Treed

by Virginia Arthur

  “Now you’re being ridiculous, Millicent. You were beautiful…now too, I’m sure. You remember? I used to always tell you that you reminded me of —”

  “No, I am not. Trust me. No, I am not.”

  “Did you ever find anyone else?”

  “Lots and lots and lots of men. So many men. Yeah, I’m a regular siren.” She released a raspy chuckle. “Almost, but I came to the conclusion I was perfectly happy on my own.”

  “I had a little scare with cancer, or not. It was benign. Even bought a wig. Never needed it. My shoulder aches sometimes from when Jay and I went to—it’s nothing really. How about you? Are you okay? You’re coughing.”

  A call was coming in. Millicent ignored it.

  “It all goes so fast, Maybelline. So fast. You know, I never did get to Paris, or Alaska. Isn’t that sad?”

  “You can still go.”

  Millicent continued, “it all goes so fast. There was so much I wanted to do. So much. I wanted to see the Pyramids, the Taj Mahal, Victoria Falls. You know. All that stuff.”

  “I thought you and Ted did see the Pyramids?”

  “No, no. We just talked about it—like I am talking to you about it now. You?”

  “Yes, we traveled; Europe, Japan, Chile, other places…” Maybelline mumbled on, now in a reverie with herself.

  Millicent cut it off with her own, “then the grandchildren come and of course, you want to be around them. You don’t…you can’t remarry.” She paused. “There was so much…” her voice drifted off.

  “Why didn’t we stay in touch?”

  “I don’t know. We kind of did. I got your Christmas cards until they stopped a few years ago. You got mine?”

  “—until they stopped a few years ago,” Maybelline finished.

  They sighed.

  Sensing a strange faraway sadness in the voice of her old friend, Maybelline blurted out,“we should go to dinner. Would you like to go to dinner? I would love to see you. We’re not dead yet!”

  Millicent immediately laughed, attempted to say something but was interrupted by a coughing fit.

  “Millicent, are you okay?”

  “Yeah. Wrong pipe. Just took a slug of water and it went down the wrong pipe. I think the word “dead” did it. How about I bring the paperwork for that lot, the tree? Don’t you want to save the tree? You said this was in large part why you came—to see if the tree is still here. Your timing…You didn’t know and here it is, right this very minute, the lot’s for sale. You called, you’re talking to me, or what’s left of me, and guess what? I happen to be the real estate agent for that lot, the tree. You can buy it right now Maybelline. Right now. This is just too uncanny. It’s meant to be. I’m going to bring the paperwork.”

  “Mercy, Millicent. I don’t even know how much it is.”

  Another call was coming through. Millicent ignored this one too.

  “How much do you have to spend? Can you buy it for say, $35,000? Do you have that?”

  “That’s very reasonable considering its location. I guess I thought it would be a lot more.” She paused. “What the hell would I do with it at my age Millicent? I’m almost 80 years old.”

  “Bullshit. I’M the one that’s almost 80 years old. You were younger than me by what, four-five years? Why, what’s the matter with you? You sick?” Millicent held her hand over the mouthpiece to cough a good 30 seconds. Maybelline, hearing nothing, kept talking. Millicent didn’t hear everything Maybelline said but she did hear “aside from my shoulder, I feel great. I’m walking. My heath is quite good”.

  In between the coughing, her hand still over the mouthpiece, Millicent quickly inquired about Maybelline’s financial situation.

  “$35,000? Actually, I have that and easily. I’m actually quite well off. Jay, God bless ‘im, had a generous life insurance policy for us, for me. I did very well when I sold the business, the house. I have to say I do have it. Who owns it right now?”

  “Some old woman, her kids circling her like vultures to sell it off. It’s meant to be May. It’s not going to last. The price will go up and soon. It was just zoned commercial. Someone is going to buy it and put something on it. No one that has called about it could give two shakes about that tree and in fact, they mention cutting it down…using it for firewood, selling it to a timber company. Nobody gives a damn about the tree.”

  “That’s terrible. That beautiful old tree? Is that even allowed nowadays?”

