The Secrets of Tree Taylor (15 page)

“Bye, Tree,” Dad said, his hand on the doorknob.

Right on cue, I said, “Bye, Dad.”

And I wondered if he wondered what I was really thinking as much as I wondered what he was really thinking.

I got to the pool early and couldn’t believe everybody except Sarah was already there. Guess I wasn’t the only one suffering from cabin fever. “What’s happening, guys?”

Nobody paid me any attention. They were crowded around a newspaper, spread out on the counter.

“What a fink!” Laura exclaimed.

“Wouldn’t you know she’d be the one to complain?” Mike said. “She’s a kook.”

“Did you see how she signed it?” D.J. said.

Laura looked, then spit out the words: “ ‘A concerned mother’? That’ll be the day. What a phony!”

“What’s going on?” I shed my shirt and moved closer.

“Didn’t you see the
Hamiltonian
this morning?” D.J. asked.

“Ours never comes this early. Why?” I eased in to see what had them so upset.

D.J. shifted the paper my way. “Read it and weep. I could get fired over this.”

Fired?
I snatched up the paper. On page one was a letter to the editor circled in red ink. The only times I’d seen letters to the editor in our paper were when the mayor was up for re-election. Even then, Jack said the anonymous letters came from the mayor’s wife. Maybe Randy really was taking over at the office.

I tried to digest what I was reading, but it wasn’t easy because of all the shouting and cursing going on in the basket room.

I stared at the letter—the very negative letter—to the editor. Where was old Mr. Ridings when we needed him?

I skimmed the letter again. It was so ridiculous. “You can’t believe anybody’s going to take that woman seriously.”

“I’ve already gotten three calls from board members.” D.J. hiked up his faded swim trunks. “King-sized flak session for yours truly.”

I glanced around at the others. “But that’s crazy!”

“Apparently, the board doesn’t think so,” Mike said as he turned to D.J. “Did they say anything about firing lifeguards, or just you?”

“Just me. Thanks for asking, though, Mikey.”

Laura raised her eyebrows at Mike. Apparently, all of her anger had floated away with this revelation. “Well, I should get on out to my lifeguard stand.”

D.J. and I frowned at each other because Laura never went on duty a second before she had to. Even then, he had to push her out. I moved to where I could watch her stroll to the lifeguard stand. Then I understood.

Butch.

Butch Hamlet was standing on the other side of the fence, right behind Laura’s stand.

I was definitely going to have to keep an eye on those two, for Eileen’s sake. But right now, I had a bigger problem—D.J.’s pool career. “What are you going to do?”

Before D.J. could answer, Sarah hopped over the counter, waving the
Hamiltonian
. “Did you guys see this? Isn’t she the woman who leaves her kids here to fry? What does she think we are? Babysitters?”

“You got that right,” I agreed.

“She’s a lying creep!” Sarah slammed down her paper. “We can’t let her get away with this!”

D.J. sighed and dabbed zinc oxide on his nose. “The board’s not going to believe me over a ‘concerned mother.’ ”

Again, I thought about the power of the press, how words in print became truth for readers—even if the press got it wrong.

“Don’t know what I’ll do if they can me,” D.J. said.

I’d heard about guys out of college and out of work ending up in Vietnam. “Well, it’s not fair!” I protested.

“Hey!” A snotty junior high girl pounded the ticket counter. “Are you guys going to open up or what?”

“Have a cow, why don’t you?” Sarah muttered.

D.J. hustled to the counter. “Better get to work. Some concerned citizen might write the
Hamiltonian
about not opening on time.”

Sarah and I hit the baskets, but my stomach hurt with worry for D.J., worry about sneaky Laura and cheating Butch,
and frustration over my looming deadline for the
Hamiltonian
. Not to mention the ongoing cold war with Dad. Sarah said I was turning into a worrywart.

D.J.’s problem seemed the most urgent, so I decided to focus on it and worry about the rest later. As I took in baskets, I thought about how I could help D.J. I could go to the board and tell them the truth about their “concerned mother.” But if they wouldn’t believe D.J., why would they believe me?

“Thank you, Tree.”

The thank-you startled me back to earth.

