The Secrets of Tree Taylor

by Dandi Daley Mackall

  “Dad’s mostly. Mom’s too.”

  “Your dad’s a pretty all right guy, isn’t he?” Ray gazed around and seemed to take in more than strawberries.

  “He’s pretty cool … for a dad.”

  “I’ve been in Doc’s office a few times.”

  “You should always get your shots from my mom if you get a chance. She’s painless.”

  He grinned. And, man, did he have a great grin close-up like that.

  “Wayne needs to go to your dad’s. Doc got me to stop smoking.”

  “You smoked?” Soon as I said it, I wanted another chance for a first reaction. I’d sounded like he’d just told me he used to be an ax murderer. “I mean, so you used to smoke, huh? What did Dad say to make you quit?”

  “That’s just it. Nothing.”

  “I don’t get it.” I shifted on the swing. The metal clinked and squawked, then settled.

  “I had to get a physical so I could play football. So your dad takes his stethoscope thingy and listens to my heart. When he slides the earpieces down around his neck, he frowns, all intense. I’m freaking out. ‘What, Doc? What’s wrong?’ He doesn’t answer. He takes my wrist and, like, checks my pulse. When he’s done, he shakes his head. I’m begging for him to shoot straight, to give me the honest truth on what’s wrong with me, right? But he doesn’t say a word. He listens to my heart one more time and asks, ‘You don’t smoke, do you, Ray?’

  “Of course, I deny it all over the place. I’d only started smoking a couple of weeks earlier. I couldn’t believe smoking had already hurt my heart so much that Doc could pick up on it.”

  “What did he say when you said you didn’t smoke?”

  “He looked all puzzled and troubled and told me to be sure I never took up cigarettes. But I’m telling you, I never touched another smoke after I left the office that day. It was about six months later I got to talking to Eric—you know Eric. He’s a junior. Probably going to be quarterback this year.”

  I nodded.

  “Eric said the same thing happened to him. Then he realized he’d gone into Doc’s with a pack of Lucky Strikes rolled up in his shirtsleeve. So did I! Doc saw it and played it just right from there.”

  “Okay. Just so you know, he’s not really my father. The gypsies left me on their doorstep thirteen years ago.”

  “Are you kidding?” Ray shoulder-bumped me. “That was about the coolest thing any parent ever did. You lucked out getting Doc for a dad.”

  I realized that I didn’t know a thing about Ray’s parents, which was pretty strange. I could have told you what almost everybody’s dad did. My dad probably knew him. Dad knew everybody. Or at least, everybody knew him. “What does your dad do?”

  Ray stopped smiling. “Drinks.”

  I wished I hadn’t asked.

  He leaned down and picked a gone-to-seed dandelion. He handed it to me with a big smile. The dandelion was perfectly round, with all the white fuzzy parts intact.

  “For me? How totally groovy!” I said it sarcastically. But I also meant it. Ray Miller had given me a flower—yes, gone to seed, but still. I took a deep breath and blew until all the fuzz was gone.

  “Did you make a wish?”

  “I forgot. Is it too late?”

  He slid a little closer. “It’s never too late to wish, Tree.”

  “Tree!”

  Ray and I scooted apart as if we’d been making out in broad daylight.

  “That’s Eileen, my sister,” I explained, as if everybody didn’t know her.

  He turned to the doorway, where Eileen stood in her white short shorts and pink top. “Eileen is a fox,” Ray muttered.

  Here I’d been thinking that, maybe, a guy was actually starting to be interested in me, not my sister. “She’s going steady with Butch,” I snapped, sharper than I meant to.

  “Butch is a mover—I hear he gets around, if you know what I mean. Have you seen that Caddy he drives?”

  I shrugged.

  “Besides, you didn’t let me finish. I was going to say that Eileen is a fox, but not as foxy as her sister.”

  “Tree! I mean it! Dinner is ready. Mom says to get in here right now!” Eileen had a big fat mouth.

  “Flake off, Eileen!” I shouted back, knowing I’d pay for it later, but not caring one little bit.

