Hope Was Here

by Joan Bauer

  I held the prism up to the light. The sun hit it and showered colors through the windshield.

  “Now isn’t that something?” Addie said, smiling at the sight.

  “Yeah.” I looked out the window, trying not to cry.

  * * *

  We stayed at a Budget Inn; South Bend, Indiana. Crashed late; woke up early. Here I was—my body heading to one place, my heart stuck in another. My mind’s got questions and no answers.

  What kinds of kids live in Mulhoney, Wisconsin?

  Would they like me?

  Would I like them?

  Have they ever eaten sushi? That’s usually how I determine food sophistication.

  Maybe a personal ad would get the ball rolling.

  Insightful, hardworking 16-year-old girl, emotionally generous and witty, seeks friend/pal/chum to while away meaningful hours. Picky eaters need not reply.

  We pushed through to Illinois, Sears Tower shouldering us; caught I-94 up to Wisconsin. Green rolling hills. Cheese billboards. Grazing cows. Basic bovine boredom. WISCONSIN—AMERICA’S DAIRYLAND, proclaimed a sign.

  I looked at Addie, her face committed to make it in Cowville. We’re city people! I wanted to shout. I didn’t shout it, though. I felt a hint of the old, bad anger rising up like it used to when I was younger and we had to move. When I was ten I ran away to my friend Lyla’s house as Addie was packing the car.

  “I’m not going to Atlanta!” I screamed at Addie’s back. “You can’t make me!”

  I hit the passenger door of the Buick. That dent is still there today (I was holding a rock at the time). Lyla hid me in her attic with root beer and Fritos, but after a while I got scared thinking that Addie might leave me flat like my mom did.

  I ran the two blocks back home.

  Addie saw me tearing around the corner; she put the last of the boxes in the U-Haul. “I wouldn’t have gone without you.”

  I wanted to believe that more than anything.

  Addie sat down on the curb. I sat next to her. “I’m not sure if you’ll understand this,” she said. “But I need you as much as you need me. You want to write that down? Keep it in your pocket so you don’t forget?”

  I looked at the packed-up Buick. “I’ll remember.”

  “There’ll be a test later.” Addie examined the dent in the door. “We need to get you something else to hit.” Then she hugged me with permanence.

  West now into Mulhoney, on the outskirts of Milwaukee.

  My brain flooded with memories of other new starts.

  Eighth grade. Pensacola, Florida. Day one.

  I stand on the basketball court and shout, “Look, does anyone here want to be my friend?”

  Two kids come forward. That’s the power of assertiveness training.

  Brooklyn. Soccer practice. St. Edmond’s High.

  Miriam Lahey and me. She’s playing with a ladybug on her shin guard. I’ve been on the bench so long, I forgot how to play the game. I say, “Do you think athletics is teaching us group dynamics and building our self-esteem?”

  Miriam laughs, lifts the ladybug on her finger, transfers it to mine. We’ve been pals ever since.

  I closed my eyes, missing Miriam—even her brief, weird poetry.

  Perchance, I would listen.

  Have you said anything?

  I gave a deep-toned sigh and looked in the file folder that Addie had put together on the new restaurant we were going to work at. It had all her notes about what the place needed and what she’d discussed with the owner. The menu was deep blue. It had a sketch of a two-story frame house. There were double staircases meeting at the front door from the right and the left. The diner was called the Welcome Stairways.

  In Brooklyn there were regular stairways.

  Addie was maneuvering around a smelly truck. “Read the back of the menu out loud, Hope.”

  Didn’t feel like doing that. Turned the menu over, kept my voice flat.

  “From early times, the Quakers had welcome stairways built in front of their homes in Massachusetts. These double stairways descended to the street from the front door and were symbols of Quaker faith and hospitality—constant reminders that all guests were to be welcomed from whichever way they came.

  “I can remember running up the welcome stairways at my house as a boy. My mother always said that the stairways symbolized how we must greet whatever changes and difficulties life may bring with firm faith in God.” I felt my voice deepen as I said, “Welcome, friend, from whichever way you’ve come. May God richly bless your journey.”

