The Secrets of Tree Taylor

by Dandi Daley Mackall

  I took my hula stance and started the hoop. Our California cousin, Barb, sent Eileen and me Hula-Hoops months before anybody in town had even heard of them. It took me forever to get the hang of keeping the yellow plastic hoop twirling around my middle. But now I could keep it spinning all day.

  By the time Dad came home for lunch, it had stopped raining. Still twirling my Hula-Hoop, I moved out of the way so he could get his car in. We hadn’t talked much since Saturday, when I’d tried to ask him about the Kinneys.

  I turned up “Duke, Duke, Duke, Duke of Earl.” Great hula music. Plus, Dad really liked it. Most of my friends’ parents hated our music, but not Dad. He kept his radio tuned to WHB, same as me.

  Hatless, Dad climbed out of the car. He left his suit jacket hanging on the hook over the backseat window and slammed the driver’s door closed. Then he stretched like his back ached. His white shirt looked wrinkled. He hadn’t turned around to see me, and for a second I didn’t think he was going to.

  “Hey, Dad!” I tried to sound normal, hoping he’d forgotten about my Kinney gossip.

  He glanced over his shoulder. “Hey, Tree.” Then he walked into the garage. He didn’t even ask how I was doing.

  But half a minute later, he strolled out with Eileen’s pink Hula-Hoop. “This might be just what I need for my aching back. I’m always after my patients to exercise more.” He dropped the hoop over his head and wiggled. The hoop landed with a smack on the cement drive.

  “Step into it, Dad.” I stopped my hoop so I could demonstrate. “Hold it with both hands like this, to one side. Then start it spinning, moving your hips back and forth. Let your hips flow in a circle until you catch the rhythm.”

  “Got it.” He stepped into the hoop, grabbed it, wiggled. The hoop did half a spin on his waist, then dropped. “Good exercise bending down to get the thing, I suppose.”

  “Try starting it counterclockwise.” I wanted Dad to be able to make it work. But more than that, I loved that he tried. Especially now, with me. “Put your feet farther apart.”

  The song ended, and the top-of-the-hour news blared. I didn’t pay any attention to it, but I did hear the word “Vietnam.”

  Dad’s hoop almost made it all the way around his waist. He shook his head, breaking the rhythm, and the hoop plunked to the ground.

  “Don’t give up, Dad. You’ll get the hang of it.”

  “Maybe.” He sounded so down.

  “You really did almost get it to spin that time. Don’t worry.”

  “Hmm? What?” He picked up the hoop and tried again. “No. It’s not my lack of Hula-Hooping skills I’m worried about.”

  I waited. Something was bothering him. I just hoped it wasn’t me.

  The radio started playing music again. I kept my hoop spinning and held my peace until the Beach Boys got halfway through “Surfin’ Safari.”

  Then Dad broke. “ ‘Advisor,’ my eye! Twelve hundred ‘advisors’ sent to Vietnam? How can they call those young boys advisors? They’re soldiers. Sent with guns over to a country where nobody wants them. And to people who wouldn’t take their advice if they offered it, which they won’t because they’re trained to shoot and kill. I tell you what, Tree. Sometimes I think the whole world’s going crazy.” He shoved Eileen’s Hula-Hoop around his waist so hard that it spun three times before crashing at his feet. “Most of those poor boys don’t even have a clue where Vietnam is before they get there.”

  Dad sounded so depressed that I didn’t want to tell him that I had no idea where Vietnam was, either. Except that it had to be far away from America. “They’ll be okay, though, won’t they? America’s never lost a war, right?”

  He picked up the Hula-Hoop and tried again. “This isn’t like the big war your mom and I fought in. Or World War One, the war your grandfather fought in. Vietnam is nothing but hills and jungles and rice paddies … and dead bodies. We rushed in, and we haven’t the vaguest notion of what that culture is like, what those people are thinking.”

  “Dad! You’re doing it!” The Hula-Hoop circled Dad’s waist, clicking against his belt buckle and wobbling over his wide striped tie.

  “I’ve got it! I can Hula-Hoop!” He suddenly sounded more thrilled than I had been the first time I caught on.