  “Anything is allowed nowadays, Maybelline, even if it isn’t.” She paused. “It’s all a little uncanny. I think it’s meant to be. Think about Jay. What a beautiful thing to do.”

  “What would I do with it?”

  “Make it into a park! Save it. They’ll’ love it, the people here.”

  “But it’s a mess. I mean, yes there’s our dear old tree but the lot’s got garbage on it, skateboard ramps, tires, cats. I think I saw part of a car. I don’t know, Millicent.”

  “Hire someone to clean it up. I have a few folks you can call. Make it into a park and name it after Jay. Figure it out later. Imagine standing there, watching someone cut that tree down. Just imagine it.”

  “I don’t know anything about how to take care of land, the tree.”

  “Hogwash. Listen to yourself, May. You garden don’t cha’, and anyway, that tree has obviously done just fine taking care of itself.” She named a restaurant and after giving directions, ordered Maybelline to be there within the hour. A call was coming in yet again, and yet again, Millicent ignored it.

  “You can get that,” Maybelline offered. “It might be your daughter-in-law.”

  “Kyle’s in the office now, another agent, and if he doesn’t it get it, it will just roll over to voice mail.”

  “But I thought—”

  Millicent cut her off.

  “Maybelline, I’m, well, different. I’m not well.”

  “You’re not still smoking…your voice—”

  “No, but the smoking smoked me. I have a silly little oxygen tank I have to wheel around with me everywhere I go so you’ll be having dinner with the two of us. I don’t want you to be shocked. I’m not the same. I’m not pretty anymore. I’m a shriveled up old woman now.”

  Another call demanded attention. This time both of them ignored it.

  “Oh Millicent. Please don’t, you—”

  “I’ll see you there in about 20 minutes, with the paperwork. Bring your checkbook. I can’t ignore how uncanny this is, and I won’t.”

  Looking at her old friend, Maybelline tried to conceal her shock. She was relieved Millicent cut her off from saying “you always reminded me of Jessica Lange”. Thank God that didn’t make it out of her mouth. The little old lady she was looking at now reminded her of the dead leaves on the ground, curled and dried up from the drought, too stressed to display all their colors, crackly. She didn’t have any real problems, not like what Millicent was facing. When Millicent told her, “you’re still just as pretty” and “you look fit as an ox”, beside that Maybelline would have preferred “fiddle”, she felt guilty. Despite the grief and loneliness, she was fit as an ox, or more appropriately, a fiddle because she still held the shape of one; rather amazing since on many days, she had to force herself out of bed, feeling it some kind of accomplishment to do nothing else but put on her clothes, shoes, and go out the door, though once out the door, things got simpler—she could walk; the park across the street from her duplex was one reason she moved there. She also drew off the discipline of basically running Jay’s locksmith business in its last few years— answering the phone at all hours, making sure they got paid, getting the van fixed. At the end, of the business, not Jay, not yet anyway, this also meant covering for Jay, going with him to make sure he completed the jobs, got everything back in the van, they got paid, he locked or unlocked things as he was supposed to. To just get up required so much less energy, surely she could handle it.

  A few people in the restaurant came ‘roun
d to ask Millicent, “Millie”, how she was doing, if she was feeling any better. To Maybelline, it seemed more like they were saying goodbye. Something was going on. After they were alone again, Maybelline tilted her head at Millicent, the look on her face silently imploring, “so tell me what’s really going on” but Millicent ignored her, pressing for Maybelline to write out ‘that check’ for $35,000. Millicent spread a line of pens out in front of Maybelline. Incredulous, she watched as Millicent shoved each piece of paper in front of her, pointing and saying only “sign here, initial here”. Millicent would fill in ‘the other stuff’ later. Remembering her friend’s determination (or was it bossiness?), Maybelline followed orders and dutifully signed all the papers, Millicent grabbing the check out of her hand the second after she tore it out. After it was done, Millicent ate a little pile of cottage cheese then launched into a bad coughing fit during which Maybelline had no idea what to do. Millicent then announced to Maybelline she was very tired and needed to go home. When Maybelline offered to drive her home, she adamantly refused, giving Maybelline a little peck on the cheek, saying they would get together again soon. Still hacking, she took herself and her little wheeled oxygen tank through the door of the restaurant leaving Maybelline alone with a pile of papers in front of her that declared her the owner of a lot that used to be part of a 25,000-acre ranch, a 25,000-acre ranch covered in wildflowers, hawks, deer, bobcats, oak trees, all but two-acres of it now under somebody’s bathroom. Confused, shaken, Maybelline ordered a second glass of wine then headed back to her hotel room where she quickly fell asleep.

