Finding Hope in Texas (17 page)

“You are always falling,” Jason finally said,
the obviousness of the sentence causing me to giggle just a little.
I pried myself from his arms, although I could’ve planted myself
there for a while longer.

“I’m so sorry. Last week it was the dress and
here it’s this mess of a store. I’m just a total buffoon.” I shook
my head and looked down at my hands. Trouble had befallen me and I
just couldn’t shake it. The loss of my family, the wickedness of
Jody and the girls at school, even the way I walked seemed to bring
new difficulties in my life. Couldn’t I do something right for a
change?

Jason’s hands reached out for mine. “Hey,
it’s okay. You aren’t hurt. I’m not hurt. It was just a misstep. It
could happen to any of us.” His touch was firm but gentle, as his
thumbs caressed the back of my fingers. “You are okay, aren’t
you?”

“Yes, I’m fine and I am sorry. Just a lot has
been going on and falling on you every time we meet is the last
thing I need.”

“Oh, don’t worry about it. I feel kinda
honored to catch you.” He grinned, slowly letting go of my hands. I
couldn’t help but smile back, quickly feeling at ease with him, but
keeping a better lookout on my two left feet as we both continued
with the tour.

Again, there was a hiatus in the
conversation. Either we didn’t know what to say to each other or we
didn’t care to. Whichever it was, we finished the fourth and final
aisle before he finally spoke up.

“It’s a neat place you have here.”

“Oh, it’s not mine. My aunt, she just runs
the place for the owner and hauled me in to work with her this
morning.”

He nodded.

“So are you going to come to any more
reenactments?” His eyes sharpened on me as he asked the
question.

“Um, I doubt it.”
Really? Now is the time
to tell the truth?

“You didn’t have fun?”

“No, no. I had a blast. It’s just I’m not
sure I’ll be invited to a real one. The parade was extra credit and
Mr. Peet probably doesn’t want any of his students to horn in on
his hobby, anyway.”

“Well, he let me horn in and I’ve enjoyed it
ever since.”

“Oh. So you were his student?” Again, it was
a question I knew, but I played dumb to continue the
conversation.

“Yeah. Had him for American history. About
the only class I enjoyed in high school. I think he passed me a few
times when I didn’t deserve it, but he was a real good teacher.” He
ran his hand through his short hair and looked back at the first
aisle to see Mags coming out of the back with a jar of buttons.

“I knew I had them somewhere back there.” She
opened them up and poured a few on the glass counter.

“How much are they a piece?”

“A quarter.”

“That’s cheaper than the sutlers. I’ll take
ten. He laid down three dollars and began to pick up an assortment
of buttons.

“Don’t you want the ones that match?” I
asked.

“Don’t matter none,” he said with a shrug.
“Confederate soldiers were lucky to have any buttons after the
first year. I’m sure if they had a few mismatching ones, it was
okay.” He gave me a quick smile, enough to make me blush for no
apparent reason.

Mags picked up on the conversation. “So are
you one of the re-creator Civil War people, too?”

“Reenactor,” I whispered.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Oh, that’s just wonderful. Hope had a
wonderful time at your little parade last weekend. Where you
there?”

“Yes, we sat next to each other at lunch.”
Again, his quick smile caused my face to heat up once again.

Could he be anymore cute when he smiles?

“Let me get a bag for those,” I said, trying
to divert his attention from my face to anything else.

“No need to.” He collected each button one by
one in his hand as I made him change. Reaching out, I placed it
into his free hand as his fingers rubbed against the bottom of my
palm, sending a noticeable tingling sensation up my wrist.

“Thank you.” He nodded again, backing away
from the counter.

“No, thank you,” I answered, but not exactly
knowing what I was thanking him for. Was it for the sale or for
catching me twice? He turned to the door, but stalled after a
couple of steps.

“Oh, and Hope, thanks for coming to the
parade. I do hope to see you at Madisonville.” With that, he turned
and opened the door, causing the bell to jingle. My eyes continued
to follow him as he rounded the glass front and headed out of
sight.

“Who was that?” asked Mags.

“Uh, just a guy I met at the parade last
weekend.”

