The View from the Cherry Tree

  That didn’t even deserve an answer, so he didn’t make one.

  “How come they’re sitting on the TV?”

  “Because my mother said I had to get them out of my bedroom before Uncle Nick gets here. I don’t know why. He isn’t scared of spiders.”

  “And she told you to put them in the living room?” Derek’s dark thick brows rose in disbelief.

  “No, she said to get them out of my room.” He knew perfectly well his mother wouldn’t allow them to stay where they were while there was company in the house, but he hadn’t yet thought of a safe place to put them. “You wouldn’t want to keep them for a few days, would you?”

  Derek shuddered. “I’d have nightmares with those things in the same room with me!” He stared a moment longer, then left the room.

  Rob’s father came in, his hair dark red from being wet, freshly showered and changed into slacks and a sport shirt. “How come you got all their faces green?”

  “I like green.”

  “Well, I don’t.” Mr. Mallory twiddled with the TV, changing the complexions to magenta and finally to something nearer flesh tones. Then he fished the newspaper out of a stack of magazines on the coffee table. “This place is so neat you can’t find anything. The wedding is at the church, the reception is at the Country Club, so why does the house have to be so neat?”

  “I don’t know. I think I’ll go outdoors for a while. It’s cooler. Be sure to call me when there’s something to eat, okay?”

  “Okay,” his father agreed. “And for pete’s sake stay away from Old Lady Calloway, will you, chum?”

  He didn’t know why they were always saying that to him. He never went near her on purpose. Never once, that he could remember, in his entire life had he gone near her on purpose.

  Sonny followed him down the back steps. Maybe, Rob thought, he’d eat a few more cherries, just to keep from starving to death.

  He liked it in the cherry tree. It was almost as good as Old Lady Calloway’s tower for keeping track of things. He could see both ways up and down the street, and into both houses, and across the street to the Comptons’ and the Devereauxs’.

  The tower was a little better, he supposed, although he’d never been in it. It was the one thing about her house that he liked. It was a round tower that went up three stories, but the top ones were closed off. Mrs. Calloway sat at the lower floor level all the time to watch what was going on up and down the street.

  The tower opened off one corner of Mrs. ­Calloway’s living room, and it had windows all around it. These were heavily hung with lace curtains so that unless it was night and she had the lights on it was hard to see into it. Mrs. ­Calloway sat in there during the day with her binoculars, and there wasn’t much that happened on Saraday Street that she didn’t know about.

  Sonny didn’t join Rob in the tree. He went on out across the lawn to where Max’s car was still parked on Old Lady Calloway’s hose, and jumped in the window of the car.

  “Hey! Get out of there!” Max got up from the porch swing, Teddi following, and they went out toward the street. “Come on, Old Boy, get out of my car. You’re too hard on the upholstery.”

  Sonny was perched on the back of the front seat. He laid back his ears as they came up, and twitched his tail.

  Max hesitated. “Get him out of there, will you, Teddi?”

  “Come on, love. Come out,” Teddi coaxed.

  Sonny crouched lower.

  “Where’s Rob? He can always pick him up without getting scratched. Rob?” Max turned to call.

  Rob spat out a pit and picked another cherry. Poor old chicken Max.

  It took them a few minutes, but Teddi finally got the cat out, and Max ran up the windows to keep him from going back. While he was doing it, Mrs. Calloway came out onto her front steps and called down to them.

  “Young man, your car has ruined my hose!”

  She had a loud voice for such a little dried-up person. She looked a lot like the witch from Hansel and Gretel, Rob thought. Only he couldn’t imagine her living in a gingerbread house, not a real one.

  “You’ve got it hanging over the edge of the curb into the street,” Max pointed out.

  “You’ve ruined it. It’s split; I can’t use it anymore.”

  “It leaked before.”

  Mrs. Calloway advanced down the steps as if to take hold of him. “That’s not so. A hose will cost me fifteen dollars. You’ll have to pay for it; you can’t expect to ruin people’s property and not make it good.”

