When Zachary Beaver Came to Town Read online

  I’ve heard that answer other times, before, but today I want more. “What about your family?”

  “My family is here.”

  “Mom isn’t here.”

  Dad is quiet for a moment, then says, “You read her letter?”

  A lump gathers in my throat, and I can’t speak. Outside the window, tall sunflowers along the road wave to us. Mom loves sunflowers. She once told me, “Being a farm kid, I grew up despising them. And then on our first date, your dad stood at my door with a silly grin on his face and a jelly jar of those weeds.” Over the years sunflowers became her favorite. Dad used to give them to her on their anniversary, but now when I think about it, I can’t remember the last time he did.

  “I read the letter.”

  We’re quiet again, and I wonder if this is what our life is going to be like from now on. Big empty spaces of silence like the wide-open land spread on both sides of the road.

  I decide not to let my question die. “What about Uncle Arnie and Aunt Maureen?”

  “What about them?”

  “Didn’t you ever want to be a lawyer like them?”

  “Nope.”

  “Didn’t you ever want to—”

  “Toby, I like my life. Your mother didn’t like hers, and that’s why she isn’t here. And when you grow up, you can decide where and what your life will be.”

  I feel trapped, but I don’t know where I would go if I could leave. I wouldn’t go to Nashville like Mom because everybody there probably wants to be a country music star. I wouldn’t want to live in Dallas because it’s not far enough away from Antler to feel like you’ve really been anywhere. And I wouldn’t want to travel in a trailer like Zachary Beaver, never having a place to call home. I only know that now with Mom gone, the only thing keeping me in Antler is an impossible dream. Heck, I know I’ll probably never see Scarlett Stalling loves Toby Wilson scribbled across her notebook, but there’s something inside me that won’t let go. If there was ever a chance that she could be mine, it’s now, while Juan is out of the picture.

  The sun starts to rise as we reach the marina. Inside the shop, the smell of coffee dripping mixes with a faint fish odor. Freddy, the bait shop owner, is setting out ketchup bottles on the counter in the eating area. As usual, a yellow baseball hat covers his bald head and red suspenders hold up his baggy pants. “How are ya?” he asks. “Toby, you look like you just rolled out of bed. Got some fresh coffee, Otto.”

  “Sounds good,” says Dad. “We’ll get these boxes unloaded for you first. Toby, you think you’re up for a cup of coffee?” He winks, but I don’t say anything. Dad acts like everything is the same this morning, when it’s not.

  After we unload the cartons, I swig down a bottle of Coke and look at the pictures of people and the fish they caught posted on the bulletin board. The weight of the catch is scribbled underneath each photo.

  Dad sits at the counter, drinking a cup of coffee, while Fred points out a picture of the biggest bass that was caught yesterday. “Five and a half pounds.”

  “Not too shabby,” Dad says.

  “Hate to tell you this, Otto, but he caught it with one of those night crawlers.”

  “That a fact?”

  “Of course I have to order those from Canada, so there’s no tellin’ when I can get them. They aren’t as handy as getting hold of you and your Tennessee brown nose babies. The young man who caught that bass got back from Vietnam last month. Won’t hardly speak to anyone. His dad said, when he landed in San Francisco, he stepped off the plane and was spit on by hippies. You believe that? After serving our country. Damnedest thing.”

  “Damnedest war,” Dad says.

  Freddy clears his throat. “Yeah, well, I was in World War II. Back then, we came back heroes.”

  Dad doesn’t say anything, and the quiet is so uncomfortable that I keep staring at the pictures on the board. But all I can think about is how Wayne is a hero and how no one better ever spit on him.

  After a long moment Freddy asks, “You like to fish, Toby?”

  I shrug. “It’s okay.”

  Dad holds the coffee mug close to his chin. “I think my son has a dose of big city in him.”

  “I didn’t know you ever lived in the city, Toby.”

  I frown because I know what Dad is referring to, and I don’t see how asking a few questions about why he left Dallas makes me a city kid.

  Dad takes a sip of coffee, then says, “He kind of thinks cities like Dallas have something special.”

  I’m wondering why Dad, who is private about everything, is talking like this to Freddy.

