The Secrets of Tree Taylor

by Dandi Daley Mackall

  10

  Deep

  D.J. grabbed his clipboard and keys. “Flee the scene, cats. Later.”

  I nodded. “See ya!” I called after Sarah.

  “Not if I see you first!” she called back.

  D.J. offered me a lift, but I had my bike.

  Pedaling just fast enough to keep moving, I gazed up at the sky. Through the clouds, I could make out both Dippers and the North Star.

  I took the side streets with the most hills. I never minded hills. I tried to keep the vision of the starry sky in my head. But the second I looked away, my mind filled with images of Mr. Kinney lying in a pool of blood shaped like Texas. True, I hadn’t seen him wounded and bloody. But I’d imagined him that way so often during the day that the pictures felt real.

  Then my brain shifted to Mrs. Kinney, clutching the rifle like it was hers.

  I turned onto Prairie Street. I needed to bike past Mrs. Gurley’s house, where the scent of her lilacs floated over the whole block like a lavender fog. I tried to let the stars and lilacs kidnap my mind so I wouldn’t think about the Kinneys anymore.

  But they were the ones I was going to have to write about. Stars and lilacs wouldn’t get me a spot on the Blue and Gold staff. True, most of the articles in the Blue and Gold covered boring school news. But every kid from seventh grade to senior, plus their parents, read that paper. And when Jack was in junior high, he said the Blue and Gold broke a big story about the civics teacher getting himself fired “on moral grounds.”

  If I wanted to be the one to break this story, I needed to get on it. By now, Randy Ridings would be out doing his own investigation.

  I felt pretty sure Dad wouldn’t tell Randy squat, though. So I might still have an advantage.

  When I turned onto our street, I could see Dad’s car in our carport. The old station wagon, which Eileen and I had dubbed Buddy, was showing its age in scratches and dents. I wheeled my bike in front of Buddy and saw that Dad had left his window open. Again. He was always doing things like that. We got at least three calls a week from some patient telling us Doc had left his hat after a house call. Eileen said our dad was the original absent-minded professor.

  I rolled up the window and reached for Dad’s hat, a tan fedora. Then I changed my mind and left it there. At least when Dad started looking for it, I’d know where to find it.

  “I’m home!” I hollered to an empty living room.

  “Hang up your wet suit!” Mom shouted from the bathroom. The bathroom door was closed, and wisps of smoke seeped from under the door.

  I had never seen a cigarette in my mother’s possession—not in her lips, mouth, or fingers. Not even in her purse. But a couple of years earlier, I realized that unless our bathroom was occasionally on fire, my mother smoked now and again. We never mentioned it, even though she knew that I knew, and I knew that she knew that I knew.

  I didn’t think Mom and Dad talked about the cigarettes, either, except in hints. Dad cut out articles from his medical journals that claimed smoking was bad for you. As far as I knew, Mom never acknowledged these articles, which he placed on her side of the bed. But I’d caught her reading them.

  Our family had other secrets like that. Nobody came right out and said that Grandmother Taylor had hated kids, but it was true, and we all knew it. Nobody ever explained why Cousin Virginia had gotten married while she was still in high school, and had a baby six months later.

  I had honestly believed that Eileen’s hair was Marilyn-Monroe-white-blond all on its own … until Jack convinced me to rummage in Eileen’s wastebasket after she washed her hair. I found a bottle of Liquid Sunshine hidden under some Kleenex.

  Who knew what other secrets lurked in the corners of the Taylor household? I just wished some of them could have been mine. It wasn’t that I couldn’t keep a secret—I could. It was just that I didn’t have any secrets of my own worth keeping—except maybe Summer Goal Number Two.

  I found Dad in the den, a tiny room carved out of the hallway outside his and Mom’s bedroom. To enter the bedroom, you had to go through the den. Dad had squeezed a little desk and one chair into the space.

  When I walked in, he stopped reading. He was holding a copy of the New York Times, which he usually picked up in Kansas City, from the same shop that sold my Mad magazines. “Do you know who Senator Mansfield is, Tree?”