  “Mrs. Calloway, that hose wasn’t worth anywhere near fifteen dollars. A new one wouldn’t cost that much, even a better one than you had.”

  She took a different tack. “Always parking in front of my house, as if you owned the curb. You’re visiting the Mallorys, park in front of their house.”

  “There isn’t room in front of their house. Nobody ever parks in front of your house, and you don’t have a car.”

  “That is hardly any concern of yours. I’ll thank you to move the car and replace my hose, or I’ll have the police on you.”

  Max stared at her for a moment, then touched Teddi’s arm. “You do that, Mrs. ­Calloway. Come on, Teddi, let’s go.”

  Sonny, still in Teddi’s arms, spat at their neighbor when she came too near; the old woman retreated, muttering, and Max and Teddi came back into the yard, under the cherry tree.

  “Do you think she’ll do it? Call the police?”

  Max made an exasperated sound. “Let her. For cripes sake, she doesn’t own the street, and even if she had any company, I wouldn’t be blocking all the parking! I did run over her crummy hose, after she put it in the gutter where I couldn’t help it, so maybe I’ll replace it, but I can get one cheaper than that. It’s only a twenty-five footer, and it must be fifteen years old!”

  “Maybe I’d better go in and see if Mom needs some help. She’s about worn out. You want to come in? You’re going to stay, aren’t you?”

  “Sure, I’ll stay. Celebrate the end of an era.”

  “I guess Derek feels the same way. He’s here, too; I see him looking out the window.”

  Rob picked another cherry and concentrated on spitting it as far as Mrs. Calloway’s window. He’d never made it, but sometimes he got one as far as the sill.

  He’d be glad when this blamed wedding was over, and they got back to normal around here.

  Two

  Sometimes somebody spoke to him. “Rob, haven’t you got a clean shirt?” or “Don’t mess up the living room.” But mostly they didn’t notice he was around. When dinner was finally ready, he ate in silence. After dinner the rest of them went off on their own business. Rob stayed out of their way while they were leaving.

  Sonny wasn’t quite so agile, however; he managed to get tangled up with Max’s feet, and there was a bit of spitting and swearing for a minute before Rob rescued the cat.

  Mr. Mallory paused on his way through the dining room with the newspaper. “Maybe we’d be smart to put that cat in a kennel until the wedding is over.”

  Rob’s arms tightened protectively around Sonny “Why should he have to get punished because old Darcy’s getting married?”

  “I wasn’t thinking of it as a punishment, necessarily. More like protective custody. You know, keep him from getting into trouble.”

  Rob stroked the sleek black fur. “He won’t get into trouble. If people’d look where they’re stepping, he’d be all right.”

  His father looked at him for a moment, then sighed. “Well, keep him away from everybody, will you, chum? Including our gracious neighbor, Mrs. Calloway.”

  “Wally? Have you got a few minutes?” That was his mother.

  “I was going to finish reading the paper. What do you need?”

  “Well, I thought maybe you could write out the checks for the wedding expenses. I made a list. I have to get tha
t dress hemmed so Darcy can pack it. She’ll have a fit if she can’t take it with her.”

  He could see his father didn’t really want to write checks. On the other hand, it was easier these days to go ahead and do what Mom wanted than to argue it all out with her, and you still wound up doing it her way in the end, anyway.

  “Okay. Where’s the list?”

  Rob moved out of the way, slipping out the back door before anybody thought up anything they wanted him to do. He was supposed to straighten up his room, and if his mother checked she’d see he still had some stuff around. He’d have plenty of time to do that tomorrow, anyway. He didn’t see what difference it made to Uncle Nick (who was to have the other bed in Rob’s room for tomorrow night) if there was a little lint under the bed. He’d bet Uncle Nick wouldn’t even notice it. Chances were he wouldn’t be bothered by a can of worms on the nightstand, either, but his mother never considered that other people’s sensibilities weren’t the same as hers.

  It was a warm summer evening. There ought to be something to do, but he couldn’t think of anything. Sonny squirmed to get out of his arms, and Rob let him go with a warning.