  “Oh, they do,” Freddy says. “Yes, indeedy, they do. They got traffic jams, and smog, and oh, yeah, they got those big ol’ shopping malls where you can spend every bit of your hard-earned money.”

  My blood boils, and when we get back into the truck, I’m quiet. I don’t even ask to stop at Prairie Dog Fork on the way to the next shop. And when Dad slows down anyway and asks if I want to see the prairie dogs, I say, “Nah.”

  Without saying a word, he accelerates, and I add, “Prairie dogs are no big deal.”

  He shrugs, and I say, “If you’ve seen one prairie dog, you’ve seen them all.” It’s no use. Dad is as good at the silent treatment as I am. Mom would be chattering away right now, saying something about the sunflowers blooming early or pointing out a family cemetery in the middle of nowhere. She always got us to talking again, mainly to shut her up.

  Maybe Mom will make it big and I’ll be a famous country music star’s kid. I’ll enroll at my new school in Nashville, and the teachers will say, “This is Tex Wilson, Opalina Wilson’s son. No, he doesn’t have time to sign autographs. Just treat him like anybody else.” Only the kids won’t because I’m Tex Wilson, number-one son of a top recording star.

  I’ll drive a Jag to school. I’ll even parallel park it out front. I’ll have my own wing in our mansion next door to Tammy Wynette. She and Mom will be best friends. They’ll roll each other’s hair on those giant orange juice cans. I might even date Tammy Wynette’s daughter. And poor Scarlett. Poor, poor Scarlett. She’ll write to me, and I’ll dictate letters to my personal secretary that will always end with, I’m sorry that Antler drives you crazy. Maybe I’ll send my limo down to pick you up this summer. Then again—maybe I won’t.

  “Toby?” Dad stands beside the truck, looking at me through the passenger’s window. Somehow we’ve made it to the lake, and we’re parked in front of Bob’s Bait Shop. “Are you ready to unload?”

  There’s nothing like worms to bring you back to reality.

  Chapter Thirteen

  More than half the days in July are crossed off my calendar. Wayne will return in 224 days. Cal hasn’t mentioned another letter from Wayne, so I figure he doesn’t know about the one I wrote yet.

  Today Cal and I stand on my unmade bed, throwing darts at the dartboard on the wall. Paulie Rankin left eight days ago, and Cal can’t stop talking about Zachary Beaver and thinking of ways to get him out of the trailer. Now he wants to take Zachary to the Sands drive-in theater.

  I aim toward the bull’s-eye and miss. “Zachary will never go for it.”

  “Sure, he will.”

  “Cal, he’s not going to go to the drive-in with us. For starters, how’s he going to fit in a car?”

  “We’ll take the pickup. He can ride in back.”

  “And how is he going to get into the back of the truck?”

  “Haven’t figured that out yet.” Cal jumps off the bed. “Hey, how about a ramp?”

  “He’s too heavy. He’d never make it down without falling.”

  Cal gathers the darts on the board and picks a couple off the dresser. “Are you playing with these soldiers?” He holds one up.

  “Nah, I just had them out.” I yank the soldier out of his hand and put it back on the dresser.

  Cal shrugs. “We could back the truck up to Zachary’s door.”

  “It’s too low.” I don’t know why I’m talking about it. I
don’t want to go anywhere with Zachary. He’s grumpy and rude and I don’t like him. I grab a dart that Cal missed off the dresser and discover another letter from Mom. Dad must have placed it there last night. I’m not opening this one. I don’t want to hear her claim she hasn’t left me when she lives thousands of miles away. I try to forget about her by concentrating on the dartboard. It doesn’t work. So I decide to join Cal in planning a way to get Zachary in the truck.

  “We gotta think of something,” Cal says.

  My dart hits the center. “Bull’s-eye!” Sinking to the floor, I try to sound bored with the whole matter. “We could make some steps for him. Dad’s got wood out in the back that he’s been keeping forever.”

  Cal grins, holding up his hand. “Good idea!”

  Without enthusiasm, I slap his palm. “But even if we make the steps, who’s going to drive us?”

  Cal hunches his shoulders and begins singing “You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman.”

  “No!”

