If You Loved Me Page 5

  She paused just long enough in her cleaning job to pull her car keys from her pocket and toss them to me.

  I’ve never run so fast in my whole life as I did that day. Over rocks and muddy places, up rises, down the hill. I didn’t even slow down when I came to the parked car—just banged into it and opened the door in one quick move. At first I couldn’t get the phone to work. I dialed 911 over and over and nothing happened. Then I figured the phone battery was dead, but it might work if I started the car. I was only thirteen, so I sure didn’t know how to drive. I had to do something though. The nearest house where I might use a phone was at least a mile away.

  I slid behind the driver’s seat, put the key in the ignition and turned, pressed the gas pedal, and it started right up. Then I dialed again and this time it worked. I told the dispatcher where we were and how to find us, then turned off the engine and ran back up the hill with all the speed and energy I could manage.

  When I got back the baby was wrapped in my sweatshirt and Grams had her whole mouth over the baby’s, breathing into it, feeling its chest rise, letting the air come out and then breathing into it again. I’d never seen a brand new baby before, but I was pretty sure the bluish color of its face was not a good sign. It sputtered and Grams pulled back. We watched as it took irregu­lar, gasping breaths.

  Grams gently rubbed its head and arms, crooning to it that it was going to be okay, everything was going to be all right. I wasn’t so sure, but Grams sounded as if she believed it.

  It seemed like hours, but it was really only a few minutes, when we heard the siren in the distance, getting louder and louder.

  “Go meet them,” Grams said, and again I took off. About halfway down the trail I saw them running up, lugging equipment. I turned and ran back, with them following right behind me, to the spot where Grams and the baby were.

  Then everything started happening—they used a suction thing to be sure there was a clear air passage and then there was an oxygen hookup and a heart monitor and someone talking on a two-way radio giving the baby’s vital signs and passing on instructions. I noticed as they let my sweatshirt fall away and placed a soft clean blanket over the baby that it was a girl. I don’t know why, but right then I wanted to cry. Maybe I was thinking about what a hard time it was for me when I was born, and wondering why some kids have to have such hard times. For sure the little baby on the trail didn’t deserve to be dumped and left, like a piece of worthless garbage.

  Off to the side one of the paramedics was talking with Grams and taking notes. She, the paramedic, motioned to me to come over.

  “Tell me exactly what happened, from your perspective,” she said.

  So I did. Just the way I’m telling you right now. Except I left out the part about how sad it made me.

  Pretty soon the paramedics had the baby secured on a small stretcher and were hurrying with it down the hill. Grams and I followed them to the hospital and we were treated like next of kin, with nurses coming out to report on the baby’s condition.

  Someone, a doctor, or nurse, or paramedic, started calling the little baby Hope, and the name stuck. The newspaper said “Hope” was a perfect name for the trail baby, because as long as there are people in the world like me and my grams, there’s hope for the future. Without us, or someone like us, the baby would have had no hope. For a while my grams and I were treated like heroes. Really, it was Grams that saved the baby, but she always reminds me that I was the one who heard it. The mayor honored us both at an annual luncheon of local people who’d done important things. We each got trophies and also our names are engraved on a plaque that is displayed in a glass case at City Hall. The Red Cross also honored Grams because her basic knowledge of first aid had made the difference between life and death for Baby Hope.

  But here’s the thing that really, really, shocked me. It turned out that Baby Hope was the daughter of Sarah Mabry, who was this super popular girl at Hamilton High. She’d been Homecom­ing Queen, and was even pregnant then, and nobody knew, not her boyfriend, or her mom, or anyone. When she started having contractions, about three weeks after Homecoming, she drove to the foothills, walked halfway to Clark’s Peak, gave birth to the baby all by herself, and dumped it under a bush along the trail.

  When the police started trying to figure stuff out, they found the afterbirth a little farther down. Really, they found it because of all the turkey vultures flying around and swooping down. Yuck! It makes me sick to think of it.

