“They Told Him Don't You Ever Come Around Here
Don't Wanna See Your Face, You Better Disappear
The Fire's In Their Eyes And Their Words Are Really Clear
So Beat It, Just Beat It. ”
The music carried on right along with him as we hit the second verse and then the chorus. All the students were playing, except Jody, who looked miffed about the whole thing. I always thought the song was dealing with gangs and thugs, just like the video. But now I realize Jackson was actually singing about high school. “Showin' How Funky Strong Is Your Fight” and “It Doesn't Matter Who's Wrong or Right.”
“What is going on in here?” yelled Mrs. Appleton as she opened the door to find the entire class enjoying rock n’ roll. We all froze, even the student up front who was in the middle of doing his version of the moon-walk. “Sit down this instant,” she ordered of him. “Who started this...this...music?” For the longest moment, no one said a word. Teenage law was being upheld.
“It was Hope, Mrs. Appleton. She started playing it during our time to practice.”
I didn’t have to look to see who the tattletale was, as I knew the voice easily. The teacher walked towards me. “Thank you Miss Silverton. At least you didn’t get caught up in all this rambunctiousness. As for you, Miss Kilpatrick, I expect to see you during lunch for detention for the rest of the week, is that understood?”
I cut a quick glance over at Jody. Her smile was back as she glared right back at me.
“Yes,” I muttered. There went the only good part of my day for the rest of the week. Again, I was in trouble because of that little witch. Maybe I should just take Michael Jackson’s advice and beat it.
Mags got another phone call from school that day and again all of my civil liberties were stripped away at home as well, thus keeping me from speaking to Lizzy at all. We did chat in the hall a few times between classes, but that was it. Again, I turned to my classics to get through the time awaiting my penance. I was freed that weekend, but Mags had other ideas in store for me when I got up that morning.
“Good morning, sleepyhead,” she said while preparing a bowl of cereal for breakfast, already dressed as if she was going to work.
“Isn’t it Saturday?” I asked with a confused look on my face, my eyes squinting as the kitchen lights blinded me momentarily.
“Yes, but I have to work. Mr. Lambert is paying me overtime to open the store for him today and next Saturday. He will be in around one and then I’ll be coming home.” I shrugged, pulling up the stool that sat at the counter, watching Mags as she busied herself with the two percent milk. “Say, I have a great idea. Instead of you sitting around doing nothing, which has been your weekend ever since you got down here, why don’t you come to the store with me? You can help out by running the register when people come in.”
“I don’t know how to run a register,” I said, which was true, but more of an excuse than anything.
“It’s easy, Hope,” she pleaded. “Just put the amount in and hit the tax button. That will give you your total. But I’ll show you when we get down there.” She waved off the thought with her hand.
“But Mr. Lambert, he would probably be pretty upset if he saw me working there.”
Mags swallowed her first bite of the cereal. “Honey, as long as it’s not costing him anything, I’m sure he’ll be fine with it. Besides, you got to go hang out with your friend and teacher last weekend. Maybe we can have today?” The look in Mags’ eyes was trying to tell me something. Perhaps she did want to spend some quality time with me. It might make things a little more comfortable between us, anyway. Maybe we could polish antique milk bottles or something? Besides, she was right. I never did anything on the weekends, other than the parade, and I hadn’t even gone down to see the antique store yet. I sighed.
“Okay, give me ten minutes to get dressed,” I slumped off the stool and headed back toward my room, leaving Mags clapping and hopping up and down like an Easter bunny.
“Would you like some breakfast?” Mags called back to me as I went.
“Same thing you are having, thank you.”
The drive to Mags’ work was about fifteen minutes away during the weekday with traffic. But being only a little past eight on a Saturday, most commuters were still snuggled up in bed on the cool Texas winter morning, probably where I should had stayed. Anyway, the drive took half as long because of the timing, which I was glad of, since Mags was so cold-blooded that she had to turn the heat up full blast to warm herself up. It really wasn’t that bad though, just low forties. Thank you, global warming.
The store, Old Thangs, was in a cut-rate shopping center that needed major overhaul, but had a pretty good location just off a major thoroughfare. Still, out of the eight shops that could’ve made business there, there were only five, and only the antique store would be open at this time of day. Mags unlocked and pulled back the big metal gates that stood between the sidewalk and the outside veranda, a security device that Mr. Lambert had insisted on having, then she unlocked and opened the door to the store, flipping the closed sign to open as she did.
“Well, this is it,” Mags said while she flipped on the lights. “What do you think?”
I watched as the lights slowly blinked on, revealing more of the antique store to me. From the outside, you could’ve never thought that the interior was so big, cluttered from floor to ceiling with all sorts of, well, everything. There was area after area full of old furniture that usually held an assortment of other items. Glass cases held many of the smaller items such as coins, stamps, dolls, and every other collectable out there. A small aisle that customers would travel down to get from one part of the store to the other lined each little area. This wasn’t some high-end antique store; this was more like a place full of junk that had been pulled out of the garbage and placed on a shelf, waiting for someone who remembered that particular item from his or her childhood to buy it.
“It looks...great.” Another lie. I should probably start keeping a list. Mags must have read into my hesitation.