  It read “G. T. Stoop, Proprietor” at the end. He was the man with leukemia.

  I sat there holding the menu.

  * * *

  The first sign.

  WELCOME TO MULHONEY, WISCONSIN, POPULATION 5,492.

  The second sign, an arrow pointing left.

  WELCOME STAIRWAYS. THIS WAY TO THE BEST DINER IN AMERICA.

  Addie sniffed. “Not yet it isn’t.”

  The town was a hodgepodge of styles. We drove past a big dairy that seemed blocks long, past Slick’s Barber Shop, where I will never get my hair cut. Past the Mulhoney Motor Inn, which had a banner hanging from the second-floor balcony.

  REELECT OUR MAYOR—ELI MILLSTONE—THE ONLY MAN FOR MULHONEY.

  Left onto Fuller, past the Gospel of Grace Evangelical Center. Two men were fiddling with the engine of an old red van in the parking lot. A small group of African-Americans were watching, wearing blue T-shirts, the letters GOG on the back. A smiling black man in a cool bush hat climbed in the van, revved the motor. The group started clapping, lifting their hands. People got inside. The van headed down the street.

  Old brick buildings—red and brown; small houses close together. An Elks Lodge. Addie was catching potholes left and right. At least something reminded me of Brooklyn. A dilapidated building with a faded sign for the Mulhoney Community Center. Around the corner, a relic from the Golden Age of Cuteness—the Tick Tock Clock Shop. Noisy dairy trucks rumbled by us.

  No subways. No sushi.

  I sank in the front seat.

  “Give it time,” Addie directed.

  “I’m giving it time.”

  “And I’m Queen Victoria.”

  YOU’VE ALMOST REACHED THE BEST DINER IN AMERICA.

  Addie followed the arrow, muttering.

  That’s when I saw the two-story white frame building with the bright red double stairways descending from the glass door—one from the left, one from the right. An American flag waving from a flagpole. A walk of flowering trees circled toward the back. Every window had a flower box packed with blossoms. Above the front porch hung a big sign: WELCOME STAIRWAYS.

  Addie pointed to a balcony with big windows. “Our apartment’s up there, I think.”

  It was 5:00 P.M. Addie parked the Buick with the U-Haul in the back of the Welcome Stairways. The lot was almost full—a good sign.

  “It’ll be full up and then some when I start cooking,” Addie announced.

  In the car waiting. It’s what we always do before we start at a new place—sneak up on it—read the faces of the people coming out. It was the first time Addie hadn’t visited a place she was going to work at. All she’d done was talk to the owner on the phone. Addie studied the two men coming through the back door, toothpicks in their mouths, not talking.

  Not talking after a meal is serious. If people have really gotten something nourishing, it opens their personalities to the experience. The men got into a battered pickup silently and pulled away.

  “Not too impressive,” Addie said.

  We watched as a woman and a teenage boy came out, talking a little, but not with animation.

  “If they’d been fed properly it would show in their relationship.” Addie opened the car door, marched toward the diner and said what all missionaries must say when they start in a new place.

  “Lord in heaven, I’ve got my work cut out for me here.”

  3

  We were sitting in a booth by the window, re
ading the list of daily specials.

  “Meat, potatoes, and too much cheese,” Addie muttered.

  Three antique ceiling fans blew a gentle breeze through the diner: Everything seemed shiny and freshly painted white. There was a hooked rug of brilliant colors hanging on a wall, the booths by the windows had big blue seat cushions you just sank into. The counter sat twelve—good size, but manageable; behind the counter was a long shelf stocked with bottles of every kind of hot sauce known to man from Satan’s Red-Hot Revenge to Texas Tabasco Terror. Black-and-white-checkerboard linoleum.

  Definitely an above average diner.

  “The dessert case is unacceptable,” Addie snarled. “You going to put a pearl necklace from Tiffany’s inside a plastic box?”

  It was pretty puny. If you didn’t know how Addie felt about her desserts, it would be hard to follow this.

  “I’ve never been inside Tiffany’s.”

  “I haven’t either, but they know how to display their jewels, let me tell you.”