  Ray stood up. “I gotta split. I’m unloading crates tonight.”

  “That’s a drag and a half. On a Sunday night?” I felt the weight of unfair humanity bearing down on Ray, the guy who had called me foxier than my sister. I was ready to take on the cruel world single-handed.

  “That’s when the trucks come in. Anyway, you better go too. Later?”

  “Later.” But my heart was screaming, Sooner is much better than later! Goal Number Two can’t wait much longer.

  29

  Lay It on Me

  It was our turn to go to the Adamses’ house, but they came to ours instead because they were varnishing their basement, where the piano was, and the fumes might have killed the musical quartet.

  It didn’t take the fabulous four long to get going with their unique version of “It Had to Be You,” followed by “Stardust.” They weren’t that bad. And when they lit into “String of Pearls,” Jack and I had to jump up from our game of Wahoo and dance.

  “You two,” Eileen scolded, like she was the adult. “Do you have to dance all the time?”

  “We do,” Jack answered.

  But having her ask about dancing reminded me that I hadn’t told her about seeing Butch and Laura dancing together, and at the pool.

  I could tell Jack knew what I was thinking. He shook his head, but I couldn’t keep this secret from my own sister. “Eileen, what if you found out something … bad … about Butch?”

  She eyed me like I’d eaten the grapes off the wallpaper. “That’s a dumb question. I know everything I need to know about Butch, including the fact that he’s coming by for me any minute. He knows everything about me too. That’s the way it works when you’re in love. You’re honest with each other.”

  “Right, right. I have no doubts you’re honest with him.” Although I’d have been shocked if she’d told him about that Liquid Sunshine bottle in her wastebasket. “But what if you heard he wasn’t so honest with you?”

  “I’d know someone made it up out of petty jealousy.”

  “But what if they had evidence—like, that he was seeing someone behind your back?” I cringed, expecting Eileen to topple the table, then bite my head off.

  She advanced her marble on the Wahoo board before smiling over at me like a patient aunt with a screw-loose niece. “Your turn, Tree. Oh, and as for your little hypothetical, I’d remind you that what we don’t know doesn’t hurt us, and people should mind their own business. Are you going to play or not?”

  She knew.

  Eileen knew that her supposed steady was cheating on her! It wasn’t a secret at all. Did he know she knew? Did she know he knew she knew? My head grew dizzy with questions.

  I managed to take my turn, but I couldn’t think straight. When did the truth matter, and when didn’t it? I could almost understand why Eileen made Dad keep her weight secret. Or how I knew better than to mention Eileen’s bottle-blond hair. Mom and Dad had secrets too. Dad hated Mom’s chili, but pretended to like it. Mom smoked in the bathroom, and he pretended not to know.

  But how could my sister be okay pretending not to know that Butch cheated on her?

  A horn honked.

  “Butch!” Eileen checked herself in the mirror and dashed out the door.

  Jack and I followed, even though she tried to close the front door on us.

  Butch stayed behind the wheel but waved to Jack. “Hey.”

  “Hey, yourself,” I muttered.

  I guess you could call Butch decent-looking—big brown eyes (not as big as Jack’s), lean build (no muscles to match Ray’s). Eileen got in his Caddy and scooted as close to him as was humanly possible. When he put his arm around her, I went back into the house.r />
  Jack and I cleaned up the Wahoo game. I gathered marbles while Jack folded the board and put it back into the box.

  He walked the game over to the game closet. “Top shelf?”

  “Right.” I folded the card table and slid it into the hall closet.

  Jack called from the living room, “Tree, what’s this?”

  He held up my typed poem, “Ode to a Lifeguard.”

  “I forgot about that. It’s just something I wrote after that woman complained that we closed the pool early.”

  “So can I read it?” He looked like he was already reading it.

  I shrugged. “I don’t care. It’s pretty awful, though. Then let’s go outside. I want to see if Cassiopeia shows up tonight.” I waited at the door while Jack finished my silly poem.

  “I really dig this, Tree. Did you show it to D.J.? I was afraid they’d bump him from being manager after that letter got printed. The woman sure did a number on him.”

