Finding Hope in Texas (26 page)

The rest of school flew by with more classics
in music, more technology in computers, and more running in
physical education. The teachers had found their rut and they were
sticking to it at least until spring break. I actually looked
forward to seeing Mags that afternoon and starting our quest to
find the building of our dreams, or at least our pocketbook.

She had made all the arrangements while at
work and learned from Mr. Lambert that he would have possession of
the building for just two more weeks. Then, he figured, the
demolition crews would be sent in and the entire complex would be
leveled. Ahh, progress. If Texas wasn’t building a billionaire’s
football stadium on top of some poor people’s residences, then it
was destroying historical buildings to pave the way for some future
robber baron.

We saw two places that afternoon, one was on
our list to view, and one was not. The first was the right price
but was in the middle of being renovated, something the realtor
forgot to mention. The work to be done to the building would take
far too long.

“I suspect the renovation to be done in
another couple of months,” noted the realtor, who stood looking at
his watch for most of the time while we were there. The next place
was in a great neighborhood, but the building wasn’t even half the
size of what we needed.

“Did you specify that we needed something
bigger?” I whispered to Mags.

“Yes, but he thought this was a good
place.”

I looked over at the realtor, who gave a sigh
as if he was wasting his time, again looking at his watch. My
eyebrows knitted together as I marched over to him. Judging from
how he acted, I figured he thought we were just a couple of poor
slobs that couldn’t afford a toilet to do our business in, but he
was about to find out differently.

“Listen, we need a place bigger than
this.”

“Okay, that’s fine, maybe we can find
something on the MLS.” He gestured his hand as though he was about
to lead us out the door.

“No, you listen. Mags gave you a list of
properties we wanted to see today and this one is not even on it.
We want to see those.” He started to talk, but I cut him off. “I’m
not finished. You work on commission, right?” He nodded. “And
because you and banks and people on Wall Street screwed up the
whole housing market, we are about to all see the worst time since
the Great
freaking
Depression. Now, if we are wasting your
time, then we will find some other little realtor that’s about to
lose his job when the real crap hits the fan. Otherwise, show us
the places we want to see!” He gave me a cold glare. Unfettered
capitalism, i.e. greed, was about to put him out on his butt and he
knew it. Slowly, he unfolded the pieces of papers Mags had given
him earlier and looked at our properties.

“Shall we go ladies?” he asked politely. We
both nodded and jumped back in the car, following him to the next
one and then another after that, both being on our list.

It was dark and well past seven when we
finally saw the last property. Pulling up into the parking lot, we
noticed the large old building that stood alone just a block off of
a main thoroughfare. Mags smiled as the realtor flipped on the
lights, which took a minute to warm up and turn completely bright.
The place was dirty, not being swept out in months, but it was
solid with plenty of room for all of the antiques that had to be
moved. I watched as Mags started walking up and down the imaginary
aisles, placing the different treasures in specific spots, putting
her counter up front. There was even a little room in the back for
an office and even I pictured myself in there going over the books
and seeing if our little store was even going to survive. This had
to be it.

“And the rent is $1,250 a month? Does that
include anything?”

“No, you’ll have to pay for electric and
water,” the realtor answered. Mags looked at me as if asking for
permission.

“How long has it been empty?” I
countered.

“Six months, give or take.”
Give or take
what?
I glanced at him as if he was supposed to finish the
sentence, but his mouth had shut.
What a jerk.

“We’ll do eight hundred a month,” I told the
realtor while looking over at Mags.

“Young lady, my time may be negotiable, but
this really isn’t.” I turned to him.

“All I learned in the last few months of
being down here is that everything is negotiable, and everything
changes.” I looked over at Mags again before continuing with the
realtor. “Tell the owner what I told you. That he can wait and try
and get what he wants in a bad economy and this place will probably
sit empty for the next two years, or he can get most of what he
wants now.” The realtor sighed. I knew I was driving a hard bargain
and it took courage for me to do so, but it was still a good deal.
In six months he probably wouldn’t get five hundred. Things were
probably going to get worse before they got better. If someone was
willing to pay me some money instead of getting nothing every
month, I would’ve jumped at the chance. I only hoped the owner had
such brains.