  About a week after we found the baby, the police had pretty much figured out whose it was. Sarah confessed and had to go to court—there was a picture of her in the paper, head down, hands over her face, right next to the picture of her as Homecoming Queen. Right then, even though I didn’t know Sarah, I knew her life was ruined. And I promised I would never do anything to let myself get in such a mess.

  It is after two in the morning when I finish the “Baby on the Trail” draft. This is the one I’ll turn in to Harper—not the rotten mother druggie story. It’s easier to think about the baby on the trail—to think about Hope.

  I’ve told a lot in this draft, but I haven’t told everything. I haven’t told how ever since that day, if I’m worried and confused about my life, I go back to that exact place on the trail. I think about Baby Hope, and how her desperate mother left her there to die. Usually I take my journal and write, sitting by Hope’s bush. Being there, writing, helps me figure out how to do what’s right.

  I could tell about that in my autobiography, but so far I’ve kept my visits to Hope’s place a secret. Not that people don’t walk past it all the time, but it has a special meaning to me. Tyler doesn’t even know that I go there. Amber doesn’t know, either. It’s where I helped save a life, and it’s sort of a sacred place to me.

  No one knows where Baby Hope is living now, or what her new name is, or who adopted her. Sometimes I wish I could see her. I keep track of her birthdays. She’s nearly four years old by this time, and whenever I see a four-year-old, I try to figure out what Baby Hope would be like now. I’m glad no one knows where she is, though, because I don’t want Hope to know her mother didn’t love her.

  As much as Grams and Tyler love me, I always know I started out as a reject. I especially remember that I’m a reject when things aren’t going well, or someone’s mad at me. I know how much that hurts, and how it robs a person of a certain happiness, or security, or something. It’s good that Hope will never know she started out as a reject.

  Before we turn in the first drafts of our autobiographies, The Harp has us read our opening sentences out loud.

  “We’re only going to read that one first sentence. No discus­sion. No judgment.”

  Tyler’s is “You don’t know me without you know I’m hungry to taste life.”

  A perfect first sentence for Tyler. That tasting life business is what keeps him and his mother mad at each other. Tyler wants to bungee jump, and snowboard, and eat sushi, and ride a motorcycle. His mother wants him to be safe and not do anything with the slightest risk. Secretly, I’m on his mother’s side. I’m big on safety. But part of what I love about Tyler is his sense of adventure, and how he wants to dive into life. Even with plants—he wants to know everything about them, and experiment with new ways of planting, and feeding, and pruning—stuff even my gardening grams doesn’t think about doing.

  Blake’s first sentence is, “I bet you don’t know me—don’t know the depths of my soul or the height of my fantasy.”

  Kelsey’s is, “You don’t know me because I hide from you.”

  All of the first sentences are interesting. Some are surprising. But if there were a prize given for most shocking, it would go to Shawna. She is the last to read her sentence.

  “You don’t know me without you know my father is a royal asshole!”

  It’s as if the whole class stops breathing, waiting for what’s next. The Harp is cool. He keeps the same noncommittal expres­sion he’s worn for all the other first sentences. Then he collects the pape
rs.

  For the rest of the period, we work in groups. Tyler and I, along with Megan, Kelsey and Blake, are in the group that’s supposed to be getting ads for the Connections publication. It won’t come out until May, but there’s a whole lot to be done before then. Most of us in the class are seniors, and we want this to be the best magazine ever.

  “We should try that new karate place, over near the park,” Blake says. “A high school magazine would be a perfect place for them to advertise.”

  “Do you know anyone there?” Tyler asks.

  Blake shakes his head. “Do I look like I hang out with the karate crowd?”

  Kelsey says, “No way, Blake. You’re too fat for karate.”

  Blake laughs, but I wonder if his feelings are hurt. That’s Kelsey though, all talk, no thought.

  “Well, you want to give them a try?” Tyler asks, ignoring Kelsey’s remark.

  “Sure.”

  Tyler adds “Karate Studio” to the list of places to contact, and writes Blake’s name beside it.