  A man with a sweet, broad face who didn’t speak much English brought us water.

  “Welcome, women,” he said with a formal bow and then backed into a bus pan that was full of dirty dishes. A black waitress steadied it just before it would have crashed to the ground.

  “Thank you, Lord,” she said, laughing.

  She was wearing a black skirt and a white blouse with the name Flo embroidered over her heart. Above her name she wore a little silver pin with the letters GOG inside a circle. She had a beautiful face and short, full hair. I liked her smile. She stood by our table—not there to rush us. I knew from Addie’s notes that Flo was the floor manager.

  “You nice folks decide?”

  That made me grin. It takes Addie longer to warm up. It makes her nuts to be in a restaurant where she’s not cooking.

  Addie leaned forward in testing mode. “Now, when you say here ‘pot roast with whipped potatoes,’ are those potatoes whipped each day by hand or do you use the leftovers for a few days in a row?”

  “We’ll use the leftover whips in a shepherd’s pie and in potato croquettes, but not on a dinner plate with pot roast. You know your way around a menu, don’t you?”

  Addie’s blue eyes flickered in respect for Flo. “I’ll have the pot roast, but I’d like the gravy on the side, and I’ll have the mixed vegetables if they’re fresh, but if not, I’ll have the salad.”

  “What kind of dressing on the salad?” Flo asked, laughing.

  Addie grinned back at Flo’s command. “Russian.”

  “Yes?” The man with the sweet, broad face came instantly to our table.

  Flo laughed gently and grabbed his hand. “Yuri here’s from Russia. He thought you were calling him.”

  Flo walked him back to the kitchen. “Russian’s not just a person, honey. It’s a kind of salad dressing.” Flo got salads from the case; poured dressing on them. “You’re a Russian, and this is called Russian, too.”

  Yuri took a step backward, unsure.

  She grinned. “It’s a crazy world.”

  Yuri’s eyebrows furrowed. “Crazy, yes.”

  Flo brought our salads, crisp and fresh, just as the door opened and eight big men came inside wearing VOTE FOR ELI MILLSTONE campaign buttons. One of the men handed a VOTE FOR ELI MILLSTONE poster to Flo and instructed her to put it in the window.

  Flo said, “Langley, you know G.T. won’t go for that. You’d better wait till he comes in tomorrow morning and you can talk to him yourself. Yuri, set a table, please, for these gentlemen.”

  “Welcome, men.” Yuri pushed two tables together, brought place settings, got water and menus. The men sat down without thanking him.

  “Coffee, men?”

  “It true you from Russia?” one of the men asked Yuri.

  “I leave Russia, yes.”

  “Well, that’s kinda obvious,” said another man, and the others laughed.

  Yuri stood there laughing, too; he didn’t know they were making fun of him. That made the others laugh harder.

  Addie touched Yuri’s arm. “Coffee, please,” she asked sweetly. She didn’t drink coffee at night; I knew she’d done it to get him away from that table.

  Vote for Eli Millstone.

  Whoever he was, already I didn’t like him.

  * * *

  “Sweet Jesus.” Addie flopped down on the stairs leading up to our apartment over the Welcome Stairways. We were trying to carry our small couch up the staircase. Being young and vital, I had more of the couch weight.

  “Tell me the truth, Hope, what did you think of that meal we had tonight? I thought it was average.”

  “Let’s just get the couch upstairs and—”

  Addie picked up her end and huffed up the stairs. “I wonder if they can handle me introducing the butterscotch cream pie and the deep-dish apple in the same week.”

  “Could we do this a little quicker?”

  “You can’t overwhelm customers with too much at—”

  “I’m going to drop the couch, Addie. It will fall on me and I’ll die.”

  “Why didn’t you say something before?” She eased the door open and pushed the couch through it to a very large room with white curtains.

  I put down my end and fell to the floor to make a point.

  Addie doesn’t always pick up on subtle, except in seasonings.

  * * *

  We were set to meet with G. T. Stoop tomorrow morning.

