The Secrets of Tree Taylor (17 page)

“Ah, then that’s what you’d better do. I imagine writers need to write most when they’re feeling the deepest. They can put their emotions on paper. I get the feeling something’s bothering you.”

“How’d you know, Mrs. Kinney?”

“It’s written all over your face, Tree.”

I grinned. “That’s what Jack always says.” The grin died on my lips. “Sarah, my best friend, is moving to Kansas. She told me in church this morning.”

“Well, I’m right sorry about that. It’s not easy losing a best friend.”

Telling her about Sarah made it too real. My throat tightened, and I felt tears coming on. “Well, I’d better go.”

I walked back home as far as the end of our property. Dad had anchored an old porch swing to the ground. I eased onto it, never positive the swing seat would hold. With a touch of my toe, I swung low in the shade of the willow. I closed my eyes and breathed in horse and strawberry atoms and tried not to think about the fact that my best girlfriend wouldn’t be with me next year. I knew how moving away worked. You say you’ll stay best friends. But letters stink. Phone calls are too expensive. And pretty soon you run out of things to talk about.

Midge barked at me from the backyard, but I couldn’t let
her out. She’d want to sit on my lap. And if I shooed her off, she’d go hunt chickens. Finally, she wandered back into her dog palace—with windows put in by Dad, a rug donated by Mom, glamorous walls decorated by Eileen, and my best pillow for a bed.

A horn honked. I looked up expecting to see Jack whiz by in Fred.

Instead, a dark green pickup pulled up with Wayne Wilson behind the wheel. He stopped in front of me, took the cigarette from his mouth, and blew a string of smoke. His black hair was slicked back on both sides, forming a ducktail. Wayne had just turned sixteen and gotten his license. Already he had a reputation for drinking and smoking. But he’d always been okay to me.

“What’s happening, Wayne?” I shouted.

He gave me a chin wave. “All is copacetic, Little Tree.”

Ray Miller leaned forward. I hadn’t seen him in the passenger seat. “What’s happening with you, Tree?” he hollered past Wayne.

“Not too much,” I answered.

“Heard you made the scene at the reservoir,” Wayne said.

So much for the well-kept secret. “I guess.”

“Heard you danced the socks off your elders.” Wayne said this while taking another puff on his cigarette.

I sneaked a glance at Ray’s face and could tell by his wrinkled brow that he had no idea what Wayne was talking about. I had to change the subject fast. “So what are you guys up to?”

“Just drivin’ around.” Wayne shoved up the sleeve of his black leather jacket and turned his wrist to check his
watch. A chunk of gray ash fell to the ground. “I gotta split, though.”

Ray and Wayne exchanged words I couldn’t hear. Then Ray climbed out of the truck, and Wayne drove off, honking again.

When the dust settled, there stood Ray Miller, his dark hair windblown. He wore a cool madras plaid shirt with faded cutoffs and loafers, no socks. And he was standing in the middle of the road
—my
road—grinning at me.

“Lost?” I called out to Ray, hoping my voice wouldn’t shake the way the rest of me was.

“I just decided I didn’t want to go where Wayne was headed,” he answered.

“Should I ask?”

“Some things are best left unsaid.” He hadn’t moved from his spot in the road.

“You could get run over out there,” I warned.

“That would stink.”

I scooted over. “I can’t guarantee this swing will hold us both. But I’m willing to risk it if you are.”

Ray ambled over and sat beside me. “They don’t call me Ray the Risk-Taker for nothing.”

“So you pay them to call you Ray the Risk-Taker?” I breathed in his Ray-ness.

“Of course.” He nodded at my notebook. “Don’t tell me you’re studying. Trying to get an edge on freshman year?”

“Not likely.” I held the notebook to my chest so he couldn’t see anything.

“What are you working on?”

I didn’t answer right away. I could have said I was writing about Sarah, although I hadn’t written a word yet. But I didn’t want to talk about Sarah’s horrible news with Ray. What if I broke down and cried like a baby?

Ray narrowed his sky-blue eyes at me. “Either tell me what you’re writing or tell me what dance Wayne was talking about.”

I chose the lesser of two evils. I spilled the whole story—about how I started out trying to write an article on the Kinney shooting, about my writers’ quotes, about the interviews with Mrs. Kinney going nowhere, and how I’d promised Randy Ridings I’d have an article for him the day of the steam engine show. “Okay. Let me have it,” I said when I was all done. “Go ahead—laugh.” I braced myself. But I was afraid I’d burst into tears if he really did laugh at me.

“Why would I laugh? You’re a good writer.”

“How would you know?”

“Tree, I’ve known you since kindergarten, in case you forgot.”

Like I’d ever forget anything about Ray Miller. “I really want to get on the
Blue and Gold
staff next year.” The second I blurted it out, I wanted it back.
Wanda
. Ray and Wanda. Wanda said they’d talked about how “cute” it was of me to dream of being on the
Blue and Gold
staff. The last thing I needed was for Wanda to know I was still gunning for her job. “Don’t tell … anyone … okay?”

“Okay. But I think you’d be great.”

“You do?”
Great
, not
cute
? Was Wanda lying about that?

“Are you kidding? You’re a natural! You should go for it, man. Is that why you’re writing about the Kinneys?”

I nodded. “And for the
Hamiltonian
too, maybe. Randy said if I could get to the bottom of the Kinney story, he’d run it in the paper.”

“Way to go, Tree.”

“I don’t know. It seemed pretty cool at first. But now that I’m getting to know Mrs. Kinney, I’m not so sure.” I pictured her in her doorway, looking sad for me because I’m losing Sarah. “Mom says Mrs. Kinney has had a pretty hard life. I don’t want to make it worse.”

“Huh. I never thought about that.”

“Me neither, until I started talking with her.”

“You’ll figure it out.”

I doubted it. But the fact that he thought I would made me want to grab him and kiss him right there. “Thanks.”

“You should write about the Steam and Gas Engine Show, Tree. Wayne’s into old Model Ts and Model Rs with flywheels. He knows all about that sh—that stuff.” He glanced over at the strawberry patch. “Is this your garden?”

“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
.

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.