The Last Tree Town

by Beth Turley

  The superintendent called the eighth graders up one by one to get their certificates.

  “Daniella Celina Chord,” she read into a microphone.

  We stood and clapped while Daniella crossed the stage, squinting into the sun. She wore high-heeled wedges that laced up her shins. When the superintendent handed her the certificate, Daniella lifted it over her head and shook her hips back and forth. Her straightened hair swayed. It reminded me of the way she’d danced in the center of the floor at Buelo and Buela’s fiftieth anniversary party, or how she sometimes danced all by herself, singing along with the songs in Spanish.

  “She has the fire, that one,” Buela said to Mom.

  “Woo-hoo!”

  I turned, and Buelo was on his feet cheering. He didn’t hold on to his cane, and his smile went all the way to his eyes. That was all I needed to convince me that things would be fine. Daniella bounced back into her seat. Now I knew exactly where she was.

  After the ceremony, everyone gathered in the area outside the cafeteria to take pictures. Part of the cafeteria jutted out from the rest of the building, encased in glass, so it looked like a greenhouse. You could see right through the walls.

  “There she is,” Dad said. He wrapped an arm around Daniella when she stepped into our circle. Mom snapped another picture. Then another when Buela kissed Daniella on the cheek, and when Daniella took the cap off her head and put it on me. I hung the picture up in my room. We both had our sister smiles on.

  “Where’s Buelo?” Daniella asked. Mom snapped another picture then, right at the moment when we all realized Buelo wasn’t in the circle with us anymore. I looked at that picture later too. Dad had an urgent look on his face, and Buela had a hand over her mouth. Daniella’s eyes were closed. The only part of me in the picture was my hand, nails painted robin’s-egg blue.

  “Spread out,” Dad said quietly.

  Buela inched through the crowd saying, “Pico, Pico.” Dad headed for the woods on the other side of the field. I went toward the benches near the glass part of the cafeteria, because if there was anything that I knew about my Buelo, it was that he liked a good bench to sit on.

  But the benches were empty. I looked to the transparent wall. At first, all I saw was my reflection, my pink sundress and the graduation cap slipping off my head. Then I looked closer and saw Buelo. The tables in the cafeteria were folded up and pushed to the side, so he stood in the middle of the bare floor.

  I ran around the glass section and through the door. Buelo had his face tilted up to the ceiling, but that wasn’t what made me stop short. He held his worn, brown wallet above his head, like he was offering cash to the ceiling lights. I stepped closer.

  “Buelo, what are you doing?” My voice sounded like a breath.

  “Catching it,” Buelo answered. He opened up his wallet and stretched out the part where dollar bills go.

  “Catching what?” I heard footsteps behind me. Then the rest of my family was at my side. Buelo’s cane rested next to him, watching the whole scene like a witness.

  “Electricity. For Celina.” He lowered the wallet and tucked it back into his pocket. “We will send to her.”

  Mom rushed up to him. She took Buelo’s arm and guided him over to us.

  “Okay, Papi, we’ll send it to her.”

  We all went back outside, but no one said anything about taking more pictures. Or about what had just happened with Buelo. We left the high school to meet Jac and Ben and Uncle Eric and the Chays at the graduation party they had set up for Daniella at the picnic tables behind Lakeside Townhouses. I kept my arm around Buelo’s on the drive over. Even if the logical part of my brain knew that Buelo couldn’t catch electricity in his wallet, another part understood why he’d try. I’d do anything for my sister too.

  Mom made the call to Kindly Vines the next morning when she thought we were asleep. Buelo went to live there twenty-nine days later, the same time Daniella started closing her door and stopped being a member of the Chordays.

  Autumn

  13 Open Mic

  I sit at the sign-up table with Daniella on Open Mic night at the library. The event is in the back corner where the young adult books are shelved. Earlier, we helped Mom drag the circle tables out and replace them with metal folding chairs for the audience. The refreshments were off to the side. Soon the table would be covered in trays of sandwiches from Holy Baloney, cut into triangles.

