Finding Hope in Texas (30 page)

Jeez, when he puts it that way, how can I
say no?

“Okay, but if you hurt her, I’ll come looking
for you, Peet!” I shoved a finger in his face, which he laughed
at.

“Sounds fair enough to me, kid. Now, come on,
let’s go join the rest of the gang and get some ice cream or
something.” As we stood up, I gave him a hug, which I’m sure caught
him off guard. He returned the hug nonchalantly, but whispered
something that I would never forget.

“Your parents were very lucky to have you in
their lives.”

I smiled up at him as he led me towards the
door and our awaiting group. When we walked back into the cool air,
Lizzy ran forward and also gave her dad a hug.

“I don’t think I’ve been hugged this much in
a very long time,” said Mr. Peet with a smile.

“Or kissed for that matter,” Lizzy remarked
to everyone’s amusement. Then she set her sights on me. “You know
if this works out, we will be stepsisters.” That was so
not
true, but I could only grin and nod. I looked over at Jason who
moved next to me.

“Hey, sweetie,” he said with a smile.

“Hey,” I returned, burying myself in his
strong arms. Mags also approached and rubbed my arm.

“Hope, I’m sorry, it just–”

“It’s okay, Mags. It just startled me. Mr.
Peet is a good guy. You could do much worse.” She nodded, knowing
that she had done much worse. Maybe Mr. Peet would be the change
she needed in her life. I mean, they were only getting to know each
other, but if something did build into a meaningful relationship,
then it couldn’t be all that bad, right?

“Hunter,” Mr. Peet called out sarcastically,
“seems like we’re having a hug fest around here. You need me to
give you one?”

“With all due respect, Captain, please just
stay the heck away from me.”

Mr. Peet approached anyway, but not for a
hug. “Your school prom is coming up soon, isn’t it?”

“Yes, sir, in a little over a month.”

“Well, Lizzy needs time to get a dress. Have
you asked her to go with you?”

“Umm, no.”

“Well, do you want her to?”

“Well, yeah, but–”

“But what? Here is your chance.” Hunter
looked at him and then at Lizzy and then back at Mr. Peet, who gave
him an approving nod. With his heart in his throat and a crowd
around him to observe, he took Lizzy by the hand.

“Would you like to go to my school’s prom
with me next month?”

“I would love to.” She grinned and gave him a
hug.

“And Miss Kilpatrick, who will you be taking
to prom this year?” asked Mr. Peet.

“I hadn’t planned on going.”

Jason looked down at me. “Well, that’s a
shame, because I was looking forward to dancing the night away with
you.”

“But, your leg...”

He raised his hand and put it against my
cheek. “No pain will ever keep me from you.”

It was amazing how that day turned out. Even
with all their individual problems, three couples were bound
together in the sweetest way. Mr. Peet took us all to a local Dairy
Queen, a popular little restaurant in this neck of the woods, for
some ice cream, which was good even on a cold day. We drove home,
and I got to see another kiss between Mags and Mr. Peet as he
dropped her off at the house. I’d received mine about ten minutes
earlier. Jason came over the next day for lunch as well, and we sat
around on a lazy Sunday watching movies on the sofa with Mags. This
is how it would’ve been at home with Mom, Dad and Tyler. I was glad
to have it back in my life.

After such a weekend, school was not
something I was looking forward to. I just knew I was going to turn
into one of those teenagers that would be looking at her phone all
day for the next text message from her boyfriend.
Oh well, who
gives a flip
.

Finishing second period, I traced through the
hallway, dodging the crowd and retrieved books from my locker
before heading to my next class. I rounded another corner and
nearly ran into Jody, her arms wrapped around her notebook that she
had practically buried her head into. I passed her quickly hoping
that no “accident” would befall me. But still within earshot, I
heard a quiet whimper come from the blond cheerleader that made me
stop in my tracks. Was she actually crying, or was this some trick
that she was playing on me? She knew my schedule, which was scary
in itself, so she was probably concocting something against me. But
for the first time in my days at Jimmy Carter, I was seeing this
powerful authoritarian cry.
Ugh!
Why me? I turned
around.

