Raising Hope Read Online Free

Jim McPherson calls from a counter stool. “Can I settle up with you here? I gotta get back to work.”
    “I’m coming.” Ruth hauls herself out of the booth and hustles over to the counter. “Keep your pants on.”
    Ruth is busy today. She rings the cash register for Mr. McPherson, telling him not to spend all his change in one place. Then she serves cherry pie to two police officers sitting at the booth closest to the door. When our food comes up, she brings it over. It seems she never gets a rest from wiping tables, taking orders, and bringing out food.
    When we’re ready to leave, Ruth won’t take Sara Lynn’s money for lunch. It’s a little dance they do, where Sara Lynn puts down money to pay and Ruth ends up practically throwing it back at her.
    “You’re being ridiculous,” Sara Lynn says as she shakes her head and puts her money back in her purse.
    “I’ve always thought of you as the ridiculous one,” Ruth shoots back. She wipes her forehead with the back of her hand and asks me, “What’s on the agenda for this afternoon?”
    “Swimming at the club,” I tell her.
    “No mall?” Ruth asks, throwing up her hands and acting like she’s amazed.
    “Nah.” I wrinkle my nose. “It’s such a nice day that I want to be outside.”
    “Sara Lynn, she looks just like you when she does that, when she squinches up her nose.” Ruth touches Sara Lynn’s arm.
    Sara Lynn smiles slowly, her eyes widening, like Ruth just gave her a present. Now, it’s obvious to anyone with eyes that I look like Ruth. But it makes me so happy that Sara Lynn would want for me to look like her and that Ruth tries to make Sara Lynn feel good. It makes me feel like my heart is growing big inside me, and I want everything to stop right here so I’ll always be just this happy and bighearted. I want to burst out with all my love for Ruth and Sara Lynn, but that would be beyond stupid, so I just say, “See you at home for my party tonight, and don’t forget I want yellow cake with chocolate icing.”
    Yellow cake with chocolate icing; yellow cake with chocolate icing. I’m humming a little birthday tune in my head as Sara Lynn and I walk into the country club. I’d skip if I weren’t too old. That’s how much I love my birthday.
    “I want you to wait a half hour before you swim, Hope,” Sara Lynn reminds me, shifting her tennis bag on her shoulder. “You did just eat.”
    I sort of nod and shake my head at the same time, my way of getting her off my back but really saying, “I’ll do what I want, thanks anyhow.” I’m going to jump in the pool the second she takes her eyes off me and goes over to the tennis courts. What does she think, that I’m going to drown on my birthday?
    When we get to the locker room, I shimmy out of my shorts—as much as a person can shimmy when they don’t have any hips—and I happen to look over at Sara Lynn. As she’s pulling her sundress over her head, my eyes can’t help but notice how her body curves so softly and prettily in just the right places. I step into my red tank swimsuit and wish the bottom weren’t pilling so much.
    “Put your sunscreen on,” Sara Lynn orders. She’s standing in front of her locker in her white tennis dress, rubbing thick, gooey lotion onto her arms.
    “I don’t know where mine is,” I lie, picturing it in the third drawer of my bathroom cabinet at home. “And besides, I’m tanning.”
    “Here.” She squeezes some of her lotion onto her fingers and rubs it into my cheeks, like I’m a little kid.
    “I’ll do it.” I scowl, grabbing the bottle from her hand and halfheartedly rubbing the sunscreen into my skin. “Satisfied?” I ask as I hand the bottle back to her.
    “You’ll thank me when you’re older,” she tells me, putting the sunscreen in her locker and shutting the door firmly.
    I guess.
    When we walk out to the pool, Sara Lynn disappears behind the row of high shrubs dividing the pool from the tennis courts. I make sure she’s