Raising Hope (10 page)

Sam takes a quick look at me, standing there with my arms crossed over my chest and shooting Sara Lynn the evil eye; then he looks back at Sara Lynn, her blond hair falling straight and shiny over her shoulders and her baby blue eyes blinking up at him. “Why don’t we let her start whichever way she’s comfortable?” he says, smiling right back at her. “I’m sure once she gets going, she’ll figure out the best way to wear her hair.”

Ha! I uncross my arms and put them on my hips.
What do you think about that, Miss Know-it-all?

Sara Lynn’s smile fades for a split second, but then she puts it right back on. “I suppose you’re right,” she says cheerily. She turns to me. “Here’s the elastic just in case you want it,” she says, handing me the elastic band. “Oh, and don’t forget your racket.” She hands that over, too.

“It’s one of my old ones,” she tells Sam, motioning at the racket. “It’s a tad big for her, but I think it’ll do.” She looks doubtful all of a sudden, and then she frowns as she peers at the racket in my hand. “Hmm. Well.” She shakes her head. “You know, I take that back. Actually, she’s going to need a new racket. Looking at it in her hand, I think it’s much too big for her. Gosh, I don’t know what I was thinking.” She tries to take the racket away from me, but I hold on tight. Still tugging at it, she says to Sam, “Maybe we should run up to the pro shop right now and find her something suitable. You could let her try some demos to see what works best. She’s so excited, and I’d hate for her to lose interest just because she’s using a racket that’s not sized properly. I think it’s important she gets a good start.”

I finally manage to pull the racket away from her, saying between my gritted teeth, “It’s fine!”

Sam sort of half smiles, like he’s getting a kick out of this ridiculous scene Sara Lynn’s causing. “We’ll figure it out,” he tells her. He says it like he’s going to pat her on the head and say, “There, there—everything will be okay.”

“Maybe one of the new Wilson junior rackets,” she says, twisting her mouth and squinting as if she’s thinking hard. “No, perhaps a Prince racket. Something that’ll give her some power without losing too much control.”

God. I just roll my eyes and inch away from her. She’s so clueless, she doesn’t even see that Sam’s laughing at her.

“Sara Lynn?” Sam says gently.

“Hmm?” Her eyes flicker as she comes back to earth and looks at him.

“We’ll figure it out. We’re just going to have some fun today, get loosened up and all. There’s plenty of time for Hope to try a bunch of rackets and see what she likes. Don’t worry.”

“Worry! Worry!” She throws up her hands and laughs, and her little silver teardrop earrings shake back and forth. “That’s my middle name!”

“It’s okay,” Sam tells her, his eyes twinkling. “It’s all good.”

She shakes her head sweetly and says, “I’m sorry. I can get a little, well, carried away.”

Ooh, she makes me so mad. She’s just trying to be nice to him so he’ll agree with her that I should wear my hair up or get a new racket or do whatever other crazy thing she says I should do. “You can go now,” I say, and I don’t mean it to sound as rude as it comes out. I feel a little prickle of shame when I see her forehead pucker and her mouth scrunch up for a minute like I’ve hurt her.

She loses the soft, laughing look she had just a second ago, and she turns away quickly so that her hair flies out behind her. “Okay, then,” she says.

“Ready?” I ask Sam.

“Sure,” he says, and we walk toward the courts together.

“Hope!” My back stiffens, and before I can even turn around, Sara Lynn is calling, “Don’t forget to drink lots of water! It’s hot today!”

“Okay,” I say back.

Then, in another second, she calls again, “I’ll pick you up at two! Eat a decent lunch and don’t forget to wait a half hour after you eat before you swim.”

“Oooohhhh,” I mutter through gritted teeth as Sam and I walk to the court together. “She’s driving me nuts!”

“It’s what moms do,” he says, laughing. “I’m twenty-nine, and my mom still drives me nuts.”

“She’s
not
my mother,” I say. God! I don’t want him to imagine for one second that I’m related to her, especially since she was acting like such an idiot. Of course, he thought she was my baby-sitter the other day, and I told him she wasn’t that, either. I frown and sneak a peek up at him to see if he’s looking at me like I have four heads, which is the way most people look when stuff starts to come up about my crazy family. He just looks down at me with patient eyes like he’s interested, like he’s waiting to hear what I have to say.

“Sara Lynn’s my guardian. Well, she and my aunt Ruth are. See, my mother died when I was born.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Sam says, and his eyes get soft and sad, like he’s sorry for me.

