Treed

by Virginia Arthur

  Figuring they were vegetarians, she bought them pasta, peanut butter, bread, bagels, dried and fresh fruit, bottled juices, crackers, chips, cereal (powdered milk), non-meltable candy that could hold up well in a tree (or van), ice for their coolers, bottled water (they had a fit about)—even if they said they had plenty of everything. Joni adeptly ‘spidered’ down from the platform, now in place and about 50 feet up, to get what they didn’t store in the van. Still emotionally overloaded, drained, Maybelline told them to call her SOON. She was going home to Santa Barbara and yes, would get to the paperwork as soon as she could. With “we love you, Mom” ringing from the tree, she opened the door to her Jeep and left for home.

  Chapter 8

  She had to turn her music down, then off, every song eliciting memories, emotions. Worried about driving, she gave in, pulling into a dirt driveway where she got out and paced, cried, oak trees everywhere. It seemed unfair, this whole thing. She only wanted to stop in, have lunch with Millicent, get a hug, another Christmas card—how ridiculous it all was now! What if Oak was right and she didn’t actually own the tree? What utter insanity! Could he do something about it? Was he really an attorney, or close to…? That skinny, beaded, braided 30-something? In fact, she had no idea how old he was, forgetting to ask, Michael, her son. After about a half hour of ‘processing’ her angst at the end of somebody’s dirt drive, she continued the trip home.

  The neighborhood was quiet. Her neighbor, the stereotypical handsome commercial airline pilot, was 35,000 feet in the air somewhere. Normally the pet sitter for his cat, she would visit it anyway, any semblance of normalcy welcome at this point.

  She was pleased with how she always left her home when going out of town, straightened and clean. Her plants were happy, the bougainvillea in bloom and so bright. There were hummingbirds at her feeders. She was so grateful. What if she just decided to forget everything up there? She could. She could try; but she was too goddamned responsible, sensible. She got back to people, returned calls, emails, sometimes hating herself for it plus she owed it to her recently acquired son now living in her recently acquired tree.

  Unpacking, she set the real estate paperwork on the desk in the bedroom she used for an office. She couldn’t come near it. She fixed a simple dinner, baked potato, peas, a little sour cream on both. She poured herself a glass of Pinot, put on the jazz station. She went out on to her little patio and watched the hummingbirds. Later, she would visit the cat next door. In the morning, she would walk in the park. Here everything was as it should be for an old lady; peaceful, quiet, predictable.

  She thought how just a few weeks before, she could have died in her chair and no one would have cared, maybe Andy when he needed his cat looked after. She would make the papers as the stereotypical old woman discovered weeks later in her rocker, all that’s left is the decayed skeleton, stinking, rotten.

  Since Jay died, the past few fall and winter seasons, when the days grew short, there were days she didn’t get out of bed except of course, to go the the bathroom, grabbing wine and snacks from the kitchen on her way back to bed. When she would finally, officially, get up, say around two or three…with some self-disgust she would brush crumbs of cold chicken, popcorn, toast, potato chips, and whatever else on to the carpet. She would vacuum to hide the evidence only to go through the same non-routine routine the next day. Three or more glasses of wine sent her scrambling to find photographs. There was the trip they took to Ireland in 1983 to see Jay’s (remotely related) relatives after he did a little genealogical research. His ‘relatives’ lived on a farm ‘out’ in Cork County. They were not especially sophisticated people. One of Jay’s supposed ‘cousins’ enjoyed telling obscene jokes, particularly to Maybelline. After only a few days, they left. Jay never contacted them again.

