Finding Hope in Texas (16 page)

“They Told Him Don't You Ever Come Around
Here

Don't Wanna See Your Face, You Better
Disappear

The Fire's In Their Eyes And Their Words Are
Really Clear

So Beat It, Just Beat It. ”

The music carried on right along with him as
we hit the second verse and then the chorus. All the students were
playing, except Jody, who looked miffed about the whole thing. I
always thought the song was dealing with gangs and thugs, just like
the video. But now I realize Jackson was actually singing about
high school. “Showin' How Funky Strong Is Your Fight” and “It
Doesn't Matter Who's Wrong or Right.”

“What is going on in here?” yelled Mrs.
Appleton as she opened the door to find the entire class enjoying
rock n’ roll. We all froze, even the student up front who was in
the middle of doing his version of the moon-walk. “Sit down this
instant,” she ordered of him. “Who started this...this...music?”
For the longest moment, no one said a word.
Teenage law was
being upheld.

“It was Hope, Mrs. Appleton. She started
playing it during our time to practice.”

I didn’t have to look to see who the
tattletale was, as I knew the voice easily. The teacher walked
towards me. “Thank you Miss Silverton. At least you didn’t get
caught up in all this rambunctiousness. As for you, Miss
Kilpatrick, I expect to see you during lunch for detention for the
rest of the week, is that understood?”

I cut a quick glance over at Jody. Her smile
was back as she glared right back at me.

“Yes,” I muttered. There went the only good
part of my day for the rest of the week. Again, I was in trouble
because of that little witch. Maybe I should just take Michael
Jackson’s advice and beat it.

Mags got another phone call from school that
day and again all of my civil liberties were stripped away at home
as well, thus keeping me from speaking to Lizzy at all. We did chat
in the hall a few times between classes, but that was it. Again, I
turned to my classics to get through the time awaiting my penance.
I was freed that weekend, but Mags had other ideas in store for me
when I got up that morning.

“Good morning, sleepyhead,” she said while
preparing a bowl of cereal for breakfast, already dressed as if she
was going to work.

“Isn’t it Saturday?” I asked with a confused
look on my face, my eyes squinting as the kitchen lights blinded me
momentarily.

“Yes, but I have to work. Mr. Lambert is
paying me overtime to open the store for him today and next
Saturday. He will be in around one and then I’ll be coming home.” I
shrugged, pulling up the stool that sat at the counter, watching
Mags as she busied herself with the two percent milk. “Say, I have
a great idea. Instead of you sitting around doing nothing, which
has been your weekend ever since you got down here, why don’t you
come to the store with me? You can help out by running the register
when people come in.”

“I don’t know how to run a register,” I said,
which was true, but more of an excuse than anything.

“It’s easy, Hope,” she pleaded. “Just put the
amount in and hit the tax button. That will give you your total.
But I’ll show you when we get down there.” She waved off the
thought with her hand.

“But Mr. Lambert, he would probably be pretty
upset if he saw me working there.”

Mags swallowed her first bite of the cereal.
“Honey, as long as it’s not costing him anything, I’m sure he’ll be
fine with it. Besides, you got to go hang out with your friend and
teacher last weekend. Maybe we can have today?” The look in Mags’
eyes was trying to tell me something. Perhaps she did want to spend
some quality time with me. It might make things a little more
comfortable between us, anyway. Maybe we could polish antique milk
bottles or something? Besides, she was right. I never did anything
on the weekends, other than the parade, and I hadn’t even gone down
to see the antique store yet. I sighed.

“Okay, give me ten minutes to get dressed,” I
slumped off the stool and headed back toward my room, leaving Mags
clapping and hopping up and down like an Easter bunny.

“Would you like some breakfast?” Mags called
back to me as I went.

“Same thing you are having, thank you.”

The drive to Mags’ work was about fifteen
minutes away during the weekday with traffic. But being only a
little past eight on a Saturday, most commuters were still snuggled
up in bed on the cool Texas winter morning, probably where I should
had stayed. Anyway, the drive took half as long because of the
timing, which I was glad of, since Mags was so cold-blooded that
she had to turn the heat up full blast to warm herself up. It
really wasn’t that bad though, just low forties. Thank you, global
warming.

