Finding Hope in Texas

by Ryan T. Petty

  Music class was a little different that Tuesday. We had already been practicing for the spring symphony, but our teacher was out with a migraine headache. The sub was actually the assistant music teacher, a thirty-something-year-old that actually enjoyed music more than just teaching it.

  “I know y’all have been working on these classics since you returned from Christmas break, but Mrs. Appleton is not here,” he said, picking up his guitar from his case. He sat up on the table in the front of the room and struck out a few chords that were not only hard to play, but was entertaining as well. When he finished, a few of us clapped. “Thanks. What this older generation has forgotten is that music is supposed to be fun as well as beautiful. Does anyone have a piece that they would like to play today, just for the heck of it?”

  Everyone sat as if this was make believe, that as soon as we started playing by our own free will Mrs. Appleton would break through the door and send us off to ISS for having an individual thought about music. But I could feel eyes on me, since I had been the one to start the short lived Beat It Rebellion. Oh, what the heck? I raised my hand.

  “Yes, what would you like to play today?” I gave a sigh and approached him with some sheet music that I had gotten at the sutlers at the reenactment.

  “Can you back me up with this?” I whispered. He studied the music for a moment and gave me a nod. I pulled Mrs. Appleton’s podium closer so we could both read off the music. Lizzy gave me a smile, as I couldn’t believe I was doing this. It was only weeks ago that she had me tramping down downtown Ft. Worth in a hoopskirt, and now I was about to play some music I found at a reenactment. Oh well, here goes nothing.

  I pulled the violin up to my shoulder and lowered my head. Slowly, I traced the bow across the strings, cutting the air with the D Major that led into a deeper, longer sound that reverberated around the room. It was a waltz, but I didn’t know from where. It wasn’t classical music, wasn’t southern fiddle music, this had a different feeling altogether. The music was gloomy, sad, like something they would have played after the horrible end to a battle. Yet, at the same time, it was beautiful in a sense that it reached down to your very heart when you put it all together. After the first lines, the sub joined in, strumming a few strings in support. But I didn’t hear him anymore, didn’t see the class of students in front of me. I lost myself with my eyes closed and could have been playing at home, in my room, practicing because dad was pushing me so much to do so. After half an hour he would give a soft knock on the door, tears in his eyes and say “That was beautiful music, darling.” It always got to me how emotional he could get from just hearing my violin from my room, and yet I wouldn’t have given up that little knock on the door for anything in the world. I love you, Daddy.

  The last of the harmony sliced off of my bow, leading me up to a high-pitched note again, then back down to a long stretch that used the whole length of my bow to finish. I opened tear-filled eyes to a class that was practically in shock. It was like they had never heard such music before and I guess for the most part, neither had I. Lizzy finally started clapping and everyone else followed suit, even Jody in the back of the room.

  “That was something I wasn’t even prepared for,” said the sub. “That was...beautiful. What is the piece called?”

  “Um,” I reached over to the podium and looked at the sheet music. “The Ashokan Farewell.”

  “Well, it was great, don’t y’all think?”

  Again, the class clapped as I returned to my seat while some of them told me ‘good job.’ I brushed away the remnants of tears that had pooled in my eyes, happy that they were not streaming down my face during the mini-performance.

  “Thank you, Daddy,” I whispered to myself. “Thank you for everything you did for me.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Mags and I sat around the vintage kitchen table with our contract in front of us, staring at it as if it was about to do a trick. She had just signed the clipped pieces of paper at the real estate office and put down our first and last month’s rent. Sixteen hundred dollars and we had a store. Now, we had to decide on what to do with it.

  “Well, of course we need to move the antiques over there as soon as possible,” she continued.

  “Mags, we can’t do that until we get the place looking better. We need to sweep it out, get some paint on the walls. You know, make it look presentable.

  “That will be more money,” she said quietly.

