A PERFECT RENDEZVOUS

The Golden Fish

Dr. Wilmer's receptionist looked up when Harry walked in. "Did you get lost, Harry?"

"Me? No way!" Harry lied with an emphatic shake of his curly head as he returned to his chair. Unaware that he was being observed through what looked like an ordinary mirror, he turned his attention to the aquarium beside his chair. The first thing he noticed was that one of the beautiful fish had died and that two others were swimming around it as if contemplating eating it. Automatically, he tapped his finger on the glass to scare them away, but a moment later they returned. "There's a dead fish in there," he told the receptionist, trying to sound only slightly concerned. "I could take it out for you."

"The cleaning people will remove it tonight, but thank you for offering."

Harry swallowed an irate protest at what he felt was needless cruelty to the dead fish. It wasn't right for anything so wonderfully beautiful and so helpless to be left in there like that. Picking up a magazine from the coffee table, he pretended to look at it, but from the corner of his eye he kept up his surveillance of the two predatory fish. Each time they returned to prod and poke their deceased comrade, he stole a glance at the receptionist to make sure she wasn't watching, then Harry reached out as casually as possible and tapped the glass to scare them off.

A few feet away, in her office on the other side of the two-way mirror, Dr Theresa Wilmer watched the entire little scenario, her eyes alight with a knowing smile as she watched Harry's gallant attempt to protect a dead fish while maintaining a facade of indifference for the sake of the receptionist. Glancing at the man beside her, another psychiatrist who'd recently begun donating some of his time to her special project, Dr Wilmer said wryly, "There he is, 'Harry the terrible,' the adolescent terror who some foster care officials have judged to be not only 'learning-disabled,' but unmanageable, a bad influence on his peers, and also 'a troublemaker bound for juvenile delinquency.' Did you know," she continued, her voice taking on a shade of amused admiration, "that he actually organized a hunger strike at LaSalle? He talked forty-five children, most of whom were older than him, into going along with him to demand better food."

Dr John Frazier peered through the two-way mirror at the little boy. "I suppose he did that because he had an underlying need to challenge authority?"

"No," Dr Wilmer replied dryly, "he did it because he had an underlying need for better food. The food at LaSalle is nutritious but tasteless. I sampled some."

Frazier flashed a startled look at his associate. "What about the thefts? You can't ignore that problem so easily." Leaning her shoulder against the wall, Terry tipped her head to the child in the waiting room and said with a smile, "Have you ever heard of Robin Hood?"

"Of course. Why?"

"Because you're looking at a modern-day adolescent version of Robin Hood out there. Harry can filch the gold right out of your teeth without your knowing it, he's that quick."

"I hardly think that's a recommendation for sending him to live with your unsuspecting Texas cousins, which is what I understand you intend to do."

Dr Wilmer shrugged. "Harry steals food or clothing or playthings, but he doesn't keep anything. He gives his booty to the younger kids at LaSalle."

"You're certain?"

"Positive. I've checked it out."

A reluctant smile tugged at John Frazier's lips as he studied the little boy. "He looks more like a Peter Pan than a Robin Hood. He's not at all what I expected, based on his file."

"He surprised me, too," Dr Wilmer admitted. According to Harry's file, the director of the LaSalle Foster Care Facility, where he now resided, had deemed him to be "a discipline problem with a predilection for truancy, troublemaking, theft, and banging around with unsavoury male companions." After all the unfavourable comments in Harry's file, Dr Wilmer had fully expected Harry Styles to be a belligerent, hardened boy whose constant association with older males probably indicated early physical development and even sexual activity. For that reason, she'd nearly gaped at Harry when the child sauntered into her office two months ago, looking like a grubby little pixie in jeans and a tattered sweatshirt, with short-cropped dark, curly hair. Instead of the budding criminal Dr Wilmer had expected, Harry Styles had a beguiling gamin face that was dominated by an enormous pair of thick-lashed eyes the startling color of dark green forests. In contrast to that piquant little face and innocently beguiling eyes, there was a boyish bravado in the way he'd stood in front of Dr. Wilmer's desk that first day with his small chin thrust out and his hands jammed into the back pockets of his jeans.

