the other girls praying.” She put her hands together. “And I watch them sing songs and everything else that goes on. It seems like they really know Him. I guess I don’t see that happening for me.” Olivia pointed to herself.

  “Then what’s the long answer?”

  “The long answer?” Boy, Tammy knew how to ask all the hard questions. Olivia shrugged. “Well, I guess I’m running from things. I have fears, memories, worries … but don’t we all? I miss my daddy. I feel guilty about Jordyn’s death—she’s my best friend who died recently. I guess I feel guilty about my daddy, too. But that’s just stupid. I was only a kid. Speaking of that, why would God take a little kid’s daddy from her? If there’s really a God, why …?” Olivia could go on. But she’d said enough.

  Tammy scribbled some notes on her page and gazed at Olivia. “What’s the one thing in your life, the one event or trigger looming in your mind as a reason you’ve wandered down the path you’ve been on lately?”

  How could she choose? There were so many. “I guess I’d start with my dad’s death. I was there—I saw it happen and felt his blood.” Olivia made the sign for blood and then shivered involuntarily. “I had it all over me.”

  Tammy nodded and scrawled on her paper.

  “Then there’s my stepdad, Charles …” Her breath caught and tears welled up in her eyes. She shook her head, unable to continue. Why had she said his name?

  Tammy wrote something down. “It’s okay. That’s enough about him for now.”

  “The last thing, my last defining moment I guess, was the accident I was in a little over a week ago.” Olivia touched the scar on her cheek. “Jordyn, my best friend, died in that one.” Bet Tammy wished she could pass Olivia on to someone else and wait for the next new girl—someone without so much baggage.

  “Okay, that’s great information, and it will help us as we move forward. I know it’s difficult to bring this stuff up, but it’s really necessary. My last question for you is this: what’s one thing you’re disappointed in or frustrated about the program since you got here?”

  Finally—her chance. “Can I say two things?”

  Tammy snickered. “It’s really funny. No one ever has only one thing to say.” She put her notebook on her lap and folded her hands on the desk. “Sure. Two things—go for it.”

  “Number one, I honestly don’t understand why we need to get up so early every day.” Olivia crossed her legs while signing then uncrossed them so she wouldn’t seem combative. “I mean, it’s not like we have to be anywhere at any certain time. Couldn’t there be a little more flexibility?” She had to spell
out the word with her fingers.

  Tammy shook her head and smiled. “The short answer, as you called it, is no. We want to train you girls how to be contributing, functioning members of society. When you have a job, you’ll be lucky if you can sleep until six in the morning. We do let you sleep in until eight on the weekends and even nine on holidays. So it’s not completely inflexible. Studies have shown that the day is most productive when a person lives within a schedule and rises early.”

  Alrighty then. Guess that was a resounding no.

  “What was your second thing?” Tammy smiled and nodded encouragingly.

  “It has to do with my oboe.” Olivia spoke slowly and signed an explanation of the amount of practice she’d been used to at home. “You see, I need to keep up my practice if I’m to have any hope of a scholarship. Do you think there might be a time during the school day when I could take an hour to go practice?”

  “Absolutely. We definitely want to support those types of commitments. Give me a little bit of time to figure out what to do, but we’ll get it worked out.” Tammy made another quick note, clicked her pen, and then shut her book. “That’s all the time we have for today. I now have a lot more insight into who you really are and what your needs are. Thanks so much for your honesty.”

  “How often do we get together for sessions like this?”

  “For your first couple of months here, we’ll meet three times a week.” Tammy pulled out a calendar. “Let me see. How about Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays at ten thirty? That would get you back to the library before lunch prep.”

  Sure, why not? If nothing else, it would get her out of part of the school day. “Sounds fine to me.” Olivia lifted her open hand with splayed fingers and touched her thumb to her chest. Fine.

  “I’d like to pray for you before you leave. Okay?” Tammy smiled.

  “I guess so.” Olivia shrugged and fought off a groan as she closed her eyes. So much praying around here. They wouldn’t ever expect her to pray out loud, would they? No way she’d do that. How strange—talking to someone you couldn’t see, in front of other people who couldn’t see Him either. It felt so weird. She remembered doing it as a kid. But she also sang nursery rhymes and believed in the tooth fairy once, too.

  “Amen.” Tammy stood up and smiled. “Come on. I’ll escort you back to class.”

  Olivia stood and smoothed the front of her pants. “Um, I was wondering about something else. When can I call my mom?”

  “Good question. Normally you’d have to wait until next week, but we’ll be letting everyone call home for Thanksgiving.”

  “Thanksgiving?” Olivia searched her brain for dates and realized in horror that it was only three days away. Her eyes dampened at the thought of being alone for the holiday. How would it feel to spend it so far from home? What would she do? What would Mom do with only Charles to celebrate with? Maybe Jake would come home to be with Mom. Olivia pushed the thoughts from her mind and nodded. “Okay. I hadn’t realized. It’ll be nice to talk to her.” She touched her lips.

  Tammy gazed at Olivia for a moment then nodded. “It’ll be okay. We have a great time on holidays. You’ll see. And speaking of Thanksgiving, your assignment for our next session is to be thinking of what you’re most thankful for. I’d love it if you came up with three things to share with me on Wednesday.”

  What have I got to be thankful for? And even if there were things, who would I thank?

  “Happy Thanksgiving, roomies,” Skye’s singsong voice called out from her bed.

  Olivia pried open one eye to look at the clock. Six fifteen? Seriously? “No offense, but shh!” What was Skye doing awake when they could sleep in three extra hours until nine o’clock since it was a holiday? The sun hadn’t even encroached on the darkness, and Skye had already started yakking.

  Tricia moaned and yanked her covers up to her chin. “No kidding. Shh.”

