The Golden Girl by Erica Orloff Page B

station, grabbing a subway car bound for Harlem. She could have had Charlie drive her but she always took the train, not wanting to call attention to herself among the children at the school. There, she wanted to be an ordinary volunteer.

    The Harlem Charter School for Excellence was the charity she chose for her work with the Gotham Roses when she joined a year ago. She had raised considerable funds for it over the year or so of her time with the Roses. But it was the gift of her time that meant the most to her. Renee always insisted that the Roses spend time—not just money—with their chosen charities. “It’s only by pruning ourselves, tending to our inner qualities of compassion, that we can really bloom,” was one of her sayings.

    At the charter school, which was also supported by very large donations from the Pruitt Family Trust, she went by Madison Taylor. Only the principal knew her true identity. So she was able to show up once a week on Mondays, cutting short her day even though she usually returned to the office to work until the wee hours, to be a homework tutor with John Hernandez’s students, and she was able to do so without everyone thinking of her as the spoiled heiress “slumming it.” That wasn’t who she was or what she was about, but she wanted to be taken at face value.

    Unexpectedly, over time, her friendship with the dark-haired young teacher grew until she found herself uncharacteristically with sweaty palms as she walked into John’s class each week. This week was no different.

    “Here’s our homework angel,” John said. “Class, say hi to Ms. Taylor.”

    The classroom full of sixth-graders gave her big smiles and a chorus of hellos. John held her gaze for a few seconds and smiled. Her stomach flip-flopped.

    “Hi, everyone,” Madison said. “Hello, Mr. Hernandez,” she added with a playful tone to her voice.

    She left her blazer on but put her purse in his file cabinet and immediately went to the computer-lab area to start helping the kids who were gathered there. She knew all of their names and most of their stories. And her heart both broke and soared for each one.

    To be accepted to the charter school, each student had to sign a contract swearing off gangs, drugs and alcohol. They had to commit to two-hour homework sessions four days a week, and to achieving a B average or better—or be put on academic probation. Ideally, John had told her, the parents and family—or grandparents or involved adults—would also commit to the charter school’s principles. But that wasn’t always the case. Still, these kids made Maddie proud every week.

    She leaned over the shoulder of Anna Williams, a favorite student of hers, and checked over her work.

    “Great job, sweetie.”

    Anna beamed. She had high hopes to be a lawyer, and like all the kids in John Hernandez’s class, an “anonymous” donor had agreed to fund a college education at a state university for anyone who maintained a B average or better all through high school. Maddie was secretly thrilled to think that someday, perhaps Anna, who was being raised by a very elderly great-grandmother in a wheelchair, might find herself an attorney for Pruitt & Pruitt.

    But it was John Hernandez himself who intrigued Madison the most. Little by little he had shared his story. A crack-addict mother, a father shot dead in a drive-by shooting, little John Hernandez was raised by a grandmother who adored him. Even so, he found himself in a gang at ten for protection. He was shot not once, but on two separate occasions, in drive-bys, and he was stabbed in the chest during a fight over turf, the blade narrowly missing his heart.

    Lying in a hospital bed in intensive care after being stabbed, he had told Madison that he had been “visited” by the spirit of his father while in a morphine haze, lingering in a netherworld between life and death. John, the most honest person Madison had ever met, had told her his father informed him he