  “It’s the only way!”

  “No, Cal. Not Kate.”

  “Why not?”

  “For one thing, I’d like to live to see my fourteenth birthday.”

  “Oh, come on. She’s got her license. And as long as she doesn’t have to parallel park.”

  “Forget it.”

  Cal slumps to the floor, acting like a kicked dog.

  “All right,” I say. “But time’s running out. We better start making the steps now. And we still have to convince Kate.” And Zachary Beaver.

  After measuring the distance from the ground to the back of the pickup, we grab Dad’s tools and start to work. An average person wouldn’t need to have wide steps, but we triple the width for Zachary. We don’t need any accidents waiting to happen.

  Halfway through the job I say, “You sure Kate’s going to go for this?”

  “It’s not like she has a date or anything.”

  He’s right. When other girls Kate’s age started going to the movies with guys, Kate stayed home. She made some of her friends’ prom dresses, but she didn’t go.

  I always liked shop, and it feels good to make something with my hands. I love the smell of freshly cut wood and how smooth the grain feels after going over it with sandpaper.

  The afternoon sun beats down on us as we work, and we sweat enough to fill a bucket. After banging our thumbs with a hammer a couple of times, we decide to make sure we aren’t doing this for nothing.

  At the McKnights’ kitchen table, Kate is busy sewing. The sound track of My Fair Lady plays from the stereo. She’s wearing bell-bottom jeans and a blue knit top, the same kind of clothes that Scarlett wears. Only they don’t do for Kate what they do for Scarlett.

  When we ask Kate about taking us, she stares at Cal and me like we asked her to drive the getaway car in a bank robbery. “Absolutely not! If you think I’m going to have any part in making fun of that poor boy, you’re dead wrong.”

  “We’re not making fun of him,” I tell her.

  “Yeah, right.” Her foot stomps the sewing machine foot pedal, and the needle races over the fabric.

  “We’re not, Kate. Honest.” Cal sounds sincere.

  Kate ignores him, her head bent over the sewing machine, as she sings with the song on the stereo. “I could have danced all night! I could have danced all night!”

  “Oh, come on, Toby,” Cal says, yanking at my shirt. “Let’s forget it. Some people are too important to help out a lonely guy. Zachary will probably have to go to juvenile hall any day now.”

  We turn and move slowly toward the door. Kate stops singing. “What are you talking about?”

  Together we face her, but this time I speak. “The sheriff said if Paulie Rankin didn’t come back by the end of the week Zachary would have to go to juvenile hall or a foster home.”

  “Come on, Toby.” I follow Cal out of the house and into my backyard.

  I know what’s going to happen next. If I had a million dollars, I’d bet it. We slowly pick up the tools. The McKnights’ sliding glass door opens, and out of the corner of my eye I see Kate’s lanky shadow on her porch. I wink at Cal and say, “Yeah, I guess we might as well stop making these steps.”

  Cal knows she’s there too because he shouts, “Yeah, no use making anything for Zachary. What a waste, man.”

  I’m afraid he’s overdone it, but Kate pokes her head over the link fence, her glasses resting on top of her head. “Are you really making those steps for him?”

  We look up, trying to act surprised, and together say, “Yeah.”

  “And you aren’t going to be mean to him?”

  Cal rolls his eyes like he’d never think of such a thing. “No, Kate.”

  She checks her watch. “There’s a John Wayne movie that starts at eight-thirty. Can you finish those steps by seven-thirty?”

  “You bet,” I say. “I got an A in shop last year.”

  “Me too,” adds Cal.

  “Your only A!” she says before disappearing into the house.

  A couple of hours later, we finish making the steps. But we still have our biggest task ahead—convincing Zachary.

  Cal and I decide not to ask Zachary ahead of time. If we show up ready to go, maybe he’ll feel more pressure. Of course, we don’t tell that to Kate; she’d never go for it.

  At eight we load the steps into the back of the pickup and head toward Zachary’s. As we get closer, light from the setting sun bounces off the yellow trailer, casting a haze around it like something in a dream.

  Kate pulls up in front of the trailer and slams on the brakes. Our bodies jerk forward, and we nearly hit our heads on the dashboard.

