Hope in a Jar

by Beth Harbison

  “Is she always this much fun?” Alan asked Noah.

  “Watch it,” Noah said quietly.

  Allie felt herself glow in his protection.

  “Okay, okay.” Alan put his hands up as if in surrender. “Just tell me this, are you in the mood for some real entertainment?”

  “Why?” Noah asked. “Do you know where there is some?”

  Allie wanted to kick him.

  “Yes, I do, my friend.” Alan slipped a bottle out from under his shirt. “Right here.”

  “What’s that?” Allie wanted to know.

  “Cuervo Gold.” He shook the bottle, as if dangling a shiny bauble in front of them. “You want?”

  “No—”

  “I do.” Allie took the bottle and threw back a big swig, just to defy Noah’s stupid bossiness. “Speak for yourself,” she added, though her voice came out in a rasp as the liquid burned its way down her throat. “What about you, Noah? Are you chicken?”

  “This is stupid,” Noah said. “Allie, don’t be stupid.”

  “You’re not driving,” she taunted, but she really didn’t know why. Yes, he’d been a dick, but she didn’t need to bait him like this. It would only end up making them fight more. “Have a little.”

  “After you.”

  “Great.” Keeping her eyes on him, she lifted the bottle to her lips again and took another generous swig. If this was NyQuil, and it tasted like it, she’d be knocked out.

  “Great.” He took the bottle from her and, holding her gaze as defiantly as she’d held his, downed a very generous amount.

  “Whoa,” Alan said, snatching the bottle back. He held it up to the light. “Man, you guys drank almost all of it! I said you could have some, not the whole fucking thing.”

  “Next time, grab someone less thirsty,” Allie snapped and huffed out into the night air, although she did so on somewhat wobbly legs.

  The air felt good.

  But so did the tequila.

  “He’s such an asshole.” Noah was by her side again and finally they agreed on something.

  “He’s your friend,” she said. “Not mine.”

  “Right. Your friend just ditches you and disappears.”

  “We’ll find her,” Allie said, though she had some doubts. How would they find Olivia? There were tens of thousands of people here, spread over tens of acres. It was almost like finding a needle in a haystack.

  They walked side by side through the grounds, kicking trash aside and trying to avoid bumping into people as they went. For a good solid twenty minutes after chugging the tequila, Allie felt like she got more and more tipsy. There was a lag time when you downed it like that.

  When they got to the Ferris wheel, Allie was overcome by the need to sit down, and it seemed as good a place as any. Better, actually, considering that the alternative seemed to be a ground coated with beer, Cokes, urine, and the occasional cigarette butt.

  “Let’s go on,” she said to Noah.

  “No way.” He looked at it. “I’m not into Ferris wheels.”

  “What does that mean? Who’s not into Ferris wheels?”

  “Me.”

  “Oh, come on.” She dragged him toward the guy with his sleeves rolled up over a tattoo that read glorea. Had he misspelled his girlfriend’s name or had she? “It will be fun.”

  “Allie.”

  “Honestly, Noah, if I don’t sit down I’m going to fall down, and this is the only seat I see so you’ve got to come with me.”

  He gave a dramatic sigh but handed over the tickets and ushered her into the seat before the guy with the tattoo counted them and noticed they were two short.

  Allie leaned back against the cold metal and smiled as the engine cranked to life and they started to rise up into the air. As the wheel turned one exhilarating rotation after another, Allie’s mood lifted with it. She loved the feeling of the wind rushing over her as they descended, only to swoop up again. She was breathless with the same flying thrill this had always given her as a child.

  That is, until it got stuck.

  Naturally, Allie and Noah were at the very top when it stopped. At first she didn’t panic because she figured the ride was over and they were stopping to let people out. The wheel would turn, letting passengers off one seat at a time, until they finally got to the bottom.

  Except the wheel didn’t turn.

  It didn’t move.