“I’ll ask him,” he finally mumbled. “Is there
anything else I can do for you?” I knew he was ready to go before
we even started looking, so we said no and headed for the door. An
oral agreement was out there, now all we could do was wait.

It didn’t take long. I was sitting in Mr.
Peet’s class listening to him argue with himself about God knows
what when my phone began to buzz in my book bag.
Crap!
Mr.
Peet glared at me and came over to my desk.

“Go ahead,” he grinned, “answer it.” I glared
back at him and pulled the phone out and as I pushed the button, he
snatched it away from me.

“Hey!” He put his finger out in my face to
hush me while the other students giggled.

“Hello, who is this disrupting my college
class?” His eyes changed from angry to compassionate in a blink.
“Margaret? Is that you?”
Oh,
Jeez
. “No, no. It’s not
a problem. If something is important then it’s important... Okay,
sure... Nice talking to you as well, Margaret.” He handed the phone
back to me, somewhat embarrassed. “It’s for you; please take it in
the hallway.” I couldn’t help but smile before grabbing the phone
back.

“Mags, why are you calling me during school?
They hate that around here.”

“I know, I know, Hope. I just had to tell you
that we got the store! We got it! Can you believe it? And it’s all
because of you.”

I’m sure I was grinning from ear to ear, but
now the real work was about to begin. How were we going to move all
that old junk without breaking half of it? But I wasn’t about to
rain on her parade.

“Okay, Mags, sounds great. Thanks for the
call. I’ll see you after school and we can start on the next phase
in the plan.” What that was, I had no idea.

“Okay, sweetie, thank you so much for doing
all of this for me.”

“For us,” I reminded her. “And it’s no
problem. I’ll see you later.” When I got back into the room, Mr.
Peet shot me another glare but didn’t say a word. Instead he
continued talking about the doughboys of World War I. He hated when
students were texting or getting phone calls in his class, usually
either taking the phone up or answering it as he had done mine. But
he gave it back for some reason, even let me talk to Mags.
What
was that all about?

When I carted my chilidog and potato squares
over to Lizzy for lunch, she already had a map lying out on the
table.

“Canton is about an hour east of here down
I-20. I’m sure Jason knows where it is and how to get there, but I
wanted you to have these.” She flipped to the next map. “Now this
one is of the actual trade’s day area. You’ll park over here. It
usually cost about three bucks, and then we will meet over here
where I drew the red X. After that, we can just go everywhere and
see as much junk your heart can take.”

“Oh, yippee.” I threw my hands upward in a
sardonic expression as we both giggled. “I guess it will be good,
though. Mags and I are starting up our own antique store.”

“Really? That’s great. I heard that Jody had
gotten her dad to buy the shopping center, but I didn’t want to
mention it, thinking it might upset you.”
Man, news sure does
travel fast in high school.
If it wasn’t the students texting
each other or Facebooking or whatever, it was the teachers talking
in their little lounge or to those privileged parents that got the
inside information. There were no secrets in high school and
something too bad could damage your reputation forever. For me, I
was still the orphan child of a drug-dealing New York family, thus
very few people wanted to mess with me thinking I would do a gang
drive-by on them. But who really cared what sheep thought, anyway?
It was only Tuesday and my mind was already on the weekend, even if
it was walking around in the chilly weather glancing over junk. It
would be fun either way, hanging out with Lizzy, Hunter, and
especially getting to see Jason again. But would it be the same? I
mean, what happened between us was more than just grief, right?
Lizzy asked if I liked him and I did. Deep down inside I had
feelings for him, but did he have them for me?
Sweetie.
He’d
called me sweetie. That meant something, right? Or was it just a
cute thing to say to the depressed girl?
Ugh!
Why did I have
to think so much like a woman sometimes? Couldn’t I just enjoy what
might happen and not overanalyze it?