  There was the photograph of the two of them in Madrid the year before. She is wearing a shoulder and neck brace, her face puffy, circles under her eyes. Her new flowered, flowery skirt that she loved so much didn’t quite make it out of the door of the taxi when she got out so when the driver went to pull away, she was spun around and slammed back into it. She lifted her head from the photograph, recalling Jay’s screams, of course, hysterical; his leaping onto the hood of the taxi to get the driver to stop. Once stopped, the ‘seasoned’ driver was horrified as were all the people who witnessed it. She remembered being surrounded by people from all over the world, all deeply concerned about her. Despite breaking her collar bone coupled with severe whiplash, mostly she mourned the damage to the skirt that was still hanging, never washed, torn and greasy, in the back of her closet. She spent most of their vacation in a Madrid hospital, Jay lovingly tending to her, refusing to sight-see, go anywhere else even when she insisted, awash in guilt. She received exemplary care for no cost. The taxi service offered her a settlement (a check for $35,000 American dollars) that they accepted, foregoing attorneys. The taxi driver insisted that Maybelline “si us plau, compra’t una nova i bella faldilla.” They tried to continue on with the trip but soon realized it was ridiculous, what with her in a shoulder harness and neck brace, not to mention the pain which she tried to mask for Jay’s sake.

  There was the photograph she loved, from the shop. She couldn’t even remember who took it, one of their employees? Ronnie maybe? Jay is in the background, goofing around. He’s holding a doorknob (he was tinkering with) against her back as if he’s opening it, her…She’s in the foreground, ‘on duty’, answering the phone as always. She has two pencils in her mouth while she’s writing something down, most likely an address. (Why in the hell she had two pencils in her mouth, she could not fathom now). Jay is smiling at the camera in such a way that he seems supremely happy, contented, in love with the woman with the door in her back.

  The next morning when her phones startled her out of a deep sleep, she thought about the idea of being found dead in her chair only now the thought was upside down—now there were people in her life, for better or worse, that cared if she was dead or alive, if only for selfish reasons. Maybe this is all a solo older soul can hope for—they care about you only because you are a link to something else, something they want; other than that, you can go dead. Nobody cares.

  She had to answer. What if that awful Tank man shot them? He did threaten this at the “public” meeting. Who the hell threatens to shoot anyone at a public meeting? More likely, it was Oak, wondering if she had scoured the paperwork yet. Or maybe it was Laura and Jim, offering to buy the land back from her now that Millicent was dead—do her a big favor and take the whole god-damned thing off her hands. Maybe it was the handyman Millicent recommended. Whatever, whoever it was, suddenly she was very popular.

  She turned off her cell phone and let the land line go to voice mail. Angrily, she got up and put on some coffee. Giving in, she walked into her office and grabbed the paperwork. Once the hot mug of coffee was tight in her hands, she climbed back into bed and laid the paperwork on her lap, fully acknowledging to herself that this was a stack of papers she should have already read.

  The landline phone rang again. She pulled the jack out of the handset and settled in to read.

  As she anticipated, there was a lot of language, jargon, she didn’t understand. This worried her. On the other hand, she didn’t see anything about timber rights, tree rights, logging rights…She would still get it all scanned, search the PDF, but so far there didn’t seem to be anything in it about trees (was this good or bad?). Two hours later and a sore ass, she got up, dressed, ate a little food, and went for her walk in the park. Thankfully, because she was not in the mood for idle chatter, something that once made up the bulk of her day, no one acknowledged her existence. When she got home she tried to finish reading it but found herself emptying the garbage, sorting recyclables, filling the hummingbird feeders, and moving some potted flowering plants to the front porch of her duplex. When she ran out of other ways to procrastinate, she started in again, finding nothing in any of it about trees, not one word.

  Cou
nting both phones, she had a total of five messages, the answer to her early morning question being “e” or ‘all of the above’.

  The first message was from Laura and Jim. They had “something” they needed to tell her “as soon as possible”. The second message was from the Planner I who suddenly also needed to talk to her. The third message was a garbled message from Oak and Joni she couldn’t make out. The fourth message was another message from Laura and Jim, this time explaining themselves; she probably did not own the tree and they needed to talk to her as soon as possible. The fifth message was from the handyman Millicent recommended. My my but wasn’t she so important now. All the love, caring…There would be no expiring in a rocking chair and not being discovered for weeks for her anymore! She made another cup of coffee and wholly uncharacteristic of her, dumped a shot of Jay’s bourbon into it. She called Oak and Joni. They didn’t answer nor had they set-up their voice mail yet. She wasn’t surprised. Next she called the Planner I and as she figured, the ‘ambitious’ young professional was ‘away from her desk’. She left a message. Then, dreading it, she called Laura and Jim. Of course, they answered.