  “I’ve spent $26,600 so far and got $23,400 more at my disposal. Money is not your concern, anyway, it’s mine. By the way, how did you get all that junk, um, antiques for just $25,000? Seems like they would have been a lot more than that.”

  “Well, Mr. Lambert gave me a wholesale price and...that was only for about two-thirds of them.” My eyebrow lowered over my eyes, as this was news I hadn’t heard yet. “Don’t get angry, Hope. He doesn’t even own the last third. Those are from other people who are trying to sell their stuff in his shop. He makes twenty-five percent off everything he sells for them.”

  “And are we going to have to move them over to the new store with all the stuff we purchased?”

  “Um, I don’t know.”

  “Well, have you got a list of people who own the other antiques to see if they want to move them into the new store?”

  “Not yet,”

  “Jeez, Mags.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Well, we need to contact all of them and see if they even want to continue trying to sell their stuff in your store.”

  “But what if they don’t?”

  “Well, I don’t know.” Why did I have to think of everything? “Tell them that if they want to stay with us that we will give them a five percent discount on everything we sell for them for the first year.” Hopefully, we would last at least a year.

  “That’s a good idea, honey.”

  “Okay, get the list tomorrow and start making phone calls. Then after school we can go to the hardware store and get some paint supplies and stuff like that, okay?”

  “Sounds good,” Mags smiled. Her dream was coming true little by little while my pocket book was getting emptier. But Dad would’ve done the same thing. Maybe something not as hair-brained as this, but he would have helped her. The money he sent her over the years was because he cared for her, even though he knew he would never see it again. I could only hope that this would be the end, that she would finally get her feet on the ground, even if old toasters surrounded them for the rest of her life. And then in the back of my mind, I could only hope that we would mistakenly pick Jason’s hardware store to find the paint we needed.

  Another cold day of school flew by quickly. We even got some snow flurries around lunch, which Lizzy and I watched from our table. It’s funny how Texans react to even the slightest snow, like they are picturing great mounds will build up in no time and everyone will have to hunker down until the thaw. Of course the students just wanted to get out of school, but that was only going to happen if the roads became hard to travel down.

  “That was amazing what you did yesterday,” she said. I looked up from my tuna casserole.

  “What did I do?”

  “You know, The Ashokan Farewell. The only other place I’ve heard it played that well was on the Civil War soundtrack that Dad plays.”

  I smiled. “Thanks. It’s a beautiful Civil War song.”

  “It is that, but it’s not from the Civil War.”

  “No?”

  “No, they used the song for the documentary, but it was written back in the seventies or eighties or something like that.”

  “Really? That’s deceitful.”

  “Yeah, but it works for the whole time period. I mean, it just rings six hundred thousand people dead.” The morbid joke made us both giggle. “So how are the plans with your aunt going?”

  “Well, we actually have a place now. We’ve bought the antiques from the previous owner, but there is still tons of stuff to do. Like tonight we’re going to go paint the ins
ide. Should be quite fun with no heat in there.”

  “Do you need some help?”

  “No, really I wasn’t asking for help, Lizzy. Besides, your Dad doesn’t want you to hang around me, anyway.”

  “Oh, who cares about that? Where is it at, anyway?” I gave her a rough idea where it was. “That’s a good part of town. You’ll do well there. Are you’re sure you don’t want any help?” I shrugged not knowing what to say. “Tell you what. I’ll meet you at your house around five.”

  “What about your dad?”

  She grinned. “Don’t worry about him.”

  So around five that evening the three of us took off from our house and rolled into the local hardware store. I asked Lizzy quietly how she was able to get away from her dad for the evening. She grinned that same grin that she had at lunch.

  “Somehow he lost his notes for class tomorrow and was going to have to spend time rewriting them,” she said, giving me a little wink. “He was hardly listening when I said I was going out to study with a friend.”

  Lizzy, you’re so evil.

