Finding Hope in Texas

by Ryan T. Petty

  So Lizzy was all I had to stay for, even though in the next year and a half I would move off the college, anyway? Sounded like a very short list. But what about Jason? Should I stay around and try to get to know him better? I mean, I had fallen into his arms twice now and each time he was there to catch me. But wasn’t he just so, well for lack of better terms, messed up? Jeez, that’s the kettle calling the pot black. But really, how could I ever get to know someone who would hardly speak to even his closest friends in reenacting, who spent his weekends going around to crappy antique stores looking for wooden buttons? Was it really worth my time to try and delve inside him and see what made him tick? He was at least cute and might be just fun to gaze upon, even if he didn’t say a word. Every woman’s dream, right? But all I knew was that he was ex-military, had a limp, and was a Civil War reenactor. The only way to find out more was to go to a reenactment. It looked like I was going to Madisonville in a couple of weeks.

  As class released, I hurriedly dressed and went off to Mr. Peet’s room, hoping to find Lizzy. I was in luck when I opened the door to find them at their usual sitting areas, him grading papers and her doing her homework. Lizzy gave me a big smile and stood up to greet me.

  “Hope, I’m sorry for what I said in the lunchroom. I’ve been feeling so bad about the incident. It wasn’t my place to pry into your life.”

  I shook my head and waved her off. Mr. Peet looked over his shoulder at the two of us, but didn’t interfere.

  “Lizzy, don’t worry about it. I just had to get some fresh air. You let me get some things off my chest that I’ve been keeping bottled up inside and I thank you for that. But I was wondering if I could ask for a favor now.”

  “A favor? Sure. Anything.”

  “This hobby of yours, reenacting. How do I get started in it?”

  “Oh,” she looked back at her dad for a moment. “Well, you just come to an event. We try to help people with their clothes for the first few times, you know, so you don’t have to go out and buy everything at once. We’re going to Madisonville in a couple weeks.”

  “Yeah, but if I wanted to buy something for myself, where could I do that?”

  “Well, you can always look at the sutler stores online to find what they are selling.”

  “A what?”

  “Sutler. S U T L E R,” Mr. Peet spelled it for me from across the room, like I was a dimwit.

  “Thanks, Dad. Anyway, they have all sorts of stuff, from dresses to undergarments to parasols and whatever else. But you don’t need to buy anything, Hope.”

  “I’ll just browse some for now.” Another lie. “But, you don’t mind if I go with you?” Lizzy looked at her dad again. Mr. Peet rose from his chair and stood behind the podium, becoming master of his domain once again.

  “I’ll need to talk to your aunt about it, Hope. I’ve only taken one other student and his parents didn’t care. But you know, with the

  whole–”

  “Yeah, the whole male teacher-female student thing, right?” He smiled and nodded. “Okay, well I’ll give you her phone number tomorrow, if that’s okay. She opens the antique store this Saturday if you want to come by and see her then.”

  “Antique store? Which one?”

  “Oh, no.” Lizzy sighed, rolling her eyes.

  “What?”

  “You just excited dad’s history bug. I swear to you, it’s contagious.”

  I smiled. “I’ll find you the exact location of it and give it to you tomorrow.” They both nodded and said they looked forward to seeing my aunt again, whether that was true or not I didn’t know. I looked at Lizzy to continue the conversation. “I guess if I can survive Jody and her gang, then I can endure a weekend of camping, right?”

  “Well, you missed the exciting part at lunch today. The principal, Mr. Franklin, came in and berated their table today right in front of everyone. Told the whole little Secundas group to head to lunch detention and that they were going to have ISS for the remainder of the week.”

  “ISS? Why did he do that?”

  “I don’t know,” she leaned in to whisper. “But they looked highly ticked off when they marched outta there.”

