Hope and Other Punch Lines(68)

“Funny.”

“What’s it like being Baby Hope? I’ve been wanting to ask you that since the second day of camp,” Julia says as she loops around the table handing out napkins. She gives two to Livi, pauses, hands over a third.

“Wait, you knew?”

“Of course I knew. We all did.”

“Seriously?” I ask.

“I don’t know if you’ve heard of it, but there’s this really cool thing called the Internet? Some people even have it on their phones now,” Julia says. “You’re kind of a big deal in my family. My dad’s a history professor at Princeton, and he does this whole lecture about that picture and how its popularity is connected to our love of the myth of American resiliency. Also, my little sister and your frenemy Cat work together at Pizza Pizza Pizza over in Mapleview.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“You obviously didn’t want to talk about it. I don’t buy my dad’s argument, by the way. I think you were a cute little white baby with a balloon. Everyone loves balloons.” Julia shrugs, takes a bite out of her cupcake, like being Baby Hope is no big deal. Like who I am doesn’t change anything and it never did. “I was dropped by my girls junior year too. It’s a thing that happens sometimes. It sucked. No real reason. They got like sucked into field hockey and I wasn’t on the team and whatever. But want to know how I got revenge?”

“How?”

“I made better friends. Real friends. Ride-or-die friends.”

“To answer your question, I have no idea what it’s like to be Baby Hope. I mean, I’ve only ever been me. That’s sort of like me asking what it’s like to be you,” I say.

“Fabulous. That’s what it’s like to be me.”

“I never doubted it for a minute,” I say. And when she offers to show me pictures of Lifeguard Charles without his shirt on and oiled up at the shore last weekend, I do not say no.



* * *



—

“Are you okay now?” Livi asks me as I help her into her swimsuit and slather her with sunscreen.

“I am. I got the card you made me. I put it on my desk at home,” I say, and offer her a tissue to clean her always-running nose. She opts for my shirt instead. Just leans right in, all casual, for the nuzzle-wipe. I admire her shamelessness.

“You scared me. Please don’t do that again.” Livi pouts and puts her hand on her hip, in that exaggerated, practiced way of little kids. No subtlety.

“I’ll try not to,” I say, and she envelops me in such a big hug, she knocks me back.

“Did you know I have a picture of you as a baby in the bathroom at my house?” Livi asks.

“You do?”

“Yup. Every time I poo in the potty, I look at you. Isn’t that the craziest?”

“The craziest,” I say, and happily take her wet, snotty hand as I lead the group to the plake.



* * *



—

When I walk to my car after camp, Noah is already waiting in the passenger seat. I climb in next to him, and he grins.

“Open your hand,” he says, and when I do, he drops three gummy bears into my palm.

“Since we’re done with the Baby Hope stuff, what do you think about starting a new project?” I ask. Last night, when I should have been sleeping, I stared up at my ceiling and kept rereading the Mary Oliver poem I taped there. The meaning kept morphing, not unlike how a chair can turn into a monster in the dark and then right back into a chair. While I read and reread, an idea began to form.

“What did you have in mind?” he asks.

“It’s a little strange.”

“You’re a little strange. That’s why I like you,” he says.

“Full disclosure: It will not help you get into Harvard. It does not in any way involve comedy. And you cannot write about it for the Oakdale High Free Press.”

“You are really selling this thing,” Noah says. “I have one question: Will it involve spending more time with you?”

“Absolutely. It will definitely involve spending more time with me,” I say.

“Sold,” he says, and leans in for a kiss. I’m struck by how natural it all feels, Noah sitting in the seat next to me, his lips pressing against mine, how he has turned from stranger to lifeline in mere weeks. My arms wrapped around him like they know exactly how they should be.

“And Go!” I add. “It will involve spending more time with Go!”

“You know how I feel about Go! and her entirely superfluous exclamation point,” he says, now planting tiny, delicious kisses on my neck.

“And also…my grandma.”

Noah abruptly stops the kissing. “Oh. We were so not on the same page just then about the word project,” he says, laughing, and though his lips are no longer on mine, his fingers draw devastating circles on my thigh.

“What were you thinking?” I ask.

“No comment,” he says, and now it’s my turn to laugh. “Seriously, though, tell me what you have in mind.”

“I want us to do a series of interviews with my grandmother and record some of her best stories and memories before they all get eaten up by her dementia. I want to literally make them into tangible things. Do you think you can help me?”