  Addie was sitting on the couch making notes on how to introduce her brand of revolutionary comfort food to the Welcome Stairways.

  I’d written out my favorite definition of my name on a three-by-five card; I needed extra help in the hoping department.

  From Webster’s collegiate dictionary: Hope—to cherish a desire with expectation of fulfillment.

  I hope, I hope, I hope this will all turn out for good.

  I’d hoped for that very same thing at the Blue Box.

  Some hopes just get pulverized.

  I looked at myself in the big mirror we’d leaned against the wall, cocked my head, and smiled engagingly. My pearly white teeth are my best feature.

  Next best is my curly brown hair that dusts my shoulders—except for my bangs that are too long and hide my eyebrows, which were perfectly arched by God. I have a round face (a sweet face, people say) with no discernible cheekbones. My skin is pale, my eyes are light blue like my mother’s. I’m five-eight, three inches taller than Addie, which gives me no power in our relationship. Miriam Lahey is two inches taller than her mother, which gives her a true advantage whenever they scream at each other.

  I wrapped myself in a blanket so that only my eyes and nose were visible and wondered if the police would ever catch up with Gleason Beal, the King of Falsehood.

  I should have been able to see the fakeness in him, even though Addie said that’s not true.

  “He was a con man, Hope. Pretended to be something that he wasn’t.”

  I’ll say.

  He pretended to be my friend.

  He told me one of the saddest things in his life was that he never had a daughter.

  Addie shook out her graying brown ponytail. Folded her strong, muscled arms. She had strong arms like a wrestler from lugging all those kitchen pots around.

  “Hope, I know Gleason Beal did a number on your head. That man took our money and our jobs, but let’s not give him anything else. Not our minds, our hearts, or our souls. He’s not worth it.” She took her industrial-strength nightgown out of her suitcase. “We’re not going to hide from the truth. This is probably the hardest move we’ve made together, honey, but we’re going to give it all we’ve got to make it work, and if it still doesn’t fit, we’ll decide what to do. We won’t stay someplace that isn’t right forever. I promise.”

  I nodded from under my protective cloak.

  Addie always keeps her promises.

  That’s why my mother gave me to her.

  4

  G. T. Stoop had a toothpick in his mouth a
nd a mess of eggs on the grill. He had just folded over three cheddar omelets with bacon and had a strip steak sizzling next to a fat slab of ham. Addie and I were standing behind him in the big galley kitchen next to a huge pot of simmering onion soup that was making me hungry, even though I’d just stuffed myself beyond good sense with chocolate chip pancakes. A pale waitress with carrot-top hair called in “a short stack,” which is restaurant-speak for a small order of pancakes. G. T. Stoop shook seasoned salt on the steak, put it on a plate with eggs, beans, and a side of cornbread, dinged a bell, put the order up by the galley window, and shouted, “Come get this miracle breakfast, Florence, before I eat it myself!”

  Flo, our waitress from last night, shouted across the room. “G.T., back off from that man’s plate and behave yourself.”

  He grinned, wiggled his toothpick. “I’m not so good at that.” He had a big, deep voice.

  “Lord, don’t I know it.” Flo was at the galley window now, getting her order. She put the plate in front of a big man sitting at the counter.

  G. T. Stoop threw his spatula up in the air and caught it. “Eat that, Carl, and go do something significant with your day.”

  Carl raised his fork and knife happily, already chewing.

  Everyone was laughing and eating.

  I sure didn’t feel like I was in the presence of a person who had cancer.

  It was 6:30 A.M., the best time to see a diner because, as Addie always said, if the place isn’t humming by then, the word hasn’t gotten out yet.

  Welcome Stairways was humming.

  G. T. Stoop poured pancake batter on the griddle. He was medium height, bean thin with a square, gentle face, and totally bald. He had deep blue eyes that shone behind the wire rims perched on the end of his nose. He was wearing jeans, work boots, and a blue shirt with the cuffs rolled above his elbows—no apron. Addie always wore an apron. He was moving with the rhythm of the short-order dance—popped four pieces of bread in a toaster, slipped onions onto the side of the grill, poured batter into a waffle iron.