Facing the Future Read Free

would have been embarrassed to date someone from a lower class than themselves, but Judd had already seen how shallow that was.
    When he talked to Vicki and spent time with her, he realized she was the same person whether she wore his mother’s clothes or whether she wore her own. With or without makeup, with or without jewelry, who she was came through. At first her grammar was lazy and she used a lot of slang. But she knew better. It was clear she had a good mind. She had been even more rebellious than Judd, and it was clear she had seen how wrong she had been too.
    Judd wanted to talk about the sting they were about to witness, but there was nothing to say. It had all been planned and laid out, and as far as they knew, neither LeRoy nor Cornelius suspected a thing. The only question was whether Talia had figured out what was happening. She had told Vicki that her brother and LeRoy were looking to cash in on insurance money. That had given him the idea of how to trap them. Would Talia catch on to that? And if she tipped the two guys off, would they avoid the sting or come in shooting?
    For sure they would come armed. Both had enough enemies to make them look over their shoulders no matter where they went. That was why Sergeant Fogarty insisted that, while Judd and Vicki could come and watch, they had to be behind the protective one-way mirror, out of the way if anything bad happened.
    ___
    Vicki wasn’t sure yet what she thought of Judd. She had heard his story enough that she felt she knew it as well as her own. She was surprised at how similar they were, both having been rebellious kids. But she couldn’t imagine why a rich kid would rebel against a setup like he had: his own room in a huge, expensive home, permission to drive his parents’ cars, the latest clothes, the best gadgets, and never having to work. What was to rebel against? While she had always told herself she hated her parents’ religion and rules, it was really where they lived that she hated.
    Vicki never would have admitted that to a rich kid. In fact, she would have defended the trailer park and its people over the phonies who lived in the big houses and didn’t seem to care about anyone. Sure, her neighbors could be loud and destructive, but look what kind of lives they led. No one could get ahead. They were all working to just get by. Vicki had wanted to get out of that environment, and she had the sinking feeling it would never happen.
    Now, here she was, trying to convince herself she could fit into a different culture. But was it just living in a rich kid’s home that made her look and think and act and even talk differently? She knew better than that. She had grown up overnight, and like Judd often said, the things they used to think were so important weren’t so important after all. Her biggest change, though she looked different, was inside. She didn’t have to apologize for being a trailer-park girl.
    She certainly didn’t feel as if she were somehow from a lower class of people than Judd was. He had treated her nicely from the beginning, and she didn’t get the impression he was just condescending to her. He seemed like a good kid, and he sure was smart. She was too, if she could believe her teachers. They had constantly told her she could do better and that she wasn’t working up to her potential. But the idea of sitting up late at night studying instead of running with her friends almost made her gag.
    Now she felt like a fool. Like Judd, she missed the family she had squabbled with. She wished she had followed her teachers’ advice. If she ever got the chance again, she would. Everything was different now. What a difference a few weeks made. More than that, she realized, the difference had come in an instant. Everything she ever thought or cared about changed when her perspective changed. And nothing could have changed her perspective more dramatically than millions of people—including her whole family—disappearing, just