Hope is a luxury not everyone can afford.
 

The boy had a speech defect and at first she didn't understand him. "Pardon? I'm sorry, could you please ask me again?" she said. She smiled when she said it.

The boy looked around the busy fast food restaurant as if checking to see if she were talking to anyone else. They were alone in one corner of the big room. He turned back to her and smiled wide, the tip of his too tall, too narrow tongue showing.

She waited, smiling.

"Oh," he said. "Are you dozhe kidj mommy?" He pointed with a fat-fingered hand toward two children playing in the room added on to the restaurant especially for that purpose. The two kids had the tunnels and ladders and chutes and platforms to themselves. Their laughing, shouting voices could be heard through the glass wall.

"No," she said, still smiling. "I'm their -- nanny -- babysitter, you could say."

"Oh," he said. He seemed to wrinkle up in thought. From his tortured expression it might have been painful. His neck twisted; one arm up, one arm down and behind him, he leaned so far sideways that his left foot turned under him and he almost fell.

He caught himself with a jerking sidestep. A gamut of strange distorted expressions flashed across his face; surprise, dismay, embarrassment, shame and finally, anger. "Zhtupitt. Zhtupitt." He pounded his own thigh with one balled up fist.

"Stop that," she said in a level tone. She smiled at him still.

He paused, staring at her.

She smiled wider. "You don't want to hurt yourself."

He thought about that. "Zumdimezh I do," he said.

She had to concentrate to understand him. She shook her head. "No, you don't really want to hurt yourself. If you did, you would have let yourself fall down. That would hurt a lot more."

He stared. Then he grinned, a wide empty grin with his lips stretched to almost cover his teeth and his tongue moving in his mouth. He laughed. "Gug, gug, gug."

She laughed with him, a quiet gurgle.

He stopped laughing but she continued to smile. He smiled back, his face and eyes lit up with enjoyment of the joke she had made. "Dat was funny," he said.

She nodded but held her fingers up, only an inch or so apart. "A little bit funny."

He tried to nod but his neck twisted. He half turned away from her while one arm reached for her and the other yanked at the neck of his pullover shirt.

She sat, waiting, smiling. The book she had been reading lay open on her lap, spine up. From her seat, she could see the whole playroom and still face the boy.

After making grimaces toward a far corner of the room, he turned back toward her. "You jood be zumbottie's mommy."

She didn't know if he meant could or should. "I'm not old enough. And I'm not married, yet." A reply that would fit either case.

He laughed again, as if she had told another joke. "Guh, guh, guh."

She didn't, but he seemed not to mind that, enjoying whatever humor he found without her participation. Still, she smiled. Her eyes burned with the effort, but she smiled.

"You're kind of like a mommy," he said.

"Thank you."

He nodded, resisting an effort by his body to turn him sideways again. He shrugged and stretched his neck. "You're welcome," he said. He looked toward the children in the playroom. "A boy and a girl," he said.

"Yes," she said.

"Girls can grow up to be mommies."

"Yes, some of them can." She said. "Some of them do."

He frowned, his face folding in a parody of an ordinary frown. His eyes disappeared in wrinkles, his mouth turned down, his lips curled and protruded. The cords in his neck stood out. "All girls can. Boys can't," he said.

She didn't contradict him but she didn't agree either. She smiled and waited.

He turned, looking at the far corner of the room again, studying it. "When I was little, like them." He waved at the playroom, his arm pumping, hand fluttering, fingers grasping. "When I was little," he said again. "I wanted to grow up to be a mommy."

She smiled, though perhaps her eyes widened just a little.

"They said I couldn't, because I was a boy. They said I would grow up to be a daddy. But they lied."

She didn't say anything while he cried. She didn't smile but she didn't say anything.

He wept, "Ug, ug, ug." Tears ran down his cheeks and a plug of mucus appeared and disappeared in his nose.

She took her big nanny's bag from the floor and handed him a tissue from deep inside it.

He took the tissue and blew his nose. "Denk'oo," he said. He balled the tissue up and stuck it into the pocket of his jeans, missing twice. "They lied," he said. "I'll never be a daddy. They don't let stupid kids like me be daddies."

She opened her mouth but changed her mind and said nothing. She got another tissue from her bag. She looked for the children in the playroom. They waved at her and she waved back. She kept the tissue in her hand.

The boy waved at the kids, too. His fingers worked like an infant as he moved his elbow up and down and wagged his head side to side. "I didn't want to be a daddy, anyway. Daddy's go to work and yell and sometimes they have to hit people."

She pressed her lips together but said nothing, just looking at him, waiting for whatever he had to say.

"Mommies have babies and cook and take care of you when you're sick. I wanted to be a mommy but they told me that I'm not a girl." He looked at the floor, showing her nothing but the top of his head. "They lied," he said.

He finally sat in one of the bolted-down chairs next to a bolted-down table near the middle of the room. He turned away from her and his shoulders moved like he might be crying without making a sound.

She waited but he didn't turn around. She wiped her eyes and nose with the tissue in her hand and put it into a small plastic bag. She got another tissue out and stood up to take it to him.

He turned his head a little. She held out the tissue and he took it, wiped his eyes and nose and put it into his pocket with the other one.

She glanced at the playroom then positioned herself again where she could see both the boy on the chair and the children playing in their separate room. "My name is Nadie. NAH-dee-ay. I'm from Russia."

He stared. He licked his lips. "Nah-DEE-ay from Rutcha." He smiled.

She smiled. "If you were a little girl, what would your name be?" she asked. She smiled but it was a serious smile, not an I'm-making-fun-of-you smile.

He twitched, considering. He stared at her, his deepset eyes seeming to burn with some emotion. "Alitch. I like the name Alitch."

"Alice?" she repeated.

He nodded in his contorted way. He looked around to see if anyone had heard them but they were still alone in their corner of the busy room.

"Pleased to meet you, Alice," she said. She put out her hand in a very American way.

He grasped the tips of her elegant fingers in his thickend pudgy ones. "Pleased to meet you, Nah-DEE-ya." He smiled.

Someone with their arms full of bags of food called, "Ed? Where's Eddie?" Several children followed the woman, surrounding her with their distorted faces, too short arms and legs, staring eyes and hollow expressions. Two of them pointed at the corner.

"That's me," he said. He looked as if all hope had been crushed from his body by a weight greater than he could ever bear. "Ug," he said. "Guh. Gug." He stood up, shuffling toward the woman with the bags of food. His shoulders curved down and forward, he thrust his head forward, too, and worked his tongue in his mouth.

"Eddie, come on. We're going to the park to eat. Won't that be fun? Come on, Ed. He hasn't been bothering you has he, miss? Eddie, you shouldn't bother people you don't know." The woman with the bags rattled on. She had a companion; another woman with more bags followed, making sure all the human beings in her charge made their way toward the door.

"No," Nadie said. "We're friends, Alice and I."

Neither busy woman heard her but the little girl who never was and never would be turned and smiled at her.

"Goodbye, Alice," Nadie whispered. She waved, holding her palm up and wiggling her fingers like a baby. Alice waved back the same way and then went out the door to go eat in the park with her other friends.