“Hello,” Gabrielle said breathlessly into the telephone. She’d run into the house, leaving her key in the door, knowing that Bea was right behind her.
“Hey, it’s me. How did it go?” Stephanie asked gleefully into the receiver.
“Bea is fine. The doctor told her that losing weight would help reduce the strain on her back and gave her a prescription for a muscle relaxer.”
“Not that. How did things go with Mig Reid this morning?”
“I’ve been with Beatrice all morning.”
“Don’t tell me you didn’t get the note,” Stephanie cried, feigning shock and concern with great success. “Miguel wanted to see you this morning at nine.”
“You left me a note? Where?” Gabrielle asked, hysteria rising in her voice.
“Right on your dresser mirror.”
“The dresser,” Gabrielle whimpered as the situation became clear. She pushed her hand into the pocket of her jeans and pulled out the message she’d found under her bureau this morning. If she hadn’t dropped her brush, she’d have never noticed the note written on Stephanie’s personal memo paper. She’d shoved it in her pocket, making a mental note to have Beatrice read it to her later. It had remained there—forgotten—until this very moment.
“This is all my fault. I should have called earlier or woke you up last night when I came in. I’ll never forgive myself if you lost your big chance because of me,” Stephanie replied, hoping Gabrielle could not detect her ever-widening smile over the phone. She wished she could witness, face to face, the devastation Gabrielle was obviously feeling.
“It’s not your fault. You left me a message. I just didn’t see it,” Gabrielle said, as she slowly crushed the paper in her hand and dropped it onto the floor.
Hearing the pain in Gabrielle’s voice, Stephanie almost felt sorry for the girl. “Ah, look, I have to run. The FedEx guy just walked in.”
“Sure. I’ll talk to you when you get home.” Gabrielle hung up the phone and dashed up the stairs, her sobs putting Bea’s maternal instincts on alert.
Beatrice picked up the crumpled note and trudged up after Gabrielle. She could hear the violent cries emanating from her room. She stepped in the doorway to find Gabrielle slumped on the floor at the side of her bed.
“Honey, what on earth is wrong?” Bea lowered her girth to the floor, and Gabrielle collapsed into the older woman’s soft and fleshy arms, sobbing wildly. The tears came fast and furious.
Beatrice rocked Gabrielle against her breast and allowed her to expel her grief. As she stroked Gabrielle’s hair and tried to console her, Bea felt a surge of maternal love overtake her. Never in her sixty-four years had she felt so needed.
As the minutes passed, Beatrice took the time to reflect on her life. She’d always intended to marry and have children, but the right man just never seemed to materialize. When she was twenty-three, she was engaged briefly to a sailor in the merchant marine. They’d met while he was in port in New York, and after a six-day, whirlwind romance she agreed to marry him. On the seventh day he shipped off, leaving her with the promise of a ring and a spring wedding. Their engagement lasted exactly two months, long enough for him to sail to the Philippines and marry a local barmaid.
Bea’s greatest regret was not that she’d never wed or never explored the world as she had once dreamed, but that she’d never had a child. It appeared, however, sitting here with her arms wrapped around Gabrielle, that the Lord had intervened.
After several minutes, when Gabrielle’s sobs had evaporated into an occasional whimper, Beatrice gently pressed her into revealing the cause of her grief.
Gabrielle spoke in a low monotone. “I blew it. I had my big chance, and I blew it. Everything my mom and I dreamed about, I ruined. All because—” Gabrielle’s voice broke as the tears resurfaced.
“Sweetie, calm down and tell me, is this what has you so upset?” Bea said, smoothing out the discarded note.
“The photographer I told you about called yesterday. He wanted to take some pictures of me this morning. Stephanie left me that note, only I didn’t know. Now I’ve missed my chance.”
“Honey, you don’t know that. We’ll call him and tell him you didn’t get his message. I’m sure he’ll reschedule.”
“I did get it. It fell under the dresser, but I found it.”
“I’m confused. If you got Stephanie’s message, why didn’t you call?”
“Because I couldn’t read it.”
“You couldn’t read Stephanie’s handwriting?”
“No. You don’t understand. I can’t read anything.”
“What are you saying?” Beatrice asked, trying to make sense of what she had just heard.
“I’m saying I never learned how to read or write.”
“You mean, you don’t read very fast.”
“No, I mean that other than a few small words like ‘the’ or ‘at,’ I can’t read.”
Beatrice sat silently. It was inconceivable to her that this bright, beautiful child in front of her was illiterate.
“Your mother? She knew you couldn’t read?”
“Not until I was twelve.”
“How could she not know until then?”
“My mom was a waitress. She worked at night—the tips are bigger then—so she wasn’t home much with me. When she was, we’d do other stuff, like work on puzzles or go to the movies.”
“But once she knew, why didn’t she get you some help?”
