Raising Hope (36 page)
“Yeah, sure I do,” he said. After a moment, he asked, “Why, do you?”
“A little.” I stared at the patch of ground the headlights lit up. Wasn’t Bobby scared? Didn’t he wonder if the headlights were enough to light the way? The road was so twisty. “Why do you think he left?”
“Jesus Christ, how would I know?” Bobby replied. “Maybe Ma drove him crazy.”
He laughed, and I joined him. The door between us was closing fast, and I said what I’d never said to anyone. “I miss him.”
“How do you miss someone you don’t even know?” Bobby asked.
“Beats me, but I do.”
I pull into our driveway and stop the car. The brakes work like a dream, and I don’t want to shut off the engine. I could just sit in the air-conditioning all day.
“Okay,” Sara Lynn says brightly. I swear, this wedding’s brought out her bossy side in spades. “We have a couple of hours before we need to start getting ready. Ruth, you haven’t eaten anything today, so why don’t you go inside and have a little toast and a glass of juice. I don’t want you running on empty today. I’m going out to the tent and check on things there. I’m sure everything is fine, but you never know. I want everyone to start getting ready at noon. That’ll give us a couple of hours, just in case there are any emergencies to deal with.”
“Like what?” I teased. “A run in our nylons?”
Sara Lynn nods seriously. “Exactly.”
I roll my eyes, and Hope laughs.
“We don’t have time for jokes today,” Sara Lynn says, but she smiles as she slides out of the car.
I take a bagel and a glass of juice out onto the porch, figuring I might just as well obey Miss Bossy.
“Well, well,” says Mamie, rocking in her chair and looking out the screened windows. “It’s your big day today.”
“I guess,” I say, sipping my juice. “But even if it is my day, Sara Lynn is still the boss. I’d better eat quick, or she’ll have my head.”
Mamie chuckles and says, “Isn’t that the truth.”
We’re silent for a few minutes, and then I say, “Mamie, about the other week, with me telling you about Sara Lynn and Sam . . .”
Mamie holds up her hand to stop me. “I know,” she says firmly. “Don’t let’s go into all of that. You’re a loyal friend to Sara Lynn. We’ll leave it there.”
I take a bite of my bagel and get up and stretch. I want to tell her something before I walk into the house and get ready to be married, something about how she’s meant a lot to me all these years, something about how I’ve grown to love her, too, not just her daughter.
“You’ll be okay out here?” I ask her gruffly as I walk to the doorway. It’s all I can say. What’s in my heart makes it up to my throat and then dies there.
“Oh, I’ll be just fine,” she replies, waving me into the house as she pushes the rocking chair back and forth with her feet. “You don’t need to worry about me.”
“Okay, then,” I tell her, and I walk into the house with all the goddamn words I’d like to say trapped inside where no one can hear them.
I
reapply my lipstick and glance out my bathroom window. Everyone’s milling around on the terrace, waiting for the sign to take their seats. I glance down at my watch—it’s five minutes to two. Time to get Ruth.
I check the mirror one last time, and I smile, remembering how Sam greeted me downstairs. “You’re even more beautiful than usual,” he said, looking at me in that way he has of making me feel like he’s really seeing me.
I pause outside Ruth’s bedroom door, then rap lightly. “Ready to get married?” I ask.
The door opens a crack, and Ruth’s pale, scared face peeks out. “Can you come in for a sec?” she half whispers.
“What’s wrong?” I ask as I follow her into her bedroom.
“Oh God,” she moans, sinking to the floor. “I’m so nervous I’m shaking.”
“What are you nervous about?” I ask. I’ve never seen her like this. Never. Not easygoing, joke-cracking Ruth.
She puts her head in her hands. “I don’t know if I can do this. Not in front of all these people.”
She’s wrinkling her dress by sitting on it like that. “Why don’t you stand up while we talk?” I suggest. “You’ll mess your pretty dress.”
She looks up at me with so much fear in her eyes, she reminds me of a sick animal that wants to be put out of its misery. It appears that wrinkling the dress is the least of our issues here.
I gingerly sit next to her on the floor. “What’s wrong, Ruth?”
She closes her eyes and shakes her head back and forth. “We should have eloped. I should have known I couldn’t do this fancy wedding thing. Traipsing up an aisle in front of people! Can’t do it.”
“Of course you can,” I tell her. Oh, she’s being ridiculous! I wish I were funny, the way she is. I wish I could be her for just a minute, so I’d know what to say to lighten the air, to make everything all right.