  I almost answered, “A senator,” but I had a feeling Dad wasn’t in a joking mood. “Not exactly,” I admitted.

  “He’s the Senate majority leader. And he’s a brave man who’s getting sucker-punched by the media.”

  “How come?” There was only the one desk chair, so I could sit on the floor or stay standing. I stood.

  “Mansfield, like our own Senator Symington, started out believing America needed to become involved in Vietnam. But after flying there and seeing for themselves what was going on, they changed their minds. Both oppose the war in Vietnam now. And for coming to their senses, they’re being called ‘wishy-washy’ and a lot worse.”

  Months ago, I’d found an old issue of Life magazine in the bathroom and read an article, “Vicious Fighting in Vietnam.” I’d asked Dad about it, and he told me straight out why he was against Vietnam. The next day, I asked kids at school what they thought about Vietnam. Most of them didn’t know what I was talking about. But everybody said they were for America beating anybody, including Vietnam. I didn’t bring it up again at school.

  After I got home, I asked Mom if she was for or against Vietnam. She growled a little, like she was tired of Dad talking about Vietnam and now here I was doing the same. “America for the Americans,” she said. “That’s what I’ve always said. And that’s all I’m going to say. Now, go and wash up for supper.”

  I didn’t bring up Vietnam with Mom again, either.

  Dad swiveled his chair to face me. “Sorry. I have a feeling that’s not why you’re here.”

  I shook my head.

  “How’re you doing, Tree?”

  “Okay.”

  “About this morning, I wanted to say I’m sorry for yelling at you. I didn’t know what I’d find, and I wanted you safe.”

  “That’s okay.”

  “Well, I don’t know what you heard.…” He paused. Waited.

  My stomach tightened. What I heard? What I overheard? Had he seen me behind the cottonwood? Did he know I’d been spying on him? That I’d seen Mrs. Kinney with the gun?

  Dad looked down at his hands, which were clutching the arms of his desk chair. He had big fingers and knuckles, and calluses on his palms. Nobody would have guessed that he delivered babies and stitched up cuts with those hands. I knew that for a fact because when a carny at the state fair tried to guess Dad’s occupation by examining his hands, the guy guessed steelworker, gardener, and carpenter.

  Finally, Dad looked up again, and his face had changed from worried to not at all worried. It felt like we were playing that game where you frown, then pass your hand over your face, turning the frown into a smile. “Well, whatever you heard at the pool, just ignore it. I’m sure rumors are all over Hamilton by now.”

  I breathed easier. “That’s all people were talking about at the pool. I heard a lot of things about the Kinneys.”

  “Tree, haven’t I taught you not to pay attention to gossip?”

  “Yeah. Only how do I know it’s gossip if I don’t really know what’s true and what’s not?” To me, I sounded very logical.

  “Well, what have you heard?” The smile on his face was slipping back to frown.

  “Rumors were flying all over. Mr. Kinney got shot in the gut. Or the arm. Or the foot. A couple of people said he died in the ambulance.”

  Dad’s grip tightened on the chair arms. The chair creaked like it was in pain. “Nonsense. Foolish people like to talk about other people’s troubles. It makes them feel better about their own, I suppose. Alfred—Mr. Kinney—will be fine. He’s in the hospital, where they can keep an eye on him.”

  “How did it really happen, Dad?”<
br />
  “The accident?”

  I shrugged. “If it was an accident. Could you tell if Mr. Kinney fired the gun, or if maybe—?”

  “You can stop right there, Tree.” Dad’s voice had a quiet control I’d seen him use on other people. “I won’t have gossip repeated in my house. I get enough of it everywhere else.” He got to his feet.

  “But, Dad, I just—”

  “I’m tired. And I’m not talking about the Kinneys—not even to you.”

  “Then could we talk about it tomorrow?”

  “Let it go, Tree.” He walked out of the tiny room, taking all the air with him.

  11

  Game On

  Sunday night I sat at our card table with Jack and Eileen, playing Monopoly while our parents banged out a rousing rendition of “Sleepytime Gal” in the TV room.