  Allie peered over the edge, the seat creaking softly, and saw the guy in charge—a guy who suddenly looked to her like an ex-con who would as likely run from trouble as solve it—pushing the button repeatedly and cranking a mechanical arm, then looking up with a puzzled expression etched on his craggy face.

  “We’re stuck.” The blood drained from her face and chest right into her toes. Suddenly she felt chilled, though her palms were damp.

  “What?” Noah moved to look down, but he wasn’t as careful as Allie had been and the seat rocked wildly.

  “Stop it!” She clapped her hand onto his arm, glad for the warmth of him. “Don’t move!”

  “Allie, what the hell’s the matter with you?”

  “We’re stuck,” she rasped, as if even breathing would send the seat rocketing off its axis and plunging to the ground.

  “Are you afraid of heights?” Noah asked.

  “No.” She never had been before. Then again, she’d never been suspended fifty feet off the popcorn-strewn ground, so high up that all she could hear was the wind and the faint murmur of the crowd below and her own breathing. “I’m just . . .” She swallowed. Her mouth felt dry. “Afraid of being stuck here. Now. Like this.” She looked down, then immediately looked up, her fear mounting. “Oh, my God, it’s so far down there. I think I am afraid of heights.”

  “It’s okay, Al.” He put his arm around her and pulled her close. “It’ll just be a minute.”

  She sank against him, trying to breathe. “They bring it in on a train, you know.”

  “What?”

  “This ride. They bring it into town on a train. It’s not like Disney World or something where they build big strong things that a hurricane can’t blow down. This folds up and loads onto a flatcar like something Inspector Gadget would pull out of his case. It would fall right off the tracks if they hit a cow.”

  Noah drew her closer still. “Lucky for you, all the cows are in the barns. Or the display case.”

  She gave a small laugh. He’d been such a jerk tonight, it was good to have some semblance of the old Noah back, even if it was under terrifying circumstances.

  The wind lifted again, and the seat rocked, its old hinges squeaking quietly. “Noah . . .” Her voice was small.

  “We’re fine.”

  “This isn’t meant to just stop and sit here like this with all this weight on it.” She pictured the wheel falling off the great steel arms that held it and rolling across the fairgrounds into traffic, maybe even continuing on across the street and through the parking lot of Lakeforest Mall, picking up momentum until finally it crashed into JCPenney and their bodies were found in piles of bras and extra-large underpants.

  “It is meant to do this,” Noah said firmly. “It’s meant to do exactly this. Whenever it’s not moving, it’s sitting like this. You’re not going to get hurt. You might get bored, but you’re not going to get hurt. I am one hundred percent sure of it.”

  She turned and looked into his eyes. It had been a long time since she’d noticed how hot he was, but the way he was looking at her now, she actually felt her heart give a flip for something other than the possibility of death-by-carnival.

  “Are you sure or are you just bullshitting me so I’ll shut up?”

  “Look,” he said. “Can you keep a secret?”

  Her eyes widened. Was he about to make some romantic declaration to her? What would she do? “I promise.”

  He hesitated another moment before giving a single nod and saying, “I have this train set, an old Lionel that was my dad’s. He gave it to me when I was little. It’s sort of o
ur thing, you know? We add onto it and set it up and—” He stopped, looking embarrassed. “Anyway, it’s a simple motor, just like the one that runs this. I learned a long time ago that if you run that kind of motor too hard, too fast, or just for too long, it overheats and stops for a while.”

  That made sense to Allie. “I had a blow-dryer that did that.”

  Noah laughed. “Okay, well, that’s pretty much the same thing, too. So you know it just has to cool down and then it will work again. You don’t have to do anything but wait.”

  She nodded. Her shoulders relaxed slightly under his arm.

  “So we wait. And that guy”—he pointed at the ride operator who was, unbelievably, still pushing the button—“will probably give up in like five minutes for a cigarette and he’ll be stunned when the thing moves again. Watch him. Seriously.”

  “Okay.” She took a long breath in. Unfortunately the effects of the tequila were completely gone. She could have used a buzz right now. Especially when she looked down and saw just how far up they really were.