  “Her emphysema was so bad, it was only a matter of time. Did she smoke when you knew her?” Jim asked.

  “Yes,” Maybelline answered. “And we didn’t like it then either.”

  “You two had just reconnected. It’s very sad. We’re pretty broken up even if we knew this was coming. You’re never ready,” Jim consoled, “but I better get to it. There’s something you need to know Mrs. Emmons—Mom sold that parcel right out from under us the day she sold it to you. Squirrel-Mart was flying in that day to make the offer with Laura. This is why she rushed you, not the least of which, she was dying.”

  He hesitated as if waiting for her to say something but she remained silent. He continued.

  “Something else too. Gosh, we’re so sorry. We know she didn’t want the tree cut down. She had sentimental attachments to it, the land. In fact, I remember roaming around on the old ranch as a kid. I sat under that tree too…,” his voiced trailed off. “I guess you and your husband and Mom and Dad would picnic under the tree?”

  “Yes,” Maybelline confirmed, fighting the urge to say, “just get on with it”.

  “This situation has devastated Laura, not the least because she is going to miss Mom but, well, Mom kind of ruined our first big commercial sale.”

  “She told me she started out only doing residential,” Maybelline affirmed.

  “Yes, but, uhm, she agreed to the whole thing. She knew she was dying and it would propel the company forward, insure Laura and my, our family’s financial future. Laura and I even got licensed in commercial which took a considerable amount of time and money.”

  “What choice did she have? I would appreciate it if you would just get to the point,” Maybelline pressed. Her cell phone was ringing. It was a number she had never seen before, possibly Oak and Joni. “Can you hold on a second? I have to get this call.”

  Correct, she told them she was on the phone with Jim, Millicent’s son, and he was about to drop a shoe, probably the really big shoe.

  “I knew it. I just knew it,” Oak commented. He paused. “Just lettin’ ya’ know we’re up. Testing our electronic overlord. I guess we’re good to go.”

  “Set up the voice mail, please. I tried to call you.”

  “There’s a little crowd below now.”

  “This is good and bad,” she heard Joni say into the phone.

  “Set up the voice mail. I’ll call you back.”

  “I’m back,” she informed Jim. “My apologies. Please go on but do get to the point. I’m pressed for time.”

  “Okay,” Jim said. After clearing his throat, he dropped it. “You don’t own the tree. This is what we need to tell you. You own the land, but not the tree.”

  Here it was, the shoe, the really big fucking shoe, dropping on Maybelline’s head like a stump. Rubbing her forehead with her free hand, she tried to stay focused on what Jim was saying.

  “Squirrel-Mart contacted us about buying the land nearly three months ago. They never made an offer but about every two weeks they would call to see if there was any interest from another party. Nobody else was interested. We didn’t get one inquiry aside from theirs. They have a lot of lawyers. They’re a big corporation so we figure in the meantime, they were doing over-the-top due diligence including a deep title search that revealed Mom didn’t own the timber rights. Mom was handling it so we didn’t know about it and we’re sure she didn’t either. Likely if the offer with Laura had gone through, they would have told us. In the meantime, no doubt through the grapevine, they found the Darden’s, Tank, and entered into some kind of agreement—”

  “Or did Tank contact them? Anyway, this explains his behavior.”

  “Well, Mrs. Emmons, it’s the Darden Family. They have been here for generations and for generations they have dabbled in everything related to land (destruction, she thought): gold mining, oil, logging, selling spring water. Whatever they can get their hands on really.”

  “He threatened people at the so-called town hall.”