“I’m scared,” she says quietly.
I put an arm around her. “Oh, Ruth,” I say. I pat her shoulder, at a loss for words. The only thing that comes to mind is the song “High Hopes.” My mother used to sing it to me when something seemed insurmountable, and it always made me feel better, even though I always wondered if the ant ever managed to move the darn plant. Somehow, I think not. But the sentiment is nice, so I smile and start to warble, just singing “la la” when I forget the words.
Ruth’s eyes get bigger and bigger as I sing, and when I’m finished they look ready to pop out of her head. “You’re pathetic, Sara Lynn,” she says in disbelief. “Absolutely pathetic.” Then she opens her mouth and howls with laughter, pointing at me and shaking her head.
My forehead crinkles and my cheeks heat up as I realize I’ve just sung the most ridiculous song ever written as though I were conveying a profound message. But then my mouth twitches, my shoulders shake, and a laugh starts low in my stomach and rises. I’m practically doubled over with hilarity and, just as I catch my breath and start to calm down, Ruth starts in again, setting us both off with fresh shrieks. We’re going to sit here together literally dying of laughter, and I can’t think of a better way to go. I don’t even care that my mascara is running.
I was eight years old and going into third grade when Ruth Teller was my best friend for an August afternoon. It was one of those long summer days when I woke up with nothing to do except play by myself for a million hours. I went outside to make my dolls a little tea party when I spied Mrs. Teller’s old brown Ford coming up our driveway.
I started waving away, excited that I wouldn’t be alone today after all. Mrs. Teller didn’t mind if I followed her around the house, showing off to her how smart and gifted I was. “Geesh, Sara Lynn,” she’d tell me after I’d recited a poem for her or done a tap dance, “you certainly are talented.”
Mama liked for me to be nice to Mrs. Teller, because she was less fortunate than we were. She didn’t have a husband who supported her nicely the way my daddy did us. Her husband hadn’t died, either; I wasn’t sure what had happened to him. Nothing good, I knew, from Mama’s stern, hushed voice.
“Hi, Mrs. Teller,” I called. I picked up my jump rope and started skipping rope so Mrs. Teller would be sure to say, “My, you’re good at that. So graceful and quick. Is there anything you can’t do?”
My rope and my face fell when I saw all four doors of Mrs. Teller’s car open.
“Look who’s here to play today,” Mrs. Teller said with a tight smile as she popped open the trunk and pulled out her buckets and rags. “Ruth and her brothers!”
Ruth glared at me as she slammed the door of her mother’s car. I narrowed my eyes right back at her.
“Do you like Ruth Teller, Sara Lynn?” my mother would ask me occasionally as she combed out my wet hair after my evening bath. I knew she wanted me to like Ruth Teller just enough so it could never be said I was unkind to her, just enough so the teacher would say quietly to my mother, “Sara Lynn is kind to her classmates who are less fortunate than she.”
Not that Ruth needed me to be friends with her. She was tall for our age, and she wore Sears Toughskin jeans and basketball sneakers. My mother dressed me in fancy dresses and patent-leather buckle shoes from Boston, and Ruth called me Miss Priss and got the other girls to do the same. They were followers, those girls. Lord knows I tried to boss them myself, but Ruth Teller had them under her thumb through her sheer bullying.
“Let’s play house,” I’d say to the girls at recess. “I’ll be the mother.”
“That’s dumb,” Ruth would scoff, standing on her hands just to show off. “That’s the dumbest game I ever heard of. My brothers and all their friends would die laughing if they saw us playing that game. Let’s play horsie instead.” She’d break from her handstand and get down on all fours, kicking up her legs and shouting, “Neigh, neigh!” All the other girls would follow her, and I would stalk off to sit on the school steps, waiting for the bell to ring.
I finally broke my eyes from Ruth’s mean stare and turned to run into the house. “Excuse me, Mrs. Teller,” I called.
My feet pounded on the marble floor of the front hall, and I raced into the living room, where Mama sat sipping an iced tea and listening to the record player.
“Mama,” I hissed, “Mrs. Teller brought her children today.”
Mama looked startled and put her glass on the side table. Before she could say anything to me, Mrs. Teller was at the living room doorway, asking, “Mrs. Hoffman, could I talk to you a minute?”