  Almost every Sunday night, our family went over to Jack’s or he and his parents came to our house. The grown-ups played old music from the forties. And I don’t mean they played records. They played instruments—Dad on the trumpet, Bob Adams on the trombone, Mom on the sax, and Donna on the piano, singing along.

  For better or worse, we were the only kids in the world who knew every word to “Shine, Little Glow-Worm,” “It Had to Be You,” and “Chattanooga Choo Choo.”

  We’d done this for so many years that we’d progressed through playing with stuffed animals and blocks to playing War and Go Fish to competing in Monopoly and Wahoo and sometimes chess or poker. Jack said I could finance my college education through five-card draw and seven-card stud.

  If we got together early enough, Jack would round up friends for baseball or Capture the Flag. Unfortunately, Sarah could never come, because nobody wanted to drive her into town and then back out to the farm at night.

  A few times, Penny and her older sister, Karen, came over for baseball. But Penny acted like she was afraid of the ball, and Karen was way more interested in Jack than in sports of any kind. Their stepbrother, Chuck, showed up a couple of times. He was Jack’s age, but I got the feeling Jack didn’t care much for Chuck. And Jack liked everybody.

  Partly out of self-defense against our parental songbirds, Jack, Eileen, and I listened to our own records. We’d inherited Grandmother Taylor’s stereo when she died. It was built for Mom and Dad’s LPs, but if we popped in plastic centers, we could play our 45’s, and they sounded great. Eileen had a little suitcase full of records she’d bought with her babysitting money, and usually she was pretty good about sharing them. So no matter what else we did on Sunday nights, we played music.

  And danced.

  Except not Eileen. Jack and I had coached her to the point where she could pull off the pony and twist well enough to make it through sock hops without embarrassing herself.

  But Jack and I liked to rock-’n’-roll. I firmly believed that each new song brought its own new dance step with it. Like, if I listened right, my feet and body could follow the only rhythm possible for that song.

  Jack felt music the same way I did, which was why we loved dancing together.

  Now, as we played Monopoly and listened to our parents pound out “When the Saints Go Marching In,” I could almost believe nothing had changed. I hadn’t heard the rifle blast. Mr. Kinney hadn’t been carted away in an ambulance. And my dad hadn’t shut me down when I tried to talk to him about it.

  I shifted in my seat and heard a crinkle. I’d forgotten about the note. I reached into the back pocket of my holey, faded blue jeans and pulled out the typed note I’d found taped to the handlebars of my bike when I got home from church. I’d read it right then and there:

  To observe people in conflict is a necessary part of a child’s education.—Milton R. Sapirstein

  I’d known the minute I saw the note that it came from Jack. I wasn’t crazy about the “child” reference. But I figured he was just looking out for me, like always, in case the shooting on our street had freaked me out. I just didn’t know why he’d denied leaving it when I called to thank him.

  “Why won’t you admit that you left me a note, Jack?”

  “I’m telling you, you’ve got it wrong, Tree. Must be some secret admirer leaving you love notes.”

  I admit that I sometimes dreamed about Ray leaving me love notes, but this was not one of them. “Some love note. And some secret,” I muttered. It was like Jack to do something nice but not want anybody to know he did it. A week before my twelfth birthday, Jack left flowers for me every day. I had myself convinced the flowers came from Ray, and I tried not to let on how disappointed I was when I caught Jack red-handed with a fistful of red carnations.

  We’d been waiting for Eileen to pay up for landing on Boardwalk with three houses. As usual, Jack the Risk Taker owned most of the property and Eileen the Conservative had almost all the Monopoly money. As for me, I was simply hanging on, confident I’d come in second as soon as one of them lost. Jack helped by pretending not to notice when I landed on his properties.

  Jack turned to Eileen and held out his palm. “Anytime now.”

  Eileen plunked a fistful of small Monopoly bills into his hand. “There.” Her fingernails were painted the same color as Mom’s, bright red. They matched the dress she still had on from church, a red-striped shirtwaist with a white collar. I’d changed the second we got home.

  “Ouch!” Jack dumped the money and examined his palm.

  “What’s the matter?” I scooted my chair over for a better look.

  A cut ran about two inches across his palm, curving like another lifeline. It separated when he spread his fingers.

