by Joan Bauer
Winnie pats his arm. “Brad always got along with different kinds of people.”
Brad laughs. “You’re looking pretty sharp these days, Grandma. You read any good books lately?”
Winnie mentions ten titles fast.
“I’ll look into the one about training terrorists in . . . where was it?”
“Boise. I’ll have it for you at the library. You can consider it an interlibrary loan, but I want it back in three weeks. Don’t mess with me on this, and no bullet holes in it.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Brad smiles like the superhero he is, and has thirds.
Winnie and Brad leave, and Taylor says, “I swear, Anna, I have never felt so safe in my entire life as I did at dinner with Brad.”
Taylor says “Brad” with extra meaning.
“You like him.”
She walks off. “I’m glad he’s on the job.”
“He’s too old for you!”
“I know. And the reality of that is beyond bleak.”
“What about Burke?”
Taylor makes a noise.
When Homeland Security is on the case, there’s not much for a kid to do.
I do the dishes with Taylor.
I play cards with Dad.
I look at the composite drawings and look at them again to see if I missed anything.
I know this much.
That girl needs hope.
How do you send hope to a kid when you don’t know where she is?
I get paper and write:
KEEP HOPING
THINGS ARE HAPPENING
I’m not as good an artist as Taylor, but I draw a white dove over the HOPING.
Taylor walks over eating the last brownie. She studies my paper, points to the bird. “What’s that?”
“You know, a dove of hope.”
She eats some more. “It’s the dove of peace, not hope.”
I’m defending my work. “This is a hope dove.”
She raises the last bite of brownie. “There is no designated animal for hope, Anna. Doves are always for peace.”
I write:
KEEP UP THE PEACE
THINGS ARE HAPPENING
Sometimes editing makes things worse.
I go back to hope, although I need an official hope animal.
Robins are hopeful . . .
Kittens . . .
Dolphins . . .
Otters . . .
Then Bean trots in with his mangy tennis ball, so hopeful that someone will play with him.
I laugh. “Bean, how would you like to be the official hope dog?”
Bean wags his tail and accepts.
“An old dog with a disgusting ball might not go mainstream, Anna.”
I take a picture of Bean with my phone. “It might.”
“I have to go. It’s been an amazing evening.” Taylor sighs, puts her hand over her heart.
I giggle.
“Was that necessary, Anna?”
I’m so tired that I fall asleep on top of my bed with my clothes on.
At two a.m. there’s a knock at my bedroom door.
“Anna, wake up.” It’s Dad. “We’ve got a problem here.” I shake sleep from my head. “We need to get your grandmother to the hospital.”
What?
I’m already dressed. I run into the hall. Dad is helping Mim put on a sweater. She’s looking pale.
“This is nothing, Brian. Just a little fluttering in my heart.”
“Mother, let’s let the doctor tell us that, okay?”
Mim’s fussing with her purse. “I can’t be messing around at a hospital right now. The parade starts in thirty-two hours.”
“You know what, Mom?” Dad takes her by the arm and walks her to the car. “This one you don’t get to decide.”
I climb into the back of Dad’s car. My mouth is so dry. He drives to the hospital. I don’t know what to say. I feel like I’ve got something on my chest that’s making it hard for me to breathe.
“This is all just a fuss,” Mim says.
Nothing can be wrong with her.
Nothing!
Twenty-Three
In the hospital waiting room. Every minute feels an hour long. I feel like marching up and telling the nurse at the desk just how important Mim is, in case they haven’t figured it out.
How can someone like Mim who has such a big heart have a heart problem?
It doesn’t make sense.
I don’t care about the parade or the festival.
I’m mad at Crudup, who probably hurt Mim’s heart by being the jerk that he is.
My heart’s feeling tight, now it’s racing a little. I put my hand over my chest and breathe in and out slow.
The doctor checks Mim’s heart. He makes her cough. They do a test; they do some more. More hours pass.
Waiting.
It’s seven in the morning when a doctor says, “She can go home, looks like stress. She needs to rest.”
Mim makes a that’s-not-possible sound about resting.
“She’ll rest,” Dad tells the doctor.
Mim isn’t happy about that. “Well, somebody better call Burke and let him know, and tell him that he and Merv have full rein to manage the volunteers. I can’t be there till a little later.”
The doctor and Dad look at her.
“I’ve had people working all night, and I’m not going to desert them now.”
Not leaving it alone runs in the family.
We bring Mim home, and she informs us, “I’m perfectly fine and I don’t want all of you looking at me like a dam that’s about to bust. I hate being a bother.” She heads to her room.
“You’re not a bother,” I say after her.
Dad yawns. “I’d better get over to the hangar and make sure Crudup doesn’t take over the world.”