“Jody? Are you alright?”

“What’s it to you, twerp?”

“Nothing, actually, but you just look like
you need...help.”

“Just get away from me. That will be help
enough.” I shrugged and took a step or two. Why should I help the
fanatical pompom, anyway?

“No.” I turned back around. “Look, you may
hate me for God knows what, but if you need something, and it looks
like you do, then I’ll do what I can.”

She snorted a few times and glared at me.
“Don’t you get it? You’ve won! Everything I’ve done to get rid of
you, everything I’ve done to make your life a living heck so that
you would leave has all been for nothing.”

“What do you mean, I’ve won?”

“Brad,” she sniffled, “he dumped me!” The
tears began again and I couldn’t help but feel bad for her. “I told
him about your aunt’s store getting bought out and he said that I
had gone too far. He said I was so obsessed with getting rid of
you, that I had forgotten about us.” The irony of it all, of all
her work in disposing of me, had caused the one thing she feared
the most. She cried into her notebook some more and then her head
popped up. “I’m sorry,” she squeaked. “I’m sorry about everything.
I overreacted. I just love him so much.” The bawling began again.
Maybe this was what Mr. Peet meant about young love being a
beautiful thing. It drove us to do crazy things like trying to
destroy the new girl or going to a Civil War reenactment in the
cold February weather. I probably should’ve just consoled her, but
I still wasn’t sure if this was a trick or not. She could be even
this deceptive.

“Do you love Brad this much or do you just
hate me even more?”

She worked through her tears again. “I don’t
hate you. You are just...everything.” I turned my head in
confusion. “You are smart, pretty, and from
New York
. You
even wear that auburn hair of yours in such a beautiful way that I
just knew you were going to be the popular girl in school. How am I
supposed to compete with you?”

“Jody, I’m not in competition with you, don’t
you get it? And me, beautiful? Huh. You’re a bombshell and I look
like an Irish leprechaun with this hair, like I should be hoarding
my Lucky Charms somewhere.” She smiled a little at the joke. “I
just wished you would’ve talked to me about this whenever you saw
me on that first day.”

“God, I’ve been such an idiot. I’ve tormented
you for nothing.”

I shrugged. “Well, the locker full of manure
had a lot of symbolism, but did you really have to go after my
aunt’s store?”

“Oh, crap. Dad’s company is supposed to start
demolition in another week or so.”

“Yeah, I know. I just hope we can get
everything moved over before that.”

“Moved over?”

“Yeah,” I said and sighed thinking of the
work. “We found a new place and bought the merchandise from the
previous owner, but we still have to move it over and that’s going
to take a lot of trucks and manpower.”

“You’re going to continue the business with
your aunt? But how did you come up with the money?”

“Let’s just say that my drug dealing parents
were very good at their dope runs.” I could see her face turn red
from embarrassment.

“I’m so sorry, Hope.”

“It’s okay, I’m sure the executives of the
corporations they sued over the years said a lot worse about
them.”

“Your parents were lawyers?”

I nodded. “Some of the best in New York, I
hear. Had my mom have been here, she would have destroyed you on
day one for picking on her daughter,” I said with a grin that got
another giggle from her.

“Well, your aunt did a pretty good job. She
scolded my mom and the principal for a half hour for how we were
treating you. I spent the week in ISS for it.”

“We were both very mean to each other. I hope
you can forgive me.”

“Only if you can forgive me.” We both smiled
which gave way to a hug. It was bad how one misunderstanding could
result in some of the worst aspects of teenage humanity. We were
both good people and yet we couldn’t see it in each other, wasting
time and energy trying to take the other down. Teenagers. When will
we ever learn?

“So, what are we going to do about this Brad
thing?”

“Nothing, he hates me.”

“Now, I know that’s not true. When I did my
stint in ISS, he told me that you were one of the kindest persons
he knew. That’s what he saw back then and that’s what we’re going
to make him see again.”

“But how? He won’t even answer my text
messages.”

“Well, we’ll have to get you together
then.”

“He won’t see me, either.”

“Leave that to me,” I said, not sure I could
get them together, but I was on a roll. She gave me another
hug.