  Noah must have seen the frenzy return to her eyes because he put a finger under her chin and said, softly, “Keep looking up. Try and find the Big Dipper.”

  She did. She’d just found the handle when he kissed her.

  She didn’t even see it coming. One minute she was gazing at the constellations and the next minute his mouth was on hers, his hands were tangled in her hair, cupping her face, and she was responding without thought, without logic.

  She was in the constellations.

  If she’d stopped to think about it, she might have stopped him. After all, they were friends and this was . . . this was not a friendly kiss.

  The weird thing was, she wasn’t feeling all that friendly toward him. Maybe the tequila was still working on her, because she was clutching at him, opening to his kiss, and all but ripping her clothes off as if he were the hottest movie star in the galaxy instead of good old Noah Haller.

  Was there more to Noah Haller than she’d given him credit for?

  She kept kissing him, as if the answer would come to her if she gave this long enough.

  It felt so good.

  Where had he learned to be such an amazing kisser? He hadn’t had that many girlfriends. She was sure he was still a virgin, like she was. So how did he get to be so physically intoxicating?

  His hand was creeping up her shirt and she was about to let him have his way with her when the Ferris wheel lurched. Allie sprang back like she’d been bitten by a snake.

  “Sorry,” she said, flustered. “That was . . . I didn’t . . .” She was trying to say she wasn’t expecting the sudden movement.

  “Me, neither,” he agreed.

  Though she wasn’t entirely sure what he was agreeing with, she had a pretty good idea that he was talking about the kiss.

  The Ferris wheel moved again and they were finally descending normally, pausing to let grateful passengers out every several seconds.

  “Funny what panic will do to a person,” she said, forcing a laugh. “Sorry about that.”

  He looked at her oddly for a moment. “No problem.”

  “Good. I mean, I don’t want to complicate things. Be a problem or anything.” She hoped he’d object, but he didn’t.

  In fact, he didn’t even look at her. “Yeah, it’s fine.”

  Though she wouldn’t understand it until two decades later, they didn’t speak for more than a month after that.

  “So how come you and Allie aren’t talking to each other anymore?” Olivia asked Noah several weeks later. Allie was home sick, so Olivia had spotted Noah at the beginning of lunch and had rushed to join him before his stupid cronies did and they couldn’t talk.

  He gave a half shrug. “Did you ask her?”

  “Yes.”

  “What’d she say?”

  Olivia’s face grew warm. “She said you were an asshole.”

  He gave a dry laugh. “That must be it, then.”

  She decided to tread carefully but ask the question that had been on her mind for weeks. “Did something happen at the fair?”

  He looked at her sharply. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, you guys were, like, okay before that and I don’t think you’ve talked to each other since then.” She shrugged. “You don’t have to be a genius to figure out something must have happened.”

  He considered this for a moment, then said, “Yeah, something happened.”

  “What?”

  He met her eyes. “I kissed her.”

  Wow. Olivia had not been prepared for that. “You did?”

  He nodded. “As soon as it was over she said it was a mistake, so”—he shrugged—“I decided not to make that mistake again.”

  “But Noah . . .” She didn’t know what to say. This was huge. Why hadn’t Allie mentioned it to her?

  “But what?” He was impatient.

  “I don’t know. I guess I’m sorry. I had no idea that had happened or I wouldn’t have asked you. But . . . I think you should talk to her.”

  “I don’t have anything to say.”

  “It sort of sounds like you do, though. I mean, do you like her? You know, that way?”

  His face turned red, but he shook his head as casually as if she’d asked if he liked Pop Rocks. “Not anymore.”

  “But you did? Like until after the fair? Noah, seriously, she had no idea!”

  “She had a pretty good idea of it that night.”

  Olivia didn’t know what to say. She was hurt that Allie hadn’t told her anything about this—since when did they keep secrets from each other?—but she didn’t want to see Noah suffer for it when she knew Allie hadn’t had a clue.

