Hope Was Here by Joan Bauer

Author:Joan Bauer [Bauer, Joan]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781101657874
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2005-06-01T16:00:00+00:00

11

Every day teenagers were coming in to volunteer for G.T.’s campaign, and we knew what to do with them.

Tell ten friends why you support G. T. Stoop and ask them to join you.

Make sure that people are registered to vote for G.T.

Write a letter to the Mulhoney Messenger telling why you support G.T.’s election.

Cecelia Culpepper published the letters and an editorial of her own demanding the opening of the tax assessor’s office and insisting the mayor release proof that the dairy paid its local taxes.

“We are conducting an internal investigation,” said the mayor in response. “The assessor’s office will be closed to the public until the investigation is completed.”

“Not good enough,” Braverman fumed when he read it.

Back at the diner, G.T. was driving himself too hard. Twice I’d seen him steady himself against a wall when he was walking.

Once I saw the color drain from his face when he was cornered by an irritated representative from Friends of Wildlife who said she could personally assure him of twenty-four votes, but he was going to have to “play ball with the animals.”

Sid Vole yawned, still in his decaffeinated state, and studied G.T.’s pale face. “We need to get you in front of people looking strong. Give a thumbs-up sign whenever you can. Voters love that.”

G.T. shook his head. “Let’s show the people what they’re really getting, Sid.”

You could feel the campaign heat build. Addie said it was like turning up the flame and quick-frying zucchini that could go from perfection to mush in a matter of seconds.

People were coming into the diner every day just to see what she had on the menu. A man laughed with pure joy yesterday after he’d finished his second bowl of split pea soup brimming with fat ham chunks and garlic butter croutons. That man was dining alone. I saw a marriage proposal take place at table nine. The first thing that happy woman said was, “Harold, it’s taken you seven years to ask me. Why now?”

Harold looked at his half-eaten plate of brisket piled with caramelized onions and said he wasn’t quite sure, something had come over him.

Addie had a mandate now. She raised a whisk and pointed it at Braverman.

“Now I believe that the way to anyone’s heart is through their stomach, and, my boy, I’m here to tell you, we are in the heart business. We’re going to reach deep past the menu and into the emotional power of food because a person comes back to a restaurant again and again for one reason only—to feed their soul.”

She chopped an onion fast, weeping as the aroma hit her eyes.

Braverman said, “If you light a candle near the chopped onion it takes away the eye sting—that’s what I do.”

Addie wiped her face and said that weeping just added more passion to the menu.

But she and G.T. were having trouble getting used to each other’s ways. Flo said it was like watching two dogs mark off their boundary lines in a field.

The worst face-off

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