  “Cut my hand chopping beef yesterday.” He shook his hand, like he could shake off the pain.

  I couldn’t stand to think of Jack in pain. Paper cuts are killers. I couldn’t imagine what a cut from a butcher’s knife might feel like.

  Eileen-who-wanted-to-be-a-nurse disappeared, then returned with a bottle of sting. The antiseptic probably wasn’t named Sting, but it should have been. With all the bedside manner of a charging rhinoceros, Eileen shoved me out of the way and dumped half a bottle of that stuff onto Jack’s cut.

  “Yeow!” Jack cried.

  “Don’t be a baby,” said Eileen the Compassionate Nurse.

  “Does it hurt bad?” I asked as Eileen taped up his hand.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I mean, what’s bad to you might not be bad to me.”

  “That doesn’t make sense,” Eileen said.

  She said this at the same time I shouted, “Exactly!”

  I went on to explain. “Haven’t you ever wondered what other people’s pain really feels like?” I’d thought a lot about this. “I would love to invent a feeling machine that would let people trade pains—just for a minute—so we’d know what the other person was feeling. Like right now, I could press the machine into your hand”—I touched my small hand to Jack’s big one, palm to palm—“and I’d know exactly how you felt. Wouldn’t that be the coolest?”

  “Heavy,” Jack said. I could tell he was mulling it over.

  “I think that would be a drag,” Eileen objected. “I don’t want to feel anybody’s pain.”

  “And therein lies the difference between the Taylor sisters.” Jack grinned over at me. “I’d buy your compassion machine in a heartbeat, Tree.”

  Then he grinned at my sister. “And I’d buy you a heart in a heartbeat, Eileen.”

  She threw her little metal game-piece shoe at him. “Sometimes I hate you, Jack Adams! I quit.”

  Jack smiled after her. “I love your sister, Tree. She’d be lost without me.”

  With Eileen gone, Jack and I decided we wanted to do something outside. He called a couple of people before phoning the Atkinsons. After he hung up, he said, “Chuck said he’d drive the girls over.”

  “I thought you told me Chuck joined the army,” I said.

  “The reserves. He’ll be a weekend soldier. But he hasn’t started yet.”

  “Capture the Flag?” I suggested, remembering how awful Penny and Kare
n were at baseball.

  We waited outside until Chuck drove up in his old Chevy. He pulled too far onto the lawn. I just hoped he wouldn’t leave tire tracks.

  The night smelled like cut grass and the promise of rain. Only a handful of brave stars made it through the night clouds. I pulled back my hair into a ponytail to get ready to play.

  “Hi, Jack!” Karen jumped from the car before Chuck shut off the engine. She dashed up to Jack. “Dibs on being on your side.” Karen hadn’t dressed for baseball or Capture the Flag. She’d dressed for Jack. Her blue polka-dot dress hugged her chubby figure, the wide white patent leather belt straining at her waist.

  I met Penny and Chuck as they stepped out of the car. Chuck looked like a giant next to Penny. He might not have been taller than Jack, but he outweighed him. His hair was so long it hung below his ears, and his bangs hovered over his eyebrows. No army haircut—not yet, anyway.

  “You said you were dropping us off!” Penny was saying when I walked up.

  “Changed my mind. And don’t be so stupid, Mouse.” Chuck glanced at me, then strutted off to Jack. “Where’s Eileen? Man, don’t tell me she’s not home! I’d go AWOL for that chick.”

  I stood with Penny for a few seconds. A woodpecker hammered in the distance. Crows argued on the telephone wire across the road. “So, Penny, up for a little Capture the Flag?”

  “Sure.” She walked with me to the side yard, where Jack was setting up the flags and marking off prisons.

  “Ladies against gents?” Jack shouted.

  Karen groaned.

  “You’re on!” I shouted back.

  The object of the game was to get the other team’s flag and plant it next to yours. If you got tagged in enemy territory, you went to prison and could only get out if one of your teammates came and tagged you. The guys would have a big advantage when it came to capturing us. But with three of us, we could divide and conquer to get their flag.

  After two games, we’d each won one.