  “You heard what Dad said. Stay out of trouble, cat, or we’re both in for it. They might even send you to the pound.”

  In the light that streamed through the back screen, Sonny gave him a malevolent look.

  “No, I don’t think they’d dare, either,” Rob agreed, and hoisted himself into the cherry tree. It was harder to find the ripe cherries in the dark, but not impossible. He could see into the dining room, where his father sat over the checkbook, and also into Mrs. Calloway’s house. The old lady was still wearing her binoculars on the leather strap around her neck, although she couldn’t see anything with them at night. She was feeding her goldfish. He didn’t see why anybody’d pick goldfish over cats for pets; fish didn’t do anything.

  Sonny had disappeared, blending into the shadows. It wasn’t completely dark, of course. There were the lights from the windows and a streetlight on the corner. Not that it would bother either Rob or the cat if it was dark.

  Rob found a bunch of cherries and stripped them off the branch, eating them slowly, one by one. It was harder, in the dark, to see where the pits went, but he kept trying for Mrs. ­Calloway’s window. One panel of the lace curtains had caught on something and was held to one side, so he could see in more clearly than usual. She’d finished feeding the fish and was putting a plate on the table for her solitary meal.

  Rob watched, fascinated, as she lifted something that appeared to be a piece of raw liver to her mouth. He made a retching sound, and Mrs. Calloway looked up, directly at him.

  She couldn’t see him, of course; he was hidden by the leaves. Still, it made him feel funny to have her staring at him, when he could see her perfectly well.

  She muttered something under her breath, apparently deciding what she’d heard was unimportant. Along with her raw liver, or whatever it was, she was having cauliflower. Rob twisted his face in disgust. Imagine eating liver and cauliflower if nobody made you do it.

  As he watched, she dropped a section of the vegetable; it lodged in her binoculars, and when she’d removed it she took the glasses off over her head, too, and set them to one side. She must have forgotten she had them on. He thought she hung them around her neck first thing in the morning, the same time she put in her teeth.

  A car stopped in front of the house. Without moving anything but his head, Rob watched as a man came up the sidewalk, hesitated, and then approached the lighted dining room windows.

  It was his Uncle Ray, his mother’s youngest brother. He was acting kind of funny, not going right in the way he usually did. Rob watched him, forgetting to blow out his cherry pit.

  Uncle Ray reached up and scratched on the screen. “Walt! Hey, Walt!”

  The hoarse whisper didn’t seem to register for a moment. Then Mr. Mallory turned and frowned toward the window.

  “Who’s that?”

  “It’s me, Ray. Listen, I have to talk to you.”

  “Well, come on inside. What’s all this scratching on the screen bit?”

  “No, well, listen . . . Walt, it’s important, and . . . and maybe it’d be better if Marge doesn’t know I’m here. Maybe . . . maybe it’d be better if you came outside.”

  Mr. Mallory’s frown deepened, but he stood up. “All right. I’ll come out.”

  Rob could hear his mother’s voice from the kitchen as his father passed through it, but couldn’t make out the words. And then his father came down the back steps, caught ­Sonny’s tail on the bottom step, and nearly fell when the cat screeched and leaped for the cherry tree. There he found Rob and curled in his lap for some soothing pats, which Rob administered absent-mindedly.

  “That darn cat . . . I said we ought to put him in a kennel over this weekend, anyway . . .

  maybe permanently. Like to broke my neck.” Mr. Mallory peered through the gloom. “What’s this all about?”

  “Well . . .” Ray, who looked a lot like his sister, ran a hand through his dark hair in a nervous gesture. Rob blew a cherry pit at him, but it fell far short. “I . . . I’ve got a problem.”

  After a moment of waiting, Mr. Mallory prodded. “What kind of a problem?”

  “Well . . . it’s hard to talk about it, ­actually . . .”

  Rob’s father swore quietly. “Now listen, I’ve got plenty of things to do, so don’t beat around the bush. What is it? Money? A girl? Don’t tell me you’ve lost another job.”

  “Well . . . not yet.”