Penny Atkinson smiled at me. I still felt crummy about our stupid, almost silent phone conversation. I watched, just as stupidly, as she walked away, pinning her number onto her polka-dot swimsuit.

“Penny, wait up!”

She turned and frowned, like she was afraid she’d done something wrong.

I leaned over the counter, not sure what to say to her. “Um … hi?”

Her frown lines deepened. I read suspicion there. “Hi,” she said.

“I mean, thanks for saying thank you,” I said, because I couldn’t think of anything else. “Most people don’t bother.”

She nodded.

“Well, that’s all. Have fun swimming.”

She nodded again and headed toward the pool.

“Penny turning in her froggy-dos?” Sarah asked.

I glanced in the basket and saw that, yes, she’d worn the
canvas slip-ons she wore every day to school. Big deal. I wore the same tennis shoes.

I put up Penny’s basket. Then I joined Sarah. Today, she’d tried something different with her hair. Two very short braids stuck out from the sides of her head like furry fingers.

“We can’t all be the fashion goddesses you expect us to be,” she said, reading my mind. She gave me the fish eye. “So what did Penny have to say?”

“She thanked me for taking her basket. Have you noticed that nobody ever thanks us?”

As I said this, two little girls shoved a basket onto the counter. The bigger girl barked, “Here. Take this.”

“See what I mean? I don’t think I’ve ever had two people say thank you in the same day.”

Sarah pretended to wipe away tears. I threw a towel at her.

For my supper break I hit up the snack bar for a frozen Milky Way and sat on the picnic table facing the pool, my feet on the bench. I was peeling off the wrapper when the table moved. I looked over, and up, right into the dreamy sky-blue eyes of Ray Miller.

“Shouldn’t you be snarfing something better than that for dinner?” he asked.

Please, God. Let me be able to form words
. “I know. I ordered barbecued ribs and a juicy sirloin, but they were all out of asparagus. So I went with this.”

He grinned. “That explains it.”

“So, what are you doing here?”

“Felt like swimming. I guess I could have gone to the
track or the football field, but there’s no water there. So I came here.”

“That explains it.”

There was nobody around except us. “Where’s Wanda?” I tried not to sound all that interested.

Ray shrugged. I wondered if he was trying not to
look
all that interested. He eased himself onto the table and sat beside me.

I took in a deep breath to calm my racing heart. Big mistake. All of my senses took in the unforgettable scent of Ray Miller—earthy, manly, like cigars, though I couldn’t remember ever smelling cigars.

Somebody went off the board and landed a cannonball that reached our table. We dodged, and our knees touched. I shivered and hoped he’d think it was because of the splash.

“Man, I love that song!” Ray exclaimed.

I tuned in to the snack bar music. “Ahab the Arab” was playing. I’d liked it too, the first couple of times I heard it. But it was kind of hokey.

Ray grinned at me like he was waiting for me to agree with him.

“Ray Stevens sure has a wild way with lyrics.” I tried to sound enthusiastic. “I’ll bet you liked ‘Jeremiah Peabody’s Polyunsaturated Quick-Dissolving Fast-Acting Pleasant-Tasting Green and Purple Pills.’ ”

“I loved that one! Although I’ve never known anybody who could actually say that title.” He moved to the beat. No rhythm, but he sure looked unbearably cute. “What do you listen to?”

“Just about anything on WHB.” I had to look away. Every time I risked meeting those eyes, seeing those lips, I couldn’t think of anything except my second summer goal. Ray’s lips were full and perfect, with a curve on top, like the start of a heart.

Suddenly, I realized he’d asked me another question. “Sorry. What did you say?”

“I was just wondering what kind of music you like best. Which singers? What groups?”

Great question. “I love the Beach Boys, of course. Jay and the Americans. Chubby Checker—you gotta love Chubby Checker because without him, we might not have the twist, right? The Shirelles can be good. Sam Cooke. Roy Orbison. In the right mood, I love Brook Benton’s blues and James Brown. Or Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie. Man, do you know Smokey Robinson and the Miracles? But I’m really getting into the Beatles. There’s everything classic in their music. ‘Love Me Do’ is genius. They’re going to be around forever. They’re that deep. If I’m in the right frame of mind, I like the Drifters and Dylan too.” I stopped talking. Jack and I could argue about music for hours. But maybe this was more than Ray wanted to know.

