A PERFECT RENDEZVOUS

A CLEAN SLATE

"Harry," she said from the doorway, "Would you come in please." As Harry closed the door behind him and walked forward, Terry added cheerfully, "Your time in our testing program is over. All the results are in."

Rather than sitting in a chair, her young patient took up a position in front of Terry's desk, his small feet planted slightly apart, hands jammed into the back pockets of his jeans. He gave a jaunty, dismissive shrug, but he did not ask about the results of the tests, because, Terry knew, he was afraid to hear the answers. "The tests were dumb," he said instead. "This whole program is dumb. You can't tell anything about me from a bunch of tests and talks in your office."

"I've learned a whole lot about you, Harry, in the few months we've known each other. Would you like me to prove it by telling you what I've discovered?"

"No."

"Please, let me tell you what I think."

He sighed, then gave an impish grin and said, "You're going to do that whether I want to hear it or not."

"You're right," Dr. Wilmer agreed, suppressing a smile of her own at the astute remark. The blunt methods she was about to use on Harry were completely different than those she would normally use, but Harry was innately intuitive and too streetwise to be fooled with sugared phrases and half-truths. "Please sit down," she said, and when Harry had slumped into the chair in front of her desk, Dr. Wilmer began with quiet firmness. "I've discovered that despite all your daring deeds and your show of bravado to your companions, the truth is that you are scared to death every moment of every day, Harry. You don't know who you are or what you are or what you're going to be. You can't read or write, so you're convinced you're stupid. You cut school because you can't keep up with the other kids your age, and it hurts you terribly when they laugh at you in class. You feel hopeless and trapped, and you hate those feelings.

"You know you were passed over for adoption when you were younger, and you know your mother abandoned you. A long time ago, you decided that the reason your birth parents didn't keep you and adoptive parents didn't want to adopt you was because they all realized you were going to turn out to be 'no good' and because you weren't smart enough or pretty enough. And so you steal things, you hide your sweet shy self to become manlier and strong so no one can call you weak, but you still don't feel any happier. Nothing you do seems to matter, and that's the real problem: No matter what you do—unless you get into trouble—it doesn't matter to anyone, and you hate yourself because you want to matter."

Dr. Wilmer paused to let the last part of that sink in and then she thrust harder. "You want to matter to someone, Harry. If you had only one wish, that would be your wish."

Harry felt his eyes sting with humiliating tears as Dr. Wilmer's relentless verbal thrusts found their mark, and he blinked to hold them back.

His rapid blinking and damp eyes weren't lost on Terry Wilmer, who saw Harry's tears as what they were—confirmation that she'd hit raw nerves. Softening her voice, Dr. Wilmer continued, "You hate hoping and dreaming, but you can't seem to stop, so you make up wonderful stories and tell them to the little kids at LaSalle—stories about lonely, ugly children who find families and love and happiness someday."

"You've got everything all wrong!" Harry protested hotly, flushing to the roots of his hair. "You're making me sound like some—some wimpy sissy. I don't need anybody to love me and neither do the kids at LaSalle. I don't need it, and I don't want it! I'm happy—"

"That's not true. We're going to tell each other the complete truth today, and I haven't quite finished." Holding the child's gaze, she stated with quiet force: "The truth is this, Harry: During the time you've spent in this testing program, we've discovered that you're a brave, wonderful, and very smart little boy." She smiled at Harry's stunned, dubious expression and continued, "The only reason you haven't learned to read and write yet is because you missed so much school when you were ill that you couldn't catch up later on. That has nothing to do with your ability to learn, which is what you call being 'smart' and we call 'intelligence.' All you need in order to catch up with your school work is for someone to give you a helping hand for awhile. Now, besides being smart," she continued, changing the subject slightly, "you also have a perfectly normal, natural need to be loved for what you are. You're very sensitive, and that's why your feelings get hurt easily. It's also why you don't like to see other children's feelings get hurt and why you try so hard to make them happy by telling them stories and stealing things for them. I know you hate being sensitive, but believe me, it's one of your most precious traits. Now, all we have to do is put you in an environment that will help you become the sort of young man you can be someday..."