“Just a guy, huh? Do all reenactors look like
that?”

I sent her a disgusted look. I knew she
wasn’t dead, but I really didn’t care to hear comments like that
coming from her mouth.

“So do you want to go to the next one?”

“The next one what?”

“The next reenactment. Where is it at?”

“Down south. Madisonville in a couple of
weeks.”

“You might think about going. It could
be...interesting.” She gave a knock on the counter and a wink at
me. “Come on back, I want to show you something.” Grabbing my hand,
she led me back down the aisle into a small back room.

“Is this what you have been working so hard
on back here?”

“Yep, what do you think?” The room was,
clean, immaculate even. You could still tell it was part of an
antique store, but things were in order, arranged in different
areas so that people would find what they wanted easy. I had to
hand it to Mags. She at least learned to keep a tidy place in all
her years of travel.

“I’m impressed.”

She gleamed. “Don’t you just love it? And I
want to do this to the whole store, just make it where everything
has a place. No more customers asking if we have something and not
being able to find it. This is what the store should look like
everywhere.”

I nodded. “Well, Mr. Lambert is going to like
it a lot.”

“I hope so, sweetie.” She paused, looking
over her work once again. “You know, he’s been talking about
selling the place. He doesn’t think he can keep it up anymore, with
his health and all.”

“Doesn’t think? Mags, it’s a mess out
there.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve been thinking about it and
I’d really like to buy it from him if he offers. It’s just...”

“Just what?”

“It’s just, I don’t have the money right
now,” she gave me a look and I immediately knew where she was
headed. “Hope, you don’t have to buy the whole thing, just front
enough money for a good down payment.”

“Is that why you brought me down here?” It
was a mean accusation, but the thought of her talking me into
leaving from New York just to get some money to buy a crummy old
antique shop was gnawing away inside of me.

“Of course not, Hope. I love you just like
your parents did. But this can be ours. We can make this our home
and stop running around.”

“I have never ran anywhere before coming down
here. I’m not like you. I was home and it was great before all this
happened. I had a great family, a great school, and a great future.
And I lost it all that night. It was torn away from me in a blink
of an eye!” I was yelling, at her, at myself—I wasn’t sure—but I
was yelling. “I didn’t want to go anywhere, I just couldn’t live in
that house anymore, but this place is just as bad!”

Mags’ mouth dropped at my rudeness, but she
wasn’t about to interrupt me.

“Now I’m stuck in a school that is run by a
psycho cheerleader and her trainees that are doing their best to
make my life even worse, my only friend is the teacher’s kid that
no one wants to hang out with, anyway, and now my aunt is asking me
for money because she made a lot of bad decisions in her own life.
You weren’t even there! You weren’t even there to put them in the
ground!”

My breath was short with chirps of weeping
caught between each one. I knew I was being hurtful to her, but it
just came out of me, and I shook my head as tears streamed down my
face. “All I want is to have my life back, but I can’t. Some drunk
took it from me, took everything from me!” The emotional pain was
exploding, worse than any cry I had had late at night or in the
morning. Was this meltdown rock bottom? Weeping so uncontrollably
that my heart felt as though it was going to break through my chest
cavity? I didn’t even feel it when I fell to my knees, buckling
under the strain of my life. God, why couldn’t I have just been in
that death car, smiling and happy one minute with my family, at
rest in a pine box the next? God, couldn’t you have done that for
me, at least?

Mags’ arms wrapped around me from behind,
holding me there as each snivel brought another convulsion through
my body. It was all she could do. Maybe she had been waiting for it
ever since I arrived; maybe she had held a few drunken ex-husbands
after one of their binges. Whatever it was, she at least was able
to calm me down, not even leaving when we heard the bell ring on
the front door. It felt like forever before I was able to gather
myself, immediately apologizing to her for what I said.

Chapter
Seven

The rest of the weekend was empty. Although
Mags accepted my apology, I could tell I had hurt her. Dad had
never questioned her choices in life and loved his sister more than
she ever knew. It wasn’t my place as his daughter, her niece, to
take my pain out on her. She had been gracious enough to take me
in, to get me away from the pain, at least by distance. For that
alone I should’ve been grateful.