  The thought of seeing Jason all day was now front and center, but I wasn’t sure this was it. My hope began to fade until I rounded onto the aisle with paint on it, and there he was helping an older couple get paint down from the shelf and put it in their cart. He wore an apron with the store logo on front and continued talking to the couple even as we approached.

  “It’s Jason,” Lizzy whispered to me as if I didn’t see him. I stepped forward as the couple meandered down the aisle.

  “Excuse me, paint boy, but can you help us?” His eyes darted quickly at my comical name then his handsome smile widened across his face.

  “What the...What are you doing here?” He couldn’t help himself. His strong arms pulled me forward into him and wrapped around me. Oh, it had only been three days and yet I already missed his embrace. Lizzy ended up clearing her throat to bring me back to reality.

  “Um, yeah.” I pulled away. “You know Lizzy and do you remember my aunt?”

  “The young man looking for buttons,” she said and stepped forward to shake his hand.

  “That’s me. So are y’all looking for paint?”

  “We’re going to open up our own antique store,” I said, “and we needed something to spruce the place up a bit.”

  He nodded. “Picked the colors yet?”

  I handed him the paint chips. “What is the best type of paint?”

  “Probably this brand right...here.” He tapped a gallon of it with his finger. “What are your interior walls?”

  “Dry wall. Will this work on them?”

  “It’s the best we have. When are you starting?”

  “Tonight, after we leave here.”

  Again, he nodded. “Well, it’s a pretty slow night up here. I can probably get off a little early if you need any help.”

  Oh, yes! “Um,” I glanced back at Mags who gave me a smile and a shrug at the same time. “Sure, that would be great.”

  “Cool, let me get the paint mixing for you and I’ll tell the boss that I’ll be leaving.”

  I could’ve watched him mix the paint all day. We made small talk about my school and his work as it did, while Mags and Lizzy acted coy and stayed away from us. Far too quickly, the ten gallons finished mixing and Jason hoisted each five-gallon bucket into our buggy. After he checked out for the evening, he walked us out to our car, putting the buckets in the truck of Mags’ Ford POS and tied down the trunk door so they wouldn’t fall out. Then he mounted his motorcycle and followed us to the store.

  The four of us entered the store as the sun was setting on the horizon, clicking the lights on to the emptiness. Jeez, there was so much work to do besides paint. I knew I should have just hired someone to get it done, but Mags thought this might save money. All we could do was start on the mammoth project and hope that it all went well. We threw down some painter’s plastic on the concrete floor, not that it mattered too much, and the three of us teenagers began to slosh the tan paint upon the walls while Mags cut in the edges with the brush. We weren’t professionals, but we weren’t doing a bad job in rolling most of the paint on the walls from the tray. Jason put every effort into his work. Tom Sawyer and his whitewashing had nothing on him as this Tom knew how to work. Plus we were all having a good time, laughing and enjoying each other’s company, something I missed. Before we knew it, it was nine o’clock and Lizzy’s cell began to ring.

  “Yeah, dad, I know it’s late... I’ll be coming home soon... No, I’m fine, just studying too much... Okay, I love you too.” She hung up and gave me a look.

  “I guess we need to get you home.”

  “Yeah, sorry. Dad is about to have a tizzy.”

  Soon, we were closing shop for the evening, having accomplished getting the first coat of paint upon the walls before we left. Jason walked me around to my door and opened it for me.

  “So I’ll see you this weekend, right?”

  “Um, yes,” I said reluctantly, remembering I hadn’t told Mags anything about it yet. He smiled that wonderful smile that even the darkness couldn’t blotch and gave me another deep hug. I couldn’t help but try and look back in the side mirror and see him as we pulled away from the small parking lot.

  “So,” Mags interrupted my thought, “this weekend? Are you and Jason going somewhere?”

  “Um...”

  “We’re going out to Canton on Saturday,” announced Lizzy from the backseat. I closed my eyes in the darkness.

  “Oh, you are? And when was I going to hear about this, Hope?”

  “Saturday morning?”

