Morning-Noon-and-Night - By Sidney Sheldon Page 0,30

ttell a lie like that."

"It's not a lie,' Julia retorted. ' father is a billionaire! He knows presidents and kings!' The teacher looked at the young girl standing before her in her shabby cotton dress and said, ', that's not true.@ ' 1st' Julia said stubbornly. She was sent to the principal's office. She never mentioned her father at school again. , Julia learned that the reason she and her mother kept moving from city to city was because of the news media. Harry Stanford was constantly in the press, and the gossip newspapers and magazines kept digging up the old scandal. Investigative reporters would eventually discover who Rosemary Nelson was and where she arrived, and she would have to take Julia and flee. 115 Julia read every newspaper story that appeared about Harry Stanford, and each time, she was tempted to telephone him. She wanted to believe that during all those years he had been desperately searching for her mother. I'll call and say, ' is your daughter. If you want to see us . And he would come to them and fall in love all over again, and marry her mother, and they would all live happily together. Julia Stanford grew into a beautiful young woman. She had lustrous dark hair, a laughing, generous mouth, the luminous gray eyes of her father, and a gently curved figure. But when she smiled, people forgot about everything else but that smile. Because they were forced to move so often, Julia went to schools in five different states. During the summers she worked as a clerk in -a department store, behind the counter in a drugstore, and as a receptionist. She was always fiercely independent.

They were living in Kansas City, Kansas, when Julia finished college on a scholarship. She was not sure what she wanted to do with her life.

Friends, impressed by her beauty, suggested that she become a movie actress. ''d be a star overnight!' Julia had dismissed the idea with a casual, ' wants to get up that early every morning?' But the real reason she was not interested was 116 use she wanted, above all, her privacy. It seemed to Julia that all their lives, she and her mother had been @hoiinded by the press because of what had happened so many years earlier. Julia's dream of one day uniting her mother and father ,,ended the day her mother died. Julia felt an overpowering sense of loss.

Myjather has to know, Julia thought. Mother was a part of his life. She looked up the telephone number of his business headquarters in Boston. A receptionist answered. ' morning, Stanford Enterprises.' Julia hesitated. ' Enterprises. Hello? May I help yout Slowly Julia replaced the receiver. Mother wouldn't have wanted me to make that call.

She was alone now. She had no one. Julia buried her mother at Memorial Park Cemetery in Kansas City. There were no mourners. Julia stood at the graveside and thought, It isn'tfair, Mama You made one mistake andpaidjor it-the rest of your life. I wish I could have taken some of your pain away. I love you very much, Mama. I'll always love you. All she had left of her mother's years on earth was a collection of old photographs and clippings. With her mother gone, Julia's thoughts turned to the Stanford family. They were rich. She could go to them 117 LL- for help. Never, she decided. Not after the way Harry Stanford treated my mother. But she had to earn a living. She was faced with a career decision. She thought wryly, Maybe I'll become a brain surgeon. Or a painter? Opera singer? Physicist? Astronaut? She settled for a secretarial course at night school at Kansas City, Kansas, Community College. The day after Julia finished the course, she visited an employment agency. There were a dozen applicants waiting to see the employment counselor. Sitting next to Julia was an attractive woman her age. '! I'm Sally Connors." Stanford."'ve got to get a job today,' Sally moaned. ''ve been kicked out of my apartment.' Julia heard her name called. ' luck!' Sally said. '.' Julia walked into the office of the employment counselor. ' down, please." you." see from your application that you have a college education and summer work experience. And you have a high recommendation from the secretarial school.' 118 she looked at the dossier on her desk. ' take short. hand at ninety words per minute, and type at sixty ,..,words per minutet ',