Call Me Hope

by Gretchen Olson

  “Hope. Back here.” Anita signaled from the storage room.

  I weaved out of the crowd and slipped behind the counter.

  Anita whipped the boots out from behind her back, holding them in midair, her grin glowing in her eyes. “Put them on.”

  I kicked off my shoes. She quickly loosened the leather laces and pulled out the purple tongues. I bent over and tried cramming my feet in. Slow down. I sat on the floor and carefully pulled the laces tight, one row at a time, then tied them in a double-knotted bow. Anita helped me up and we examined the finished look. “Perfect,” she said.

  Like Miss America taking her runway walk, I stood tall and gazed out across the audience of winter coats, men’s suits, and maternity tops. Then I strolled past restrooms, dressing rooms, and the kiddie play corner. It’s hard to be Miss America, though, when you’re staring at your feet.

  Back at the storage room, Anita and Ruthie were examining a white sweater, but they stopped as soon as they saw me.

  “They’re gorgeous,” said Ruthie.

  “As good as you remember?” asked Anita.

  “Better.” This must be heaven. Next to New and new-to-me boots.

  Anita returned to the sweater. “What do you think, Hope? Is the stain noticeable?”

  Ruthie handed me the sweater and I held it in different directions under the ceiling light. “Well,” I hesitated, “it’s not as bad in the shadows, but in bright light, I can see it. I probably wouldn’t buy it.” I raised my eyebrows, wondering if I’d answered okay, and gave the sweater back.

  “I’d agree,” Anita said. Ruthie nodded.

  They must be good friends, I thought, glancing from Anita’s XXL Halloween sweater to Ruthie’s, then back to their ears. Tiny ghosts dangled from Anita’s, witches on broomsticks swung from Ruthie’s. And the hair color thing. Anita’s now verged on red-red instead of orange-red. Ruthie seemed wrinkly enough for gray hair, but hers was as black as licorice.

  “So, Hope,” said Ruthie, flopping the white sweater over her shoulder, “I understand you’re quite the sales-woman and we’re going to go broke with all these discount coupons flying in here.”

  I grinned, even though I wasn’t sure how much to believe.

  “Congratulations, darlin’. I suppose that yellow ski jacket in the window is next on your list.”

  I smiled. “Maybe,” I said. Yellow and purple, a perfect combination. “I’d better get home — I have a test Monday.”

  Ruthie put her arm around my shoulder. “You take good care of those boots, now.”

  “I will.”

  “Check in with me next week, Hope,” said Anita. “There might be some more ironing.”

  I rolled my eyes, pretending I was annoyed. Anita chuckled and something nudged my brain, like a baby chick poking at its shell, wanting out.

  “See you later,” I said, looking at them a moment longer.

  “Bye,” they said in unison, their earrings jangling.

  I walked down the street, my tennis shoes in a paper bag, my purple boots strong against the pavement, and my thoughts on two crazy ladies who seemed to like me. I wondered if they lived together, and if I’d have to dye my hair in order to live with them.

  I took a deep breath of cool fall air and picked out the hint of smoke from someone’s leaves burning. One of my favorite smells. It was a good day. A Number 6 Day.

  CHAPTER 15

  Climbing Mountains

  Later that afternoon I sat cross-legged on Tyler’s bedroom floor, a pile of his little boy clothes in front of me. “I’ve got a business deal for you.”

  “What? You sell my clothes and you get the money?” He lay on his bed tossing a basketball in the air.

  “No, smarty. I wash, iron, sew up rips, take everything on hangers to Next to New, and we split the money.”

  “Plus ten bucks for snooping through my stuff!”

  “I wasn’t snooping. I was just getting a head start.”

  He climbed off the bed, throwing the basketball in my lap. “Then let’s get serious.” He stood in front of his opened closet and began tossing Wrangler jeans and silver-buckled belts and long-sleeved Western shirts my way. “No more cowboy dress-up. I’m through playing the Lone Ranger.” He even pulled out his really nice suede boots. Totally sweet. They should go for a great price.

  “Tyler,” I said hesitantly. He turned around. “I don’t know what Mom would say, so I’m keeping this kinda quiet. Okay?”

  “That’ll be another ten bucks.”

