Unclaimed Treasures (3 page)

Old Pepper peered up into the apple tree as Porky hissed.

“Aha!” he croaked. “I see you, Bella!”

There was a sudden flapping of bright wings high in the tree. “Bug off!” screeched Bella. “Bella's on holiday!”

“Holiday my foot come home I've got mangoes,” exclaimed Old Pepper, who often spoke in run-on sentences. He struggled out of the wheelbarrow, arms flailing. Porky grabbed Old Pepper as he weaved, while Bella shrieked and glared at them from above. The cats were fierce against the kitchen window, tails whipping, eyes wild.

Willa, Horace, and Nicholas ducked under the tree and looked up. Bella peered down at them, turning her head from side to side as she moved nervously sideways on her branch.

“Holiday no mangoes!” she shrieked.

Old Pepper staggered under the tree, nearly stepping on Willa's bare foot. He shook his fist. “Be nice!” he yelled. The effort of shouting and shaking his fist almost tipped him over, but Porky staunchly kept him upright. “Be nice,” said Old Pepper, more softly.

“Be nice how do I love thee let me count the ways,” answered Bella.

Horace, Nicholas, and Willa burst into laughter, and Bella laughed back at them, flying down to a lower branch. She was a beautiful bird, mostly red with a few touches of green and yellow, almost too bright for the tree.

Nicholas swung easily to the first branch of the tree. “I'll climb up,” he called to Old Pepper. “Maybe that will get her down.”

“No, no, no, no, no” came a shout from the back door. It was Aunt Crystal, waving her hands in the air. “That tree is not for climbing, Nicholas. It is old and dying.”

“Never,” added Aunt Lulu, looking over Aunt Crystal's head. “Never. Its limbs are most dead. It is not a trustworthy tree.”

“Crazy,” muttered Old Pepper, glaring at Aunt Lulu. “My limbs are old and most dead, too. But I am as trustworthy as I ever was.”

“Not trustworthy, not trustworthy,” repeated Aunt Crystal, shaking her head with her hands over her ears.

“Crazy, never, no,” chanted Bella from the tree.

Aunt Lulu held up a warning finger. “Never,” she said sternly, “never climb that tree.” And then she and Aunt Crystal disappeared into the house again.

There was a silence. Willa smiled at Old Pepper and looked up.

“Beautiful Bella,” she called softly. “Come down, beautiful Bella.”

Bella stared at Willa for a moment, then, squawking, she flew down and sat in the wheelbarrow, gnawing on the wooden side with her beak.

Old Pepper grinned at Willa, then mumbled his way over to the wheelbarrow and climbed in.

“Dumb bird,” he said lovingly, putting his arm around Bella. He waved to Porky. “Let's go, Pork. Take the dumb bird home for a mango.”

“Dumb bird,” said Bella. “Dumb bird for a mango.”

Bella settled into the crook of Old Pepper's arm, and slowly, the wheelbarrow squeaking a bit, Porky pushed them off.

“Holiday,” they could hear Bella say.

“We'll take a holiday, Bella,” said Old Pepper, nodding his head. “We'll wheelbarrow around the block.”

Silently, Nicholas and Willa and Horace watched them. Then Willa sighed, sitting down on the grass, leaning against the trunk of the apple tree.

“What a pair,” she said softly. “What a pair.”

The back door opened and Aunt Crystal looked out.

“All in order?”

“All in order,” called Horace Morris. “They've gone.”

“Well, then,” said Aunt Crystal, letting the three frantic cats outside, “we can get about
our
birding.”

Aunt Crystal had changed into boots and ballooning knickers and a billed hat that sat on top of her gray curls.

“Lulu!” she called, her voice high like the last note of a song.

Lulu came around the corner of the house, pulling a wire shopping cart. In the cart were bird books, a blanket, and a huge paper bag. Aunt Lulu, as always, wore high-heeled shoes, though today she wore camouflage pants with them. “I've got the books, the blanket, and”—she waved a thermos at Aunt Crystal—“the punch with a little something fierce.”

Together they went off, one striding, the other teetering, with an every-so-often hiss at a bush.

Willa grinned and turned to Horace.

“The paper bag?”

“Lunch,” said Horace Morris. “A good bird has to fly over a picnic blanket once in a while, they say.”

“What a pair,” said Nicholas, repeating Willa's words.

The three of them lay down in the grass, and Willa turned to look at Nicholas. Nicholas was staring up into the tree.

“What are you thinking about?” she asked.