Theresa had been captivated at that first meeting, but her fascination with Harry had begun even before that—almost from the moment she'd opened her file at home one night and began reading her responses to the battery of tests that was part of the evaluating process that Theresa herself had recently developed. By the time she was finished, Theresa had a firm grasp of the workings of the child's facile mind as well as the depth of his pain and the details of his current plight: Abandoned by his birth parents and rejected by two sets of adoptive parents, Harry had been reduced to spending his childhood on the fringes of the Chicago slums in a succession of overcrowded foster homes. As a result, throughout his life, his only source of real human warmth and support came from his companions—grubby, unkempt kids like himself whom he philosophically regarded as "his own kind," kids who taught him to filch goods from stores and, later, to cut school with them. His quick mind and quicker fingers had made Harry so good at both that no matter how often he was shuffled off to a new foster home, he almost immediately achieved a certain popularity and respect among his peers, so much so that a few months ago, a group of biker boys had condescended to demonstrate to him the various techniques they used for breaking into cars and hot-wiring them—a demonstration that resulted in the entire group of them being busted by an alert Chicago cop, including Harry, who was merely an observer.

That day had marked Harry's first arrest, and although Harry didn't know it, it also marked Harry's first real "break" because it ultimately brought him to Dr. Wilmer's attention. After being—somewhat unjustly—arrested for attempted auto theft, Harry was put into Dr. Wilmer's new, experimental program that included an intensive battery of psychological tests, intelligence tests, and personal interviews and evaluations conducted by Dr. Wilmer's group of volunteer psychiatrists and psychologists. The program was intended to divert juveniles in the care of the state from a life of delinquency and worse.

In Harry's case, Dr. Wilmer was adamantly committed to doing exactly that, and as everyone who knew her was aware, when Dr. Wilmer set her mind on a goal, she accomplished it. At thirty-five, Terry Wilmer had a pleasant, refined bearing, a kind smile, and a will of iron. In addition to her impressive assortment of medical degrees and a family tree that read like The Social Register, she had three other special attributes in great abundance: intuition, compassion, and total dedication. With the tireless fervor of a true evangelist dedicated to saving wayward souls, Theresa Wilmer had abandoned her thriving private practice and was now dedicated to saving those helpless adolescent victims of an overcrowded, underfunded state foster care system. To achieve her goals, Dr. Wilmer was shamelessly willing to exploit every tool at her disposal, including recruiting support from among her colleagues like John Frazier. In Harry's case, she'd even enlisted the aid of distant cousins, who were far from wealthy but who had room in their home, and hopefully in their soft hearts, for one very special little boy.

"I wanted you to have a peek at him," Terry said. She reached out to draw the draperies over the glass, just as Harry suddenly stood up, looked desperately at the fish tank, and plunged both his hands into the water.

"What the hell—" John Frazier began, then he watched in stunned silence as the boy marched toward the preoccupied receptionist with the dead fish cradled in his dripping hands.

Harry knew he shouldn't get water on the carpet, but he couldn't stand to see anything as beautiful as this fish with its long, gold flowing fins being mangled by the others. Not certain whether the receptionist was unaware of him or simply ignoring him, he walked up close behind her chair. "Excuse me," he blurted in an overloud voice, holding out his hands.

The receptionist, who was thoroughly engrossed in her typing, gave a nervous start, swung around in her chair, and emitted a choked scream at the sight of a shining, dripping fish directly in front of her nose.

Harry took a cautious step backward but persevered. "It's dead," he said boldly, fighting to keep his voice empty of the sentimental pity he felt. "The other fish are going to eat it, and I don't want to watch. It's gross. If you'll give me a piece of paper, I'll wrap it up and you can put it in your trash can."

Recovering from her shock, the receptionist carefully suppressed a smile, opened her desk drawer, and removed several tissues, which she handed to the child. "Would you like to take it with you and bury it at home?"

Harry would have liked to do exactly that, but he thought he heard amusement in the woman's voice, and so he hastily wrapped the fish in its tissue-paper shroud and thrust it at her instead. "I'm not that stupid, you know. This is just a fish, not a rabbit or something special like that."