  That must have explained why they were not in P.E. last period. The wheels in my brain began to churn, trying to guess why they might have been in trouble. Whose path did they cross to bring them down? But knowing the school, the rumors would spread that evening and I would probably overhear the gossip the next morning. Oh, boy. I thanked both Lizzy and Mr. Peet for allowing me to go with them again, thinking at least it would get me out of the house for the weekend, and at most, I could possibly get to know Jason, the loner on a motorcycle. I skirted out of the room to meet Mags, who was waiting patiently at the curb, the heater blowing heavily to warm the inside of the car.

  “Well, there you are. I was beginning to wonder if you had after school detention now,” she said sardonically.

  “No, I was just talking to a teacher.” I grunted, throwing my backpack in the second seat.

  “Oh. Well, was your day any better? I mean, you mentioned some mean girls at your school over the weekend. Did they bother you today?”

  “No, but why are you asking?” There was an I know something you don’t know look in her eyes. “What did you do, Mags?”

  “I had a one-sided conversation with your principal this morning. I told him if that is how the student body at Jimmy Carter treated a new girl that went through such a traumatic experience as you, then that school should’ve been shut down a long time ago.” My mouth dropped open as Mags continued. “I’ve been keeping up with the news enough to know that bullying is a hot topic and once you start throwing the word lawsuit around, people start to act.”

  “You...you said that?”

  “I sure did, and he said–”

  “Who cares what he said! You go up there and talk to the principal, someone I haven’t even met and spilled your guts about my problem? You had no right to do that, Mags! And then threaten him with a lawsuit? You have to be freaking kidding me!” I sunk in my seat. She might as well just tattooed the word NARC big across my forehead and taped a KICK ME sign to my back.

  “I was just trying to help, honey. You just seemed so upset about the situation.”

  “But I didn’t ask for your help, I didn’t want you involved at all. Why in the heck did you have to stick your nose into my business?” I threw my head back into the seat and looked up at the fading upholstery on the ceiling. “Just take me home, please.” I sighed.

  She said nothing else and again I had the feeling like I should apologize for being so rude, but I didn’t. She was wrong for what she did, even if she had the best of intentions. Everything in my school life may have just gone from bad to worse, but really, how much more miserable could it have gotten? I probably needed to borrow Mr. Peet’s musket and bayonet for protection now, but who was I kidding? Even then my ammo would be lacking. We were in Texas. These kids were probably packing AK-47s in their backpacks.

  Still, even with her blatant attempt to help my school life, Mags had at least bought me practically a whole week of relative peace and quiet. Jody and the gang were nowhere to be found and for that I was happy, but I did see Brad in the hallway once or twice giving me the evil eye. I guess he thought I went against his word and got Jody in trouble after all. What did he warn me of, that she had squished bigger bugs than me before or something like that? Well how the heck was I supposed to know that Mags would blow a gasket and blab to the principal? Crap!

  Finding a good sutler wasn’t very hard. All of them were guy-friendly, probably because they were the ones playing soldier and all, but Google gave me more hits than I ever needed. Even though I knew Lizzy would let me borrow anything, if I was going to be serious about reenacting, I might as well start looking. Haversack Supplies had more than haversacks. I found a plain, but pretty camp dress as well as some rustic-looking leather shoes. My Reeboks would have to be retired for the weekend. This wasn’t near as flashy as what I wor
e for the parade, but it looked more comfortable. I called the place to make sure they had my sizes. “Yeah, that’s no problem,” murmured the man on the other end of the line. “Anything else you need?” I thought for a moment. Lizzy said something about dances, so how about a dance dress? “You mean a hoop? You want the whole shebang?” Sure, what the heck! I gave him my info and said to rush deliver it, pleased with my purchases. It wasn’t ten minutes later that I got a call from Richard.

  “Did you lose your debit card? Someone made some strange purchases with it.”

  “No, that was me,” I said shyly. Was he really keeping that close an eye on my accounts?

  “Well, looks like you got the southern bug. Have fun at the NASCAR race and all the left turns,” he said mockingly of Southern culture. At least he didn’t call me Scarlet O’Hara.