  “No way!” I aimed his basketball at him.

  “All right.” He held his hands up. “But don’t expect me to bail you out when you get caught.”

  “I won’t get caught.” I smiled and lowered the ball.

  “How exactly do you plan to sneak this stuff out?” he asked, his head back in the closet.

  “I have my ways.”

  With Tyler’s clothes hiding in my closet, I tried studying again for my test. I shuddered, wondering if I could have endured Anne Frank’s hidden prison and the constant fear of being found, aching for a breath of fresh air, craving to eat anything besides potatoes and beans. I skimmed the pages, feeling Anne’s frustrations with her mother’s mean words, the longing for friends, the deadly silence.

  Monday morning I finally rode the bus again. It had only been a week, but it seemed forever. I lugged Tyler’s old Nike sports bag and my backpack to the middle of the bus. Dropping my stuff next to a free window, I sat down on the plastic seat. Tyler slowed as he passed by, heading for the back with the other high schoolers. He eyed his bag. “Whatcha stealin’?” he whispered loudly.

  “Tyler.” I scowled. “No half for you!”

  “I’ll tell.”

  “No, you won’t!”

  Noelle Laslett got on at the next stop, sat down beside me, and opened her jacket. “I got these overalls at Next to New.”

  “Good find,” I said.

  “Only five dollars with my coupon.” She grinned.

  And your coupon helped buy my boots, I thought, moving them on the rubber mat: heel, toe, heel, toe, climbing Lava Butte.

  I held my breath as Mr. Hudson passed out the test, the paper turned over, silent questions daring me to remember.

  “You have twenty minutes,” he said.

  I expected to see true-false, multiple choice, fill in the blank, but instead there was only one question: “How does the following story compare to the Holocaust? A frog jumped into a pan of very hot water and instantly jumped back out. Another frog jumped into a pan of cold water that slowly got hotter and hotter: The frog adapted to the increasing heat until the boiling water killed him.”

  I sat there for a moment feeling sick about the dead frog, then my mind wandered back to Guido, Dora, and Joshua and how they got used to the soldiers on every street corner, the stores closed to Jews and dogs. I thought back to Anne Frank’s long list of forbidden freedoms, yet she wrote, “… things were still bearable.” I remembered her words because I’ve said similar ones to myself — shut up in my bedroom, writing in my points journal, lying on my closet bed — trying to convince myself that I was okay. Now I looked out the classroom windows to the open fields and wide blue sky. I thought another minute, then began writing.

  By the time I finished I was wiped out, but then I thought about Anne Frank, who’d written a million thoughts about the real thing; not just a twenty-minute test, but a twenty-four-hour-a-day test. A survival test. I felt bad for feeling tired.

  After Mr. Hudson collected the papers, he began handing back our map projects. I scrunched my toes inside my boots and released them. Scrunched. Released. The wait was killing me. At last, standing beside my desk, Mr. Hudson paused and announced, “Please notice the great care that went into this project.” He held up my concentration camp map for the entire class to see. Then, just to me he said quietly, “I like the rosebush.” He lowered my map onto my desk like a royal crown.

  A+.

  What a beautiful letter. Those n
ice straight, even lines, meeting at the top, the mountaintop. And the prize “+” — the flag at the very tip of the mountain.

  CHAPTER 16

  Mountain Ranges

  One thing about climbing mountains: you have to go back down. That’s what my life was doing. Up and down. High and low. One mountain after another. It reminded me of those zigzag graphs coming out of heart-monitoring machines hooked up to hospital patients.

  Mr. Hudson was definitely top-of-the-mountain. He was hard, but fair. And funny. For Halloween he painted a smiley pumpkin face on his bald spot and gave us orange glow sticks for Outdoor School. I’d never studied so much, but I wanted to be high on his Good Role Model List, plus I had to make up for that stupid bus referral. I didn’t want a single question mark by my name.

  I aced my Anne Frank test and left it on Tyler’s bed; it landed back in my room as an airplane with Proud of You written across the wings. Our half-book test was more difficult, but smarty Brody and I tied for the highest score.