  One more reason to love my dad—not that he could Hula-Hoop but that he was so excited about it.

  As soon as Dad left to make a house call, the rain started up again. I’d just turned on the TV when the phone rang. Nobody answered it, so I shut off the television and answered it myself. “Hello?”

  “Tree, is that you?”

  I was pretty sure it was Wanda on the other end of the line. Only I couldn’t remember a single time when she’d called me, except maybe to get the language arts assignment, which she hadn’t heard because she was too busy flirting with Ray. “Yeah, this is Tree.”

  “Good. Because I need to talk to you.”

  “Wanda?” It was definitely her voice—nasal, like a permanent whine.

  “Duh,” she said, as if I was the stupid one for not recognizing the voice of the Great Wanda right off. “I want you to know that I saw you talking to people at the pool Saturday and asking dumb questions about the Kinneys.”

  “So?”

  “So,” she continued, “I know what you’re trying to do. And you’re only going to be disappointed … and embarrassed.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Wanda,” I lied.

  “Right. Like it’s not obvious that you want my job on the Blue and Gold next year?” She laughed, the way a grown-up would laugh at a little kid. “Don’t get me wrong. Aunt Edna—Mrs. Woolsey to you—didn’t pick me because she’s my aunt. I—”

  “She’s not your aunt,” I said.

  “Then why do I call her Aunt Edna?”

  “I don’t know. So you can get on the Blue and Gold staff maybe?”

  “Very funny, Tree,” Wanda said, not laughing.

  “Thank you. And I really should be going, Wanda.”

  “Not until I tell you why I called. Look … Tree, you are not a reporter. Even if you did write something about the Kinneys, nobody would ever read it.”

  I tried not to take in the words coming through the phone line. “Are you done?”

  “Don’t be that way, Tree.” Wanda pulled out her syrupy sweet voice. “I think it’s cute that you were trying to conduct interviews. Ray thinks so too.”

  Ray? I couldn’t help picturing them together at the pool, their towels overlapping.

  Wanda was still talking. “… so we both think now is the time to burst your bubble. This way, you won’t get shot down during school, with everyone looking on. We don’t want you to have to go through that. Tell me you understand?”

  “I understand, Wanda. Goodbye.”

  I hung up, and for a second my head fogged. I was an inch away from crying.

  But only for a second.

  I understood Wanda, all right. She’d never call me for my own good. Everything she’d said had been calculated for her own good. She didn’t want me to write a great article about the Kinneys. Because if I did, Mrs. Woolsey—aunt or fourth cousin twice removed—would have to choose me for the Blue and Gold. And not Wanda.

  I would write that article. I’d show Wanda, Mrs. Woolsey, and everyone else that I could do it. Wanda may have thought she’d warned me away from writing, but, man, was she wrong. That phone call made me more determined than ever to get to the truth and write something that even Mrs. Woolsey couldn’t ignore.

  Thank you, Wanda!

  With new resolve, I went back to writing. Eileen hadn’t come out of her bedroom when the phone rang, so I figured she was holed up studying. That left the kitchen table free. I spread out my notes and got comfortable on the breakfast bench.

  I wanted to capture the first moment I saw Mrs. Kinney with the rifle. That one thing—the fact that she was the one with the gun—had turned out to be my secret. In spite of all the gossip going around town, nobody except Dad and me
had seen her holding the rifle. And Dad still thought he was the only one.

  I decided to approach things from a different angle. In English, we had to pick out figures of speech in novels. But my favorite assignment was to make up my own similes and metaphors.

  Mrs. Kinney was as stiff and sinewy as the cottonwood beside her house.

  She clutched her baby, a rifle, hers alone for now.

  She was a faded dishrag, wrung dry but left twisted.

  “Tree, are you still here?” Eileen stopped in the kitchen doorway. She had a giant textbook pressed to her chest. She could have been headed for school, hair combed, wearing a polyester shirtwaist dress with her initials monogrammed on the front pocket.

  I was wearing cutoffs and a plain white T-shirt. “Um … am I here?” I glanced down at me. “Guess so.”

  “Did Mom leave already?” Eileen whined. “I think I hate the human circulatory system.”

