The Hope Store Page 5

  And in this exact moment I decide I’m going to do it. I’m going to get me some of that hope juice.

  It will be my own secret science fair project. And I will prove to the world that The Hope Store is an epic fail, fool’s gold, snake oil for suckers. Maybe I’ll call up that freelancer guy from the café to write an exposé on the Hopeless Store. It will be my revenge on those damned makers of all those miracle cures that never saved me from nothin'. What was that weird guy's name, uh, uh, it was a funny name, something Matters. I think I still have his card somewhere.

  I’ll put the hefty fee on my credit card and pray it doesn’t get declined, and with any luck I’ll have successfully suicided before the bill arrives. I go to my laptop and visit The Hope Store website. I send an email saying that I would like to make an appointment for 9 a.m. sharp. Good thing I’m in bed early. I set my alarm clock. I lie in bed and shut my eyes, but I don’t sleep. I never sleep. I haven’t slept in years.

  LUKE

  12. SHAME ON YOU

  Once again Andrew Konstant steps into the bright lights holding his microphone like it is the Torch of Truth. Everyone at the party is a bit star-struck to see him. He looks into the camera with all the swarthy good looks his parents have given him and speaks: "We're back. I'm reporting from the opening night for The Hope Store, the first store in the world that claims to sell hope over the counter. Joining me are the store's creators Kazu Mori and Luke Nagano. First of all, let me say congratulations again on this momentous occasion. I know you two have been working on this for some years. This is your baby, as it were."

  Our eyes adjust to the camera lights and there is Andrew with his disarming smile. "Thank you, Andrew. Yes, this is our baby and we are its proud fathers."

  Andrew continues to probe. "For The Hope Store to offer some kind of artificial hope in an era where real hope is in such short supply is nothing short of brilliant. I give you that. I do." Andrew hasn't blinked and I wonder if that is something he learned in broadcasting school. Never let them see you blink. "But of course, and pardon me for saying so, but if The Hope Store fails to deliver, or if it's some kind of scam – then shame on you. Dr. Trenton Kohler, Director of Biotechnology at the University of Chicago goes as far as to accuse The Hope Store of taking advantage of the hopeless and profiting from their suffering. Care to comment?"

  I take a swig of champagne and swallow slowly, attempting not to feel defensive. "Andrew, you're absolutely right. If we were getting people's hopes up for nothing -- that would be cruel. It'd also make for a terrible business plan." I laugh, but Andrew remains poker-faced. "As for exploiting the hopeless, the benefits of the treatment will speak for themselves. I can only say that Kazu and I know first-hand the devastating effect of hopelessness. Over the years, we've lost some very dear friends and family to suicide. If The Hope Store can give even a tiny ray of hope to the hopeless – we will have succeeded."

  Kazu adds, "We firmly believe we've stumbled onto the real thing, and we can't wait for the world to find out just how real it is."

  "So can you tell us more about how the hope process works?" says Andrew.

  Kazu and I trade glances. "We also believe that the less one knows about how the procedure works – the more effective it is,” I say. “Kazu and I agree that you just have to experience a hope installation for yourself. If anyone wants to take the plunge, go to our website…TheHopeStore.com and schedule an appointment. We're very excited to begin our work here in Chicago."

  Overall, Kazu and I are pleased with how the event is going. Technically April is supposed to be managing things. She is the office manager after all, but the only thing she's managing to do at the moment is flirt with a hunky catering dude, the one in the tuxedo with the faux hawk. She is one of those people who was born without boundaries, a gypsy of a gal. At one point, I note we are running out of champagne and ask April to run over to Binney's. She says, "This is The Hope Store. Why don't you just hope for more champagne?"

  "Because, sweet April, we don't believe in wasting our hope on tasks that we can just as easily delegate to you." She sticks out her tongue at me playfully and goes on her errand.

  As my eyes scan the store, I note several of the local media have arrived. I need to circulate. I approach Madeline Worth of the Chicago Tribune. "Madeline, I'm so glad you could make it tonight. I know you had a conflict with the Steppenwolf opening."

