Hope in a Jar

by Beth Harbison

  So instead Allie had dated a series of guys who weren’t quite right for her: from Luke Dashnaw, who quit his job as an investment banker to become a clown ten months into their relationship; to Stu Barker, who was a Buddhist and spent one day every week in complete silence, meditating and fasting; to Kevin, who had sex with the paper salesgirl in Allie’s bed when Allie wasn’t home.

  Allie was beginning to wonder if she’d be better off by herself.

  She was also beginning to worry that soon she wouldn’t have much choice. Despite very frequent and very concerted efforts to the contrary, she knew she wasn’t as pretty as she had once been. Her thirty-eight-year-old face was starting to sag a little; the years of indulgence had puffed out her chin and hips; the summers at Tally-Ho pool in Potomac, languishing under the sun with only a thin film of baby oil between her skin and the UVA and UVB and UV-Whatever-They-Discovered-Next rays, had etched lines into her face that wouldn’t otherwise have been there.

  Thinking about it now, Allie felt her spirits dip even lower.

  There was only one thing she could do to feel better. It would cost her, of course, but sometimes you couldn’t put a price tag on mental health.

  Or, actually, you could, and if you considered that it was $150 per hour and maybe once a week, a little shopping trip was nothing.

  So she went to Sephora.

  It was like taking a short trip to paradise; a place where everything was pretty, everything smelled good, everything was tempting, and all of it promised to ease life’s little problems.

  Immediately upon walking into the overlit, glistening black-white-and-red that was her personal heaven, Allie felt better.

  Not that she came here that often. To the contrary, she usually settled for the drugstore brands, but every once in a while she just couldn’t resist going.

  Now was one of those times.

  Because not only had she just ended a relationship—one of the top three reasons to go straight to Sephora—but she had her twentieth class reunion coming up. Come to think of it, that had to be in the top three, too. In fact, she’d stand her ground in saying either of those were a better reason to splurge than a wedding.

  Anyway, here she was.

  “Can I help you find something?” a girl who was almost half her age and half her size asked Allie.

  “Yes.” Allie was prepared. She had a wallet full of credit cards. “Show me all of your favorite things.”

  The girl looked confused. “What exactly are you looking for? Like, mascara, or”—she looked Allie over—“microdermabrasion?”

  Under any other circumstances, Allie might have been insulted, but she’d been as low as she could go this week, self-esteemwise, so she was willing to admit she needed help.

  “I want to know about anything you have that will make me look better,” she said. “Show it all to me.”

  The girl was like an obedient dog, tentatively moving toward the hamburger that had dropped on the kitchen floor. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. Absolutely.”

  “Cool. Because we just got this moisturizer that everyone is saying gets rid of fine lines in, like, days . . .”

  For the next hour, Allie followed the waif through the store, trying mascaras, foundations, creams, lotions, perfumes, even tooth whiteners. There was Dior, Lancôme, Fresh, Urban Decay, bareMinerals, LORAC, and a hundred other brands Allie wouldn’t normally have even considered because their prices were so high.

  She wasn’t able to get it all—a hundred and twenty-five bucks for an ounce of skin potion was still too much, no matter how desperately unhappy she was—but she got enough to make for a very satisfying walk back to the car and drive home.

  She’d realized, as she’d shopped, that her anguish wasn’t really all about Kevin. In fact, very little of it probably had to do with Kevin. Every time she tried to fit him into the puzzle piece of her heart that felt missing, he didn’t quite fit.

  Yes, he’d cheated on her, he’d betrayed her, he’d made her feel like a loser and a fool, but maybe she understood why. At least a little bit.

  She and Kevin had a very companionable relationship. They went on nice dates together, liked the same restaurants and the same wine. But at night when they came home, more often than not Kevin would stay in the living room, watching the Biography Channel, or Discovery, or something while Allie went into the bedroom and watched Sex and the City, or Six Feet Under, or Big Brother. Something that Kevin would regard as far too low-brow for his tastes.

  And while they did have sex regularly, it was just that: It was just regular and, frankly, it was just sex.

  There were no fireworks.

  There weren’t even pathetic little sparklers.

  On paper, Kevin had made a lot of sense. He was an attorney with a firm that had a reputation for moving its junior associates up to the top of the ranks quickly. He loved D.C., just like Allie did (even if he didn’t love it for the same reasons), and had every intention of staying and making a life here, in one of the better northwest neighborhoods. He worked harder than everyone else at his firm to get further faster, and to make his goals reality.

  As a matter of fact, that was how Allie had gotten stuck in the hamster treadmill of just doing temp work. Kevin had needed her help to get all that extra work done, so despite her English degree from Rutgers, she’d worked as his paralegal, researching with him, well into dawn on many nights, and picking up temp work for the cash to contribute to the household.

  In retrospect it looked like a really foolish thing for her to have done, but she’d truly believed in Kevin, even if she didn’t love him passionately, and she’d believed they were building a life together.

  Turned out they were.

  His life.

  So as she came home from Montgomery Mall, with her expensive little shopping bag of treats, she found that she was much more interested in getting herself back than in getting him back.