Gabrielle had no way of explaining to Beatrice what her mother had never clarified for her. Helene impressed on her daughter a thousand times over the years that she was smart in plenty of other ways—that being book smart wasn’t everything. Gabrielle accepted her mother’s subtle insinuation that whatever was keeping her from learning to read, while not fixable, was indeed tolerable. The child had no way of knowing that it was Helene’s blind ambition that was the real culprit. Helene was determined that Gabrielle’s beauty, not her brains, was their ticket out of their miserable existence. She could not take the chance that a literate Gabrielle might make some other, less compelling career choice. Helene was sure that once her ex-husband, Nick, saw his “famous” daughter he would change his mind and they could finally be a family.
“She helped me a lot, mainly by not making me feel like something was terribly wrong with me. She always said we should emphasize the positive, because the negative parts were irrelevant,” Gabrielle explained.
“What about school? Somebody must have known.”
“We moved a lot—every year, sometimes twice. By the time I was in high school I’d been to seventeen schools. I was always the new girl. I was quiet and shy and just kept to myself. It’s like the teachers never really noticed me. Even if they had, it wouldn’t matter, I’d be gone by the end of the year anyway. They just kept passing me along.”
“How long did you stay in school?” Beatrice asked.
“I graduated high school last year.”
Shock was written all over Beatrice’s face. “You have a high-school diploma and you can’t read or write. How?”
“My mom helped me with my schoolwork by reading the textbooks to me and writing out my reports. I would memorize the work and copy the papers letter by letter and turn it in like everyone else. In class I’d figure out some way to get help on tests.” Gabrielle looked at the expression of disbelief on Beatrice’s face.
“How could your teachers or classmates not know?”
“I guess I was good at hiding it. In class I’d watch when everyone else was reading silently and would turn the page when they did. I’d scribble in my notebook when the others were taking notes and then rip them out in case anyone asked to see them after class. When we had assignments to finish in class, I’d ask someone questions, like ‘What do they mean here?’ or ‘What does this mean to you?’ Working in teams was the easiest, because I could walk around thinking out loud and leave my partner to do the reading and writing.”
“Did you cheat?”
“Sometimes, but only when I didn’t have a choice,” Gabrielle admitted.
“But you did manipulate people. Like you did me when we first met. Your hand wasn’t hurt at all, was it?” Beatrice accused, her emotions fluctuating between anger and pity.
“It’s not really manipulation, it’s more orchestration,” Helene had told her. “Getting people to help you when and how you need it. There’s nothing wrong with that, Cookie. You’re not hurting anybody.”
“No,” Gabrielle admitted. “I hated being dishonest, but I had no other choice.”
Beatrice sat contemplating Gabrielle’s shocking revelation. She didn’t look illiterate. But then, what does an illiterate person look like? She was far too smart and productive to be illiterate. But not being able to read, does that make you stupid? Beatrice looked away from Gabrielle, focusing hard on the details in the small room. Her eyes were immediately drawn to the pile of paperback books stacked on the table in the corner. “I’ve heard you discuss those very books with Stephanie. How can you do that if you can’t read?”
Gabrielle stood up, her heart pounding. Feeling sad and defeated, she walked to the dresser, bent over, and opened the bottom drawer. Gabrielle reached in and pulled out a bundle of audio cassettes. “By listening to them on tape while pretending to read.”
“And the way you speak. Your vocabulary isn’t that of an illiterate person.”
“You don’t have to be able to read to have a big vocabulary. You just have to listen and ask questions.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
A familiar wave of shame washed over Gabrielle. “I wanted to tell you. I needed to tell somebody, but I was too ashamed. Can you imagine what it feels like to be a high-school graduate but unable to read a little kid’s ABC book? Or to walk away from your job selling muffins just because somebody rearranged the shelves? I didn’t want you to hate me or think I was stupid, because I’m not stupid …” Gabrielle’s voice trailed off into a new onslaught of tears.
“Sweetheart, I know you’re not stupid. I think you’re the brightest and bravest person I know. Don’t worry, you’re not alone anymore. I’ll help you. Stephanie will help you, too. I’m sure together we can teach you to read.”
“No!” Gabrielle screamed fiercely. “Promise me you won’t say a word, not to anyone, especially not Stephanie. Beatrice, you must promise me.”
“Honey, calm down,” Beatrice said. “This will stay between me and you, I swear. Nobody will ever know. When you’re ready, we’ll get you some help.”
“Thank you,” Gabrielle whispered as she sank back into Beatrice’s arms. No one can ever know. Not about this, not about anything, she thought as her eyes settled on her Wizard of Oz snow globe.
Stop it! Gabrielle commanded her thoughts as she fiercely wiped away her tears. She didn’t have time to dwell on yesterday’s mistakes. Right now she needed to concentrate on rectifying today’s. Miguel Reid must be persuaded to give her another chance. There had to be something she could do, and Gabrielle was determined to do it.