Hope Was Here: Chapters 7–13

Steadfastness is the best trait for a father, in my opinion, and believe me, I've studied the species.

You can look up the word “thief” in the thesaurus and come up with a slew of even better slams to help you work out your intense feelings.

Gleason Beal is a...
...robber.
...stealer.
...purloiner (I like that one).
...larcenist.
...pilferer.
...poacher.
...swindler.

You can look up the word “thief” in the thesaurus and come up with a slew of even better slams to help you work out your intense feelings.
Gleason Beal is a...
...robber.
...stealer.
...purloiner (I like that one).
...larcenist.
...pilferer.
...poacher.
...swindler.

You can look up the word “thief” in the thesaurus and come up with a slew of even better slams to help you work out your intense feelings.
Gleason Beal is a...
...robber.
...stealer.
...purloiner (I like that one).
...larcenist.
...pilferer.
...poacher.
...swindler.

Hope is...
...belief.
...credence.
...faith.
...trust.
...confidence.
...assurance.

I love watching people sit down. There are ploppers, slammers, sliders, swivelers, and my personal favorite, flutterers, who poise suspended above the seat and move up and down over it before finally lighting.

Stepped over the legs of a burly construction worker that were stretched out in the aisle.

“Basically,” Sid Vole explains, “the whole messy game of politics is about trust. Search for leadership in the age of cynicism..."

“I think your best shot is to stay above the fray. Be Mr. Clean.”

Adam half rises in vindication.

I speed off to the galley, where I’m about to call in the order.
The hash and eggs are already frying.
“I heard,” Addie says.
The sweet synergy of food service.

That’s when the front door opens and into my life pours an army of laughing, boisterous men who announce they’re all from the Elks Lodge and boy are they hungry.

Addie was with me, spitting mad about G.T.’s Election Board hassle; browbeating the local growers in her search for proper tomatoes and meaningful garlic.

I walked to the parking lot to accost newcomers.

Their leering faces made me sick.

He smiled so the photographer could get a shot of him being folksy.

The Bad: There are no tall buildings—anywhere. Food-wise, except for Addie, think Dark Ages. No Thai, dim sum, jerk chicken. No museums either.
The Oblique: There's this guy I work with and I'm trying to figure him out.

Braverman said G.T. would bring honor and humility to the office.

My heart was thub-dubbing as I recited my mother’s Number One Cardinal Rule of Waitress Survival—DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, DATE THE COOK.

She ate one of Addie’s serious double fudge brownies that connect people instantly and told me that Braverman needed someone stalwart like me because his last girlfriend dumped him before she went off to college.

Addie had a mandate now.

Cecelia Culpepper told Braverman that his articles sounded more like editorials.

He needed to report the facts, be a “dispassionate observer of the political scene.” Braverman said that anyone who was dispassionate about this election was brain-dead.

Now, I don’t think G. T. Stoop means to be doing this town any harm, but I believe we need to let him know that running for mayor with no experience and leukemia is making a travesty out of the office and is insulting the voters.

But G.T. went for broke and challenged the people: “Eli’s been going around telling you that everything I’ve said was false. Either I’m the biggest barefaced liar you’ve ever met or I’m not. You’ve got to decide.”

And Deputy Brenda Babcock, crime-fighting ace, raised a humble hand like it was no big deal that she’d just saved the Welcome Stairways from scandal, asked me to keep her cake for later, and marched out the door holding that salad bowl that was sure to reveal major mouse tampering and God knows what else.

The biggest contributor was Slick Bixby; the cheapest was Mrs. Scarlotti of Scarlotti’s World of Cheese, who gave a measly five dollars with that thriving cheese store of hers.

Thought of the high waves of my mom leaving me.
The big winds of Gleason Beal that almost capsized me.

Sometimes I think he likes me and other times I don’t think he does and I’m finding the whole thing really irritating.
Miffed in Mulhoney.