Hope and Other Punch Lines by Julie Buxbaum

Author:Julie Buxbaum
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2019-05-07T04:00:00+00:00

“All right, okay, so yes, I teared up,” Noah says once we are safely back in the car. “You should know I’m a sap. I also cry at toilet-paper commercials and those videos of soldiers coming home and surprising their families.”

“If you hadn’t felt anything watching that woman cry over her dead husband I’m pretty sure that would mean you were a sociopath.” I make no move to put the key in the ignition. My arms are too heavy, my throat too tight. My chest sends little sizzles of pain straight through to my lungs. I’m reminded of all the reasons I didn’t want to play Baby Hope with Noah.

“Why are we doing this?” I turn to face him. His eyes are now dry. I suspect he wiped them on his sleeve, as I did mine. I wonder what he looks like without the protection of his glasses. If his big, kind eyes seem even bigger. “I mean really? Why?”

“Which this? Me eating this whole bag of Oreos? I may not even share.”

“Come on. This, as in ripping open old wounds. This, as in blackmailing me to do it with you.” I’m full of big questions today.

My picture hangs above Sheila’s toilet. She chooses to remember every single damn morning when she looks in the mirror. To take the worst thing that ever happened to her and transform it into something powerful and productive. To become a better person.

I’m not sure I am strong enough to do that.

I look at Noah, but he looks away.

“I won’t tell anyone you’re Baby Hope,” he says, so low I almost can’t hear him. Sheila gets up each day and laces up her black sneakers and takes a train into the city like a warrior heading into battle. And yet she’s leveled by the memory of holding her dead husband’s hands. I bet she, like me, dreams of empty boxes underground, of thick dust, of how the entire world can unravel in the span of a single minute.

All it takes is a tiny, inexplicable tear in the fabric of the moral universe.

I wonder if she ever looks at that Baby Hope photo and instead of remembering to be grateful, she gets angry about being left behind.

I wonder what Noah sees when he looks at that picture.

I wonder what tattoo he would really want to get.

I wonder why the hell we are doing this.

“I wouldn’t have sold you out. If you don’t want to do the rest of the interviews, I understand. I won’t tell anyone at camp either way. I was never going to,” he says. “I want you to know that.”

My stomach hollows at Noah’s words. He won’t tell. Still, there’s no relief, only a blast of regret. It turns out I don’t want to stop doing this. I like riding in Go! (the name for my Prius that I’m secretly trying out in my head) to previously unexplored parts of New Jersey with Noah. I like having him as my copilot.

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