Finding Hope in Texas (15 page)

We were now headed back to Jimmy Carter and
the rituals of the weekday. I stayed off Facebook, not that I used
it that much. Usually the weekend allowed me a few moments to give
it a glance. But my fear was that, like Mags, others had seen my
fifteen seconds of fame in the Stock Show Parade. I would have felt
less embarrassed had I been riding a big longhorn cow while wearing
a miniature cowboy hat. At least with that, I wouldn’t have heard
me compared to Scarlet O’Hara anymore. She didn’t even have red
hair, did she?

First period speech class was a bust. This
week, being short with only four days, the teacher decided that we
should give our informative speeches. I sat through a speech about
“why hunting is fun” and “peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are
yummy” before considering taking a nap on my desk.

“Hope Kilpatrick, you are up next,” noted the
teacher, giving me three minutes to prepare.
Oh, jeez. Did I
really have to do this?
There was no way I could follow
camouflage-boy and the butter-spreader. I had tried way too hard on
this assignment from what it sounded like. My speech was about a
little known tribe of Native Americans that were still living alone
in the rain forests of South America. To the rest of the class, my
speech was probably going to fall quite far behind the kid making a
“ka-boom” sound when he shot his first deer.
Think, Hope, think.
Should I go there?
I closed my eyes and sighed, stepping up to
the podium to begin my speech. “Today, I am going to tell you about
Civil War reenacting.”

I was? What the heck did I know about the
topic?
Shoot! You had an easy, yet boring, ‘A’ with the
speech you did, why change now? Ugh! Just go with it.

“This last weekend I participated in the Ft.
Worth Stock Show Parade with a group of Texas infantry Civil War
reenactors. They dress up in fake clothing of the time period from
head to toe, wearing boots, wool uniforms and hats, and even carry
a wooden rifle. The Stock Show Parade is just one aspect of what
they do.”
Do I know anymore?
“They also go to Civil War
reenactments across the state. The first one of this season is
going to be held in Madisonville in just a few weeks. There,
reenactors will pretend to be back in Civil War times, camping out
and fighting in battles.

“This Texas infantry unit allows women and
children to play a role in the reenactments as well, even though
they seldom went to war with soldiers during the actual Civil
War.”

Jeez, I was on a roll over something I cared
little for, other than getting the extra credit in Mr. Peet’s
class. I continued my oratory over the topic, seeing students
actually paying attention to what I had to say. Who cared about
some long lost Native Americans anyway? I was talking about war,
guns, marching, camping, with a few hoop skirts thrown in for the
girls. I was sure these rednecks were eating it up. When my speech
came to an end, the teacher asked if anyone had any questions. A
few hands went up.

“So how do they know when they get shot out
there?”

“Um, it’s like a play. They have it
choreographed from the beginning, knowing who lives and who dies.”
Another hand shot up. “Yes, you.”

“So they do this on the weekend?”

“Yes, on Saturday and Sunday.”
Makes
sense.
“And one final one, you.”

“How many reenactments have you been to?”

Crap! Why that question, kid?
“A
couple. Back at home before I moved here.”
Really?
I had
hardly ever heard of this weird hobby before I traveled south of
the Mason-Dixon Line. My only knowledge of it was that Reece
Witherspoon hopped over a bunch of dead soldiers in that
Sweet
Home Alabama
movie. Was it really something like that?

“Well, that was a very good assessment of a
hobby that might be unfamiliar to our students. Thank you, Hope.
You may take a seat,” the teacher said with a few of the students
clapping. Not bad for just coming up with it in the last moment.
This Civil War thing was paying off.

“Mr. Arnold, you are next.” Slowly the next
student rose and headed for the podium, taking his allotted three
minutes to prepare.

“Today, I am going to inform the class about
a wonderful hobby of my father’s and mine: coin collecting.”

Oh great.

I met Lizzy at our convenient little table
for lunch. As always, she was already sitting when I got there, my
corn dogs and cream corn weighing heavy on the tray.

“Hey, Lizzy, how are you today?”

“Oh, not too bad. I was glad to have
yesterday off, though. That parade took more out of me than I
thought it did. How was the rest of your weekend?”

“It was, well, boring. I didn’t do much, but
I was pretty happy with that. So do you do the parade every
year?”