“Don’t be.” I shrug, trying to show off how brave I am. “I never knew her.”

I’m on a roll, so I keep going. “And my father’s in the CIA,” I lie.

Sam raises his eyebrows. “The CIA?”

I nod. “He’s, like, a really important secret agent, so he can’t raise me. That’s why I live with Sara Lynn and Ruth.”

Oh, no. My stomach flips over as I remember the KKs teasing me about Ruth and Sara Lynn being a romantic couple. “You know,” I say, trying to be casual, “Ruth and Sara Lynn are just friends.” I emphasize the word
friends,
so he won’t misunderstand me.

“Is that so?” Sam asks, and his eyes are twinkling like he wants to laugh. God! I always say the wrong thing. So what do I do? Like an idiot, I keep talking. And talking. And talking.

“Yeah.” I nod. “I mean, they’d both like to get married someday. To guys, I mean. Well, at least Sara Lynn would. She won’t do it until she meets the right person, though. At least, that’s what she tells me when I ask her about it. She says, ‘Hope, I’d rather be alone for the rest of my life than with the wrong guy.’” I can’t seem to shut up. My mouth is flapping and flapping, and all these words are gushing out. “And Ruth, ha! Ruth says she’s too stubborn to get married. Says she’d drive any man to booze.”

Sam throws back his head and laughs, but I get the feeling he’s laughing with me and not at me, so I smile, too. “Hope,” he says, smiling down at me, “I can tell that you and I are going to have some fun together. What do you say we get started?”

“Sure.” I shrug and unzip my racket case and hold my racket out in front of me.

“Okay,” he says. “We’ll start with a basic forehand grip.”

“Sara Lynn told me about the forehand,” I say. I fumble with the racket handle, trying to keep straight in my mind what I’m supposed to do with my thumb. Does it go over my fingers? Above them?

“Here,” Sam says, arranging my fingers on the racket handle. “Try this. It might feel a little weird, but trust me, this grip will be automatic to you after a few lessons.”

One thing I notice with Sam so close to me, touching my hand and all, is that he has a man’s smell. Well, he is a man. Duh. But, see, not having a dad or even an uncle, I’m not around men very much, and they smell different to me. Not bad different. Not at all. I kind of like Sam standing so close that I can smell him. He smells like soap and sweat and something else . . . moss, I think. I mean, I don’t know if moss even has a smell. But, see, women smell the way I imagine little flowers in the woods smell—sort of sweet when you get up close. And Sam, well, to me he smells the way I imagine moss smells—all fresh in a deep, soft, green kind of way.

God! I hope he doesn’t see me sniffing him. I jerk away and hold up my racket, using the grip he showed me. “Okay,” I tell him. “I think I’ve got it.”

We play for a half hour, and you know what? I think I’m improving. In fact, I know I am. I’m actually hitting the ball in the court about half the time. The other half of the time, it goes way wild or I miss it altogether. But, as Sam keeps telling me when I get frustrated, you can’t expect to play tennis without missing some shots.

I’m out of breath at the end of my lesson. My hair is frizzing like crazy, and I pull it back and tie it up with the elastic Sara Lynn gave me.

“You okay?” Sam asks, putting his hand on my shoulder as I gasp for breath.

I nod. “Uh-huh.”

“It’s getting warm,” he says, glancing up at the sky. “High noon.” He grins at me. “Want to grab a quick sandwich at the snack bar? You ran me around the court so much, I need a break.”

“Sure,” I say. I can’t believe he likes me enough to want to eat with me, and a warm feeling uncurls in my stomach and spreads all over my body. That nice feeling fades pretty fast, though, because I get all tongue-tied as we walk over to the snack bar together. I can’t think of a thing to say, and that’s very unlike me. I keep willing him to talk, but he doesn’t, and it doesn’t seem to bother him, either. He just lopes along next to me, whistling a little bit.

When we get our sandwiches, we sit at a table by the pool. It’s not until we start eating that Sam leans his chair back on two legs and asks, “So what grade are you going into?”

“Seventh,” I tell him. I don’t want him to think I’m a big baby, so I add, “I feel a lot older than twelve, though.”

“Really?” He leans toward me and draws his eyebrows together. “How so?”

“Hmm . . .” I scrape some of the goopy mayonnaise off my sandwich and curse my big mouth. Think before you speak—that’s what Sara Lynn always says. Unfortunately, the motto I seem to live by is “Speak before you think.” Time and time again, I just go ahead and say any old thing that comes into my head, even if I have no idea what I’m talking about.