  Daniella didn’t complain once. Not even when Mom made us wipe the dusty chairs down with lemon bleach. She’s still quiet now sitting next to me, chewing on the end of a pen. Her hair is half pulled up and half loose. She’s wearing a big blue sweatshirt and black leggings with a hole in the knee.

  “Are you excited?” I ask.

  It feels like it takes her a whole night to turn and look at me.

  “For what?”

  “It’s Open Mic night. We love Open Mic night.”

  I look to the door. Now would be a good moment for Ben to rush in with a stack of scripts still hot from the printer. We could gather in the upstairs area of the nonfiction section, the way we always do. Daniella used to alternate between focusing on our makeshift rehearsals and running her hands over the biographies of historical figures.

  “Did you know that Joan of Arc was only a teenager when she went to battle?” she asked when we were practicing last year’s skit with the locker.

  “Wow,” I said, because the Joan of Arc fact was interesting and because sometimes it felt like Daniella knew everything.

  “Did you know that there’s only twenty minutes until curtain?” Ben shook his script in the air.

  “Easy, Ben. You’re entering diva territory. What will the tabloids say?” But Daniella came and sat back down because she knew how important our skits were to him.

  “I’m not performing,” Daniella says.

  The vents above us blast out a wave of cold air. A chill shoots up my spine.

  “Ben is writing a skit for us,” I say.

  “I’m just here for the community service hours. I have to do eighty before I graduate.”

  I saw a pamphlet about that in the stack of papers Daniella had dumped on the kitchen counter after her orientation. It was called Learning Through Service. The student on the front of the pamphlet was knee-deep in a brown lake with a net in his hand, scooping trash out of the water.

  “Can’t acting be community service?”

  I’m joking, but Daniella doesn’t laugh.

  “Come on, Cass. I’m tired.”

  You are not tired. You look sad. And how will you ever feel better if you don’t just do this skit like normal?

  The door opens and Dad comes in with a big silver tray in his arms. Uncle Eric follows behind with another tray, and then Leslie steps in with a bucket of chips. Maybe I could hold the salt-and-vinegar chips hostage until Daniella decides to perform with us. Maybe she doesn’t even like chips anymore.

  “Another one?” Daniella mumbles under her breath. I assume she’s talking about Uncle Eric’s new friend.

  “Her name is Leslie. He took her to the carnival. Jac and Uncle Eric got into a huge fight when he introduced us.” I fill her in on what she’s missed, whether she wants to hear it or not.

  Daniella nods, killing the conversation, but it doesn’t matter because we’re not alone anymore. Uncle Eric and Leslie set the food down and come to the sign-up area.

  “No names yet,” Uncle Eric says.

  “It’s early,” I say. “Where’s Jac?”

  “She said she had to do something with Ben. She’ll come with the Chays.”

  Daniella puts a hand on either side of her face and leans onto her elbows on the table, closing her eyes. Leslie watches her like she’s studying a painting. Uncle Eric rubs his head.

  “Paul! Eric! I need help with the speaker,” Mom calls from the performance area. She’s unraveling a knotted ball of wires. Uncle Eric and Dad rush over. Leslie stays at the sign-up area, still watching Daniella.

  “I’m
Leslie. Are you feeling okay?” she asks. Daniella raises her head. Her bottom lip is swollen from her chewing on it. The dark circles under her eyes look like she either smeared her mascara or hasn’t slept in days.

  “Excuse me.” Daniella stands up from the chair and it groans. She walks away, to the stairs that lead up to the biographies, a swirl of dark hair and baggy clothes.

  She’s just going to read about Joan of Arc, I think. Or Queen Elizabeth or Jackie Robinson or Aristotle.

  “Is she all right?” Leslie asks.

  “Yes. She’s upset that she has to do community service.”

  A woman with long white hair and a tambourine stands behind Leslie.

  “Can I sign up?” she asks.

  I nod at her and Leslie steps away. She starts to spread the bags of chips out on the table. The tambourine woman writes “Helen, musical adventurer” on the sheet, and I wish, for the trillionth time since fall started, that Daniella were here with me. Even if she’s in a bad mood.

