“Hey, that’s good. I didn’t know you were such an artist,” I said.
“There’s lots you don’t know about me, Torey.”
“It’s really good. You have the woman’s expression very realistic. But I especially like all these things down under the sand. Look at the rabbit burrows. A regular warren, with all those individual rooms for the rabbits to go in. And I could never draw a scorpion just out of my imagination.”
Sheila grinned. “I like doing things that surprise you.”
I regarded the picture. “She looks lonely, though. This lone hiker with everything hiding from her.”
“Now, don’t go into your psychologist mode. It’s just a picture.”
“So,” I said, “you tell me about it then.”
“It’s just a picture. She’s walking in the desert. It’s the California desert. I’ve seen pictures of it, of bushes like those.”
California, where Sheila’s mother had fled, I was thinking, but I didn’t say that. “It still looks lonely from the hiker’s perspective.”
“Well, yeah, there’s a lot of loneliness in deserts. You kind of feel like there’s this big stretch of emptiness ahead of you,” she replied.
“And everything that’s alive is hiding from you?” I ventured.
“Well, yeah, that, or …” She turned and looked at me, a knowing smile crossing her lips. “Or everything is hiding just below the surface, waiting to be discovered. Touché? I caught you at it? I can interpret pictures too?”
I shrugged good-naturedly.
“You’re dying to get your hands on me, aren’t you? What you really want is for me to say that this person is me and this desert is my life, isn’t it?”
“Only if it’s true.”
“Oh, it’s true,” she said. “And you should know it.”
Sheila’s fourteenth birthday came in early July, just before the program broke up for three days over the Fourth of July. I told Jeff, saying that as it was the only birthday to occur over the course of the eight-week program, it would be nice to have a little party. All the time I was teaching I had always made a special effort to have class celebrations, in part because they provided a pleasant change from routine, but mostly because the handicaps, the emotional dysfunction in the families and/or the financial circumstances often prevented these children from experiencing parties elsewhere. Many were the boys and girls in my classes who had never been invited to a single birthday party or been the center of one for themselves. So I baked us a huge chocolate cake and decorated it with Sheila’s name, while Miriam made up an assortment of small party foods. Jeff provided the paper hats and honkers.
Sheila made no pretense at sophistication when she saw the streamers and balloons, the colorful Pink Panther paper plates and hats, and the cake. Absolutely delighted, she picked up each and every item and inspected it.
“God, you did this for me? Shit,” she said, trying a hat on. “God, I’ve never had one of these. How does it look? Where’s a mirror? I’ve got to see.” She went over to the corner where the dressing-up clothes were and took up the small hand mirror. “I’ve always wondered what I’d look like with one of these hats on.”
The children were equally delighted, squealing with enthusiasm when they spied the bright decorations and the array of party foods. Having lived through dozens of classroom parties before, I knew what a recipe for disaster they generally were. Everyone got a little too excited, the noise level was unbearable and nothing of measurable worth got done. However, there was magic in this sort of chaos, to my mind, and I always enjoyed the ferment.
We started with party games and ended with a feast of goodies, the finale being the cake. All the children were amazed by the number of candles Sheila got and even more amazed that she had the ability to blow them all out. After cutting the cake and passing out a slice to everyone, Jeff said, “Well, now must be the time for presents.”
I had gotten her a gift certificate from a local department store, so that she could have the leisure of picking what caught her fancy. Miriam, who was an accomplished craftsperson, had made an attractive woven belt. Then Jeff handed her a small package, prettily wrapped. It was obvious from its shape that it was a book. Taking the gift from him, Sheila paused to look at it. The wrapping, a shimmery gold, was quite unlike anything I’d seen before and I found it amazing to think that Jeff would take time with things like wrapping birthday presents.
Carefully, Sheila prized the sticking tape off. Inside was a paperback copy of Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra. Sheila lifted it up and regarded the cover. At a loss for words, she just stared at it.
“Torey said you liked Caesar,” Jeff said. “This is set in the same time period.” He regarded Sheila’s face. “Have you read it?”
Curling her lip in undisguised disbelief, she shook her head. “This is Shakespeare.”
“Yes, well, don’t hold it against him. Forget who wrote it and just take it home and read it. There’s one of the best stories in the world between those two covers and you’re going to meet a soul mate.”
Sheila looked up, astonished. “Me? Who?”
“You read it and find out.”
En route down to Fenton Boulevard after lunch, Sheila was full of ebullience.
“Thanks for that, Torey. That was really nice of you and Miriam and Jeff to do all that for me today,” she said.
“We thought it’d be a bit of good fun. I’m glad you liked it,” I replied.
She smiled. “That’s what I always hated about having a summer birthday. All the other kids at school got some kind of fuss made, you know, like they sang ‘Happy Birthday’ or something, and I never got anything. And I always wanted it. Just once. You know, just once, so you could stand up and everybody’d think you were special.” She paused. “It’s funny how such a silly thing can matter so much when you’re little.”
I nodded.
“If you want the actual, honest-to-God truth, this is the first birthday party I’ve ever had.”
I nodded again. I had suspected as much.
“Once, when I was in this one foster home … I was eight, I think, and turning nine … they said they were going to let me have a party and she took me out to look at paper plates and junk, but …” Turning her head, she gazed out the window. “I didn’t get it. I did something or another, I don’t remember what now, and she told me I wasn’t going to have anything for my birthday because of it. But, you know, I don’t think she was going to do anything anyway, ’cause she never bought the paper plates. I think she was just winding me up.”
“That must have been disappointing,” I said.
“Yeah, but then what’s new?”
Silence.
Sheila looked down at the presents in her lap. Pulling out the gift certificate I’d given her, she examined it, then put it back in its envelope. Then she felt the weave of