  It was a good feeling.

  The next several hours of exfoliation, conditioning, blow-drying, and makeup were good ones. Positive steps in what had been a negative rut.

  It wasn’t a movie makeover, of course. It was home maintenance, though high-quality home maintenance. Plus, she still had these extra fifteen pounds or so to deal with, and she was not excited about going to the class reunion with them.

  Not that she had been a gazelle the last time they’d seen her. She’d never been Audrey Hepburn, but at five foot eight she had been athletic and strong, and had had big boobs so it was generally acknowledged that she was pretty hot once.

  Built, they said back then, though that weird little expression had come and gone pretty quickly.

  Anyway, Allie’s curvy physical assets had earned her a lot of privilege throughout high school and college: She’d never lacked a boyfriend, something that was terribly important at the time; more than one restaurant meal had been free; she’d flirted her way out of three speeding tickets; and one summer night, when she’d been wearing a particularly excellent dress she’d gotten from The Limited, a guy had offered her a million bucks to sleep with him. That was when Indecent Proposal was in the theaters, so it was neither a sincere nor original offer, but it was a nice sentiment.

  Yup—those were the glory days when curves and boobs were acceptable and a Big Mac wasn’t a sin.

  Then Kate Moss had come along and ruined all of that. And Vincent Gallo did those stupid Calvin Klein heroin-chic shots that fed the trend that did not eat. Sure, everyone complained about it but nothing changed. Thin had been in now longer than any other trend in recent history. Even Tyra Banks argued against ultrathin models one day, but named ultrathin models on America’s Next Top Model the next.

  Because, upon reflection, even without the extra fifteen, Allie might have gone to her reunion feeling unfashionably fat. But now? She felt like Mama Cass would have taken her in hand, muttering, Come over here, Allison, let’s have a ham sandwich while they choose teams for Reunion basketball.

  The
truth was, even when she’d gone to Liz Claiborne the other day to try to find some new clothes that might flatter her and lift her spirits, everything she’d tried on in her previous “fat size” was too small and she’d had to go up yet another size.

  But Allie was dealing with what she had, and she was doing her best. At this point, the plan was still to go to the reunion and if she couldn’t miraculously drop a bunch of weight then maybe the makeup would draw attention to her better assets so no one noticed the worst.

  That was what the salesgirl had said anyway.

  Once she was all dressed up with nowhere to go, Allie got herself a glass of wine and decided to test the waters of the reunion by looking at the Web site Cindy Barlow—yes, the always over-achieving reunion chair had actually purchased a domain name—had set up.

  Allie went to the message boards at Classmates.com and clicked on the board labeled WINSTON CHURCHILL HIGH SCHOOL—20-YEAR REUNION—WHO’S COMING? A bunch of people had already checked in:

  Peter Ford: Bulldogs still rul!

  Peter Ford was a jock who could barely count to ten, but who made himself a hero by establishing a record in yards run on the football field.

  What Allie remembered best about him was that he pulled her shirt up in front of everyone during gym in seventh grade.

  Lucy Lee: Will definitely try to make it. Anyone know what happened to Paulina Sams?

  Lucy had been the smart girl who had the unusual distinction of also being really popular. She was an anchor on the local news now.

  Allie had always felt like a complete loser in comparison to her. It seemed ominously clear that she would continue to feel that way.

  Yancy Miller: Paulina Sams lives in Seattle now. She has two kids and she’s pregnant with number 3. Her husband is an exec with Starbucks. She probably won’t be able to come because of the baby.

  That figured. Yancy Miller had been the biggest gossip in school. Allie wasn’t even sure she’d been friends with Paulina, yet there she was with all the information.

  Allie looked on. Then she saw it.

  Victoria Freedman: I’ll be there—watch for me!

  Of course she’d write something like that.

  Vickie had been the bitchiest girl in school, from sixth grade right on through twelfth. She’d grown up a few doors down from Allie and they used to play together when they were very young. But once Vickie’s father had struck it very rich, they’d moved out of Fox Hills and into the much pricier Potomac Falls neighborhood. After that Vickie went out of her way to make it clear she’d never had anything to do with Allie or anyone else who wasn’t in the popular group.

  Watch for me.

  Allie figured it was wiser to watch out for Vickie. And she would, that was for damn sure. They wouldn’t have any contact unless Vickie saw Allie before Allie could hide.

  Yancy Miller: Saw you on MSNBC talking environmental law, Vickie! Way to go!

  Suck-up.

  Wilhelmina Fram: Cannot attend.

  Who was that?

  Allison Denty: Will attend with guest.

  That was all she’d written. Allie Denty will attend with guest. And now they could scratch that guest.

  Noah Haller: Will be there.

  Thank God.

  Even if he wasn’t actually going with Allie, she was so glad he was going to be there. One friendly face in the crowd, one person who would get it when the Vickie Freedmans and Lucy Lees walked by all high-and-mighty.

  Thank God for Noah.

  Allie looked at the bottom of her glass. There was only a stain of wine left. She decided she could either refill the glass and take the chance on being really sorry tomorrow, or she could opt for herbal tea.

  The latter seemed wiser.