“Run along, Sara Lynn.” Mama gave me a kiss on the cheek, then she smiled at Mrs. Teller and motioned her to come in. “Sit down,” she said. “And how many times do I have to tell you to call me Aimee?”
I perched myself just outside the living room doorway so I could hear every word.
“My sitter’s gone,” Mrs. Teller said. “My ex-husband’s sister Maria. She ran off last night and just didn’t show up to watch the kids today. Can I keep them here with me today? I’ll find another sitter as soon as I can. It’ll only be today. I’ve told them to play in your backyard quietly and not disturb you.”
“Why, Mary,” my mother said, and I guessed that she was patting Mrs. Teller’s arm in that comforting way she had about her, “of course that’s just fine. Sara Lynn will adore having Ruth for company this morning.”
“Really?” Mrs. Teller said. “Thank you so much. Sara Lynn’s a little doll. Maybe she can teach my kids some manners.”
They laughed together, and I could hear them get up to leave the room, so I hightailed it out of the hallway and ran through the kitchen and out the back porch door. I stood on our terrace, taking in the view of my beautiful backyard being trampled by the Teller children.
There was bossy Ruth, down on all fours like a horse and kicking as usual, pawing up the grass. She probably loved my big backyard that sloped gently down a hill. Had it not been for the presence of her brothers, I would have marched down there and told her to stop rolling in my grass. But those Teller boys scared me to death.
There were two of them, Tim and Bobby, and everyone in school knew exactly who they were. They were always fighting in the school yard or showing up tardy with no excuse or being sent to the principal’s office for doing disgusting things like passing gas loudly during music class. They were big for their ages, and I’d heard rumors that they smoked cigarettes in the woods behind school.
I saw them on my swing, hanging from the ropes and fighting for the seat. I wanted to screech, “Get off my swing!” in a tone Mama would refer to as tacky.
“Hey!” Bobby Teller, the oldest and baddest, was shouting up at me.
I walked to the edge of the terrace and called, “What?”
“You want to go on the swing? I’ll push you, if you want.”
Before I could answer, Ruth yelled, “Sara Lynn is stuck-up. She’s the most stuck-up girl in my class.”
“Am not!” I yelled back, stamping my foot. My face burned as she laughed at me, and I turned and walked into the coolness of my house, letting the porch’s screen door slap behind me.
“Are my kids behaving themselves?” Mrs. Teller asked. She was down on her knees, scrubbing the kitchen floor.
“Yes, ma’am,” I said. “The heat’s just a little too much for me. I believe I’d best run upstairs and have a little lie-down.” I fanned myself and sighed as I walked past her and up the stairs to my room with the pink-flowered wallpaper.
I slammed my bedroom door shut, turned up my window-unit air conditioner, and stood in front of it until my dress blew up and I felt goose-bumpy all over. Once Mama had caught me doing this. “Stop that, Sara Lynn,” she’d scolded. “That’s the tackiest thing of all.” I couldn’t help myself, though. I liked that goose-bumpy feeling where my private area was.
“Sara Lynn . . .” Mama rapped on my door, and I jerked myself away from the air conditioner just as she poked her head inside. “What are you doing up here when you have guests?”
“I’m suffering heat exhaustion, Mama,” I said, and I tried to make my voice sound trembly and sick.
Mama pursed her lips together and shook her head slightly. “A lady is always gracious to her guests,” she said, “no matter who those guests happen to be.”
“I know, Mama,” I said innocently. “I was just feeling a little dizzy from the heat.”
“I think you’re better,” she said tartly, holding the door wide open for me.
I flounced past her and started down the stairs. “That’s my good girl,” she said.
I went out the front door so I wouldn’t have to pass Mrs. Teller again, and I stood motionless for a moment on the bluestone path that led from the front steps around to the back of the house. A slight breeze lifted the skirt of the light green sleeveless summer dress I wore, and I lifted my chin. I wasn’t going to be afraid of those Tellers. This was my house, after all. My house and my yard. I ran around to the back before I lost my nerve.
Ruth was on my swing, standing on it, of all things, putting her dirty bare feet on the seat. Her brothers stood on either side of her, jiggling the ropes that held the swing.
“Sara Lynn, why don’t you come down here?” Ruth jeered when she spotted me. “Are you afraid of my brothers?”
I tossed my head. “No, I’m not.”
“Prove it,” she yelled.
“Fine,” I said, and I walked with my head high down into the grass. When I reached the swing, I crossed my arms over my chest and said, “Here I am.”