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.”
“HI, GRETCHEN.” 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.
ON FRIDAY 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.
ON SATURDAY 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 aro
und. 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.”
Jon smiled at the twins, pleased to see how happy they looked. Now it was his older children who worried him the most.
Vanessa seemed more self-absorbed and combative than ever, and he was increasingly worried about Steven…
Jon sighed and returned his attention to his twins. “So, what are you kids planning to do this weekend at the ranch?”
“Stuff,” Ari said serenely.
Jon reached out to stroke Amy’s hair. “How about you, sweetheart? Have you got anything special planned?”
Amy shook her head and gave him a shy smile that tugged powerfully at his emotions. Of all the children, this one was probably the easiest to love. Amy shared her father’s attitudes about many things. She was a thoughtful, gentle child with a vivid imagination.
Jon sometimes wished that the twins weren’t so wrapped up in each other. He would have liked to spend more time alone with each of them separately.
But Amy and Ari were a package deal. If you had one of them, the other was almost always there, too.
“Well, it’s a beautiful fall day.” Jon touched Amy’s rounded cheek with the backs of his fingers. “You kids should have lots of fun playing outside. Maybe you can saddle your ponies and help Tom move the yearlings up to the corrals.”
The twins exchanged a delighted glance but said nothing.
“So, Daddy, what do you think of Dr. Pritchard?” Vanessa picked daintily at her pancake.
“She’s a pretty tough professor,” Jon said, then put down his fork and looked at his daughter in surprise. “How do you know Dr. Pritchard, Van?”
Before Vanessa could answer, Ari spoke. “We know her too. She’s the lady who gave us our tests.”
“I know, Ari,” Jon replied. “Gwen told me you sometimes go to her apartment.”
“Well, I think she’s wonderful,” Vanessa sighed dramatically. “She came to career day at our school yesterday, to talk to us about freelance journalism and to tell us which English courses we need to take next term to get into the right program at college. She’s so gorgeous.”
“Yes, she’s a good-looking woman,” Jon agreed. He hesitated, frowning. Then, “You know, I keep wondering if I’ve seen her somewhere before. There’s something familiar about her, but I can’t put my finger on it.”
Vanessa looked at her father with sudden interest. “Did you meet her somewhere around here?”
“I don’t think so. I have the feeling it was a long time ago, but I can’t remember where.”
“Well, she certainly didn’t grow up on the prairies.” Vanessa added a packet of artificial sweetener to her coffee. “She just moved to Calgary a few years ago.
“Where did she come from?” Ari asked.
“I think she got her degree at Montreal and did graduate work at Harvard.” Vanessa was. clearly pleased to be the center of attention. “She’s an American, you know. Her family is one of the wealthiest in the country, but she never talks about them. She grew up in Massachusetts and dated one of the Kennedy boys. And she was also a world-class equestrienne. I think she rode in the Olympics in Seoul.”
Jon gave his daughter a skeptical glance. “Who told you all this, Van?”
“Everybody knows. There are tons of stories about Dr. Pritchard.” Vanessa sighed again. “She’s so classy. I’d just love to meet her. I think she’s fabulous.”
Jon sipped his coffee thoughtfully. He thought of Camilla Pritchard’s elegant, fine-boned face, her aloofness and academic discipline. Had she really dated a Kennedy and ridden in the Olympics, or was that just campus gossip?
If the rumors were true, perhaps they explained why the woman seemed so hard to approach. She probably had no time for a man who dressed in blue jeans and helped the cowhands with chores around his ranch. No doubt she’d find Jon Campbell’s lifestyle far too primitive for her tastes.
“Do you like her?” Ari asked.
Jon looked at his son in surprise.
“Camilla. Do you like her, Daddy?”
“Yes,” Jon said after a brief hesitation. “Yes, Ari. I like her.”
“Do you think you’d want to marry her?” the little boy asked.
Vanessa hooted with laughter. “Marry Dr. Pritchard!” she jeered. “Can you imagine her living with us at the ranch and putting on rubber boots to go and help feed the calves? I’ll bet she’d just be really tickled with all that.”
Jon quelled the girl with a stern glance and turned to Ari, who was waiting for an answer.
“Why are you asking me about this, son?”
“I just wondered, that’s all. She’s a really nice, pretty lady and you like her, so wouldn’t you want to marry her?”
Jon thought about that slim body, the smooth blond head and remote look, and the sudden, surprising glow of warmth when she smiled at Enrique Valeros.
“Well, now, I just might consider it,” he told the child solemnly. “Matter of fact, if I were planning to get married again, which I’m definitely not, then yes, I think a lady like Dr. Pritchard could probably be a serious candidate.”
Ari scrambled up eagerly to kneel on the chair and lean across the table toward his father. “So will you ask her?” he said.
Jon chuckled. “No, son. I won’t be asking her anytime soon. Look, I haven’t even had a chance to talk with her. I’m hardly ready to propose marriage.”
“Why not?”
“Marrying somebody isn’t the same as buying her a cup of coffee, Ari. Why?” he asked suddenly. “Do you like her a lot, son?”
Ari squirmed uneasily on the chair and exchanged a glance with Amy, then took a sip of milk. “She’s nice,” he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “She has two cats named Elton and Madonna. Elton’s really funny.”
Amy nodded in agreement. “We like her a lot. She gave us cookies yesterday.”
“Camilla was wearing blue jeans,” Ari volunteered. “And a Calgary Stampeders football shirt. She really likes to watch football games.”
&nbs
p; “She wears jeans and likes football,” Jon echoed, trying to adjust his mental image of the woman. “What else does she like to do? Did you—”
“Hey, Ari, what’s her house like?” Vanessa interrupted, breathless with interest. “I’ll bet it’s really beautiful. Where does she live?”
But the twins were losing interest in the conversation. Ari slid down from his chair and headed for the door, followed closely by Amy.
“Hurry up, Daddy,” he said impatiently.
“I’ll be ready in a few minutes.” Jon got up and smiled his thanks to Margaret, strolled to the back entry and put on his hat.
“Pay attention to Margaret while I’m gone,” he told Vanessa, opening the kitchen door and starting outside. “And remind Steve that he still has a one o’clock curfew on weekends, and there’ll be some serious discussions between us if he doesn’t keep it.”
“I’ll tell him,” Vanessa promised. “Have a good time, Daddy.”
“Say hi to Tom,” Margaret called. “Tell him he’d better propose to Caroline before some other cowboy grabs her.”
Jon smiled again at their laughter. He left the house, enjoying the mellow autumn sunlight, and strolled across the yard toward the hangar, where the twins were already waiting near the plane.
IT WAS AFTER MIDNIGHT and the autumn air was getting chilly. Camilla pulled an old cardigan tighter around her shoulders and blew on her fingers to keep them warm. She was inside one of the main-floor rooms of a derelict apartment containing little more than a scarred wooden desk, a rickety file cabinet and a few cardboard boxes full of donated coats and blankets, as well as some emergency medical supplies.
The street kids referred to this room as an “office,” but Camilla and the other volunteers were constantly frustrated by their lack of work space, to say nothing of the money and supplies necessary to provide any kind of worthwhile help to the city’s booming population of homeless youth.
A ragged boy popped his head into the room, grinning widely, showing a couple of missing teeth. He was accompanied by a thin girl with hair cropped short and dyed a shocking shade of red. The girl was very pale, whimpering and hugging herself as she swayed on her feet.
Memories of You Page 6