  “How’d you do with Chic Boutique, Kelsey?”

  “Fine. Like it?” she says, standing and indicating her new sweater set and matching skirt.

  “He means did you get the ad, Airhead,” Megan says with a laugh.

  Kelsey sits down. “Not yet, but soon. The assistant manager just has to convince the manager.”

  We spend the rest of the time deciding who’s going to try to sell ads at which places, and arguing about whether it’s better to go in with someone, or alone.

  “Alone seems more professional,” Tyler says.

  “Yeah, but we’re not professional. We’re kids,” Megan whines.

  “What do you think, Virgo Lauren?” Blake asks.

  I throw my pencil at him. “You never forget anything, do you?”

  “You don’t know me without knowing I’m a Capricorny with a big moon rising,” he says.

  That gets us all laughing. I don’t know why. It’s not really that funny, but Blake is funny, just the way he says things. And Tyler has a cute kind of snorty laugh, and that always gets the rest of us laughing, too.

  Harper scoots a chair into our circle and sits down. He watches for a moment, indulging us, then asks, “How many ads have you sold?”

  Tyler hands him the page. Harper glances at it, hands it back.

  “Well, it’s early yet. Don’t forget to hit up your relatives, even down to the third cousins, once removed.”

  “What’s that mean?” Kelsey says.

  “It means ask everyone in the world to buy an ad,” Megan tells her.

  “Right,” Harper says. “We can’t print this baby without money. No lucre, no literature.”

  “Lucre?” Kelsey says.

  “Money,” Megan says. “You should be paying me to inter­pret.”

  “Well, how’m I supposed to know what lucre means? I never took Spanish, you know,” Kelsey says, all indignant.

  Harper laughs a kind of sad laugh, then says, “Maybe you will be in my novel after all, Kelsey.”

  “Cool,” she says.

  “Don’t forget those business card ads. They don’t look as good as the larger ones, but at least they’re something. Also, try asking them, if they don’t want to place an ad, would they like to make a donation.”

  Harper moves on to the next table and we list more ideas for ad sales.

  The last ten minutes of the period are for group reports—how the cover contest is coming along, what arrangements can we make with the school print shop, who’s doing word processing and proofreading—the business of putting it all together. That’s how it goes in here on Mondays and Wednesdays. On Tuesdays and Thursdays we read submissions, short stories, poetry, es­says. We rate each piece in a secret ballot. Then we discuss it. Then we rate it again. Everything is submitted anonymously, to keep the voting based on merit rather than popularity.

  On Fridays we take turns reading our own work and making comments. No matter what else we do though, everyday, every­day, everyday, we write for fifteen minutes. “Writing calisthen­ics,” Harper calls it. “Torture,” Kelsey calls it. But I’m used to writing.

  I started writing a sort of diary way back when I was seven years old. I’d have probably started earlier, but I didn’t know how to write that many words until I was seven.

  After school, Tyler and I, and Blake, go down to Barb ’n Edie’s to try to sell an ad for Connections. Barb ’n Edie’s is this kind of dumpy place which has been a hangout for Hamilton High kids since the first time bellbottoms were in style. It doesn’t look like much, but the garbageburgers and the onion rings are about the best in the world.

  “I hope Edie’s in today,” Blake says.

  “I agree. If Barb’s there I think we should leave and come back when we can catch Edie.”

  “Barb’s okay,” Tyler says. “You just have to understand her.”

  That’s how Tyler is—he thinks everyone is okay if you just can understand them. I love him for that, along with a lot of other things.

  “You talk to her then,” Blake says.

  “No problem,” Tyler says.

  When we open the door Barb is at the counter and Edie is nowhere to be seen.

  “She’s all yours, Tyler,” Blake says.

  “First we have to buy something,” Tyler says, leading us toward an empty booth in the back. “Principles of basic sales­manship. First have a business transaction on the potential buyer’s own territory, then they’re more likely to later do business with you on your terms.”

  “I can hardly wait to sell an ad to the Acura dealership. Which model do you think we should buy?” Blake says, all sarcastic.