  “I know. It really shook him up. I’m hoping things have blown over. And no, I didn’t show the poem to D.J. or anybody else. It’s not any good. It sounds like those rhymes what’s-his-name makes up before a big fight.”

  “Cassius Clay, that boxer?”

  “Yeah. He’s pretty full of himself.”

  “Bragging in rhyme is great PR,” Jack said. “Nobody would know who he is if he didn’t drive them crazy with those rhymes of his—‘I’ll battle and rattle his bones.’ ”

  “Well, this ode sounds like his crazy rhymes.”

  “Are you kidding? This is classic!” Jack insisted.

  Jack wasn’t the best judge of writing. Music, yes. Writing, no.

  “The band’s stopped playing. You’ll have to go pretty soon. Let’s get outside.”

  Not only was Cassiopeia clear as could be, but the Milky Way striped the night like a carpet of stars. We walked across the road to get away from the lights shining through the windows. Crickets and cicadas were singing. Lightning bugs flirted with each other. A dog barked so far away I couldn’t tell whose dog it was.

  “I could never live in a city, could you?” I asked.

  Jack took his sweet time answering. “I could if I had to. But I know what you mean, Tree. I’d miss this.”

  I stared up the road, where the Kinney house lay in darkness. I couldn’t make out the shape, but it didn’t seem scary now. I didn’t miss Old Man Kinney frowning down from the porch. “Jack?”

  “Hmm?”

  “I think I need to talk to you about something. But you have to promise not to say anything about it.”

  “Do I ever, Tree?”

  I knew I could trust Jack. But I wanted to make sure this wasn’t the Butch-and-Laura kind of secret that people just pretended to keep secret.

  Jack must have sensed I needed more from him. “I won’t say anything if you don’t want me to. What’s up?”

  “It’s about the Kinneys.”

  Jack didn’t jump in and ask questions. He waited on me.

  “That morning, when the gun went off, I was there.”

  “You were there?” he said, too loud.

  “Shh! Not there there. I was outside, here, trying to write. I heard the gun go off. It sounded so close.”

  “Man, Tree! Were you scared?”

  “I didn’t have a chance to be scared. Next thing I knew, Dad came tearing out of the house. He ran up the road and told me to stay put.”

  “Which you didn’t.” It wasn’t a question. Jack knew me.

  “Which I didn’t. Dad didn’t see me follow him, but he knows now. It was a pretty bad scene when I told him.”

  “I can imagine. Could you … did you see anything?”

  “Not inside the Kinney house. Not where the gun went off.… But I could see Dad and Mrs. Kinney on the porch.”

  “Go on.”

  “Right after Dad got there, Mrs. Kinney stood in the doorway of the house. Dad was at the bottom of the steps, staring up. Then she came out on the porch carrying that rifle and—”

  “Wait a minute. Mrs. Kinney was carrying the rifle? Tree, are you sure?”

  I gave him a look that said I was sure, all right. “Dad turned his back on her and sat down on the top step. I was scared to death she’d shoot him in the back.”

  I felt Jack’s big hand on top of my head. I couldn’t see his face, just a shadow, like a silhouette. But it felt safe having his hand there.

  “She sat down next to Dad. They sat on the step together, staring straight ahead. It was creepy.”

  “I’ll bet,” Jack muttered.

  “Dad went and looked inside the house, then came back out and sat beside her.” I stopped then. Jack had grown so intense—his body stiff, his gaze never leaving my face—that I started to get nervous. I’d always been able to trust Jack. But he was older than me. And sometimes older people thought they had to go back on their word and talk to parents. Eileen did it all the time.

  “Tree, why did you stop? What aren’t you telling me?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, backtracking. “Maybe I imagined some of this.”

  “I know you, Tree. You imagine plenty. But you didn’t imagine this.”

  “Well, you can’t tell anyone, Jack.” I looked up at him and wondered if he could see my face any better than I could see his. The moon was down to a sliver, so the only light came from stars.

  “I said so, didn’t I?”

  We were quiet for a while. Then I went on. “Right before Sheriff Robinson showed up, Dad slid the rifle out of Mrs. Kinney’s hands.”