  “What I heard is he threatened the protesters, one of which is your son?”

  “Seems to me he is a horrible man. Who could possibly kill that tree?”

  “This is the difference between living here for decades and returning after decades I would say because this is just how he, the family, is. They go back decades making their living off the land or I guess from destroying the land, depending on your perspective.”

  Like commercial real estate agents? Maybelline thought.

  “And he’s still upset, angry. Their time is over, this kind of business, but they’re hanging on kicking and screaming. You have to try and understand where Tank, the family is right now. They aren’t getting that California has changed, has so many more people, and you can’t just bulldoze through a creek anymore, fill it, log a slope with nary a care. They keep getting violations from all the agencies including the most recent for a water quality violation on a logging site, slope collapsed into the Gualala River. The state fined them and plenty. Pretty spectacular slide, washed downstream, killed fish—a real mess. They’re angry. Like I said their way of life, before we all came, is coming to an end and they just don’t get it. They don’t know any other way.”

  “So the bottom line is Tank and his family own the rights to cut the tree down and of course, you have seen the paperwork, confirming this?”

  “Well, no. There was no offer so there was no title search on our end but we know it’s not in the real estate paperwork you signed with Mom. I mean, we have already established none of us knew. We’re assuming the county has a copy of the timber rights but sometimes they approve things on a contingency basis but either way, the Darden’s have to prove they have the rights before they can cut the tree down.”

  “Or do they?” Maybelline asked. “What if no one has seen the paperwork, even the county, and considering the hot water they’re in, why would the family want to engender even more controversy by cutting down that beautiful old oak?”

  “They need the money pretty badly and why the hell not? Once they show the proper timber rights, they have full approval to cut it down. I’m sorry but the county doesn’t care if it’s a so-called landmark tree. It’s only one tree on desirable real estate surrounded by development on all sides and the fact is, the county approved it, zoned it as commercial, for commercial development.”

  “Yes, how could I possibly forget this after the public meet—”

  “Tank will make some money off the wood. Like I said, they’re, Tank is angry. Their way of life is coming to an end. I think you saw it at that public meeting. Maybe it’s symbolic for them or something—the last tree they will ever cut down, marking the end of an, their era. I don’t know. The general feeling is the pros outweigh the cons. It’s infill, ties into the surrounding area not to mention the people want the Squirrel-Mart.”


  “Oh, c’mon. The people that want that Squirrel-Mart, your mother admonished them by the way at the meeting, didn’t want it on their side of town but it’s fine on the other side, the poor side of town where everything is developed and degraded anyway.”

  Each was tacitly ignoring comments from the other that could have launched the conversation into WWIII, as if both were crossing a deep cold creek using only a single line of stones. They patiently follow one another, like civilized people, nobody’s pushing anybody off though it’s better to be the last person just in case. Eventually they both get tired and just want to get to the other side; there is some jostling, somebody falls in, the other person doesn’t turn around to look—just keeps going. The person who fell catches up, pissed off to the point where it crosses their mind to smash one of the stones into the other’s skull…

  At this stone, Maybelline’s comment, Jim ignored it and hopped to the next ‘stone’.

  “You’ve got to understand just how screwed-up this is. In all fairness to them, while Mom was selling you the land, Squirrel-Mart was flying in to make the offer with Laura. They TOLD us ‘something had come up’ and we’re thinking it was the timber rights thing. Now we’ll never know. They won’t talk to us, answer our emails, calls. They’re finished with us. They should be. I mean, my God, my own mother under-cuts her own real estate company, family. You could sue us for failure to disclose and no doubt you have already talked to a lawyer about it.”

  Maybelline smiled, thinking of Oak.

  “Well, actually, I have but just for my own edification. I’m not leaning this way. It seems to me you had no control over the situation, your mother’s determination. The situation is unfortunate, for all the humans involved anyway. It’s not a bad situation if we’re talking about saving the tree. Can Squirrel-Mart take legal action against you, the company?”