The Secrets of Tree Taylor (9 page)

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.

“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.”

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.”

“You know, if you have to write about people’s misery, Tree, why don’t you tackle Gary Lynch?” His voice was even but tight. “I just got back from seeing him. That boy never leaves his room, his bed, his dragons. Dozens of dragons—dragon bedspread, stuffed dragons, dragon knickknacks. That’s his entire world. Lots of misery there, Tree. Or you could write about the soldiers dying every day in Vietnam.” His eyes narrowed, like he was trying to see through me. “Did you ever say two words to Mrs. Kinney before this happened?”