  “Yeah right. We’ll talk about this later.”

  Lizzy took off quickly as soon as we got home, leaving me to defend myself, but giving me a call a half hour later, letting me know she got home safe and sound. I wasn’t so sure I was going to be so lucky.

  “So you’re just taking off, when I need you the most?”

  “In my defense, I had made these plans before you were going into business.”

  “Still, you’re running around with that handsome young handyman and not telling me. I mean, I know Lizzy is a good teacher’s kid I’m sure, but I know nothing about Jason, other than he can paint like a machine.”

  “He’s a good guy, Mags. He’s a veteran and just really nice.” For some reason I lost my adjectives to describe him. Good guy and really nice would have to suffice.

  “Then I need to meet him. And not meet him while he’s painting on the store, but actually meet-meet him.”

  I gritted my teeth. “When?”

  “How about dinner on Friday night, here at the house? I’ll cook. It will be fun. Or else, you stay home on Saturday.”

  “Fine,” I relented.

  That night I called Jason to give him the head’s up about Friday.

  “Dinner? Yeah, I guess I can do that. What time?”

  “Is seven okay?”

  “Sounds good to me. I guess I should feel lucky.”

  I laughed sarcastically. “Lucky? By spending your Friday night with a crazy girl and her crazy aunt?”

  “You’re not crazy,” he said sternly. “No, I’m lucky because I get to see you three times this week. Tonight was fun hanging out with y’all. I wish I had more times like that in my life. Friday will be fun too, you’ll see.” I could nearly hear his smile on the phone.

  “I hope you’re right.”

  “Trust me, sweetie. I’ll see you Friday night.”

  Oh, I trust you, just keep calling me sweetie. “Okay. Until then.”

  “I can’t wait.”

  All I could think about for the rest of the week was Friday night. What did Mags have to prove, anyway? She had run out on her family with a half-dozen men, but now had to meet and talk with the guy that meant so much to me. Talk about hypocrisy. Was she now going to play mom and make sure I was spending my valuable time with people she approved of? Jeez, I hoped not. First of all, she didn’t have the right. Secondly, mom would’ve liked Jas
on. Not for his good looks or for serving our country, which were both pluses, but because he was a fighter. He came from little and fought tooth and nail to keep his head above water throughout high school, through his stint in Iraq, and now working. Mom appreciated those aspects in people and so did I. It was the fighters that built our nation and kept it out of the hands of those that were greedy or lazy or anything in between. Without people like them, our country would have been in a bigger mess than it already gotten itself into.

  Mom’s old car arrived Friday afternoon and was unloaded as we got home. I had to sign a few papers about ownership and what not and then the guy handed me the keys and said it was all mine. It was a beautiful thing, just as I remembered. A black Lexus GS that made Mags’ POS look that much more POSier. Still, as I stood there, I could feel all the memories come back, all of what I had lost.

  “Come inside,” said Mags softly, “you don’t want to catch a cold out here.”

  I nodded and followed her in, placing the keys up on the hanger next to hers.

  Mags was in the middle of making spaghetti when the doorbell rang. I jumped up from the sofa and rushed over to find Jason standing there in black slacks and a polo shirt. God, he looked great, and I’m sure my mouth gaped open just a little by looking at him. This wasn’t Civil War reenactor Jason or hardware store Jason, this was I’m going to impress your aunt Jason.

  “Hey,” is all I could get out.

  “Hey to you.”

  “W...Would you like to come in?”

  “Beats standing out here in the cold.”

  I smiled and took a step back as he entered, but not letting my eyes off of him. “Can anything I get you?” Did I just sound like Yoda? “I mean, can I get you anything?”

  “No, I’m good. I actually brought these,” he pulled a bouquet of flowers out from behind him. “I stole them from the garden center at work.” He winked. “Just kidding.”

  “They are beautiful,” I beamed. Oh, I like the impressing Jason. “Would you like to take a seat?”