I might just sit here.
I sure don’t feel like decorating a float.
Right now, I don’t care about this parade or this festival and Crudup and his cruddy grocery stores. I just want to sit here and make sure Mim’s all right.
I walk by her room. The door is open a little. I stand outside watching her.
“What is it?” she snaps.
“I just wondered if you were all right.”
“I’ve been in here for five minutes, Anna.”
A lot can happen in five minutes!
It’s clear that watching her will drive her crazy.
I wonder if Brad and his squadron of Homeland Security people are awake.
I wonder if there’s anything I can do anywhere in this town that will help somebody.
Bean comes up with his ball and drops it.
“Not now, Bean.”
He pushes it toward me with his nose and looks so hopeful.
I take the ball outside and throw it, and this old dog leaps for a perfect catch again and again.
“This is boring, Bean.”
He wags his tail. He was made to do this.
What was I made to do anyway?
Brad told me to keep watching.
There’s nothing to look at here.
But wait a minute!
This idea I just got, it involves making my father very angry.
Dad’s in the shower right now.
I write him a note, stick it near the coffeepot. He’ll always see it there.
I’ll meet you at the hangar, Dad. I need to do something first.
Love,
Anna
I’m walking down Rose Street. The stores are waking up. Crudup’s Country Market is open for business, with a big picture of Caitlin’s dad giving a thumbs-up standing next to a cow statue covered with flowers. Good smells float out of Mabel’s Cafe, which has flowering trees on either sid
e of the door. I so want to go in, but this isn’t the time to think about caramel rolls, even though they’re warm and gooey and right here.
I’ve got a job to do.
I’m across from the Star Nails salon, which has flowered star wreaths hanging in every window, making it hard to see inside. It’s eight seventeen in the morning, too early for them to be open. The pink curtains in the upstairs windows are closed.
I don’t know what I’m looking for, but I’m looking.
A ping on my phone. It’s Dad.
Where are you?
I answer back: Rose Street. I’m fine.
An irritated ping.
Are you anywhere near the nail salon?
Kind of.
Come home, Anna. Right now.
In a minute.
I swear, I’m never like this!
Maybe Homeland Security can swoop down and get the job done so I can obey my father.
Did you hear me, Anna?
Yes sir. I’m safe. I need to watch.
I stay right where I am, watching. If anything happens, I can run into Mabel’s.
And now my phone rings.
“Hi, Dad.”
“Anna, I am in the car coming to pick you up, and I promise, I am not happy.”
“I know, Dad.”
I’m watching the salon. No signs of anything inside or out.
Where are you exactly???????
By Mabel’s.
I wonder how Homeland Security people watch things and just keep watching them and don’t get colossally bored. Buses go by; one is blue, the other red with three white stripes and a lion on the side. A lady with no chin walks by.
What am I looking for?
I don’t know.
I hope I’ll know it when I see it.
A truck from Walmart goes by. Behind it is a truck from Crudup’s with a picture of Caitlin in a cowgirl hat smiling at her dad like he’s totally trustworthy.
Cars pull into Mabel’s lot—a convertible with a beige interior, an electric green bug, a van covered, and I mean covered, in flowers. That’s pretty great for the festival.
I’m watching the nail salon.
Watching the cars pull out of Mabel’s.
The flowered van pulls out. I’d love to ride in that. It makes a right. I watch it go. I bolt up. On the back is . . .
PROUD TO BE AN AMERI
It pulls in behind Star Nails, and the van drives through the tall gate.
Okay, now I need help!
Twenty-Four
I look desperately around.
A big lady in a straw hat decorated with too many flowers walks slowly by.
I’m not asking her.
Now Dad pulls up, his face purple.
“You’re in trouble, young lady.”
I get in the car. “There’s no time!” I tell him what I just saw, then I scream, “How do you call Homeland Security?”
Dad takes out his phone. “You call a grandmother.” He parks in front of Mabel’s.
One call to Winnie and she’s on it like a police dispatcher. She calls Dad back. He puts her on speaker. “Brad is on his way. The sheriff is coming. Both of you, get to a safe place.”
Dad looks at me.
“I’m fine,” I say. And terrified. I keep that to myself.
We wait, we watch.
“What do you think is happening, Dad?”
“I don’t know.”
A big moving van pulls in front of the salon, blocking our view.
Dad gets out to look. “The driver is talking on the phone. I think he’s lost.”
I’m so upset, I feel like throwing up.
Dad looks at me. “Are you up for this?”
“I started it, Dad. I finish what I start.”
Now I see the van heading out of the tall gate.
Where is the sheriff?
“Anna, wait here.”
“I’m staying with you!”
The van is heading down the street!
Dad sighs deep. “Do not tell your mother.”