  The sign-up sheet is half-full of poets and singers when Jac and Ben show up with the Chays. Jac’s hair is wet and slicked against her face. They meet me at the table.

  “Jac, you look… damp?” I say. She shakes her head, and some liquid lands on my arm. The mark it leaves is deep blue, like some of the Kool-Aid is seeping out, but the color of her hair looks darker now somehow. Whatever article she read about Kool-Aid dye was seriously misinformed.

  “Ben said I could be a sea monster in the skit,” she explains.

  “No. What I said was that it was going to ruin the integrity of the scene, but you said I had no choice, so here we are.” Ben hands me a script.

  Title: Midnight Madness. Characters: Four moviegoers in line for a sold-out midnight premiere who were all accidently booked for the same seat. Chaos ensues.

  “It sounds amazing, Ben,” I say, and I mean it. Sometimes I wonder how Ben’s head isn’t bigger, since it’s full of so many ideas.

  “It’s a masterpiece,” Mr. Chay says. He wears khaki pants and a Mapleton Community Theater shirt. He has about ten of them. One for every summer Ben has been doing plays there.

  “Smile!” Mrs. Chay pops up in front of us with her camera. She takes a camera everywhere, partially because she’s a professional photographer and partially because of her favorite saying—“Every opportunity is a photo opportunity.” The camera is wrapped around her neck with a band that says Ben’s Mom.

  Other than Jac and me, Ben’s parents are his biggest fans.

  Jac does her signature smile, and the air from the vents turns to ice. Ben wraps one arm around each of our shoulders. Mrs. Chay snaps the picture, then spins the camera around so we can see it.

  “I’ll print it for you all,” Mrs. Chay says. She and Mr. Chay go over to help my parents at the refreshment table. I spot the big container of kimchi Mrs. Chay offered to bring as a sandwich topping. Kimchi tastes good with just about everything. Dad and Uncle Eric even made a special sandwich at Holy Baloney to use it on—the Kim-Chay.

  I watch them each shake Leslie’s hand. Jac gnashes her teeth like a wolf.

  “Re-lax,” Ben says. He taps her on the arm with his scripts.

  “He’s supposed to be done with her by now. Her two-week time limit is up.”

  “Maybe she’s different,” I say. I mean, everything else is. Daniella isn’t in Mrs. Chay’s annual Open Mic picture.

  “Not helpful.”

  A mime with his face painted white comes over to sign up. I’d be startled, but all kinds of acts come to perform at Open Mic. When he walks, silently, to take a seat, Ben picks up the pen and writes the title of the skit and our names.

  “You can take Daniella off,” I say. Ben pauses in the middle of his own name. Be.

  “Why? Where is she?” Jac asks.

  I point toward the stairs to the nonfiction section. The stairs we should be scrambling up in order to rehearse right now.

  “The skit won’t work without four people,” Ben says. His voice is panicked.

  “Sorry, Ben.”

  “I’ll talk to her.” He sticks what should be Daniella’s script under his arm and heads for the stairs.

  “No. She’s…” I mean to say “tired,” but Ben’s already out of reach. He climbs up toward Daniella and Joan of Arc.

  I feel a tap on my shoulder. Jac and I turn around, and Leslie is there.

  “I’d love to fill in for your skit. I did some theater in college.”

  Jac starts to fake cough into her hand.

  “I can’t perform either,” she rasps. “I’m sick.”

  She steals a pen from the sign-in table and goes to sit in one of the chairs, arms crossed. Ben comes back downstairs. He still has Daniella’s script.

  “The show must go on,” he says. He crosses out “Midnight Madness” and all our names except his.

  The people and shelves of books around me go fuzzy, like none of this is real. I’m in a bad dream. That must be it. I close my eyes hard like I do when I’m trying to wake up from a nightmare, then open them again. I’m still here.

  “We’re going to get started,” Mom says from the performance area behind us. She got the wires untangled. The audience settles into their seats with their props and cheese sandwiches. I sit between Jac and Ben. Daniella doesn’t come down. Mom starts calling performers up one by one, and when they’re done, Jac writes a score on the back of her script, even though you’re not supposed to judge at Open Mic night. She gives Helen, musical adventurer, a five. She gives the mime a negative three.