  Chapter 2

  Seconds after her eyes opened the next morning, Maybelline wondered if she hadn’t dreamed up the whole thing—until she saw the pile of real estate papers on the table. She was too caught up in the memories, the grief, seeing Millicent—like that. Sitting up, she wondered what she had done. What in the hell was she to do with a two-acre lot surrounded by apartment buildings, parking lots? There was no park to be had there. If anything, it was a garbage dump. God-damn Millicent. Nearly falling out of bed, she rushed to her purse, angrily rummaged around in it for her cell phone, and called Millicent at the office. She got the office voice mail: “Hi. This is Laura, Jim, and Kyle of Bock Realty. We’re out showing property right now but we’d sure like to talk to you. Leave a message and it will also rollover to our cell phones. We’ll call you right back and thanks for calling Bock Realty.” Cheerful. She left a message for Millicent then remembered Millicent emphatically instructing to call her personal cell phone—not the office; she wasn’t in the office much anymore. She called Millicent’s cell phone and got voice mail. She left a message. Agitated, she circled her hotel room a few times talking to herself.

  She wouldn’t be able to avoid the tree since she had selected a hotel so close to it. The trip was in fact all about the tree and now she even owned it! If she could avoid seeing it again maybe she could avoid what drove her to buy it in the first place—the god-damned grief, sadness, sentimentality; but this wasn’t the same place she and Jay lived in four decades before, not at all. She didn’t want to be in the sprawling city it was now. Millicent? Was she dying? The only thing that was the same, truly the same, was the tree.

  Using her map, she figured out a way to drive to Millicent’s realty office without having to pass the tree. She would pack up, cancel the whole thing, and go home; but she couldn’t do it or the universe wouldn’t let her because she got disoriented and ended up driving right by the tree. Cursing Millicent, she made a U-turn and parked at the curb. She stared out the window of her Jeep, at the garbage strewn all over… She watched two cats threading themselves through some large piece of metal or God knows what. A few kids were clustered around the make-shift skate-board ramps. The kids didn’t look dangerous, just urban. The “FOR SALE! COMMERCIAL!” sign was still up. It was as if her entire life had come down to this moment and wasn’t it pathetic. Was she pathetic? Was she any different from Millicent? Not really and in fact, at least Millicent had a family, grand kids. She had no one. Even the dog was dead. She was a 74-year old woman sitting alone in an old car in what had become a rough neighborhood, hopelessly seeking something that had long since passed. She gazed at the tree, for a second imagining the four of them under it; Millicent and Ted, she and Jay, pulling the cork out of a bottle of wine, Ted is laughing, being loud as always, while Millicent smiles and ‘presents’ her home cooked barbecue chicken, cole slaw, carrot cake—simple but oh it was delicious. Didn’t somebody bring a guitar? Their dogs play a few feet away. Nothing could ever harm them. Nothing could ever harm the tree, the vast expanse of land that surrounded them…Her heart was aching for a time that would never return and now she was looking through the window at the last little piece, grasping—what would the tree say to her?

  “Maybelline! Oh my God! It’s been 42 years! You knew me when I was about 250 years old. Like me, you look older but not too bad, not like Millicent. I don’t say anything to her though she hasn’t stood under me for quite some time. She’s sick you know, maybe dying, like me, like you, someday. What was here once is long gone Maybelline. What’s that stuck in my bark? A hypodermic needle? There weren’t any hypodermic needles then, Maybelline. Why don’t you just go? Let them cut me down, make two by fours from me. My wood isn’t rotten yet, still pretty solid. Hopefully, I won’t go for firewood. You can go. I understand, Jay will understand. After all, you came to say goodbye. You paid your respects. Grab some of my acorns and feel free to go. Really, it’s okay.”