“I guess you really love music.”

I nodded.

“And dancing,” he added.

Did the whole world know about Jack and me dancing at the reservoir? On second thought, nobody else had said anything, not even Laura. Jack promised me those dances were a well-kept secret. “How did you know I like to dance?”

“I saw you. At the sock hop. After the Gallatin game last year?”

“The game where you scored two touchdowns,” I reminded him.

“Don’t change the subject. Where did you learn to dance?”

The whistle blew.

“Saved by the whistle.” I hopped off the picnic table and pitched the remainder of my candy bar. “Thanks for the dinner company. I hate eating alone.”

“Anytime.”

Anytime?
I walked away and hoped he couldn’t tell how loud my heart was beating. I could almost hear it:
Second goal, second goal, second goal
.

“Hey, Tree!” Ray called after me.

I turned and kept walking backward.

“Did I tell you how good you look in that green swimsuit?”

I smiled and felt the heat rush to my head. Then I waved and jogged on in.

I would never take off my swimming suit. I would wear it rain or shine, dry or wet (even though wet suits are gross), for the rest of my life.

It took me over an hour to finish replaying my seven minutes with Ray. I wandered around the basket room, forgetting if I was taking a basket or returning it. Sarah covered for me, for once.

Finally, I managed to turn my attention back to poor D.J. After all, he was the best boss I’d ever had. True, he was the only boss I’d ever had, if you didn’t count my lawn-mowing or babysitting customers. Or the summer I counted pills for Dad.

D.J. could lose his job because of one ridiculous letter. The mighty power of the pen …

The rest of the day, as I took baskets and handed them back mindlessly, a funny thing happened inside my head. Rhymes formed all by themselves.

Dad and I had always loved to rhyme. When I went with him on house calls, we played rhyming games in the car. I’d give him a word and challenge him to come up with ten rhymes in
twenty seconds. Or he’d make up the first line or two of a funny poem, and I’d have to come up with the next two lines. While he doctored his patient—I never got to go in with him, even in the freezing cold—I’d write it down. Dad had dozens of our poems stuffed into Buddy’s glove compartment.

I thought about Penny’s thank-you and how rare that was. And Sarah’s question, “What are we, babysitters?” The Cozad kids were there as usual. And as I kept my eye on them, I imagined myself sitting in Laura’s lifeguard chair.

And just like that, my rhymes took the form of a poem, “Ode to a Lifeguard.”

In between baskets, I jotted down the lines, although I didn’t need to. Rhymes stayed in my head forever. I probably could have repeated by heart every poem in Dad’s glove compartment.

“Okay. What are you writing?” Sarah eyed the paper I’d been scrawling on.

“Probably nothing. But if it pans out, I’ll make you guys copies. I’m hoping it will cheer D.J. up.”

“He could use it. We all could.”

“D.J. said he was the only one who could lose his job, though,” I reminded her.

“Doesn’t mean he’s the only one who needs cheering up.”

Something in the way Sarah said it made me look up. “What do you mean? Is something else wrong? Are
you
okay?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess.”

“Spill.”

She wouldn’t look at me. “I think … well, my dad’s in money trouble.”

“Farmers are all having a rough time. Most of Dad’s patients are farmers. He says some are planting grains besides wheat and corn, hoping to turn a profit. Others are taking out loans to buy cattle or pigs.” I knew it was a tough year because Mom and Dad still hadn’t made plans for that new roof on our house, but the freezer overflowed with deer meat and the pickle shelf was full. I didn’t tell Sarah this, though. I had no clue whether or not her dad’s bills were stuffed into the unpaid-bill drawer of Dad’s desk.

“But Dad’s not trying anything new. He’s not even plowing the back forty. And this giant yard sale I’ve been slaving for … It just doesn’t feel right. Dad auctioned off his newest tractor last week. And there was a guy out to our place looking to buy a John Deere.
And
Dad put an ad in the paper offering to sell off his pigs, if the price is right.”