  "Mr. Nagano, I presume?" I nod. She is a bright woman who got canned from one paper for getting too frisky with an interviewee. They're married now. When does an interview become a date? I look around the room but all I see are Tsunami waves and earrings.

  Madeline takes a bite of an hors d'oevre constructed out of a sliver of sourdough bread and goat cheese studded with pistachio nuts. "So what are we actually going to see tonight, and when are we going to see it? I'm a very busy woman. I still might try to catch the second act over at Steppenwolf if there's time."

  "Well, my partner Kazu and I will talk a little. And then we'll give a tour of the premises."

  "Is Kazu your lover? If so, you make an adorable couple." Madeline has never been known for her subtlety.

  "I prefer the term partner. Lover sounds like all we do is lie in bed making love and eating grapes. Which is of course exactly what we do, but that's no one's business but our own." I flash a smile. "Excuse me, Madeline. I see NPR is here --"

  "Whatever you do," she said, her lips dusted in goat cheese crumbles, "please do it in the next fifteen minutes. It will be intermission soon!"

  By evening's end, Kazu and I are exhausted. Kazu says his face hurts from smiling so much. We stand by the door thanking our guests for coming. As people spill out onto the sidewalk, there is suddenly an odd sound. Wild, laughing-in-church kind of laughter. Kazu and I go outside to see what the commotion is about. Guests are pointing up at the store sign. The sign now reads:

  THE HYPE STORE

  A sheet of paper containing the letter “Y” has been strategically taped over the “O” in our sign. Photographers are taking pictures. Kazu is mortified. And that is when Andrew and his public television crew emerge from the store. “I just hope that Andrew doesn’t look up,” I say to Kazu. But of course, Andrew looks up. His cameraman swings around to get a wide shot.

  In a jovial voice, Kazu announces: "Looks like we have some young hoodlums in the neighborhood. Perhaps if they had a little more hope, and a little less beer -- they might find a more constructive use of their talents." The crowd is laughing with him.

  Still I know it is possible that images of this vandalism could wind up in print or online tomorrow. I approach Andrew. "You aren't going to use that footage of the sign, are you?"

  He smiles. "I'll have to see how it all works out in the final edit. I think we got some good stuff tonight."

  "Yes, I think you did some fine reporting, Andrew. I'd just hate for the word 'hype' to be associated in any way with our store."

  "Don't worry. It was great meeting both of you. Good luck on the store. Seriously."

  I reach out to shake his hand. "My pleasure. Let me give you my card, in case you have any questions." In one sweeping motion, I pluck my business card out of a pocket and tuck it into the pocket of Andrew's sport coat. And with this simple gesture – the two of us have become inextricably linked.

  When we finally get home Kazu and I head straight to bed, for tomorrow we will open the store to our first customers. In bed in the half-dark, we exchange our last few words.

  “Who do you think could have messed with our sign? Do we have any enemies you know about?” Kazu asks.

  “None that I can think of. What about your fellow scientists? Do you think anyone of your colleagues might be jealous that The Hope Store could be a hit?”

  He laughs. “I won’t name any names, but there are plenty of competitive, jealous and fairly unstable personalities who work in America’s laboratories. There are good folks too, but lots of characters.” I smile at his candor. “The thing is, it would have to
be someone who would be able to get to the sign. Someone had to use a very tall ladder from the sidewalk, or maybe they messed with the sign from the second floor.”

  “Yeah, all the tenants in the building have access to the second floor for storage,” I say. “I wonder if there are any tenants who don't want us in the building.” I lean over and turn on my sleep machine which plays the sound of falling rain in a Brazilian rain forest. As I lie in bed, I am aware this is not the first time I have kept a secret from my partner.

  There is one big secret I've kept from Kazu that I worry will catch up with me one day. It’s about how I came to know Kazu. When we met at LiveWell Labs, I learned that my response to the hope installation was average. I could see my days in the clinical trial were numbered. Surely Kazu would find me infinitely more interesting if I was a Super Responder, someone whose hope response was breathtaking.