  “I think you should tell her just how you feel,” she said to him. “Maybe she said it was a mistake because she thought you thought it was a mistake.”

  He looked at her like she was crazy. “She said it was a mistake because she thought it was a mistake.” Sherry Alexander walked by and caught Noah’s eye. “I don’t want to talk about it, Liv. Gotta go.” He didn’t even look back, he just went off with Sherry, making an obvious point of flirting with her.

  But Olivia suspected he was making that point not for Sherry but for Olivia herself. A little piece of information for her to take back to Allie, she supposed.

  But she didn’t.

  She never told Allie she knew a thing about it.

  Seventeen

  Makeup for lost time.

  —ad for Lancôme Rénergie Lift Makeup

  It might have taken Olivia a lot longer to figure out her mother had fallen off the “I choose me!” wagon and was doing online dating if Caroline had not been careless enough to leave her entire profile on the screen before putting Olivia’s laptop into hibernate mode.

  It was the second Monday in June and her mother had now been staying at her apartment for three weeks and three days.

  Not that Olivia was counting.

  Apparently, Caroline’s makeover had given her quite a bit of confidence. Instead of pursuing the path of self-growth and independence she had talked about, however briefly, once she was a hottie again—thanks to an amazing makeover at the John Barrett salon and in Olivia’s own office—she was ready to go out on the prowl again.

  Well, Olivia was just fed up with that.

  “Mom, what is this?” she asked, taking the computer into the kitchen, where her mother was slicing fruit and making bad coffee in a percolator on the stove.

  “I was going to ask you exactly that, it’s a great little computer gadget. I’d love to get one.” She set the knife down, wiped her hands on the kitchen towel hanging next to the sink, and came over to Olivia. “Let’s look at the bottom and see if we can figure out what it’s called, shall we?”

  “I don’t mean the computer, Mom, I mean the dating profile. Have you posted it to a public site?”

  “No.”

  Phew! Olivia set the computer down on the table and said, “Good. We need to talk about some seriously dangerous
things you’ve put on your profile.”

  “Dangerous? My goodness, you make me sound like a spy.”

  “More like a target.” Olivia scrolled through the profiles. “For one thing, you listed the name of the building here. You cannot, absolutely cannot, tell every Tom, Dick, and Harry where you’re staying.” She’d almost said where you’re living, but she’d caught herself just in time. The last thing in the world she wanted to do was encourage her mother to stay longer.

  “I see.” Caroline frowned and turned the computer toward herself, poking at the keys. “I wonder how I go about correcting that.”

  “I think you should start a new profile. That’s just one of a bunch of things I saw here that could make you vulnerable.”

  “How do I take this profile off the site so I can make a new one?”

  “What? You said you hadn’t posted it.”

  “I haven’t posted it publicly. But it’s on this site. Surely the site is private, isn’t it?”

  Olivia took a bracing breath. “Did you have any trouble getting on it and looking around before you signed up?”

  “No.”

  “Enough said.” Olivia turned the computer back to herself. “Maybe I can cancel the account. What’s your user name?”

  “FreeBird.”

  Olivia looked at her. “Like the song?”

  “What song?”

  “ ‘Free Bird.’ It’s a song. Like, a huge Southern rock hit from the seventies.”

  Caroline shrugged. “I only used it because when I had as a in there between free and bird it said the name was taken.”

  “All right, fine. FreeBird.” She typed it in. “And what’s your password?”

  There was a long pause before she answered, quietly, “I’m too old.”

  Olivia stopped looking at the site. “What?”

  “I’m too old. I M the number 2 and old. No spaces.”

  IM2Old.

  God, that was sad.

  “Mom . . .” Olivia felt as though she’d been sucker punched. As aggravated as she was with her mother—and she had a lifetime of aggravation built up—this small fact, this tiny admission of her true state of confidence folded up into her password, made her anger melt away and pool like rain in a puddle of guilt at her feet.