  She pressed her head against the steering wheel and sighed.

  “Tell me what to do Jay,” she summoned. Her cell phone rang. It was Millicent.

  “I rammed the papers through escrow. The deed of trust, it’s all in the works,” Millicent hacked out.

  “I’m not understanding what all is happening here Millicent, or why. Is it really that it’s all so uncanny or is there something else going—”

  “We put a rush on the closing date too. Ten days.”

  “What’s going on? Please. I wasn’t ready.”

  “A courier service is running a few more things over to your hotel today. Are you going to be around?”

  Maybelline was completely exasperated. “I won’t sign anything else until you tell me what’s going on.”

  “The check’s cleared,” Millicent confirmed. “Buyer’s remorse Maybelline. You said you and Jay lived in your home for over 30 years. Have you bought anything in the past 30 years? It’s buyers—” she coughed, “remorse. I wish I felt better. I would come by. There is no betrayal here Maybelline, only the tree. It’s only about the tree. I’m sorr—,” she coughed again, “sorry if I pushed you. It’s just so rare when things like this…I truly believe it is meant to be. This is all it is Maybelline.”

  Maybelline watched a hawk land in the tree. “There’s a hawk in the tree.”

  “It’s your hawk now, Maybelline. Because of you, it still has its home.”

  “No, because of you,” Maybelline corrected.

  “Give it the day. Wait one day and if you still regret it tomorrow, I’ll find some way to cancel the sale. I don’t want it to end like this.”

  “To what end like what? Millicent, are you crying?”

  “You know what this is about.”

  “No, I don’t, exactly, which is why—”

  “I’m supposed to be at the doctor’s. Jim and Laura are picking me up any minute. I’ll call you tonight. Give it just one more day.” She hung up.

  She held the phone against her ear for a second in case Millicent didn’t really just hang up on her…Inflamed, she slammed her phone into the passenger’s seat from which it took a decent bounce, landing on the passenger side floor. She got out of the car and walked to the tree. She was amazed that despite the urban chaos below it, the hawk was still there. Suddenly tired, she noticed a worn weathered folded lawn chair that appeared to have been on/in the ground awhile. After determining it was still functional, would
hold her ass up, in other words, she carefully sat down in it. The kids were now looking at her, giggling. If she got shot, stabbed, could there be a better place for it to happen? She smiled back at them somewhat relieved when they returned to their talking and texting.

  Bending her head back as far as she could, she looked up through her tree’s magnificent limbs. The hawk flew off. The sky above was so blue, blue Jay blue, as Jay always said. She looked for the furthest point in the sky above her and settled on a jet, a silver dot that quickly disappeared, aside from the contrail that seemed to hang in the sky forever.

  A skinny black teenage girl broke from the group and walked over. Maybelline felt herself tense up a bit, aware that her life up to that point didn’t include the wider world—vacant lots with garbage, skateboard ramps made from plywood and red dirt, stray cats, teenagers and kids—the edges of places; but this is where she was now, somehow.

  “That is so funny. That was my grandfather’s,” the girl said in a squeaky pre-teen voice.

  Maybelline looked around, not sure what the girl was talking about then realized she was talking about the chair.

  “Oh, your grandfather,” was all she could summon up.

  “Yeah, he died,” the girl replied. Maybelline was still not sure the girl’s point.

  “I’m sorry,” Maybelline offered. The girl stared at her. “Would you like the chair back?” Maybelline asked.

  “Oh no,” the girl laughed. “You can sit in it. You can have it if you want. It’s just like, well, garbage now.” She laughed. “It was garbage then too. He was so proud. Got it for like $4.99 at Squirrel-Mart. It’s lasted a long time, considering.”

  “When did he die?”

  “I don’ know, like—Terrence!” she shouted back to the pod. “Terrence! That’s my brother,” she explained.

  “What?” a gangly teenage boy vociferated back at her.

  “When did Pa Pa die?”

  “I don’ know. Two years ‘go? That’s his chair, right?”