  Now that she’d earned an early acceptance to Mizzou’s nursing program, Eileen was all about testing out of beginning courses. At the end of summer she’d go to Columbia and take a giant test designed to weed out the dummies from the brains. Nobody who knew Eileen doubted that she really would study all summer, ace the test, and earn advanced placement in every course.

  But Jack and I still couldn’t see Eileen as a nurse. She couldn’t stand the sight of blood. And seeing other people sick made her sick. Maybe she believed she had to carry on the family tradition.

  “Mom went back to the office,” I informed the frustrated Eileen. “It’s Monday, remember?” Monday mornings were the worst. Mom said the townspeople did too much partying on the weekend, and farmers did too much work. “Nurse Helen is already taking blood pressures, stabbing people with needles, sewing up gashes, and mopping up blood—you know, nurse stuff.”

  Eileen groaned. “Drat! How am I supposed to keep veins and arteries straight all on my own?”

  “Good posture,” I replied, straight-faced.

  She looked at me as if she’d never admired my knees. “Grow up, Tree.”

  “Dry up, Eileen. And blow away.”

  I slid out of the kitchen booth so I could lift the bench seat and look inside. I took out the last three Kansas City Stars. I would have loved to read what Randy Ridings was writing, but I’d have to wait until Friday for the Hamiltonian to come out.

  I scanned the Stars, but I couldn’t find anything about the Kinney shooting. Kansas City probably had enough of its own shootings to report.

  An hour later, I’d outlined everything I knew about the Kinneys. But I had too many holes in my story. And writing about the shooting seemed hopeless until I could say for certain what had happened before the gun went off.

  “Something wrong, Tree?” Eileen had come back into the kitchen. She ran herself a glass of water, then leaned her back against the sink to drink—exactly like Mom.

  “I’m trying to write an article about the Kinney shooting,” I answered.

  “Yuck.”

  I should have known she wouldn’t understand.

  She took a sip of her water. “Go on.”

  “That’s just it. I can’t go on until I know exactly what happened.”

  “Doofus, why don’t you just ask Dad?”

  “I tried. Dad said he didn’t want to talk about it. He didn’t want ‘gossip’ in his house.”

  “So go talk to him at the office.”

  “Funny, Eileen.”

  “I’m serious.… Okay. When did you try talking to him?”

  “Saturday after I got home from work.”

  “Well, there you go.”

  I wasn’t getting this.

  She continued. “Lesson one: Never ask Dad for anything after dinner. (a) He’ll be too tired to talk about it. And (b) that’s when he reads the newspaper and gets upset over the news.”

  I’d never thought about it, but Dad did get upset reading the paper, especially about Vietnam. And he did read it after dinner. “So you think he might have a different reaction if I asked him in the daytime?”

  “And at the office, since he doesn’t want gossip at home. There are all kinds of gossip at the office, Tree.”

  Eileen had a point—two points. Dad loved it when we visited him at the office. Since he and I had always been able to talk, night or day, I never even thought about the best time to ask him about the Kinneys. “You, Eileen Taylor, are a genius.” I walked over to my sister and hugged her. Her water spilled.

  “Tree!” She brushed at her dress as if it were on fire.

  “Sorry.” I slid my shoes back on.

  “Where are you rushing off to?” Eileen demanded.

  “Where do you think, ding-dong? I’m going to see Dad.”

  15

  Nuclear

  The clouds parted and the sun broke through as I pedaled across the railroad tracks.

  “Hey, Tree!”

  I turned so fast, I nearly went down.

  Randy Ridings hurried over to see if I was okay. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to cause a wreck.”

  “Might have made a good story for the paper, though,” I said.

  “Not if my dad had anything to say about it,” he muttered. “Can’t report anything negative. We might hurt somebody’s feelings.”

  I was pretty sure he was talking to himself. “I thought your dad retired.”

  “So did I. Here.” He helped me straighten my crooked bike basket. “Hey, stop by the office later. I’ve got a couple of new writing quotations for you. They were in the Caldwell County Advertiser. I saved them. You be careful now, Tree.”