School wasn’t much better. Another chaotic
cold front had blasted through the plains and landed in North
Texas. When students entered the high school that Monday morning,
they were dressed as though there were four-foot snow banks
outside. I wasn’t a tough person at all and I realized that getting
down to freezing temperatures would bring a chill to anyone’s
spine, but Texans were not used to it. Many of the students looked
like they were about to cross the glaciers of the North Pole by
dogsled, with their hoods pulled over their heads tight, their
hands stuffed deep into the warm pockets of their coats or
hoodies.

The day dragged on, going through the mundane
to the monotonous. I think the cold even affected Mr. Peet, as even
he wasn’t as lively in the classroom. The Industrial Revolution
brought up more entrepreneurs. Andrew Carnegie and John Rockefeller
were the great builders of the time, making more money than even
Bill Gates today, if you took in the rate of inflation.

“Alright people, I’ve used the word railroad
about a billion times today. With that in mind, what do you think
was the main cause for the economic collapse of 1893?”

“The railroad?” A girl answered it more like
a question.

“Very good, Miss Bennett. Now, for extra
points. If anyone watches the news, what do you think has caused
the economic collapse of today?”

“There was an economic collapse today?” asked
a boy from across the room.

“Well, not
today
today, but yes. We
are in a major slump economically. The ‘Great Recession’ as I have
heard it been called. So what caused it?” No one said a word. I
rolled my eyes. Apparently, as a teenager, I was supposed to be
oblivious to the world as well, thank you Facebook, but I actually
watched the news from time to time. Brian Williams was
straight-laced, but he was a good reporter. I raised my hand and
Mr. Peet nodded at me.

“The housing market.”

“And what about the housing market?”

“The greedy banks sold a bunch of houses to a
lot of people who either couldn’t afford them or paid more than
what they were worth.”

“Thank you, Miss Kilpatrick. You see, people,
history kind of repeats itself. We bought heavily into railroads
and collapsed. We bought heavily into stocks and collapsed. Now we
buy heavily into real estate and...”

“Collapsed,” the rest of the class said
together just as the bell was ringing.

“Good. Y’all have a good day. Don’t do
anything I would do like read a book or something. And Miss
Kilpatrick, an extra two points for you for the test in a couple of
weeks.” I nodded but said nothing. With this and the ten I had
received by going to the Stock Show Parade, I already had a twelve
on my first test, not too bad to start out with. I headed out the
door and on my way to lunch.

“Well, long time no see,” smiled Lizzy,
already sitting with her chicken stir-fry and okra. “Did you have a
good weekend?”

“Boring. My aunt made me go to her work with
her on Saturday, and on Sunday I just sat around. You?”

“Homework and then I went out to see my
mom.”

“Oh. That sounds like fun.”

Lizzy shrugged. “If you call going out to the
cemetery fun, then I guess so.”

“What?” I asked, shocked. How was I supposed
to know she was dead? I mean, I’d never heard her or Mr. Peet speak
about a mother or wife.
God, why do I open my mouth
sometimes?
Lizzy must have read my face.

“Don’t worry, Hope. She died when I was two
years old.” Still, I sat there like I had offended myself, what
with the “That sounds like fun” comment.

“I just didn’t mean to insult you.”

“You didn’t. I mostly just go for dad’s sake.
He likes to go at least once a month and visit her gravesite. I
just figured it brought back a few memories of her and all for him.
I know he’s not the type, at least as long as I have known him, but
I think it’s kind of romantic in way.”

Romantic? Visiting a dead wife’s gravesite
is romantic? Change the subject, quick!

“Do you remember much about her?”

“Mmm, mostly what dad has told me, but I
remember being rocked by her. We would always read a story before I
went to bed. They let me pick it out. Dad said I never let him rock
me; it always had to be her. He said he was too lumpy, whatever
that means.” I smiled, but took a deep gulp, going back to my
stir-fry. So Lizzy had known loss, even if she couldn’t recall much
of it. My heart began to beat harder in my chest and I could feel
the room getting warm all around me, the voices of the other
students dying away as it did.