Joy Argento - Carrie and Hope by Joy Argento Read Free Book Online Page B

bring anyone home with him.” She thought about it for a second. “In fact, I think this is the first one. He would bring girls around when he was in high school, but hasn’t brought one home from college before.”
    “So, was that okay with you?”
    “It was fine. She seems like a really nice girl. I like her. I wouldn’t mind him hanging onto this one for a while.” Hope helped herself to another cheese puff. “Derrick has a really off beat sense of humor and she seems like she can keep up with him just fine.”
    “Oh, I wonder where he gets that from,” Carrie said with a grin. “That’s good. Humor is important.”     
    The two new friends talked without so much as a lull in the conversation until the timer went off on the stove thirty minutes later.     

     
    *****
    “This is delicious,” Hope said after taking a bite of lasagna. Is this your grandmother’s recipe, too?” She cut into her food and watched a piece of cheese oozed out onto her plate.     
    “No, I got this recipe online.” Carrie sipped her wine and dabbed at her mouth with her napkin. “My grandmother is…was…is…more of a baker than a cook.” She hesitated. “It sounds stupid to talk about her in the past tense when she is still around.”
    “How is she doing?”
    “The same. It really doesn’t look like she is ever going to wake up. But, there’s a piece of me that is still holding out hope. You know what I mean?”
    “I know exactly what you mean,” Hope nodded as she spoke. She continued to enjoy the food as they talked.
    “I know it’s dumb. I know what the reality of the situation is. But I can’t seem to help it. My mother acts like Gram could wake up any minute. She refuses to face this.” Carrie poured a little more wine into her glass.
    “That must be very hard on your mom. It’s her mother, right?” Hope took another slice of fresh Italian bread from the basket in the center of the wooden table. She buttered it with homemade herb butter from a small glass bowl.
    “Uh-huh,” Carrie said. “They were never very close and I think my mother is feeling really guilty about that now.”
    “You have a brother, right?” Hope used her piece of bread to soak up some tomato sauce from her plate.
    “Actually, I have two brothers. My brother Todd is in the Marines, he’s stationed in Okinawa right now. My brother Sammy lives with his wife and kids in North Carolina. They came to see my grandmother when this first happened, but they couldn’t stay long because of their jobs and the kids’ school.”
    “And what about your dad?” Hope asked.
    “My dad left when I was ten. The last I heard, he was remarried and living somewhere out West. I don’t hear from him much and that’s okay with me. He wasn’t much of a father when he was around.” Carrie finished her glass of wine and refilled the glass with filtered water from the pitcher on the table. “So what about you, do you just have the one sister?”
    “Yes, Marcy is my only sister. She is ten years older than me, so at times she acts more like my mother. Well, at least she thinks she has the right to act like she’s my mother. She tends to be very opinionated and bossy. I know she means well but sometimes she drives me crazy.”
    “My brothers are both younger than me, so I get to boss them around. Those are the rules. The first-born gets to be the boss. I believe it’s on my birth certificate.”
    “That explains my sister’s behavior then.” Hope nodded her head and smiled.
    “Are you from around here originally?”
    “Born and raised. My parents still live in Penfield. That’s where I grew up. Of course it was mostly farmland when I was young. We lived right next door to a horse farm. It is so built up now. There is a bank or drug store on every corner.”
    “Do you see them often?” Carrie asked. She ate another bite of her bread.
    “I see them every couple of weeks or so. My dad comes over and helps me with things around the