Wishing Pearl (27 page)

Olivia stood straighter and squared her shoulders, immune to the stares she was sure pierced her back like lasers as she made her way up the sanctuary aisle to her seat between Ju-Ju and Skye. Had she already been there three weeks? In some ways it seemed like she’d arrived only the day before. But in other ways it felt like a lifetime. Nine counseling sessions, two phone conferences with Mom, a major holiday, new friendships … but no God. Maybe all the rest would be enough to get her through. She hadn’t really hoped to make friends. She’d never expected to love her counselor. She hadn’t even hoped for the opportunity to advance her oboe skills. So maybe it
was
enough … with or without God.

She stood to her feet as the service opened with a contemporary worship song. Becoming familiar with the practice of reading from the overhead screens and singing along, Olivia actually joined in. The same woman who did it every week sat on the stool on the far right of the stage, signing to several rows of hearing-impaired people. Olivia preferred to watch her rather than the preacher. It made her feel closer to Jake. Plus she thought the signing was such a great thing to offer hearing-impaired people. Maybe they’d let Olivia fill in sometime if the regular woman got sick or something.

Ack
. Olivia shook her head at the thought. What was she thinking? She could never do something like that in front of all those people. For crying out loud, she could barely garner enough nerve to walk down the aisle to sit down.

After a few choruses, the worship director signaled for them to take their seats. He held out the microphone to a special guest who walked onto the stage.
Ah
. A solo performance. Olivia loved when they did that—it felt like a concert. The first few bars of the song came through the speakers, and Olivia peered a little closer at the singer.
Justin?

Dressed in sleek black trousers with a crisp seam and a black and gray tweed sport coat over a royal blue knit shirt, Justin opened his mouth to sing.

Olivia had never heard anything like it in person. He sounded like an angel. She sat on the edge of her seat, never expecting him to do well throughout the whole song—surely he’d mess up and be embarrassed.

Skye nudged her and giggled. “Close your mouth. You might catch a fly.”

Olivia snapped her jaw shut. She hadn’t realized she’d been gawking, but she could hardly help it. “I had no idea he could sing like that.”

“Justin can do just about anything musical. He’s been attending Denver Fine Arts Academy on a full scholarship.”

“He’s amazing,” Olivia whispered. She couldn’t pull her eyes from the gorgeous guy who gripped the microphone and sang convincingly about the voice of truth calling him to get out of a boat. Olivia had no idea what it meant, but she wanted to know, and she didn’t want the song to end.

Skye nodded. “Just don’t let Kira hear you say that.”

Kira?
Olivia glanced over at the little firecracker who sat in the row ahead of her. Someone said she’d been a gymnast for years—had Olympic hopes until she got injured. She couldn’t be more than five feet tall. Muscular but tiny—no big threat. Kira had eyes that bored holes through Olivia, but what did she have to worry about? Besides, why did Kira care what Olivia thought of Justin anyway?

As if she were a mind reader, Kira turned around and winked at Olivia again.

Olivia gasped at her nerve. “What’s the deal with the winking? She keeps doing that to me,” she hissed at Skye through the corner of her mouth.

“Don’t bother trying to figure Kira out. Just know she’s not going to make this easy on you.”

“Well, there is nothing going on. But even if there were, Kira is the least of my concerns.”

“I reckon I’d be a little worried if I were you.” Skye chuckled. “Don’t put nothin’ past that girl.”

Donna leaned over the laps of a couple of girls. “Shh. Pay attention to the song.”

“Sorry.” Skye grimaced.

Olivia faced forward and listened to the last words of the loveliest sound she’d ever heard, shaking her head the whole time. He did a beautiful job—as well as a professional singer at a concert hall—without a single mistake. The song ended, and Justin lowered the mic and dropped his head as he walked off the stage to thunderous applause. Right before he got to the end of the stage, he turned and pointed skyward.

How could such a simple gesture make her stomach do flip-flops?

What could Kira do to her anyway?