“Well, I just like older people,” I say lamely. “I mean, I’ve never lived with anyone my age. I don’t have any brothers or sisters.” He doesn’t say anything, and I wonder if he sees what a fraud I am, just shooting off my mouth without knowing a thing about what I’m saying. I take a deep breath. In for a penny, in for a pound. That’s what Ruth says. It means that once you’ve made a little bit of an idiot out of yourself, why not go ahead and take it all the way. I try to sound wise as I say, “Besides, it doesn’t matter how old a person is. It’s all about what you’re like inside.”

“That’s true,” he says, nodding.

Phew! I pulled it off—sounding smarter than I am, that is. But now my stomach is sinking, because what if he thinks I’m a big loser who hangs out with older people because nobody my age will give me the time of day? What if he thinks I’m not popular?

“Look, see those girls?” I point at Ginny and the KKs, who are in the pool trying not to stare at me eating lunch with Sam. “They’re my friends from school. I have lots of friends.”

“That’s nice,” he says, smiling. “It’s good to have friends.”

We keep eating, silent for a minute, and then I ask, “Do you . . . I mean . . . who are your friends?” I wonder if he has any friends who are younger, like my age.

“Nobody you’d know.” He smiles. “My friends are down in Boston. That’s where I live.”

Huh? Then who’s sitting across from me? His evil twin? “But you moved here now, right?”

“Just for the summer,” he says. “I have to go back to my teaching job in Boston in the fall.”

“But you could keep teaching tennis here,” I say, trying to persuade him. I mean, it’s so typical. The first interesting person I meet in years, and he’s only passing through.

“I don’t teach tennis in Boston,” he says. “I teach art.”

Okay. No wonder he didn’t bat an eyelash when I told him about my family. His life’s even more confusing than mine. “What?” I ask.

He laughs. “I’m a painter,” he says. “I also teach art at a private high school outside of Boston.”

“So what are you doing here?” I mean, it’s not like Ridley Falls is the vacation capital of the world.

“I’m filling in for the regular pro, Pete Dempsey. Do you know him?”

I nod. I don’t really know him, but I know who he is.

“He’s a buddy of mine. He broke his arm a few weeks ago, believe it or not, so he’s up in Maine with his family, relaxing. He asked me to take over for him here.”

“That was nice of you to help out,” I say.

He shrugs. “He’d do the same for me. Besides”—he flashes me a smile—“I’m living in his house on the lake. The light’s amazing out there. Great for my painting.”

I nod. The lake is really pretty. I can see why he likes living there. “Boy, it sure must be different from Boston,” I say. I’ve only been to Boston a few times, once on a school trip and the other times with Sara Lynn to see a ballet or play. It’s filled with people and cars and noise and huge buildings—totally the opposite of Ridley Falls.

“Yeah,” he says. “It’s very different.”

I poke at my sandwich for a minute, and then, because I can’t think of anything to say, I burst out with, “Sara Lynn went to college and law school in Boston.” Now, isn’t that a conversation opener. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

But Sam doesn’t seem to think it’s as dumb as I do. He tilts his chin up and asks, “Oh, is Sara Lynn a lawyer?”

“No.” I shake my head. “She used to be. But she gave it up. Too bad, too, because I bet she was pretty good at it. She sure can argue.”

He laughs, and I laugh with him. Ha! He thinks I’m funny!

“She writes for a magazine now,” I offer, crunching a potato chip. “She writes about gardens for this magazine called
New England Gardening
. I think she likes it better than being a lawyer because nobody can talk back to her.”

Hello? Ha, ha? He doesn’t laugh at this joke, just says, “Gardening, huh?”

“Oh, yeah.” I nod, rolling my eyes. “Just ask her about it; she’ll tell you anything you want to know and then some.”

“Good to know,” he says in his easy way, and then he stands up quickly and smiles at me. “Listen, I’ve got another lesson; I’ve got to go. You did great today. I’ll see you Thursday, okay?”

I nod. Sara Lynn decided I should take two lessons a week, so that I’d progress faster. “You’ll see me before then because I’ll be coming here to practice and swim and stuff.”

“All right, then,” he says. “Thanks for the company. It was nice to have a meal with somebody.”

“Bye,” I call out as he strides away.

Before I can even take a sip of my lemonade, Ginny and the KKs jump out of the pool and come rushing over to my table.