“Can I help you with moving the antiques out
of your store?”

“That’s nice, but I think it’s going to take
more than our scrawny arms to move all that stuff.”

“No, no. I didn’t mean us. I can get Dad’s
company to do it.”

“He has a moving company too?”

She smiled. “He has done very well with his
drug trades too.”

“Well, if you would do that, it would be
awesome. And I will work on Brad for you.”

“It’s a deal.”

We gave another smile and a hug, sending each
other away with different assignments and what was hopefully the
beginning of a new friendship. Still, I was scared that this was
still just some elegant ruse. Jody could use her powers for good or
for bad. I was going to have to check out a few moving companies
for myself.

Mr. Peet was back to his old form again
during class, bouncing off the walls, joking and smiling, and
acting like he was having the time of his life during his lecture.
I couldn’t help but think that it was a little because of me, and
while it was good to see him smile, it also scared me a little that
I was looking at my future. Mr. Peet had only found solace in his
sarcasm, his emptiness filled with the love of his daughter and the
bitterness from the rest of the world, his frustration only worked
out on imaginary battlefields across east Texas. Was that my
future? The only way to know was to live it and that wasn’t going
to change.

At lunch, Lizzy played back that Saturday
like I hadn’t even been there, but she was so sweet that I just
nodded and grinned at her performance. She was happy and I couldn’t
help but be happy for her.

“And all of this is because of you, Hope. I
mean, if it wasn’t for you, Dad would’ve never let me go to prom
with Hunter. Heck, he probably wouldn’t have let me go next year
without him being my date. Thank you so much.”

“No problem.” I smiled. “Lizzy, are you sure
you’re okay with your dad and my aunt doing...well, doing whatever
they’re going to do?” She grinned at me.

“I think Mags makes my dad happy. He needs
that in his life.” She put her hand on mine. “We all do. In fact, I
haven’t seen Jason this happy since he returned home from the
war.”

God, really?
I didn’t know whether to
smile or cry. “I need him, Lizzy. He’s about the only person that I
feel somewhat normal around.”

“It’s not my place to say, but I think the
feeling is mutual.”

She patted my hand as the bell rang and we
started towards music class. When we got there, Jody met me at the
door and told us that her father’s workers would be moving all the
antiques tomorrow.
Boy, when she wants something she really goes
after it.
I couldn’t help but give her a hug, much to the
chagrin of Lizzy. It’s funny that they had been going to school for
years together and yet never knew each other. Their cliques never
intersected. Their only real link was me, and I ended up
introducing them to each other. It wasn’t as if we were about to be
invited to the cool table or that Jody had been disowned to ours,
but it was at least an olive branch of understanding, of peace
amongst high schoolers, that no matter who you were, you could get
along with others who were the complete opposite of you.

After class, I texted the good news to Mags,
but that also meant I had to come up with a way to get Brad to
speak with Jody again. But how? I didn’t want to play matchmaker.
They already seemed the perfect match to me; two good looking
people who only thought about themselves. Then again, if I did
this, Jody would be sure to come through on the movers and maybe
even live up to her apology. I just might welcome her back into the
human race. Computer technology flew by and when the bell sounded,
I grabbed Jody by the arm and walked with her down the hall.

“Where is he?” I questioned with not a moment
to spare.

“Who? Brad? He’s usually out at the gym.”

“Then let’s go talk to him.”

“No,” she pulled away just a bit. “He won’t
talk to me after all the horrible things I’ve done.”

“But, he’ll talk to me,” I insisted, “and if
we’re together it will show that we’re done with this feud.”

She thought about it for a moment and finally
nodded. We were off.

We skipped dressing out, so what if we were
going to be a little late. A few minutes wouldn’t turn us into fat,
lazy Americans, would it? It didn’t take long to find Brad sitting
alone up in the stands of the vacant old gym. If I hadn’t been in
such a hurry to get this over with, I probably would’ve taken a
better look at the dejected expression on his face, like a young
child who’d learned that his favorite toy had been thrown away by
mistake. We startled him when we approached, his eyes panning back
and forth as we stood in front of him.
Jeez, how was I supposed
to do this?