  “Very funny, Blake,” Tyler says. “But you’ll see. What’ll it be? French fries? Onion rings?”

  We decide on onion rings and sodas and Tyler goes to the counter to order. I watch him talking with Barb. Her frown turns to a smile, then I hear her laughing. Tyler has this way with people that makes everyone like him.

  “What was wrong with your friend, Amber, the other day?” Blake asks.

  “Oh, just girl stuff.”

  “I like to know about girl stuff,” Blake says.

  “Well, you’ll have to ask Amber if you want to know about her girl stuff ’cause what she told me was confidential. Why are you so interested, anyway?”

  “I love her from afar,” Blake says.

  I laugh, but he doesn’t and I get this strange feeling that he may not be kidding.

  “She’s off men,” I tell him.

  “But the fire still burns,” he says, quoting from some poem.

  Tyler comes back juggling onion rings, sodas, and a filled-in ad form. He puts the food on the table and waves the ad form in front of us.

  “Half page, top price plus an added $10 donation!”

  “You da man!” Blake says, high fiving Tyler.

  “You da man next!” Tyler says.

  “Or, you da woman next,” Tyler says, high-fiving me. “You’re always the woman,” he says more softly, putting his hand under my hair and rubbing my neck, warming me.

  “You’re always the man,” I tell him, taking his hand and holding it against my cheek.

  “Gimme a break! Give it a rest!” Blake begs.

  “Jealous?” Tyler asks.

  “No, just having a reaction to the sugar overload.”

  We all laugh, then turn our serious attention to the onion rings.

  Our next stop is Century Books and Stationery. We agree that I’ll take this one, because I buy books here sometimes.

  “Then you can take the pet store, Blake, ’cause of your big puppy eyes,” Tyler laughs.

  “No, because I like to pet,” Blake says with a leer.

  “Don’t be juvenile,” I tell him.

  Inside the bookstore I ask the guy at the cash register if I can see the manager. He points in the direction of a small office in the corner of the fiction department. “Mr. Swallow,” he says.

  Blake and Tyler thumb thro
ugh magazines while I go back to the office and knock on the door. I get all shaky when I have to talk to strangers, especially if I’m trying to sell something. But I keep telling myself it’s important for us all to do our part—I have to do my part. I knock on the door and hear a gruff, breathy voice say, “Enter.”

  I push open the door and it’s like I’ve stepped back in time. A fat old man with low-riding reading glasses is sitting at a heavy wooden desk with an old-fashioned green shaded lamp. There is no computer, and the telephone is black with one of those rotary dial things.

  I take a deep breath and remember to introduce myself, the way we practiced role-playing in class.

  “I’m Lauren Bailey,” I say, extending my hand toward the old man. He doesn’t reach out to shake hands with me, and I’m not sure what to do with my hand now that it seems to be hanging out there in the air. We didn’t role-play that part. Slowly, I bring my hand back to my side.

  “I’m a student at Hamilton High and every year we publish a collection of student art and writing. Would you be interested in advertising . . .”

  He doesn’t let me finish the sentence and when I try to hand him an information sheet, with prices and ad layout examples on it, he won’t even look at it.

  “I donated money to the choir tour last year and no one bothered to send me a thank-you note,” he says.

  I think he must have emphysema or something, because he keeps coughing little coughs, and taking short, fast breaths.

  “We’re a different group,” I say.

  “Ingrates. No manners.”

  “This is a literary . . .”

  Again, he cuts me off. “I’m busy,” he says, making a sweeping motion with his hands, as if to sweep me out the door.

  “I buy books here,” I tell him, in a desperate attempt to get through to him.

  “You don’t look like a reader,” he wheezes, again doing the sweeping thing. “I’m busy now,” he says.

  I leave, slamming the door behind me. My face is hot with anger and my heart is beating hard and fast. I march over to where Blake and Tyler stand talking. When they see me they stop.

  “Wow,” Blake says. “I guess that went well.”