Olivia’s flip-flops turned to nausea. Kira had already tried to get Olivia in trouble with the cigarettes. If she’d already stooped to that level, Kira would stop at nothing to get Olivia in some kind of mess. But why would she want to do that?

Unless
. Did Kira have some claim on Justin, or think she did anyway?
Duh!
That must be the problem. But even if it were true, it wasn’t like Olivia and Justin had ever even spoken but a few times. Well, there was the one incident with the snow. But Olivia would hardly call that flirting. Justin had meant the prank for his dad. Maybe Kira didn’t know that. But Olivia had done nothing wrong. But that couldn’t be it. Kira had had it in for Olivia since the time she first visited Diamond Estates, and Olivia wasn’t pursuing Justin. Besides, the last she’d heard, Justin was forbidden from dating the Diamond girls. So there was really nothing to talk to Kira about. Rules were rules.

But rules are meant to be broken … right?

O
kay, girls, let’s count off by twos.” Patty stood on a chair holding her clipboard. What was this? Kindergarten? When her turn came, reminiscent of elementary school, Olivia held up two fingers. “Two.”

The girl next to Olivia said, “One.”
Very good, boys and girls
.

“Ones, you’ll be going with Ben to select a Christmas tree. Twos, you’ll be staying here with me and Alicia to get the tree trimmings ready.” Patty jumped down from her chair, her short frame disappearing as she slipped in among the girls.

Phew! Olivia didn’t want to have to go traipsing around outside in the snow. She and Ju-Ju could hang out while Tricia and Skye went outside. But then again, Kira was also a two. Olivia would have to keep an eye on her—steer clear of her if at all possible. That girl was nothing but trouble.

Christmas music was being piped in through the multiroom speaker system, and buckets of popcorn waited on the dining room tables for some of the girls to string. Ju-Ju and Olivia headed as far away from that project as they could get. Gingerbread cookies were spread on another table along with frosting, sprinkles, and all kinds of other decorations.

Olivia grimaced at Ju-Ju. “Should we?” She wrinkled her nose at the thought of decorating cookies.

“Nah.” Ju-Ju shook her head.

That left one option—the kitchen and whatever crafty horror awaited them behind those doors. They passed through the entrance before Olivia realized they were joining Kira’s group. They’d better get out of there. Suddenly stringing popcorn held infinite appeal.

“Come on in, girls!” Alicia flashed her deep dimples. “We could really use your help in here.”

Too late to sneak away unnoticed. With dread like a lump in her stomach, Olivia approached the group standing around the center worktable and went to the corner, standing as far from Kira as she could and still be a part of things. Why did she let that girl get to her so much?

Ju-Ju grinned. “Ooh! Are we doing what I think we are?” She clapped her hands and rubbed them together.

“Yep.” Alicia gestured to the cookbook. “We’re making homemade candy canes.”

Huh? Why bother going to all that trouble?
“Candy canes are probably cheaper to buy than to make. Why go to all that extra work?”

“Cheaper is seldom better. Besides”—Alicia smiled proudly—”it’s a Diamond Estates tradition that everything on the Christmas tree is homemade. Except for the lights, of course. And no Christmas tree is complete without candy canes.”

Olivia leaned in to whisper in Ju-Ju’s ear. “Let me guess, colored blinking lights?”

“Of course. What other kind are there?”

So much for the elegant, magazine-worthy trees her mom had professionally decorated with dainty white lights every year. Olivia made a mental note to pull up her online photo albums the next time they had computer access. Ju-Ju needed a lesson in taste—holiday style.

Alicia handed out little cards with the recipe printed on them and then demonstrated one candy cane. Then the girls divided into groups of two and spread out to separate work spaces in the kitchen. Olivia steered Ju-Ju to a corner opposite Kira’s perch on a bar stool near Alicia.

Olivia and Ju-Ju mixed their first batch of candy, heating it to the precise temperature and adding red food coloring to half of it. “So, Ju, tell me your story. If you’re ready to, I mean.” She dropped the red candy mixture onto the powdered-sugar-coated cookie sheet and dragged it into a long, thin strip to cool just like Alicia had done.