The store, Old Thangs, was in a cut-rate
shopping center that needed major overhaul, but had a pretty good
location just off a major thoroughfare. Still, out of the eight
shops that could’ve made business there, there were only five, and
only the antique store would be open at this time of day. Mags
unlocked and pulled back the big metal gates that stood between the
sidewalk and the outside veranda, a security device that Mr.
Lambert had insisted on having, then she unlocked and opened the
door to the store, flipping the closed sign to open as she did.

“Well, this is it,” Mags said while she
flipped on the lights. “What do you think?”

I watched as the lights slowly blinked on,
revealing more of the antique store to me. From the outside, you
could’ve never thought that the interior was so big, cluttered from
floor to ceiling with all sorts of, well, everything. There was
area after area full of old furniture that usually held an
assortment of other items. Glass cases held many of the smaller
items such as coins, stamps, dolls, and every other collectable out
there. A small aisle that customers would travel down to get from
one part of the store to the other lined each little area. This
wasn’t some high-end antique store; this was more like a place full
of junk that had been pulled out of the garbage and placed on a
shelf, waiting for someone who remembered that particular item from
his or her childhood to buy it.

“It looks...great.”
Another lie.
I
should probably start keeping a list. Mags must have read into my
hesitation.

“Well, it’s a work in progress, but it has a
lot of potential. There are things I’m talking to Mr. Lambert about
doing up here, you know. Some minute details would make the place
pop.” The
minute detail
that came to my mind was a bulldozer
that would destroy the whole store, the whole building for that
matter, but it wasn’t my place to judge. There was a twinkle in
Mags’ eyes as she skimmed the large room full of junk. “Anyway, why
don’t you make your way around the counter and I’ll show you how to
take the money.”

“What are you going to be doing?”

“Like I said, making the place pop.”

Mags showed me how to work the old register.
It was quite simple actually; even accepting a credit card was only
a couple of extra steps. After the first customer, an elderly
couple that bought an antique doorknob to replace one in their
house, Mags left me to my own as she disappeared behind the heap of
stuff. Every once and awhile I would hear something being moved,
but it didn’t faze me enough to go see what was going on. As long
as Mags didn’t cry out for help after something heavy pinned her to
the ground, I probably was going to sit on my stool until it was
time to go.

Over the next couple hours, a few customers
entered the store. Most were just browsing, but a few bought small
items that had caught their eye. One man purchased a Porky the Pig
bank, telling me the story of how he’d had one at home as a child
and wanted to give this one to his son. Another woman bought some
aged doilies for her dining room table. It took forever to sort
through the pile she had, going one by one to check them out. I
gathered them into a pile as she began to write out her check.

“Would you like a bag for those?”

“Yes, please, if you don’t mind.” I leaned
down under the counter. Crap! Mags didn’t tell me where the bags
were. I began searching, moving a couple of boxes, looking around
this and that. Why weren’t the bags right here in front of me?
“It’s okay if you can’t find any,” she said trying to bring my hunt
to a close. Finally, looking inside one of the boxes, I found a
bunch of Wal-Mart sacks.

“Here, you...” but my gaze trailed away from
her to the young man standing behind her. It was Jason standing
right here in this store, staring at me. Out of all the antique
stores in the Metroplex he had to walk into mine. I quickly
composed myself and began to shovel the doilies into the bags,
handing them to the woman who then scurried out of the door.

“Hi,” I said empathetically as if I had made
him wait too long.

“Hello,” he muttered back without a
smile.

“How can I help you?”

“You’re the girl that wore little Lizzy’s
hoop.”

I smiled, but felt the redness in my cheeks
begin to appear.

“Yes, it’s me, in the flesh, but not in a
hoop,”
How stupid do I sound right now?
“You are Jason,
right?”
Of course he’s Jason, idiot!
I knew his name, I knew
his face, I knew he was quiet, I knew he was ex-military, but there
was so much more I wanted to know. He nodded.