  I wanted Kazu to find me breathtaking too. So I faked my super response.

  Some nights I fear I will start talking in my sleep and confess all my sins. If that ever happens, I'm in trouble big time.

  Kazu and I lie in comfortable silence in our man-sized bed, assembled lovingly according to the IKEA instructions. We are horizontal in bed with only the light of the moon pouring in through the window. I think of the decades that preceded Kazu when I was single, wondering if I'd ever settle down with a life partner. I didn't think I was capable of having a long-term anything. Those were my days of no hope. Then I met Kazu and now look at me. Look at how easy it is. It's mystical and mysterious, love is. It happens when it happens. As my microscope-gazing hubby says: Energy can neither be created nor destroyed. It can only change forms. And what is love if not energy?

  See how this works? Tip a man over and all his secrets pour out.

  No rest for the wicked. One soft opening down. One public opening to go. Monday is just days away.

  JADA

  13. IMPORTANT MEETINGS

  God, what time is it? I wonder. 2 a.m. It's a time when lovers are cuddling and rapists are raping and insomniacs like me are studying the cracks in the ceiling the way palm readers study the lines in a hand. Is there a future up there for me, or just cracked plaster? It's times like this I’m glad Otis doesn't live with me. Why ruin someone else’s sleep just because mine is ruined? Adding to my usual insomnia is my sense of anticipation that I am going to get my hope installation tomorrow. I know Kazu Mori is a smart man, but the idea of a hope store still sounds like science fiction to me, like those sea monkeys they used to advertise in the back pages of comic books.

  And now I’m thinking again about the freelance dude I met at Rendezvous. Blair Matters. I get out of bed and turn on a lamp, start looking through my purse, scanning the surface of my desk. There it is: his business card. I see it lists Blair’s email as well as phone number. What the heck. I’m not falling asleep anytime soon. I turn on my laptop and start composing an email:

  Dear Mr. Matters,

  You probably didn’t expect to hear from me. Or maybe you did. I met you recently at Rendezvous Café. You were good enough to keep an eye on the cute little mischief-makers I was babysitting. And you gave me your card. To be honest, I have never needed a freelance writer in my life. Until this week.

  Please let me know if you could meet me soon at the café to talk about a possible project that may be of interest to you. I have googled you and see that you have some expertise in writing consumer protection pieces.

  Jada Upshaw

  I hope I won't regret it, but I give him my cell number too. I place Blair's card into my wallet. I turn off the lamp and climb back into bed. I've been on unemployment now for two years and it's about to run out. I keep getting foreclosure notices for the tiny, over-priced condo I call home...so I suspect that means my next stop is the streets of the Windy City. Yikes. And what little money I make under the table by transcribing the therapy sessions of the chronically hopeless? That goes straight to cigarettes and coffee. Now someone in the unit above me is walking around in high-heeled shoes. Who does that at 2 a.m. except maybe a hooker? I poke the ceiling a few times with a broom handle and wonder if that's where the cracks come from.

  Most people don't know about my endless weekends when the only human contact I have is the Domino's delivery guy. Or nights like this when I try to fall asleep to the sounds of a life being lived one floor above me. Oh, Miss High Heels, promenading back and forth. Do you think you’re in some kind of fashion show? Maybe I should put on my high heels and promenade with you.

  There's nothing to really keep me here on planet earth. I’ve got no anchors. I try to be positive, to hope for things, only to get doors slammed in my face. If I ever manage to snag another job interview, I hope they ask me that awful question: "Where do you see yourself in five years?" I'll say: "I don't see myself anywhere in five years except six feet under." And I will take a picture of the interviewer's face with my cell phone, for that will surely be a Kodak moment.