“Well, it’s a work in progress, but it has a lot of potential. There are things I’m talking to Mr. Lambert about doing up here, you know. Some minute details would make the place pop.” The minute detail that came to my mind was a bulldozer that would destroy the whole store, the whole building for that matter, but it wasn’t my place to judge. There was a twinkle in Mags’ eyes as she skimmed the large room full of junk. “Anyway, why don’t you make your way around the counter and I’ll show you how to take the money.”
“What are you going to be doing?”
“Like I said, making the place pop.”
Mags showed me how to work the old register. It was quite simple actually; even accepting a credit card was only a couple of extra steps. After the first customer, an elderly couple that bought an antique doorknob to replace one in their house, Mags left me to my own as she disappeared behind the heap of stuff. Every once and awhile I would hear something being moved, but it didn’t faze me enough to go see what was going on. As long as Mags didn’t cry out for help after something heavy pinned her to the ground, I probably was going to sit on my stool until it was time to go.
Over the next couple hours, a few customers entered the store. Most were just browsing, but a few bought small items that had caught their eye. One man purchased a Porky the Pig bank, telling me the story of how he’d had one at home as a child and wanted to give this one to his son. Another woman bought some aged doilies for her dining room table. It took forever to sort through the pile she had, going one by one to check them out. I gathered them into a pile as she began to write out her check.
“Would you like a bag for those?”
“Yes, please, if you don’t mind.” I leaned down under the counter. Crap! Mags didn’t tell me where the bags were. I began searching, moving a couple of boxes, looking around this and that. Why weren’t the bags right here in front of me? “It’s okay if you can’t find any,” she said trying to bring my
hunt to a close. Finally, looking inside one of the boxes, I found a bunch of Wal-Mart sacks.
“Here, you...” but my gaze trailed away from her to the young man standing behind her. It was Jason standing right here in this store, staring at me. Out of all the antique stores in the Metroplex he had to walk into mine. I quickly composed myself and began to shovel the doilies into the bags, handing them to the woman who then scurried out of the door.
“Hi,” I said empathetically as if I had made him wait too long.
“Hello,” he muttered back without a smile.
“How can I help you?”
“You’re the girl that wore little Lizzy’s hoop.”
I smiled, but felt the redness in my cheeks begin to appear.
“Yes, it’s me, in the flesh, but not in a hoop,” How stupid do I sound right now? “You are Jason, right?” Of course he’s Jason, idiot! I knew his name, I knew his face, I knew he was quiet, I knew he was ex-military, but there was so much more I wanted to know. He nodded.
“Do y’all have buttons?”
“Buttons?”
“Wooden ones?”
“Wooden?”
He smiled. “Yes, buttons that are wooden, do you have them?”
“Oh, yes. Uh, well, I don’t know, maybe. They would be in here if we have them,” I turned my head. “Mags!”
Jason looked off into the store as we both heard something crash deep in its parapets. A few moments later, Mags emerged from the debris and made her way up to the counter.
“I’m okay, thanks for asking.” She looked at me.
“Jason, um, this customer wanted to know if we have buttons, wooden ones.”
She looked at me and then at him, then back to me.
“Yes, we do. They are...” She began to think, tapping her finger on her lip. “They are somewhere in the store,” she mused. “Why don’t you show Jason around while I hunt them down for you?”
I looked up at her as though she was kidding.
“Um, don’t I need to man the register?” I whispered even though I was sure he could hear me.
“Hope, if anyone comes in the bell above the door will alert us. Besides, you need to see the place, too. You haven’t gotten off that stool since we got here. Jason, I’ll be right back with your buttons. Hope is going to show you around. Would you like to see the place?”
Jason shrugged and looked at me. “Sure, that’s fine.”
Mags smiled at him and I followed her out from behind the counter. Quickly, she scurried off back into the piles of junk, leaving us there, the two quietest people on earth, staring at each other.
“I guess we go this way,” I said noncommittally. He nodded as I took the lead back through the stuff. Entering the mayhem, the path got narrow, only allowing one person to walk at a time, but I looked back every so often to see what he was doing. Most of the time he just continued to follow me, but every once in a while he would look at something, pick it up, smile, and put it back in its original location. We maneuvered down an aisle and back up another, barely saying a word. It was last weekend’s lunch all over again, so much that it began to get on my nerves.
Say something, stupid, anything to break the ice.
“So have you been reenacting for a long time?”
He paused as if it were a trick question, but finding no harm in the query, he continued following me.
“Since I was seventeen. It’s a hobby that Mr. Peet got me into.”
“Yeah, that’s why I was there, too.”
“Extra credit?”
I smiled back at him. “Yeah. Is that what got you started?” He picked up a small iron skillet that was hanging in one of the many kitchen sections, moving it up and down in his hand as if he was testing the weight.
“Not really. It was just a way to get out of the house.”
Out of the house? What does that mean?
“Oh, I figured you would’ve played sports in high school to do that.”
Jason gave me a look that held no emotion whatsoever. “I did. As many as I could. Reenacting was the only hobby that continued after graduation, though.”
