Candy Raid

"Hope? Are you in here?"
"Hope?"

"Kitchen!"

"Oh dear Lord, I was getting scared. Are you ok? What's going on?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. Where are those little chocolate squares you keep hidden?"

"Um...I've got some stashed behind the flour. I ran into Greg Burrows at the post office this afternoon. He had an appointment and asked if you were feeling ok. Here, put these on top shelf while your rumaging in there. Sally told him you called in sick."

"Why do you buy rutabegas? No one likes these things."

"They're good for you."

"But no one likes them."

"I do. And someone stealing chocolate isn't really in a position to question my grocery purchases. Don't glare at me, what's going on?"

"I got up this morning and didn't feel like going to work. Then I felt like eating and I didn't want anything in my house. You always have tasty treats laying around and so I developed my most fiendish plan to date. I would wait until you left to run errands then pillage your house of all its tasty treats and be gone before anyone knew what happened. And now you've caught me so I have no choice but to raid you secret stash."

"Well that explains the mountain of Snickers and Milky Way wrappers."

"And you're out of Skittles."

"You didn't!"

"Fifth, I plead the fifth."

"What's going on Hope?"

"Nothing, I didn't feel like going to work and I wanted to snack. Let it go. What did Mr. Burrows say?"

"Well he asked about you and then spent ten minutes telling me how badly Sharon wants him to take her to Aspen and how he doesn't want to go. He started to tell me why he had an appointment but thank goodness the line started moving and he was next. That man has the strangest ailments."

"Most of it's in his head. He really should take her to Aspen."

"Please, she spends what money he makes at the Galleria. They can't afford Aspen. Well, he can't."

"I always thought she was nice. She made us brownies every year at finals."

"Oh come now, you don't believe she made those do you?"

"Yeah. But what do you know? Spill it."

"That woman has never been able to cook. She'd drive over to Tomball and buy those at some bakery on Main Street then put 'em in her own basket."

"Really!"

"For living here all your life you sure don't seem to know what's really goin' on."

"There's lot's of stuff happening in Tomball right now. Have you gone over to that new Target?"

"Ah, about a month ago I guess."

"What would you think if I moved over there?"

"Tomball? I think it'd be a huge waste of gas. It's not far, but driving it every day would sure eat up a lot of money."

"I know, but if I moved I'd find a new job. There's got to be an opening around the hospital."

"Hope, just what are you asking me? If you want a new apartment that's one thing, but if you're wanting to start over that's something else. Here, stop eating my chocolate and peel these potatoes for me."

"It's nothing, I was just thinking."

"You don't ditch work and sit around grazing all day long for nothing. What's on your mind."

"It's nothing really." "Do you ever wonder if there is more than Waller?"

"No. I know there is more than Waller out there. I know that opportunities and adventure abound just down the road. I also know whatever I may not like about this town waits at the end of any road I take away from here. It's just wearing different clothes."

"Aren't better clothes better?"

"No, they're just different. Lots of things happen here I don't like. This is my home though. In spite of whatever bad things happen I'm where I want to be. You're grandparent's are just up the street. Carl and Sunshine and the kids are ten minutes away. James lives in the Woodlands and you are here. Why would I want to be someplace my family isn't?

I've been here for fifty years and my family fifty years before that. Friends, church, all the things I care about most live and breath and work right here. There isn't a party on Sixth Street in Austin wilder than some of the ones around here. The California stars don't get half the attention the floozies in town get. A&M and Texas don't throw any more support behind their teams than we do on Friday nights yelling for the bulldogs.

You know that. You've lived it. It seems hypocritical for you, of all people, to bemoan it."

"I'm not a cheerleader anymore mom. I haven't been one for eleven years."

"So what are you?"

"I don't know." "Do you want me to cut these?"

"Just in quarters. I'm making mashed potatoes." "You know Hope, I'm willing to bet that stack of empty candy wrappers that you're problem is you don't know. You haven't known for a long time and so you're here. Of course when you only exist, anything looks better than Waller Texas."

"When's dad getting home?"

"Same time he always does." "What do you want to do honey?"

"I want to eat your candy without playing twenty questions."

"You can't have that. You eat my candy, you answer my questions."

"And now you know why I tried to sneak your candy."