“Mmm, this was my third. Dad has been in the
hobby for God knows how long. It’s a fun way for us to get out
together.” She smiled.

“That’s cool, so you just grew up doing
this?”

“For the most part. It’s just something I’ve
been used to going to, not really a big part of my life, but it’s
fun for dad and he likes me coming with him.”

“What about that Hunter? He looked like he
might be a bigger part of your life.”

This was coy of me, but I wanted to see if I
had picked up on something or just misread the entire situation.
From Lizzy’s reddening face, I knew I was on track.

“He is just...a friend. We both grew up
reenacting together with our dads. We go to dances and stuff.” I
could tell there was more, but she changed the subject on me before
I knew it.

“So what did you think of the whole
experience? Did you have fun?”

“I guess. I mean, it was all new to me, and I
wished you would have picked out a dress that covered a little more
up top than the one I wore, but yes, it was pretty fun.”

“You did look good in it, no matter what you
say.”

“Thanks, but I’m not sure I’ll be wearing it
again.”

“Why not? It isn’t because of the guys
whooping and hollering at you, is it? They were just showing you
how beautiful you were.”

“No, no, not at all. It’s just that, I don’t
know. It’s not something I ever saw myself participating in.”
Lizzy’s look of confusion allowed me to continue. “I mean, everyone
there treated me very nice and I enjoyed the new experience, but
I’ve never been camping before in my life.”
Jeez, what an
excuse.
It was true, but it didn’t sound very convincing

“Is that all? Well, that’s no big deal.”

I shrugged, only being able to agree. It
wasn’t like she was asking me to go out reenacting at that moment.
Why couldn’t I just be nice and say maybe I would or something of
that sort? She basically did that for me.

“But the door is always open. And you never
know. You might enjoy yourself.”

That was something I hadn’t really done in a
long time, at least since the accident. I was still going through
Kubler-Ross and Kessler’s five stages of grief. Denial had come
quickly and passed in the blink of an eye with the two patrolmen at
my door. Anger had ridden its back and was gone before I knew it.
The only bargaining I gave was in my own mind, wishing many moments
that I should have joined them in the wreck. But now, and since the
funeral, I was stuck in stage four, depression, and I wasn’t going
anywhere. Enjoyment wasn’t on the list and it wasn’t really
something I could look into having for a long time. Even my
classics now were used more as an escape to find a way out of this
miserable world that took my family away. It allowed me to dive
into another life, like a movie or TV show. The last stage was
acceptance.
See you in about fifty years.

“Thanks, and I’ll keep it in mind. You never
know, I might just get way too bored and need something to do on
the weekend.”

That made Lizzy smile, glad that I was even
considering going out with them again. But that would give me a
chance to see Jason again, even if it was only to see him. I still
couldn’t believe that we sat all the way through lunch and their
little reenacting meeting and didn’t say a word to one another.
Maybe he was stuck in stage four, too.

“Oh, I forgot to show you something.” Lizzy
whipped out her phone and flung a few images around, finally
holding it up to me. “It was a broadcast on channel eight from
Saturday.”

Oh, Jeez.
Mags mocked me about it on
Saturday when I got home, but now the whole image of me in some
hoop skirt was going to play right before my eyes. It started off
grainy with the soldiers passing by the camera and then there we
were in all our finest, me looking like a frightened child and
Lizzy taking in all the glory with her wave.

“We were on live TV and then again on the
news that night. Can you believe that?”

“Yeah, great,” I weakly responded, my face
turning red all over again.

“Hope, you really were beautiful,” she said,
complimenting me again.

“Thanks, I just worry about if anyone else
saw it.”

“Who cares if they did?”

“Well, me.”

It was as if the seventeen-second footage of
us brought the bullies from their table to ours. I looked up to see
three of them standing around Lizzy and she gazed at the ones who
stood around me.

“Hey.”

It was Jody’s voice from beside me, glowering
down upon us. “We saw you two jerks on television on Saturday. We
just wanted to say that you looked stupid in those get-ups of
yours. But at least yours covered most everything up, Peet. Not
like the tramp over here, letting it all hang out.”