  My friend Simone is a shrink. I saw her a few weeks ago for coffee and she lent me a book that was filled with stories of transformation…individuals who changed into whole new people thanks to pills or therapy or sheer brute force. Each story reads like a fairy tale to me. My favorite one is about an older woman who is a widow. The woman is convinced that each night when she lies down to sleep, there is a man under her bed. The man mutters things she cannot understand at first. Then the woman’s doctor prescribes Seroquel which is good for schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, mania, and a whole host of stuff. And low and behold, soon the woman comes to understand what the man is muttering. He is saying, "Did you lock the door?" These words terrify her. They are so personal, so threatening.

  The next night the man under the bed says to her, "Would you like some hot chocolate?" This utterance is almost funny, but now she knows who the voice belongs to. These are the things her late husband used to say right before turning in for the night. After the meds fully kick in, the voices go away completely. She starts to miss the voices, but there is nothing the doctor can do to bring them back.

  There are no pills to start the voices; only pills to stop them. Part of me wonders if a hope installation could have helped.

  Later today I will look around my place for my art supplies. I will create a diorama of The Hope Store out of construction paper and glue, make little action figures of Luke and Kazu out of clay. Little voodoo dolls I can stick pins into if they fail to flood my brain with hope juice.

  I remember back in fourth grade, I entered our school’s science fair. My plan was to create a diorama of the Great Chicago Fire and show how the fire could have been prevented with the help of science, or at least how the fire could have been contained. I managed to dig up a stray shoe box in my mother's closet and pulled off the lid. I set the box on my desk so that the open side faced me.

  How carefully I girl-handled those scissors to produce the paper silhouette of Mrs. O'Leary, her naughty cow that started the fire, and the oil lantern. I used little pieces of Cap'n Crunch Cereal to stand in for bales of hay in the barn. My teacher Mr. Epstein thought it was brilliant. But my favorite part was the fire itself, of course. The fire was conjured out of a combination of shreds of orange and red tinfoil, black construction paper, and sprinkles of gold glitter. When the judges saw the finished product, they were speechless. The fire looked alive, combustible, beautiful. They had no choice but to give me first place.

  Many years later, Mr. Epstein told me that the judges secretly found the diorama disturbing. They worried that it somehow celebrated the fire itself, instead of bringing focus to the importance of good fire prevention habits. But how do you tell that to a nine-year-old girl without discouraging her? They didn't say a word to me that day. The judge leaned over and pinned that blue satin ribbon to my sweater, and the students in the auditorium actually clapped for me that day. No one has ever clapped for me like that again.

  I turn the lamp back on and start to search through my closets. There must be an empty shoe box in
here somewhere. When am I going to organize my closets? One thing is clear to me: I am not getting to sleep tonight.

  I am at Rendezvous Café sitting at my regular table drinking an Italian soda with mint Torani syrup. The emerald green beverage looks amazing, the ice cubes which bob below the surface resemble floating jewels. Blair Matters strolls in.

  “Thanks for making time to meet with me on such short notice,” I say.

  “I’m happy to do it. I knew you couldn’t stay away from me forever.” His flirtatious manner is off-putting, but right now I need his services more than I need his good behavior. “How can I help?” he says.

  Blair takes a seat across from me, tossing his messenger bag to the floor.

  I start my pitch, choosing my words carefully. “Remember you said I should keep your card in case I ever needed a freelancer?” He smiles. “Well, I think I need a freelancer. Have you ever heard of something called The Hope Store?”

  Blair’s eyes widen. “Have I ever. They’ve been on my radar since clinicals started some years ago.”

  I take a gulp of my drink. “So do you think it’s really possible to install man-made hope into people? It sounds kind of crazy to me.”

  “I’ll go you one better and say it sounds dangerous.” He pulls out a small notepad and starts taking notes. “So where do I come in?”

  “This might seem a little…strange…”

  “I like strange. Strange is good.”

  “I want you to help me prove that The Hope Store is a scam. Blair, I’ve been hopeless my whole life and experts have tried to hypnotize me, electric-shock me, medicate me, meditate me, I’ve tried holistic and I’ve tried the holy ghost. I’m telling you none of these things has ever given me one single day of hopefulness. I’m sure The Hope Store is no different.” I look at Blair to see if he’s with me or not.