  Another mountaintop: Anita and Ruthie. They could make a sale day out of any occasion — Drizzly Days Deals, Two-for-One Tuesdays, Halloween Surprises — with signs, prizes, and decorations to match. They were the two best friends I’d ever seen. Of course, they’d had a long time to get there; they’d known each other since kindergarten. With both their husbands dead and their kids grown and gone, they’d moved in together and opened Next to New. I wondered if I’d have a lifetime friend, laughing over old memories, hugging and kissing cheeks, giving each other cards and flowers for no reason.

  One more mountain high: purple hiking boots, now worn with thick woolly socks, which kept my feet warm even during recess.

  In between the highs were the lows — not diving, crashing, exploding lows, but rather nagging, poking, bugging lows. For instance: Garbage Day, every other Wednesday…

  “Don’t forget to put the…” Mom’s voice bursts into the bathroom, then fades. I’m clear at the end of the hallway and she’s yelling from the kitchen door. I turn off the water and take the toothbrush out of my mouth. “What?” I yell back, watching my eyebrows frown at the mirror.

  “It’s garbage day,” she yells again, this time louder. “Every other Wednesday. Can’t you remember?”

  I hear her voice, but it’s like cafeteria rules. Pretty soon you don’t hear the thousandth-time reminder words.

  “Hope, you stupid shit! Answer me!” The words echo in my ears.

  “Yeah, I know.” I probably should yell louder, too, but I’ve lost all my yelling energy. It comes out a medium mumble. I turn the water back on and rinse my toothbrush.

  “Hope Marie, get your dumb ass down here right now and take out the goddamn garbage!”

  I sigh and inch my head out the door. Now she’s standing halfway down the hall, her hands on her hips, her lips pressed tight.

  “I’m just finishing my teeth.” The words limp out, filling an excuse.

  “I know you’re going to forget.” She’s not yelling now, but the words are just as loud.

  “I won’t. I promise.”

  Garbage day. Every other Wednesday.

  Another low: INTERRUPTING. Take Thanksgiving dinner, for instance. Mom’s friend Lydia Bishop came over, which was good because she’s nice. I passed the mashed potatoes and she asked how I was doing and what was new, but when I opened my mouth to answer, Mom’s words came out. “She’ll be lucky to make it through sixth grade.”

  Lydia smiled at me and tried again. “What are you doing in your spare time?” My lips parted and once more Mom’s voice was there: “Hope is spending way too much time at that consignment store. Anyone for more turkey?” Conversation over. Onto pumpkin pie recipes and Christmas sales, and I quietly returned to my cranberry salad.

  There was something new grinding at my life: headaches. I think they started that day in Mrs. Piersma’s office. While I was concentrating on the peppermints, I noticed a pain in my jaw traveling up to my eyes and across my forehead. After that, they came more often, sometimes with a little warning, other times flying in out of nowhere. I’d be sitting in class, thinking about morning math, and wham. The pounding in my brain would start right while I was figuring miles from Seattle to San Francisco. The numbers blurred and nothing made sense. Or the pain would start behind my eyes, like someone had tied them into tight knots and was pulling them deep inside my head. Even my teeth hurt. Yeah, my teeth. Tops and bottoms, like I’d been chewing ten pieces of bubble gum for ten days straight.

  If I complained about the pain, Mom gave me two aspirin and told me I shouldn’t have headaches at my age. Sleeping used to help, but then I began waking up in the morning with a headache. How do you get a headache sleeping?

  Highs and lows. Christmas was both. I’d climb up, take in all the beautiful lights and music, the school program, and TV specials. We’d decorate our classroom and have a party with red punch and ice cream, cookies, games, and secret pal gifts.

  The low was my mom’s belief in Christmas crafts. You know that song, “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” with the turtledoves and lords a-leaping? Well, in our house, it was “The Twelve Crafts of Christmas,” with at least twelve bulging bags from Fancy Fabrics crammed with pillow patterns, tassels, rickracks, sequins, and piles of red and green fabric covered with reindeer, snowmen, and Santas.

  I used to get excited about Christmas crafts, but then I got tired of GRABBING — when someone decides you’re doing something the wrong way and they’re going to show you the right way, so they grab whatever you’re doing out of your hands, saying, “You should do it this way.” (Points Total: Grabbing + Shoulding + Interrupting + Feeling Stupid = 385.) I’d avoided the dining room workshop for years, but there was still crafty stuff scattered all over the house — half-finished projects and newly started projects, leaving hardly any room for our own decorations.