  With so much peace in the world, or at least the school, the week flew by quickly and I found myself slapping the alarm on a Saturday morning, awaking so that I could meet Lizzy and Mr. Peet at the antique store. Mags looked at me strangely when I walked down the hall, fully dressed and ready to go.

  “Have a hot date?” she chimed.

  “Only with you. Aren’t you going to the antique store today?”

  “Yeah. So where are you going?”

  “With you, duh.”

  “Even after last week?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, even after last week. Who knows, the crappy place may grow on me.”

  She smiled but then warned me about my derogatory comments.

  The first couple hours were boring sitting behind the counter. There were no customers and Mags had busied herself with cleaning another part of the store. It seemed Mr. Lambert liked what she had done with the back area and wanted her to continue throughout the place. I figured with me working every Saturday as she cleaned, she would finish in the next twenty-five years, tops.

  It was just before ten when I got a text from Lizzy that they were on their way. Oddly enough, they knew of the place but had never stopped in, mostly because Lizzy knew that Mr. Peet would take hours explaining everything he saw to her and how it was used before we got some better piece of technology that made that one obsolete. They arrived about fifteen minutes after ten, both bundled up for the blizzard that was not coming.

  “Miss Kilpatrick, how are you this fine morning?”

  “Good,” I replied. “I’ll go get my aunt.” I brought Mags to the front of the store and oddly enough, Mr. Peet transformed into something other than the sarcastic teacher from school.

  “Margaret, it’s good to see you again,” he said and shook her hand. “What a wonderful place you have here. When Miss Kilpatrick said that you ran an antique store I just had to come see it for myself,” he gleamed.

  What was he smoking? Lizzy and I gave uncomfortable looks to one another as the two talked junk business. Finally, the conversation moved to reenacting.

  “I guess Miss Kilpatrick told you that she was invited to go to our first reenactment next weekend down in Madisonville, didn’t she?” Didn’t I? Crap again!

  “No, no she didn’t.” Their gazes fell on me. “I’m sorry, where is Madisonville?”

  “About three hours south on I-45.” He gave us more details about what to expect, saying again that I didn’t need to buy anything, that he would be very protective of me, you know, all that responsible stuff.

  “And you will be camping out in this weather?”

  “The girls will have a big wall tent and I’ll bring my A-frame. We have a large heater so they won’t be freezing or anything.”

  I’m sure Mags had no clue what he was talking about, nor did I. She glared at me, not liking that she was being hit with this all of a sudden.

  “And it’s the entire weekend?”

  “We will get in late Sunday evening, yes.”

  “Well, if she wants to go, then it’s alright with me.” Lizzy and I smiled. “You will be with her the entire weekend, right?” She looked at Lizzy.

  “I won’t let her out of my sight, Mrs. Kilpatrick,” Lizzy answered.

  “It’s Miss, but don’t let her get you into any trouble, either.” Her final glare seemed to seal the deal, which was good since the UPS man would be at my door early next week with my dresses. Mr. Peet, always being the teacher, tried to redirect the conversation to a more pleasant discussion.

  “Well then, with that settled, would you mind showing me around your store, Margaret?” He held out his hand for her to lead the way. She smiled at him and followed suit, leaving Lizzy and me up front. At least having someone to speak to about useless items seemed to calm Mags down.

  “I’m so glad you’re getting to go with us,” Lizzy said excitedly. “I think you’ll enjoy seeing it all for yourself. I know it all looks weird and stuff, but it is really a neat hobby.”

  “I’m sure I’ll have a great time. Besides, it will give you a chance to see Hunter again.” I gave her a little wink and her freckled face began to blush.

  “And you can slip into Jason’s arms again,” she joked. “I can see it now: ‘Oh, Jason, please catch me before I turn a summersault in this hoop dress.’” She flung herself around in front of me to continue the mockery.