Dad turns fast onto the street, gets two cars behind the van. He guns the car and gets in front of the van. Now he’s going so slowly people are honking. Dad drives through the green light, makes a half turn, and stops, blocking the intersection. People lean on their horns.
Now we see Brad in a dark car driving toward us, Dad lifts a hand slightly. Brad sees the van. Dad guns the motor, like something is wrong with the engine.
If I wasn’t sitting down, count on it, I’d faint.
Dad gets out of the car.
“Be careful, Dad!”
He lifts up the hood, shakes his head.
“Sorry!” he shouts to the cars who are stuck behind him, including the flower van. “I think my transmission died.”
Now Brad pulls in right next to Dad, and the van swerves and rams right into Brad’s car, just missing us. Brad jumps out like one of those guys in the movies. Another car comes behind the van—it can’t move.
Brad’s at the van now with his gun out. “Get out of the car,” Brad says. “With your hands up.”
The man in the van says something in another language.
Brad motions with his gun. The man understands that. He comes out with his hands up, and I swear this is the man I saw that day at the library!
Electricity is shooting through me.
I feel like I’m having a heart attack.
“Homeland Security!” Brad shouts. “Come out with your hands up!”
No one else comes out of the van.
Now the sheriff finally shows up. He puts handcuffs on the driver of the van, an Asian man who is shouting in his own language. Brad looks inside the flowered van. It looked so pretty just minutes before.
I close my eyes.
Be careful!
Brad steps back, holds his gun up.
“There’s no one else,” he says.
No one else!
More cars pull up, along with a big white van.
One pulls up behind Star Nails, another is on the side street, another parks right in front on Rose Street, one is across the street down from Mabel’s. The agents signal to each other. Brad gets out, another man gets out, and they walk up to the front door in a way that says, We’re so not here to get manicures.
Dad and I are across the street at Mabel’s parking lot watching. We can’t hear anything, but after several minutes, an agent brings out the Happy! guy, who is really not happy anymore.
He’s shouting, “I’m legit. One hundred percent!”
People are stopping to look, and one of the agents shouts, “Move back, folks. Across the street, please. We’ve got to keep this area clear.”
I lower my head and close my eyes, but Dad says, “Look.”
I do, and now Brad and another man bring the women out who work there.
There are five of them—they look shocked and scared, but one looks up to the sunshine and she raises her hand and shouts, and another woman shouts, and now I see the lady who gave me the note, and I can tell that she’s crying, and she’s saying something and pointing behind her. I want to run up to her.
It’s me, remember?
But I know I can’t.
“Back away, please, folks, let these women have some privacy!”
A women agent is holding the hand of a nail lady, who looks shocked. They’re looking at the sun and the sky and the trees and all the flowers like they haven’t been outside in a while.
I don’t understand what this means.
I don’t know what they went through in there.
Dad puts his arm around me. “I’m proud of you, honey.”
I keep looking and looking. The women from the nail salon get in the big white van. It drives off. Then, one
by one, the Homeland Security cars pull away until there’s no one left except the people on the street wondering what happened.
But one thing is clear.
She’s not there.
They didn’t find her.
Dad squeezes my hand. “Anna, I think we should go—”
“No!”
I keep waiting and watching.
I’m glad the women are out, I’m so, so glad.
“Where is she?” I ask. “Where is she?”
It won’t ever be right if they don’t find her.
“Anna,” Dad says, “so many things happened today that nobody expected. Don’t start thinking you know how everything is going to end up.”
Twenty-Five
We wait for news from Brad.
Hours pass. Winnie says, “Brad says things are shaping up.”
What does that mean exactly?
I tell Dad I think Brad should be telling us something. “I mean, I started this, I didn’t let it go, I waited, and I believed, I yelled at someone in the sheriff’s office, and I think I deserve to know more than ‘things are shaping up.’ Shaping into what?”
Dad sighs and looks at Mim, who is getting ready to go to the hangar to check on the floats. “I know you don’t normally hear this from me, Anna, but you need to be patient.”
He’s right. “Patient” is not a normal Dad concept.
Even Bean jerks his head when Dad utters the P word.
But patience isn’t anything I’ve got right now.
I don’t know how to wait anymore.
Right now it seems like all I know to do is worry.
But I know something that helps with that.
“How you doing there, Zoe? I just came to see you, girl.” I rub her neck. “Is that okay?”
Zoe turns to look at me like she’s glad I came.
I put my head against her side and sigh. I didn’t know you could be such good friends with a horse. I just keep my head there.
“Are you good with this, girl?”
I can tell she’s listening. I rub her side, pet her on her hind leg, rub her on her face, and I don’t know why, but I just feel her strength coming at me. She knows I’m hurting.