  I thanked him. And as I pedaled to Dad’s office, I thought about Randy and his dad. I wondered if the Hamiltonian really would change, if Randy would write what he felt he had to. And if his dad would understand. I hoped so.

  I was leaning my bike against the big maple out back of the doctor’s office when I heard a familiar holler.

  “Hey, cowgirl!” Tommy Lebo and his mom were walking toward their car. They must have come from Dad’s.

  “Hi, Tommy!” We exchanged waves.

  Nobody except Tommy called me cowgirl. All because of something Sarah and I did a lifetime ago. Tommy’s dad owned the farm next to Sarah’s, which was how he came to witness my most embarrassing moment.

  One Saturday, Sarah and I roamed her farm until we got bored. We stood on the fence, watching cows in the near pasture. My favorite, Blondie, lay in the grass, while grasshoppers jumped knee-high.

  “Want to ride Blondie?” Sarah asked.

  “Sure!” I wondered why we hadn’t thought of it before.

  “You can go first,” Sarah offered.

  Blondie didn’t budge, even when I had to take a run at her to get up on her bare back. I could barely get my leg over her bony spine. My legs stretched so wide that I understood how cowboys got bowlegged.

  Then it happened. Blondie’s back legs straightened first, nearly pitching me over her head. Then the front legs wobbled, bringing her to a stand. And off she ran.

  “Hold on!” Sarah cried, racing behind us.

  I grabbed what little mane I could and closed my eyes as that cow tore around the pasture. Finally, Blondie tired herself out and plopped back down.

  Tommy and Sarah caught up with me. I slid off, my knees buckling as I landed.

  “You should be in the rodeo!” Tommy exclaimed.

  I tried not to show how scared I was. “Does Blondie always run off like that when you ride her?”

  Sarah shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve never ridden a cow.”

  “Me neither, cowgirl,” Tommy said. He never let me forget it.

  I waited until Tommy and his mom drove away, then circled behind the white-board building that had been my granddad’s home before he died. I was only three, but I think I remember his big hands, his wire-rimmed glasses, and the way he said my name, like it made his day to see me. Maybe my memories came from pictures and stories about Granddad Pete, but I always thought he liked me best.

 
Dad’s office still looked like a home. Patients rang the bell before entering through the front door. They found their own way to the waiting room and waited, sometimes for hours, before filing into Dad’s office, first-come, first-served.

  Nobody except Eileen and me used the back door. I’d always known that even when the gravel lot overflowed with cars and the old waiting room magazines were being fought over, I could see my dad whenever I needed him.

  I buzzed—two long, one short. From inside the exam room, I heard Dad’s Doc Taylor voice telling someone to go to the nurse’s office.

  A minute later, Dad waved me in. “Everything okay, Tree?”

  I nodded, and he shut the door.

  “Too wet to mow. Did you come to get weighed?” He moved over to the scales.

  Eileen dropped in once a week to weigh herself, but she instructed Dad not to tell her how much she weighed, only if she’d gone up or down. If the answer was “up,” we all kept our distance for a day or so.

  “Sure.” I stepped on the scale.

  Dad lowered the measuring stick to touch my head. “Five-five. And still a hundred and ten. Sounds about right for you, Tree.”

  He was in such a good mood. Eileen was right about daytime and the office visit.

  “Dad?”

  “Mmm?” He scribbled my stats on a wall chart next to Eileen’s secret chart, which was covered with a blank sheet of paper.

  “I wanted to talk to you about Mr. and Mrs. Kinney.”

  He stopped writing and hung his head.

  I forged ahead. “Is Mr. Kinney still in the hospital?”

  Dad turned to face me, but he didn’t answer.

  “And Mrs. Kinney? She doing okay?” I asked.

  “Why do you care so much all of a sudden, Tree? This couldn’t have anything to do with the little interviews you’ve conducted at the pool, could it?”

  That was the problem with doing anything in a small town. Sooner or later, everybody knew about it. Usually, sooner.

  “Or,” Dad continued, “the article you’re writing?”

  I should have figured that if Wanda knew about it, Dad would too. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about on Saturday,” I said. “See, I’m pretty sure that if I can write a great article about the Kinneys, I can win a spot on the Blue and Gold staff.”