  “It wasn’t like that at all and you know it.” Or was it? I mean, I didn’t fall on purpose, at the restaurant or here at the store. Still, I was glad to have his guiding hands around me when I did. “Besides,” I continued, “he is far too secluded for my taste.” The lies kept piling up. It was probably my taste for him that led me to want to go off reenacting in the first place. The seclusion I could work on.

  “Well, either way, I’m glad you’re coming.”

  We continued our conversation for a while until Mags and Mr. Peet rounded the last aisle of the shop and made their way back to the counter.

  “I’ll take these,” he said to me as he laid down a pair of salt and peppershakers. “I like the old ones with the cork in the bottom,” he explained.

  “Oh, I almost forgot.” Lizzy ran out to their car and came back in again in a flash. “Here, this is my copy of Cold Mountain. Have you read it or seen the movie?”

  “No,” I shook my head.

  “It’s a good book and the movie was phenomenal. The actors really brought the characters to life. Anyway, I thought you might want to read it rather than your classics, if you wanted to.”

  “Okay,” I didn’t think this book would replace any of my classics, but I thought I would give it a shot. Mr. Peet smiled at Lizzy as they said good-bye, Mr. Peet commenting to Mags on how nice the place was again before they walked out of the door. We both watched them as they loaded into their car and drove away.

  “Your teacher is a very nice guy,” Mags finally said.

  “Yeah,” rolling my eyes.

  Chapter Eight

  The cold artic chill had finally settled in North Texas and the weekend passed without much of a notice, besides the landlord stopping by to tell Mags to keep her cold water dripping during the night so that the pipes wouldn’t freeze up. The cold air also allowed school to go by without much concern. Jody and her gaggle were back at the table at lunch. Although I did receive a few evil glances, other than that, nothing came of it. Maybe their week in ISS being hounded by the goggled-eyed undergrad worked after all? I certainly owed Mags an apology.

  When I arrived home on Wednesday, a box waited for me on the front porch of the house and I immediately ran to my room to open it, like it was a Christmas present that had arrived late. I gleamed at its contents, holding up each dress to the mirror. The guy was right when he said the whole shebang. In the box were not only the dresses, but matching bonnets, stripped socks that only Pippy Longstocking would wear, the shoes I had ordered, linen gloves, pantaloons, and even more. It was the whole shebang. Not bad for $300 bucks, I guess.

  Throughout the week I also got time to read a little of the book that Lizzy lent me. Man, the Civil War was depressing. The South really did a number on itself by starting this thing trying
to protect slavery. Why couldn’t they just have negotiated with the North and freed the slaves over a period of time? That would’ve been the smart thing to do. They lost slavery in the end, anyway, but that would’ve been better than losing two-hundred-thousand young men in trying to protect it. But what did I know? Without their sacrifice, southerners wouldn’t have anything to complain about or even have a cool hobby where they could recreate all the stupidity over the weekend while they cooked burgers on the grill.

  That is what we will be eating, right?

  After school on Friday, Mr. Peet and Lizzy arrived in their SUV, but this time they pulled a small trailer behind them. Jeez, did they really have so much gear they needed a trailer? They got out and came into the house, still in civilian clothing.

  “You sure you don’t want to go, Margaret? It does beat sitting round the house all weekend,” asked Mr. Peet

  “No, no, I really hate the cold and I wouldn’t be much fun shivering in a canvas tent. But y’all have fun without me. And you, Hope, you be on your best behavior. Don’t go around socking anyone in face.”

  This time I gave her a glare. Why did she have to say these things in front of company?

  “Between us, Margaret, the girl deserved it.” Mr. Peet gave a wink before corralling us towards the door. “Now stay warm and I’ll return her in one piece.”

  Mags walked us to the door and waved as we pulled away from the curb. “Mr. Peet, what are you listening to?”

  “The Civil War.”

  I looked over at Lizzy who sat in the backseat with me.

  “It’s the soundtrack of The Civil War,” she explained. “It was a famous series made back in the 90s. Half the reenactors out here are because of it.” I nodded my head as if I understood. “Dad listens to it to get him in the Civil War mood.”