  “Sorry about that,” she says. Before Cal can make a wisecrack, I nudge him in the ribs.

  “Ow! What was that for?”

  “Stay here, Kate,” I say. “We’ll be back soon.”

  We knock and, as usual, we wait.

  “Let’s bring up the subject slowly,” I say. Cal nods. Finally the doorknob turns. Zachary’s hair sticks up on one side like he’s been sleeping. Inside the trailer is dark, and the TV blares from the corner.

  Cal blurts out, “We came by to take you to the drive-in theater.”

  Zachary frowns. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Have you ever been to a drive-in?” I ask.

  “No, Cowboy. Why would I want to do that?”

  “It’s another thing you can add to your list of adventures,” Cal says.

  “Yeah,” I say, “when you’re talking to people about the Eiffel Tower in Paris or being at the top of the Statue of Liberty in New York, now you can add seeing a drive-in movie in Texas. Besides, you’ve been wanting to see a cowboy. Here’s your chance. It’s a John Wayne movie.”

  Zachary snorts.

  Since I figure he’s too embarrassed to admit he can’t fit into a car, I say, “We brought the truck. We can all ride in the back.”

  “We even made steps for you,” Cal says.

  Zachary’s eyes grow wide, then quickly narrow. I wonder if he thinks we’re up to something, so I part the curtains. Kate has managed to get the steps out by herself and put them in place. “See.”

  Zachary leans to look out the window. “You shouldn’t have bothered.”

  There’s a knock at the door. Great. One more minute and I would have convinced him.

  From behind the door, Kate calls out, “Cal, we better hurry.”

  “Just a minute,” Cal calls back.

  “Is there a problem?” she asks.

  “Who’s that?” asks Zachary.

  There’s only one thing left to try. I head to the door and open it. “Kate, meet Zachary. Zachary, Kate.”

  “Hi.” Kate holds out her hand, smiling. Her eyes soft, she looks at Zachary like she’s seeing something more than fat. And for a second, the way Kate stands there with her hand out, smiling, she almost looks pretty.

  Zachary stares at Kate’s hand, and I just know he’s going to snub her. But he accepts it, shakes, and smiles.
A really big smile. It’s the first time I’ve seen his teeth. They are perfect—white and straight. No gaps. Scarlett would be jealous.

  “You ready?” Kate asks.

  “Yeah,” Zachary says. “Give me a second.” He wobbles to the back of the trailer and disappears behind the drape. We hear water running and a minute later he returns, his hair wet down and combed.

  To get through the front door, Zachary must squeeze sideways. He makes me think of Winnie-the-Pooh getting stuck in Rabbit’s hole. But Zachary’s belly presses against the door frame, and he jiggles his way through. Even though the sun is setting, Zachary squints and shadows his eyes with his hand. I guess he hasn’t been outside in weeks. Maybe months.

  Even though Kate parked close to the trailer, Zachary takes a while to make it up the steps. As he moves, the fat beneath his loose shirt causes the fabric to ripple. Each step, he stops and rests. Drops of sweat cover his upper lip, and he pants like a Saint Bernard after a run. Finally he makes it to the bed of the pickup. He lands with a loud thump, and we feel the bed move. Cal and I have to step over his legs because there is no way he can scoot to the front.

  “How’s the foot?” I ask.

  “Fine,” Zachary says. He looks around, taking in the world through narrowed eyes.

  The road is empty except for us. We pass a farm with a tractor left out in the field, and in the distance a dust whirlwind blows near a ranch house. And even though my bruised thumb still throbs from hitting it, the cool breeze feels crisp smacking my face and I’m feeling good because of what we’re doing for Zachary.

  After a few minutes Zachary says, “It reminds me of the sea.”

  “What?” I ask.

  “The plains. It’s like an ocean. See.” He points to a windmill standing against the sunset. “There’s a lighthouse. And look at the rows of cotton. When you pass them, they look like waves.”

  “You think?” Cal asks, his eyes scoping the cotton fields.

  “I don’t see it,” I say.

  Zachary smirks. “You don’t know how to look. You have to really look at something.”

  I’ve looked at cotton fields all my life and never once did they remind me of an ocean.