  Ju-Ju threw a pillow and socked a giggling Skye in the head.

  Olivia pulled her pillow over her face. What did she have to be thankful for on a holiday when she’d be away from home with no family? Several girls got to go home for the weekend because they were graduating the following month—just in time for Christmas. Others had visitors coming to celebrate right there in the house with them. Being so new, Olivia hadn’t been granted any of those privileges.

  Would she be able to do what it took to earn some extra rights by Christmas? It would be intolerable if she had to stay here and celebrate Christmas by herself. But what was the alternative? Go to Chuck’s house? No thanks. Huddled with Mom and Jake around a roaring fire in a ski chalet sounded perfect—as if Charles would allow that. What did the other Diamond Estates girls do for the holidays? She’d have to ask some of them who’d been there longest what the holidays were like last year.

  Thankful? She felt most thankful that her group had laundry duty and outside chores for the holiday week. The kitchen team would have a tough time cooking the Thanksgiving banquet and then cleaning up the destroyed kitchen after it. The dining room team would have an equally difficult time getting the fancy plates and dishes washed and put away—especially with their added guests. Way better to just tuck away in the steamy laundry room to fold sheets and tablecloths. She didn’t even mind sorting everyone’s socks by their initials if it meant no greasy pots of gravy to clean.

  What else made her thankful? They had plans to leave the grounds the next day for a traditional Black Friday shopping trip. That would be fun—shopping was always something to be thankful for. Olivia had plenty of money to buy Christmas gifts and maybe a new outfit for herself—and a credit card in case the cash ran out. Some of the girls weren’t really looking forward to going shopping, naturally. After all, how fun could it be with no money to spend? One of these days, once he knew she’d never be coming home, Charles would cut off Olivia’s credit card. She was sure of it. But for now … she might as well get the most she could out of it.

  Olivia rolled over and put her hands beneath her head, her eyes wide open, staring at the revolving ceiling fan in the slowly brightening room. She supposed she should be thankful she was there. Safe, away from Charles, headed in some kind of direction—whether it was the right one or not remained to be seen. But at least she wasn’t still careening on a collision course with self-destruction. And she was safe. She’d never, ever let someone hurt her again.

  Olivia’s hand made an involuntary move for her front pocket. It was time for a smoke, and her body knew it. Oh, what she would give for a cigarette. Even one drag to relax her tense nerves and loosen the tightness in her chest. She could go run on the treadmill and get the same calming effect from the endorphins. But it was the cigarette she truly craved. Why wasn’t that desire fading yet? She drew in her breath in a pretend inhale, letting her lungs expand, hoping they’d believe the air she breathed was nicotine.

  No such luck.

  “Who wants pie?” Patty steered a dessert trolley into the dining room. The pies had already been cut and placed in single-serving pieces on plates with a generous scoop of vanilla ice cream—the good kind with the specks of vanilla bean in it. She pushed the cart past each table. “Pumpkin or apple?”

  When the cart got to their table, Olivia selected a slice of apple, fully intending to leave most of it untouched. She’d never be able to skip the ice cream though. Skye and Tricia each picked the largest pieces of pumpkin they could find.

  “I’m going to pay for this later.” Tricia eyed her pie like it might gobble her up, but she took a huge bite anyway. “Mmm, so good.”

  Ju-Ju stared at the dessert trays for a moment and then asked, “Can I go get a Ding Dong from my cupboard?”

  Aha! Ju-Ju was the Ding Dong freak Ben had mentioned. She’d rather have one of those waxy, tasteless snack cakes than a piece of homemade pie fresh from the oven? Crazy.

  Patty laughed. “If that’s what you want, go ahead.”

  Ju-Ju made a record-breaking trip to the kitchen then slid back into her seat. She
pulled the hockey-puck-sized dessert from its white plastic wrapper and placed it on her napkin.

  Tricia nudged Olivia. “Watch this.” She nodded toward Ju-Ju.

  No worries. Olivia had no intention of looking away as Ju-Ju peeled the chocolate coating from the cake and ate the flakes one by one. Then, with only chocolate cake exposed, she picked up her spoon and cored the cream-filled center out and ate that in one bite. On her napkin remained only a donut-shaped chocolate cake, which she picked up and nibbled around the edges until it shrank and eventually disappeared.

  Tricia giggled at Olivia’s openmouthed expression. “Funny, eh?”

  “I’ve never seen anything like it.” Who knew eating a Ding Dong could be turned into such a spectacle?

  Ju-Ju glared. “How do you eat your Oreos? You unscrew and scrape, right?”

  Olivia nodded.

  “Well, I basically dismantle my Ding Dong like you do your Oreo. Deal with it.”

  “Fair enough, weirdo.” Olivia winked at Tricia and Skye.

  “You girls going shopping tomorrow?” Kira pressed the palms of her hands on the table in front of Olivia and smiled a syrupy sweet smile. Her two cronies—what were their names anyway?—stood just behind Kira with a brainless smile in place, ready for orders.

  “Yes,” Ju-Ju hissed. “Pretty sure it’s mandatory.”

  Kira’s smile wavered. “Yes, well. I was just hoping to get some shopping tips from the rich girl over here.” She tipped her head at Olivia. “Oh. Wait. On second thought, if I’m bargain shopping, I’d be better off asking you for help, Ju.” She flipped her hair over her shoulder and spun toward the door. She spun around and looked at Tricia. “I’d ask you for help with fit, but, well …” She shrugged and pranced away.

  Her followers parted like the Red Sea to let her pass through.

  Tricia swallowed her pie with a loud gulp, put down her fork, and pushed her plate out of reach. “I’ve got to go to the bathroom.” Her chair squeaked back as she left the table and hurried out the side door.