“Oh, okay.” So he didn’t get some college scholarship for basketball, baseball, or even his good looks? How sad.
We walked some more without saying much, mostly just speaking about the clutter. Piles of objects from another time stretched out all around us, like we were being swallowed by the dejected remnants from another life. I looked back again at Jason, seeing how he was making his way through the conundrum that was the store. But he had stopped and was looking at a tall plastic G.I. Joe action figure. He held it in his hands and turned it to catch every feature of the toy, like he was holding a diamond up to the light to see all the beautiful colors. I took the moment, when his attention was fixated, to get a closer look at him. Jason was in street clothes, just plain blue jeans and a T-shirt, with a pair of sneakers finishing his ensemble. His hair was short, not military short, but short enough where he didn’t have to do a lot to it to make it work in the morning. Altogether, he was just your average, very good-looking young man.
Jason’s eyes caught mine for a moment as he laid the doll back down. I looked away, embarrassed by my own staring, and turned, forgetting about the enclosed space that I had to maneuver, and caught my foot underneath an old wooden radio box. Crap! Not again! The stumble was not backward but forward, right toward him. His arms opened swiftly as I slammed into his chest, a blow he took with ease. My breathing was heavy, as I couldn’t bring myself to look up at him. Jeez, what kind of klutz am I?
“You are always falling,” Jason finally said, the obviousness of the sentence causing me to giggle just a little. I pried myself from his arms, although I could’ve planted myself there for a while longer.
“I’m so sorry. Last week it was the dress and here it’s this mess of a store. I’m just a total buffoon.” I shook my head and looked down at my hands. Trouble had befallen me and I just couldn’t shake it. The loss of my family, the wickedness of Jody and the girls at school, even the way I walked seemed to bring new difficulties in my life. Couldn’t I do something right for a change?
Jason’s hands reached out for mine. “Hey, it’s okay. You aren’t hurt. I’m not hurt. It was just a misstep. It could happen to any of us.” His touch was firm but gentle, as his thumbs caressed the back of my fingers. “You are okay, aren’t you?”
“Yes, I’m fine and I am sorry. Just a lot has been going on and falling on you every time we meet is the last thing I need.”
“Oh, don’t worry about it. I feel kinda honored to catch you.” He grinned, slowly letting go of my hands. I couldn’t help but smile back, quickly feeling at ease with him, but keeping a better lookout on my two left feet as we both continued with the tour.
Again, there was a hiatus in the conversation. Either we didn’t know what to say to each other or we didn’t care to. Whichever it was, we finished the fourth and final aisle before he finally spoke up.
“It’s a neat place you have here.”
“Oh, it’s not mine. My aunt, she just runs the place for the owner and hauled me in to work with her this morning.”
He nodded.
“So are you going to come to any more reenactments?” His eyes sharpened on me as he asked the question.
“Um, I doubt it.” Really? Now is the time to tell the truth?
“You didn’t have fun?”
“No, no. I had a blast. It’s just I’m not sure I’ll be invited to a real one. The parade was extra credit and Mr. Peet probably doesn’t want any of his students to horn in on his hobby, anyway.”
“Well, he let me horn in and I’ve enjoyed it ever since.”
“Oh. So you were his student?” Again, it was a question I knew, but I played dumb to continue the conversation.
“Yeah. Had him for American history. About the only class I enjoyed in high school. I think he passed me a few times when I didn’t deserve it, but he was a real good teacher.” He ran his hand thr
ough his short hair and looked back at the first aisle to see Mags coming out of the back with a jar of buttons.
“I knew I had them somewhere back there.” She opened them up and poured a few on the glass counter.
“How much are they a piece?”
“A quarter.”
“That’s cheaper than the sutlers. I’ll take ten. He laid down three dollars and began to pick up an assortment of buttons.
“Don’t you want the ones that match?” I asked.
“Don’t matter none,” he said with a shrug. “Confederate soldiers were lucky to have any buttons after the first year. I’m sure if they had a few mismatching ones, it was okay.” He gave me a quick smile, enough to make me blush for no apparent reason.
Mags picked up on the conversation. “So are you one of the re-creator Civil War people, too?”
“Reenactor,” I whispered.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Oh, that’s just wonderful. Hope had a wonderful time at your little parade last weekend. Where you there?”
“Yes, we sat next to each other at lunch.” Again, his quick smile caused my face to heat up once again.
Could he be anymore cute when he smiles?
“Let me get a bag for those,” I said, trying to divert his attention from my face to anything else.
“No need to.” He collected each button one by one in his hand as I made him change. Reaching out, I placed it into his free hand as his fingers rubbed against the bottom of my palm, sending a noticeable tingling sensation up my wrist.
“Thank you.” He nodded again, backing away from the counter.
“No, thank you,” I answered, but not exactly knowing what I was thanking him for. Was it for the sale or for catching me twice? He turned to the door, but stalled after a couple of steps.
“Oh, and Hope, thanks for coming to the parade. I do hope to see you at Madisonville.” With that, he turned and opened the door, causing the bell to jingle. My eyes continued to follow him as he rounded the glass front and headed out of sight.
Finding Hope in Texas Page 12