  In the kitchen, she took out a box of Bigelow’s Red Raspberry tea and heated the water in the microwave. She opened the tea bag and the smell of raspberry drifted up into her memory. It had been years since she’d had this stuff. When she saw it at the grocery store last week, she couldn’t believe it was still for sale. She got two boxes of it but hadn’t thought to actually have any until right now.

  When she dunked the bag into the boiling water, the smell took her back, through her twenties, and back to her teens when she and Olivia used to make raspberry tea lemonade at home since Snapple was so expensive.

  Allie paused. Olivia. There was the one person she’d been trying not to think about. The one person whose memory brought back actual pain.

  And the one person she was both hoping and hoping not to see at the reunion.

  The relationship was completely unresolved. They’d been best friends for years, then had one blowup, and Olivia had left and that had been the end of their relationship. Poof! Like it had never happened, no matter how much Allie thought about it or missed it.

  Olivia had left in a hurry halfway through senior year. It had been February. Her mom had left that bum she was married to (way more than a day late and a dollar short), packed a suitcase for herself and one for Olivia, and she’d taken her daughter and disappeared into the night.

  Well, maybe it hadn’t been night exactly. Allie wasn’t sure. It had happened after she and Olivia had had the Big Blowup and they weren’t speaking at the time. All Allie knew was that Olivia, her former best friend of half a decade, was in school one day and gone for good the next.

  It had been awful, of course. Confusing and upsetting and the source of a lot of speculation. Yet privately, though she never admitted it out loud, Allie had been a little bit glad. Since they’d stopped being friends, it had been very hard to figure out exactly what they were. It had been even harder to figure out just how to act in this new, undefined state.

  It was painful to pass Olivia in the halls and have to squelch the urge to run to her, giggling and gossiping—or maybe whining and complaining—about whatever had happened in Ms. Rosen’s music class, or what dumb thing George Riggs had said this time.

  It was even more painful to see Olivia instead acting all chummy with Vickie Freedman and her ilk, ignoring Allie just like the rest of them did.

  Just like the rest of them used to ignore Olivia, too.

  She turned into one of them, so it was something of a relief when Allie didn’t have to face that every day anymore.

  But in the privacy of her room, without Queen Bees and Bullies to contend with, the heartache of losing her best friend was almost too much for Allie to bear. Everywhere she looked there was a reminder—pinups they’d swooned over, records they’d sung along with, collages of words and pictures significant only to them, mixed tapes of their songs. So much of their time had been spent in Allie’s room that once Olivia was gone it felt like something was missing.

  She could only guess it was considerably easier for Olivia. After all, she’d left and hadn’t even bothered to say good-bye to Allie. She’d never given Allie a chance to defend herself, and she certainly hadn’t given her the benefit of the doubt when it came to believing her.

  She’d just dumped her. And the years dissolved like cigarette smoke in the front courtyard during lunch hour. There wasn’t a hint of their friendship left in Olivia’s eyes.

  Supposedly no one knew a forwarding address, although it had taken Allie months to screw up the courage to casually ask Vickie and her friends during yearbook signing at the end of the year.

  Eventually, Allie worked up her own anger. What kind of person, no matter how mad she might have been at Allie, and no matter how wrong she was, just up and left after nearly six years without so much as a good-bye?

  So, to the point, why would Allie want to see her again now, after all these years?

  She didn’t.

  Fortunately, there didn’t seem to be any point in sweating it, either. Olivia had graduated from a different school. Someplace in California, Allie had heard, though the information wasn’t reliable. Wherever it was, Olivia had probably made friends there, in her new life, and didn’t have any intention of coming back here.

  It was, Allie
reminded herself, a relief.

  Now. If only Vickie Freedman felt the same way . . .

  But no, Vickie was still local. And if she was anything like she used to be—and there was nothing in her personality to suggest she wouldn’t be exactly how she used to be—she would do something to make Allie’s life just a little more miserable.

  Two

  Seventh Grade

  How un-sweet it is.

  —ad for Sour Grapes Lip Smackers

  by Bonne Bell

  “I’ll trade you Watermelon for 7UP,” Allie offered, hoping Olivia wouldn’t see the trade as obviously unbalanced as she did. Come on, the 7UPs were always sold out at Woolworth’s, while there were racks and racks of Watermelon.

  “I don’t know.” Olivia examined the fat 7UP-flavored Lip Smacker. She’d dumped the entire contents of her new purse—they only started using purses this year and barely had anything to put in them—onto Allie’s patchwork bedspread. She wrinkled her small, irritatingly straight nose, then shook her head. “I like 7UP.”

  “You do not! You never, ever, ever have 7UP. You always have Coke.”

  Olivia fired back fast. “They don’t have Coke-flavored Lip Smackers and besides it doesn’t really taste like 7UP.”

  “Yes, it does, it tastes exactly like 7UP. That’s why they call it 7UP.”

  “Then I guess I like 7UP.”

  Allie gave an exasperated sigh. If she hadn’t gotten Olivia into Lip Smackers, she’d still be trading Hello Kitty puffy stickers and Wacky Packages with fifth graders.