  “What do you mean, not yet? You’re about to lose this job? For crying out loud, Ray, there’s a limit to the number of jobs I can get you in this one small town! What have you done now?”

  Ray’s voice dropped so low that Rob, a few feet above him in the tree, could scarcely make out the words. “I . . . borrowed some money.”

  Rob couldn’t see his father’s face, but he knew what kind of expression went with that tone of voice. “You . . . borrowed some money. They don’t fire you for . . . good grief, Ray, you didn’t steal money? Tell me you didn’t steal any money!”

  Ray shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “It wasn’t exactly . . . I was going to pay it back. I only needed it over the weekend. I thought sure I’d get it back, only . . . only it didn’t work out. I tried to borrow against my car, but they said it wasn’t worth that much . . .”

  This time the curse carried a more ominous note. “How much? How much money did you take?”

  “Twelve hundred dollars.”

  His father’s echo was so soft that at first Rob thought he was unaffected by the amount, until he repeated it in a louder, outraged whisper. “Twelve hundred dollars? You swiped twelve hundred dollars? What for? No, never mind, don’t tell me, I don’t think I want to know. And you can’t raise that much on your car, and what do you want me to do about it? I’m marrying off a daughter day after tomorrow. Do you have any idea what that’s done to my bank account? Champagne for two hundred and fifty people? All the rest of it? Where do you think I’d come up with twelve hundred dollars on the spur of the moment?”

  Rob listened to his father’s raspy breathing and wished he’d let Uncle Ray tell what he used the money for. That ought to be interesting.

  “It . . . isn’t just the money. I mean, if I could pay it all back, I guess that would help . . . but French took the books and the cashbox home with him this weekend . . . by Monday he’ll know the money’s missing, and . . . and he’ll know who had to have taken it . . .”

  “You fool. You stupid fool,” Mr. Mallory said.

  “Don’t you think I know that? Don’t you think I’ve told myself . . .” Ray sounded as if he were about to cry.

  “You’re twenty-seven years old, and I swear you’ve got less sense than Robbie. He’s constantly in trouble, but I’ll have to admit a lot of it isn’t his faul
t. But what excuse have you got? Twelve hundred dollars . . . I can’t believe it!”

  “I thought it was a sure thing I’d get it back, Walt. You don’t understand . . .”

  “No, and I don’t want to, and that hardly matters anyway, does it? You can’t put the money back because you don’t have it, and even if you did, it’s too late to do it without getting caught; so you’re going to get fired . . . and probably prosecuted. That’s what it comes down to, isn’t it? French will know you stole the money, and he’ll call in the district attorney and ask for an indictment against you. And get it.”

  “Listen, French’s a friend of yours,” Ray said quickly, hopefully. “And you know Bill Sansome, too. You could talk to them, tell them I’ll pay it back . . . what good would it do to put me in jail, make a mess in all the papers . . .”

  “Why didn’t you think of some of this before you took the money?”

  “I told you, Walt, I thought I’d get the money back.”

  Mr. Mallory made a sound of disgust, deep in his throat, and turned away. Ray took a quick, nervous step after him.

  “Listen, I know you haven’t got that much cash, but Marge has those bonds Dad left her . . .”

  Walt Mallory spun back, and now Rob could see his face. He’d never seen his father so angry. “No you don’t. You don’t touch Marge’s bonds; and if you ask her for them, I’ll break your neck. I mean it, Ray. And she’s not to know anything about this, not until after the wedding, at least. She’s got all she can handle right now, and I won’t have Darcy’s wedding spoiled. You hear me?”

  Ray licked his lips. “Yeah, I hear you. But listen, Walt, you could call French, couldn’t you? Maybe it wouldn’t seem so bad if we contacted him before he actually discovers the shortage . . .”

  Mr. Mallory spat. “Oh, sure. Tell him when he’s on the verge of discovering it, when you know you can’t conceal it any longer. That’s a big inducement to forgive you, I’m sure. Ray, I never thought you were overly bright, but even Robbie would have had better sense than this . . .”