  The biggest problem was that the closer we got to Christmas, the crabbier Mom got, because none of her projects were done. Most people have a Merry Christmas; we had a Crabby Christmas.

  This year, however, Christmas wasn’t too bad. We sat around the fake Christmas tree in bathrobes and slippers, drinking hot chocolate, opening presents. I got a basketball from Tyler; gloves, hiking socks, and a bead kit from Mom; twenty-five dollars from Grandma. I gave Tyler two shirts from Next to New. Mom got a warm red scarf that had never been worn. I’m not sure she liked it.

  There is one more Christmas high: the day after Christmas — Mom’s favorite day of the year. She even says so. She’s always cheery and smiley and dancing around the house to Christmas carols, eating fudge and her famous sugar cookies, lazing on the couch with a new book from Lydia. Next year I think I’ll give my present to her on December 26.

  CHAPTER 17

  Rain or Shine?

  “Bite together.” I closed my mouth.

  “Now open.” I opened my mouth.

  “Hmmm… let’s see. Uh-huh.” Dr. McKillip examined my teeth with his miniature mirror, then set the mirror on a tray hanging behind me and placed his hands on my jaw, moving it up and down, back and forth, pressing the sides of my face above my ears. “Does this hurt?”

  “No.”

  He sat up straight on his stool and crossed his arms over his white jacket. “Well, young lady, I’d like to say you ate too many candy canes this Christmas. That’s an easy fix. But it looks like you’re grinding your teeth. Your bicuspids and molars are getting the worst of it.” He pointed to the back of his own mouth, then spoke to my mother leaning against the doorway. “That’ll certainly cause her teeth to hurt and can bring on the headaches, too.”

  He turned back to me and looked right into my eyes. “Hope,” he said quietly, like we were the only two people in the entire office, “how are you doing?”

  A strange mix of panic and pride rushed over me while my ears tingled hot. He wanted to know how I was doing? A kid he only sees maybe once a year? My eyes turned misty and my throat was so tight I didn’t think I could talk.

&
nbsp; “Hope Marie,” came my mother’s words, “answer Dr. McKillip.”

  He gave her a sharp glance, then his eyes softened again as they studied mine. “Are you under any unusual stress at school?”

  “Just regular stuff,” I managed to say.

  “There’s no way she can be stressed,” said Mom. “She’s only in sixth grade. She’s just too sensitive. If anyone should be grinding their teeth, it should be me. I’ve been stressed out for as long as I can remember.”

  Dr. McKillip frowned and looked out the window. “Mrs. Elliot,” he said, studying the bare tree and hanging bird feeders, “I would be more than happy to examine your teeth for a grinding problem. You’re welcome to make an appointment before you leave.”

  He turned his head and spoke to me again. “So everything’s okay at school?”

  “Yeah.”

  He shifted around on his seat. “Uh, what about outside of school — anything bothering you?”

  “She doesn’t have a thing to be bothered about,” said Mom, now standing in the middle of the doorway. “Like I said, she’s only eleven years old.”

  Dr. McKillip patted my arm and stood up with a sigh. “I see many stressed-out eleven-year-olds, Mrs. Elliot. They may not have the same worries you or I do, but kids can be extremely concerned about a lot of things. You might want to look into this for Hope’s sake.”

  Mom started to say something, then closed her mouth and looked down at the floor.

  Dr. McKillip moved to the sink, turned on the water, and began mixing something in a small bowl. “I’m going to make impressions of Hope’s teeth and have a special mouthpiece made for her to wear at night in order to protect her teeth and buffer her nerves. We’ll be done here in a few minutes, Mrs. Elliot. You’re welcome to relax in the waiting room with a cup of hot tea or coffee.”

  Mom was silent on the way home. Actually, she’d been pretty quiet the past few weeks. “After-Christmas blues,” she called it. “Back to the same old routine. Same old, same old.” I’d find her staring out the kitchen window while dinner fixings sat waiting on the counter, or she’d lose track of time, brushing her teeth for ten minutes.