Ju-Ju shrugged and did the same with the white candy. “It’s no big secret. Basically, my mom and brother were killed when I was twelve. They were shot in a drive-by while watching TV in our living room.” Ju-Ju shrugged again.

“You poor thing. That had to be awful.” Olivia waited for her to continue.

“I was in my room asleep when it went down. I heard it all and knew instantly what had happened, but I was too scared to come out of my room. It took me over an hour to gather enough courage to go out there. I often wonder if they’d be alive if I’d gotten them help sooner.”

Olivia nodded. “I know all about that kind of guilt. We can what-if ourselves to death, can’t we?” She thought of her hands covered with her daddy’s blood and of Jordyn behind the wheel.

“For sure. I’m so good at that.” Ju-Ju’s eyes grew dark for a moment before she shook herself out of it and began to twist the cooling strands of candy together. “So I was on my own. I didn’t want to go into foster care because I’d heard so many horror stories about the things that happen to kids in those homes. So I ran away.” She chuckled and made a grimace at the same time. “In a sense, I created a horror story of my own, but at least it was my own choice. At least I was the one in control—or at least I thought I was.”

“What happened?” Olivia bent the end of her first twisted candy strip into a U shape and then snipped the scraggly ends off with kitchen shears.

“Well, that whole first year, I lived on the run. I slept wherever I found a place and stole money whenever I could find a way. I ate here and there, whatever. When I was thirteen, I realized I could make steady money plus sleep in a warm bed most of the time if I became a prostitute—New York businessmen love feisty little Mexican chicas.” She wiggled her eyebrows.

Olivia lowered the new strings of candy she’d picked up to twist and fought against the tears burning behind her eyelids. “Oh, Ju-Ju. Really?”

“Hey now. You’ve had your own tragedy and pain. I won’t cry for you if you don’t cry for me. Deal?”

Olivia choked back a sob. “Deal.” She dabbed the corner of her eye. “So what happened? How’d you end up here?”

“I stumbled upon a preacher one day while I was working a corner. He was a cop on a missions trip, evangelizing on the streets of New York. He posed as a john—a man who wanted to hire a prostitute—and actually paid my fee so I’d give him the time. He spent his whole hour talking to me about Jesus.

“His teenage daughter had run away and was never found—until it was too late anyway. Then his wife died of cancer. The man had suffered as much heartache as I had, but he’d still managed to find joy and peace somehow. I wanted that feeling.”

You’re not the only one
.

Ju-Ju rolled out another strip of white candy. “So before he left New York, he put me on a plane to Denver.” Her eyes grew wistful. “Officer Mark Stapleton from Chicago. I’ll never forget him.”

Olivia squealed. “I know him! He’s the one who told
me
about this place.” She shared the details of her recent association with him and how her mom knew him from way back. “Did you know he helped fund and build the game room?”

Ju-Ju’s eyes widened. “I had no idea. Wow. It’s a small world—either that or Mark Stapleton is an angel doing God’s work all over the place.”

That was certainly a possibility.

“As is our tradition, now that we have a decorated Christmas tree, we’ll gather around it and sing some Christmas carols in celebration of the start of the season.” Patty hefted her keyboard onto its stand and pulled up a stool.

The twenty-four girls clustered in a half circle, facing the tree.

Olivia looked up into the evergreen boughs and watched a needle fall to the floor. The tree stood tall and regal in its homemade pride. It had heart and soul, unlike the commercial perfection of her mom’s trees. The colored lights might not be as elegant as the white Italian lights, but they were homier somehow. Happy. Warm. But still, something was missing. Why wasn’t she satisfied?

The smells were all there—cider steeping in the slow cooker on the banquet table along the wall and gingerbread notes lingering in the air from the day’s baking. Brightly wrapped presents had already started popping up under the tree as some of the girls had spent their free time wrapping them. Frost on the windows gave away the cold temperatures outside, while the warmth of the roaring fire in the fireplace kept them toasty inside. What could be missing?