  “Ben Chay.” Mom claps like she does when she introduces everyone. Mrs. Chay stands and takes what sounds like twenty pictures. Mr. Chay points to his Mapleton Community Theater shirt. Ben stands at the microphone.

  “I’ll be performing a monologue,” he says. The feeling I get when I watch all his plays washes over me. Nervousness for him. Pride that he’s my best friend.

  “I remember the time I went swimming in the ocean in April. The water was cold enough to freeze the world, to make me feel more alive than ever before. I decided I liked the cold water enough to put it on my list of favorite things—in between dress rehearsals and the smell of wet sidewalks. Above pumpkin lattes—decaf, Mom, I promise.”

  He gets a few muffled laughs for that one. Mrs. Chay looks like she might weep. I hear soft footsteps on the stairs and turn around. Daniella is there, watching.

  “The following April I went back to the ocean. I couldn’t wait for the sharp, exhilarating chill of cold water. To feel big and small at the same time. To feel like everything I’d ever been through was important. But it didn’t feel the same. I don’t know why. It’s possible there are some moments that you only get to have once.”

  The audience is quiet now. I feel tears in my throat—the scared, helpless kind. What if we only get to be the Chordays once, and now it’s over?

  “Thank you,” Ben says. He walks off to the sound of applause, the loudest of all the performers that night.

  “Encore, encore,” Dad and Uncle Eric call out from the refreshment table, clapping their rubber-gloved hands. Ben bows at them. He sits back in his seat, his face flushed, his breath heavy. I turn around. Daniella is gone.

  “What did you think?” Ben asks.

  Jac taps her pen thoughtfully against her cheek, then writes his score under the others.

  “I never thought I’d do this,” she says.

  She flips the script so he can see it.

  It says ten.

  September 21

  I’ve been thinking a lot about when I was a Girl Scout. Mom would park the car and walk me inside, her troop leader bag banging between us. On our way through the hallways, I would imagine myself at fourteen, smiling, spinning a locker dial and eagerly making it to class just as the bell was ringing.

  Wednesdays at six thirty p.m. in the home economics room at the high school, my troop mates and I pledged to be honest and brave and true. Jenna was in my troop. Back then, the boys in our fifth-grade cl
ass called her a rag doll because of her cherry-colored hair and how quiet she was. When we all recited our pledge, three fingers raised to the fluorescent tubes of light, Jenna barely whispered.

  She’s grown out of that now.

  I remember one meeting when Mom announced the prizes that everyone had won for selling cookies. Jenna won a set of satin pajamas. The runner-up won a case of goopy lip gloss. My heart ran ragged and my palms got all damp like I’d plopped them into a pool. I was the only one who hadn’t gotten a prize yet.

  “Daniella sold the most cookies and wins the wheelie sneakers,” Mom said. The troop handed the shoebox along until it dropped into my lap like an anchor.

  This girl named Kylie, who moved away before middle school, told Mom that it wasn’t fair I’d won the wheelie sneakers, since I was the troop leader’s daughter. I wiped my hands on my green sash and looked down at the badges sewn onto it. I didn’t ask to be the troop leader’s daughter, or to win the wheelie sneakers. I didn’t even want wheelie sneakers. I wanted to wear high heels, and be in high school, and have a locker.

  “Daniella worked hard to sell her cookies. She went door-to-door through the whole neighborhood,” Mom said.

  “My mom said it’s not safe to go door-to-door,” Kylie argued back.

  “It is if you have an adult with you.”

  “My mom’s too busy.”

  “I’m sorry you’re disappointed, Kylie. But you’re all getting cookie badges, and that’s what counts.”

  “Get into your craft groups, everyone,” Jenna’s mom, the assistant leader, called out. The troop divided. I broke free to the bathroom across the hall, just to get away from Kylie’s glares.

  I loved the sensors on the sinks, the tiles on the floor. I wanted it all to be mine. I wanted to be old enough to use the tampon dispenser. In fifth grade the bathroom was still in my classroom, but in high school it was an island, it was alone time, it was all grown up.