Tell Me (11 page)

“Shhhh.” Taylor holds up her hand as we walk across the street from Star Nails. “Appear normal.”

“You're talking about a life on the stage and living in San Francisco!”

Mim points to Mabel's Cafe.

“And what about that happy guy?” I whisper. “And the way all the nail ladies looked up and smiled when he said it and looked back down?”

“Shhh.”

“I'm way past that!”

My phone rings. It's Mom.

Big Bad Timing.

Appear normal.

I don't want to go home.

“Hi, Mom,” I chirp.

Taylor turns around and mouths,
Be careful.

“What am I doing? Oh, gee . . . well . . .”

Looking for criminals.

You know, the normal stuff kids do when they visit their grandmother.

“We got manicures, Mom.”

“Really? I don't picture your grandmother being the manicure type.”

Mim walks into Mabel's Place.

“We're going to eat, Mom.”

Do I sound as stressed as I feel?

“Good. Are you relaxing?” Mom asks.

“Wow, you know, it's just amazing what's happening to my muscles here, Mom.” I rub my sore neck.

“I'm glad, Anna. You seemed pretty tense when you left.”

You should see me now!

“Well, there's not much to report here, honey. I just wanted to hear your voice.”

“How are you, Mom? Really.”

“Really? . . . Oh, my. Well, I'm glad to not be fighting with your dad all the time. I miss you and the house.” She sighs. “And I am really eating too much ice cream.”

I laugh. “Go for it, Mom.”

“Don't worry. I am.”

I tell her, “I'm okay. I want you to know that.”

Mom says, “Well, if things gets boring, you can always come home.”

“Boring,” I assure her, “hasn't happened yet.”

Mabel's smells like caramel rolls—that's their specialty. They are huge and we each get one.

Taylor is examining her nails. “This is the best manicure I've ever had.”

We sit at a table out back, eating our gooey rolls. It's hard to talk about something bad when you're eating something so good.

I'm trying to remember what I saw. On my napkin I write:

 

Happy!

NOT

 

The deputy who did zilch for us is at a table drinking coffee. Now he's picking his teeth.

I write:

 74

 16

+ 12

102

 

102 is the combined years Mim, Taylor, and I have been on the earth. We've seen a lot in that time.

One of the things I've seen is this:
when something feels wrong, pay attention, and speak up.

“Everything in that place,” I begin, “felt strange.”

“I think we should go back,” Taylor suggests, “and get pedicures.”

I don't want people touching my feet, and I sure don't want to go back there!

Mim sips her coffee. “What's the purpose of that?”

Taylor holds up a piece of gooey roll—the caramel drips down. “To observe.”

“We just did that,” I say.

“But now we know what to look for.” Taylor pulls her roll apart.

“What would we see that we didn't see?”

The deputy now is scratching his neck, not looking for anybody.

On the napkin, I draw a picture of a van with a girl's
head looking out the window. Taylor grabs the napkin and the pen. “She had big eyes, right?”

“Yes.”

“Bambi eyes.” She draws those.

I take the napkin back and write above the picture.

 

HAVE YOU SEEN HER?

 

I'm not letting this go.

Coleman Crudup isn't letting things go either.

He's creeping around town trying to become the sponsor for the festival.

“Sorry
,” Mim tells him.

The parade is six days away. I'm going to march as a petunia, but also be a deputy petal person and manage twelve little kids dressed as flowers.

He wants to “donate” money so that his daughter's band (that's the middle school jazz band) can have the number one slot in the parade. He'll buy all the flowers for his stores from Mim if she'll just “bend a little.”

“No, sir
,” says Mim.

There's an ugly side to a flower festival.

At the library, I hear Caitlin apologize to Ben. “Daddy always wants me to be first. I told him, I don't want that!”

Points for Caitlin.

Coleman Crudup is meeting with the mayor, meeting with the tourism council, running ads in the newspapers of nearby towns all to promote “our little festival.”

“He's hitting everywhere at once,” Burke explains. “He's giving donations to every organization in town who'll take it.”

“How many take the money?” Taylor asks.

“More than we'd like.”