“Do y’all have buttons?”

“Buttons?”

“Wooden ones?”

“Wooden?”

He smiled. “Yes, buttons that are wooden, do
you have them?”

“Oh, yes. Uh, well, I don’t know, maybe. They
would be in here if we have them,” I turned my head. “Mags!”

Jason looked off into the store as we both
heard something crash deep in its parapets. A few moments later,
Mags emerged from the debris and made her way up to the
counter.

“I’m okay, thanks for asking.” She looked at
me.

“Jason, um, this customer wanted to know if
we have buttons, wooden ones.”

She looked at me and then at him, then back
to me.

“Yes, we do. They are...” She began to think,
tapping her finger on her lip. “They are somewhere in the store,”
she mused. “Why don’t you show Jason around while I hunt them down
for you?”

I looked up at her as though she was
kidding.

“Um, don’t I need to man the register?” I
whispered even though I was sure he could hear me.

“Hope, if anyone comes in the bell above the
door will alert us. Besides, you need to see the place, too. You
haven’t gotten off that stool since we got here. Jason, I’ll be
right back with your buttons. Hope is going to show you around.
Would you like to see the place?”

Jason shrugged and looked at me. “Sure,
that’s fine.”

Mags smiled at him and I followed her out
from behind the counter. Quickly, she scurried off back into the
piles of junk, leaving us there, the two quietest people on earth,
staring at each other.

“I guess we go this way,” I said
noncommittally. He nodded as I took the lead back through the
stuff. Entering the mayhem, the path got narrow, only allowing one
person to walk at a time, but I looked back every so often to see
what he was doing. Most of the time he just continued to follow me,
but every once in a while he would look at something, pick it up,
smile, and put it back in its original location. We maneuvered down
an aisle and back up another, barely saying a word. It was last
weekend’s lunch all over again, so much that it began to get on my
nerves.

Say something, stupid, anything to break the
ice.

“So have you been reenacting for a long
time?”

He paused as if it were a trick question, but
finding no harm in the query, he continued following me.

“Since I was seventeen. It’s a hobby that Mr.
Peet got me into.”

“Yeah, that’s why I was there, too.”

“Extra credit?”

I smiled back at him. “Yeah. Is that what got
you started?” He picked up a small iron skillet that was hanging in
one of the many kitchen sections, moving it up and down in his hand
as if he was testing the weight.

“Not really. It was just a way to get out of
the house.”

Out of the house? What does that mean?

“Oh, I figured you would’ve played sports in
high school to do that.”

Jason gave me a look that held no emotion
whatsoever. “I did. As many as I could. Reenacting was the only
hobby that continued after graduation, though.”

“Oh, okay.” So he didn’t get some college
scholarship for basketball, baseball, or even his good looks? How
sad.

We walked some more without saying much,
mostly just speaking about the clutter. Piles of objects from
another time stretched out all around us, like we were being
swallowed by the dejected remnants from another life. I looked back
again at Jason, seeing how he was making his way through the
conundrum that was the store. But he had stopped and was looking at
a tall plastic G.I. Joe action figure. He held it in his hands and
turned it to catch every feature of the toy, like he was holding a
diamond up to the light to see all the beautiful colors. I took the
moment, when his attention was fixated, to get a closer look at
him. Jason was in street clothes, just plain blue jeans and a
T-shirt, with a pair of sneakers finishing his ensemble. His hair
was short, not military short, but short enough where he didn’t
have to do a lot to it to make it work in the morning. Altogether,
he was just your average, very good-looking young man.

Jason’s eyes caught mine for a moment as he
laid the doll back down. I looked away, embarrassed by my own
staring, and turned, forgetting about the enclosed space that I had
to maneuver, and caught my foot underneath an old wooden radio box.
Crap! Not again!
The stumble was not backward but forward,
right toward him. His arms opened swiftly as I slammed into his
chest, a blow he took with ease. My breathing was heavy, as I
couldn’t bring myself to look up at him.
Jeez, what kind of
klutz am I?