  “You’re sure?” Jack asked. “He did that before the sheriff got there?”

  I nodded. “Then when the sheriff came, and after he took his own look inside the house and talked to Mr. Kinney, who screamed at him, he asked Dad what they ought to do about it. And Dad said, ‘Accidents happen.’ Only the deal is, Jack …” I took a breath, then let it out. “I don’t think that shooting was an accident. And I’m pretty sure Mrs. Kinney did the shooting.”

  Jack waited.

  “I told Randy Ridings I’d get to the truth and write it all up for him before the steam engine show. I promised. And he said he’d publish my article in the Hamiltonian. Only now, I’m getting to know Mrs. Kinney a little, and I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

  “Did Mrs. Kinney tell you she shot her husband on purpose?”

  I shook my head. “But I didn’t ask her.”

  I still couldn’t see his face that well, but I could tell he wasn’t shocked by anything I’d said. Eileen would have been. She’d have been horrified. Mom too. They’d both have been furious with me for going behind Dad’s back and then as much as calling him a liar.

  And still, Jack didn’t say anything.

  Finally, I was the one to break the silence. “Jack, I think my dad got it wrong … on purpose.”

  30

  Heavy

  Jack and I traipsed back to the house. I hadn’t planned on talking to him about Mrs. Kinney, but I felt better for it.

  When we opened the front door, I heard shouting coming from the kitchen.

  “Frank, you don’t know what you’re talking about!” Bob Adams said.

  Jack and I exchanged frowns. Our parents never argued. Well, maybe about whether Glenn Miller was better than Tommy Dorsey or whether the Cards could win the Series. But never like this. Besides, Bob Adams was the most easygoing man I knew. He didn’t say much—maybe a result of having Donna for a wife. And when he did talk, he always sounded like he was finishing up a joke you just missed.

  “Come on, boys,” Mom pleaded. I could tell she was trying to smooth things over, like she did when Eileen and I fought.

  “You’re naive!” Bob insisted. “If we really are sending our boys over to Southeast Asia, then there’s a dang good reason for it and—”

  “If?” Dad cut him off. “Open your eyes, Bob! We are sending soldiers. And we’re dropping bombs on innocent people!”

  “Innocent?” Bob fired back
. “They’re all Commies over there! If we let them take over Vietnam, other countries will fall like dominoes.”

  “Who made us the world’s policeman?” Dad demanded.

  “Somebody’s got to be!”

  Dad said something I couldn’t catch.

  But Bob wouldn’t let him finish. “The whole thing will be over in two years, tops. McNamara says we’re winning. You want us to quit? Americans aren’t quitters. At least I’m not!”

  “Bob!” Donna finally took over. “I’ve had enough out of you two. You should be ashamed.” She kept talking, and at least it stopped Bob and my dad from continuing their shouting match.

  It shook me up to hear our dads so angry. I whispered to Jack, “Why are they fighting? They never argue.”

  “This is different, Tree,” Jack said quietly, like he was listening for more rants from the kitchen. “Vietnam matters.”

  Jack cared about what went on in Vietnam? “You’ve never said a word to me about Vietnam.”

  “I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to argue with you. I figured you thought the same way your dad does about Vietnam.”

  “But why do they care so much? Why do you? It doesn’t really have anything to do with us, does it?”

  “Yeah, it does, Tree!” With that, he left me and headed for the kitchen.

  But Bob was already storming out, aiming for our front door.

  “Bob, please,” Mom pleaded. “Don’t go like this.”

  “Let him go, Helen.” Dad stayed where he was.

  Mom and Donna trailed after Jack’s dad, trying to get him back, have another drink, play another song.

  “Bob! You’re acting like a little boy!” Donna must have given up pretending that she could fix everything. She tied her net scarf around her head and tucked sheet music under one arm.

  Bob didn’t stop or turn around. Without a word, he brushed past Jack and me. His cheeks were the color of cherry Kool-Aid. I was afraid he’d have a heart attack.

  Jack ran outside after his dad.