Flower madness hits Rosemont. Big trucks delivering flowers for the festival are everywhere in town. In the old factory building, an air-conditioning truck pushes cold air into the huge space to keep the thousands of flowers fresh. People wear crazy flower hats; Merv, who oversees the float building in the hanger, wears a cowboy hat with plastic flowers that blink.

This town is getting ready.

I am, too.

I'm back in the petunia suit, by the front door of the
library, when Coleman Crudup marches in. He looks at me and laughs. I curtsey. I'm supposed to be adorable to everyone.

“You're Mim's granddaughter, aren't you?” he asks.

“Yes, sir.” I do a twirl. “But today I am a petunia.”

“What's your name?”

“Anna.”

He's liking this. “Annie, you've got personality.”

“It's Anna—”

“How much are you getting paid for this?”

“I'm doing it for free, to help the library.”

Hands on his hips. “I'll pay you serious bucks to do this at my market.”

Ben walks by wearing a shirt that reads
RENT A GENIUS
.

I like the serious bucks part, but not the person who would be giving me the money.

“I can get you a better costume—we'll have it made today. You can be a strawberry.” He smiles. “What do you say?”

I look over at Ben, who isn't smiling. I don't want to talk to Coleman Crudup anymore, but he takes out his wallet, rips out a fifty-dollar bill, and hands it to me. “Earnest money, Annie. I'd like you to work for me.”

“I can't . . .”

“Of course you can.” He walks into the library. I look at the fifty-dollar bill. President Grant is on the front, not smiling, like Ben.

“This note is legal tender for all debts, public and private.”

I can do a lot with fifty dollars.

I hear Coleman Crudup tell another man, “We're going to get this show on the road in a big way.”

He sweeps through the door, and turns back to me. “There's more where that came from.” He hands me his business card.

“Sir, I can't take—”

“It's yours, Annie. Give your grandmother my regards.”

I don't think I'll be doing that.

And off he goes.

I don't know what to do with this money, and being a petunia I don't have a pocket. Ben walks over.

“He gave me fifty dollars. I told him not to.” I point to Ben's shirt,
RENT A GENIUS
. “How much do you charge?”

“The first consultation is free.”

We walk out of the library past the hedges shaped
like animals.

“How well do you know this town, Ben?”

“I was born here.” He turns down Wisteria Lane.

“How well do you know Crudup?”

“Not too many people stand up to him and win.”

I think about Mim standing tough. I hope she doesn't get knocked down.

“I have a statement to make, Anna. We still need a singer for the band. Practice is in seventeen minutes.”

“But . . .”

“I wrote a song you can sing. Come on.”

There are twelve kids in the band, plus the bandleader, Mr. Cole.

“We call him Mr. Cool,” Ben says. This fits him.

Caitlin is blowing spit out of her trumpet and glaring at me.
Nice to see you, too.

Mr. Cool is looking at Ben's music. “Okay, guys, we've got a blues number here by one of our own.”

The band nods.

Mr. Cool smiles at me. “And it looks like we've got a singer.”

The band nods again and says, “Yeah . . .”

I cough. “Actually, I'm just visiting.”

Ben shoves the music into my hands. The song is called “Tell Me,” words and music by Ben Adler.

Wow.

I've never known a songwriter before, except for me, but I write mine on the spot, not on paper.

Ben hands Caitlin the music. “It's got a good trumpet part. You get a solo.” She looks at the music.

“Listen up.” Mr. Cool plays the melody on the piano. He looks at Ben. “Now that's good, son.” To everyone, he says, “Here's how it goes,” and sings the first few lines.

 

Tell me how you're doing,

I really want to know.

Are you feeling good

Or are you feeling low?

 

Mr. Cool laughs. “Can we get that groove?”

The band scrunches up their faces and looks at the new music. I'm getting seriously nervous about singing. My throat is getting dry. I'm coughing.

Mr. Cool snaps his fingers, “Together now, one, two, three, four . . .”

They play, but not together.

It sounds awful. Ben looks down.

“Okay, first time is guaranteed bad. We're over that.” Mr. Cool snaps his fingers again. It still sounds pretty bad, except for Caitlin's trumpet. She's good. He looks at me. “Anna, I'll play, you sing.”

Uh . . .

I don't normally sing this way, but Mr. Cool doesn't give me a choice. He plays an intro, points to me. I give it my best.