Music class was a little different that
Tuesday. We had already been practicing for the spring symphony,
but our teacher was out with a migraine headache. The sub was
actually the assistant music teacher, a thirty-something-year-old
that actually enjoyed music more than just teaching it.

“I know y’all have been working on these
classics since you returned from Christmas break, but Mrs. Appleton
is not here,” he said, picking up his guitar from his case. He sat
up on the table in the front of the room and struck out a few
chords that were not only hard to play, but was entertaining as
well. When he finished, a few of us clapped. “Thanks. What this
older generation has forgotten is that music is supposed to be fun
as well as beautiful. Does anyone have a piece that they would like
to play today, just for the heck of it?”

Everyone sat as if this was make believe,
that as soon as we started playing by our own free will Mrs.
Appleton would break through the door and send us off to ISS for
having an individual thought about music. But I could feel eyes on
me, since I had been the one to start the short lived
Beat
It
Rebellion.
Oh, what the heck?
I raised my hand.

“Yes, what would you like to play today?” I
gave a sigh and approached him with some sheet music that I had
gotten at the sutlers at the reenactment.

“Can you back me up with this?” I whispered.
He studied the music for a moment and gave me a nod. I pulled Mrs.
Appleton’s podium closer so we could both read off the music. Lizzy
gave me a smile, as I couldn’t believe I was doing this. It was
only weeks ago that she had me tramping down downtown Ft. Worth in
a hoopskirt, and now I was about to play some music I found at a
reenactment
. Oh well, here goes nothing.

I pulled the violin up to my shoulder and
lowered my head. Slowly, I traced the bow across the strings,
cutting the air with the D Major that led into a deeper, longer
sound that reverberated around the room. It was a waltz, but I
didn’t know from where. It wasn’t classical music, wasn’t southern
fiddle music, this had a different feeling altogether. The music
was gloomy, sad, like something they would have played after the
horrible end to a battle. Yet, at the same time, it was beautiful
in a sense that it reached down to your very heart when you put it
all together. After the first lines, the sub joined in, strumming a
few strings in support. But I didn’t hear him anymore, didn’t see
the class of students in front of me. I lost myself with my eyes
closed and could have been playing at home, in my room, practicing
because dad was pushing me so much to do so. After half an hour he
would give a soft knock on the door, tears in his eyes and say
“That was beautiful music, darling.” It always got to me how
emotional he could get from just hearing my violin from my room,
and yet I wouldn’t have given up that little knock on the door for
anything in the world
. I love you, Daddy.

The last of the harmony sliced off of my bow,
leading me up to a high-pitched note again, then back down to a
long stretch that used the whole length of my bow to finish. I
opened tear-filled eyes to a class that was practically in shock.
It was like they had never heard such music before and I guess for
the most part, neither had I. Lizzy finally started clapping and
everyone else followed suit, even Jody in the back of the room.

“That was something I wasn’t even prepared
for,” said the sub. “That was...beautiful. What is the piece
called?”

“Um,” I reached over to the podium and looked
at the sheet music. “
The Ashokan Farewell
.”

“Well, it was great, don’t y’all think?”

Again, the class clapped as I returned to my
seat while some of them told me ‘good job.’ I brushed away the
remnants of tears that had pooled in my eyes, happy that they were
not streaming down my face during the mini-performance.

“Thank you, Daddy,” I whispered to myself.
“Thank you for everything you did for me.”

Chapter
Eleven

Mags and I sat around the vintage kitchen
table with our contract in front of us, staring at it as if it was
about to do a trick. She had just signed the clipped pieces of
paper at the real estate office and put down our first and last
month’s rent. Sixteen hundred dollars and we had a store. Now, we
had to decide on what to do with it.