I could feel the adrenaline begin to pump in
my veins, but I knew if I stood, there might be an altercation, one
in which I would probably get in trouble. Still, although I didn’t
mind them talking about me, it really angered me to hear them go
after Lizzy.

“Yeah,” I returned, “well I’d rather be seen
in that costume than have your face.” Yes, it was a childish thing
to say, but I had to say something.

“You hussy, why don’t you stand up and say
that?”

Screw it! I stood up matching Jody eye for
eye, but my tone was a tad more affable. “Please, just leave us
alone. We weren’t bothering you at all.”

“We weren’t bothering you at all,” she
mocked. “You bothered me as soon as you set foot on my campus.”

“Is that so?”

“Yeah, orphan, that’s so. I warned you about
talking to Brad and if we weren’t in the middle of lunch, I’d beat
the living crap out of you.”

“He
sat next to me in ISS.”

“I know. It’s always some excuse with you.
‘He helped me up. He sat next to me.’ You were the one sitting on
his lap during P.E. You are the one causing all the arguments we
are having.”

I stared at her defiantly, waiting for the
next shot. Whether it was going to be physical or emotional, I
didn’t know. “Why don’t you go home, orphan? Go back and scrape up
what was left of your life off the road.”

Her words were powerful. Before it was just a
diatribe of anger and frustration spewing from her lips, but here
she was calm, cool, and collected, like she had practiced that
sentence for days. It was these well-planned attacks that hurt. You
could always take people cursing at you or saying foolish things,
because in essence, that’s what they were behaving like. You could
chalk up their resentment to just being stupid or having an anger
issue. But these attacks, the delicate ones, made you feel small,
weak, and defenseless. With those words, it was as if Jody grew
three feet taller and looked down on me as the manure I had been
compared to already. “Oh, by the way, you punch like a pathetic
wimp.” She smirked and then it was over. They had established their
dominance over me, over Lizzy, and then quickly fell back to their
table, like fighting a guerilla army that I couldn’t see and
leaving me standing there emotionally destroyed.

“Hope, are you okay?” Lizzy asked after a
moment.

I looked down at her. “I can’t do this
anymore.” I sat, feeling the wind being sucked out of my chest.
I’m not going to cry.

“You don’t have to. Why don’t we talk to my
dad after school and tell him what’s going on?”

The thought had traced through my mind
before, back when I was waiting to be punished for my punch, which
didn’t seem to faze Jody at all, besides a bogus fall to the floor
for effect. I had hoped that at least taking a stand like that
would have brought the matter to a close, but it didn’t. Was I
going to have to get a teacher, the administration on my side
before anything would be done? The bell rang distracting me from
the thought.

“Let’s just get our stuff and go to class.”
We took our trays over to the trashcans and dumped the remnants of
today’s lunch within them, then headed back to our little table to
retrieve our instruments and notebooks. Music was next and both
Lizzy and I had gotten into the habit of bringing our instruments
to lunch so we wouldn’t have to go back and get them from our
lockers. The walk there was mostly in silence, although it did
allow me to cool down from the latest encounter with Jody.

“Don’t worry, Hope. We can go see my dad
after school. He always knows what to do,” Lizzy commented, giving
me a caring eye before making her way across the room to her
seat.

We both used the few moments before class to
practice our movements for the classic work that Mrs. Appleton was
sure to make us play. I was trying my best to get my mind off Jody,
who was now sitting in the back of the room. My bow hung over the
strings of the violin as I moved it back and forth, playing the
music in my mind, but my mind was questioning whether I should stay
or go back to New York. This girl was already making my life hard
as heck. Maybe I should just beat it out of town. Slowly, the bow
fell upon the strings, but it wasn’t the classics I was playing.
The sound was deep, penetrating, and then I came back with a slow
high pitch. The feeling of eyes on me only added to what I wanted
to play. The opening chord of Michael Jackson’s
Beat It
began to come to life. I never played it before, but its notes
floated off my instrument energetically. Making a quick glance
across the room, I saw a grin on Lizzy’s face. She immediately
picked up her cornet and began to join in on the oh-so famous
music. Other students looked at us and began to play along. We knew
the song by heart and it was leaping out of our fingertips. A short
guy in the front row, I don’t remember his name, but he leaped up
in front of everyone.