“I'm thinking,” said Nicky slowly, “that Aunt Crystal and Aunt Lulu shouldn't have said never.”

“Never what?” asked Horace, propping himself on one side.

Willa sighed, staring up into the leaves again.

“He means never climb the tree,” she said. “Nicholas loves trees. And you never tell Nicholas no.”

“You never tell Willa no, either,” commented Nicholas, still staring.

Horace laughed and lay down again.

“What a pair,” he said.

Willa put her hands behind her head and closed her eyes. “Be careful, Nicholas,” she said so softly that Horace didn't hear.

“Hush, Willa,” said Nicholas.

Willa smiled and settled back into the grass. She thought about Nicholas and his dreams of climbing the old untrustworthy apple tree; of Aunt Crystal and Aunt Lulu off birding on their blanket; and of Old Pepper and Porky and Bella on a brief holiday around the block. She looked over at Horace, and for some strange reason, she was comforted to see that Horace had taken an apple, shined and quite large, from his pocket, and was beginning to eat it, spitting the peels in a neat pile in the grass beneath the apple tree.

Willa held the manuscript in one hand, moving the vacuum cleaner idly in the other. Back and forth, back and forth. Willa could not remember ever seeing her father stroke her mother's hair. And in the moonlight, her father always looked happy and comfortable and tired, her mother huge, growing daily like a mammoth firefly.

There was a metallic sound, and Willa knew she had sucked up some paper clips. Paper clips, much like dust and dirt, were the natural by-product of her father's work. Willa turned off the cleaner and went to her father's reference library to look up Greek gods. There was a book dedicated to the subject, large with bold print and pictures. The men, Willa noticed, were muscular with sweet faces and fig leaves. The women had sweet faces, too, and no shirts. They all looked quite content in spite of the shortage of clothing.

Willa sighed at the vacuum cleaner and went over to her father's record player. The record still sitting there collecting dust was her favorite, the Pachelbel Canon. That meant her father hadn't changed the record since she had last vacuumed. Willa turned on the record, and the music, quiet and gentle, filled the room. First position, second position, third, hands reaching, arabesque. Willa danced. The music, as always, made her into something other than Willa. Wanda, perhaps? No, not Wanda, standing in the moonlight, her breath on Ted's alligator. Suddenly, there was Willa's mother in the doorway, huge, smiling. Then she was dancing with Willa. First position, the whale, second position, the elephant, her hands strangely lovely and thin, the hippo doing fifth position, a plié. Turning with Willa. Willa smiling in spite of herself. What a pair, thought Willa, echoing Horace and Nicholas under the tree. Her mother's long hair had come loose from its combs. There were damp wisps around her face, and her cheeks were flushed. Willa and her mother grinned at each other, and then the final strong chords of the canon came. With a flourish they ended their dance, Willa's mother collapsing heavily in a wing chair by the fireplace, Willa on the floor next to the vacuum cleaner.

“Mama?” Willa caught her breath and sat up. “You're good!”

Willa's mother smiled, and wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. “You know, there was a time when I wanted to be a dancer.”

“You?” Willa exclaimed. “You?” she said more softly, struck by the sudden look of hurt on her mother's face.

Her mother nodded, lifting her feet together and studying them over her huge stomach. She turned them from side to side, arching them, pointing the toes. “Yes, me. When I met your dad I was taking four company classes each week.”

“Four?” Willa was astonished. “But what happened? Why did you stop?”

Her mother shrugged and tucked her feet under her. “I don't really know that anything happened,” she said. “I married your dad. Then I had you and Nicholas.” She smiled at Willa. “I didn't know there would be two of you, you know.”

Willa stiffened. Is that our fault? she thought. Is that what you really mean?

“But you should have kept on dancing. It's important,” said Willa.

“Having you and Nicholas was important, too,” said her mother. “There are different kinds of important, Willa.”

Wrong, thought Willa. Wrong. She thought of Horace's mother out in the world doing something important. Something extraordinary. She would be tall and sleek-haired, dancing somewhere, perhaps. Or playing bouncy music on an organ in a restaurant while people ate mushrooms. She would be wearing lavender eye makeup and a fur coat and diamonds the size of apricots. After each performance she would eat chicken salad or toasted cheese sandwiches (Willa's favorites) by candlelight. There would be waiters in red jackets with brass buttons waiting to light her perfumed cigarette in its sequined holder. There would be ice-cream sundaes with sprinkles for dessert (another of Willa's favorites). And a tall, splendid, solemn-eyed man, much like Horace's father but
not
Horace's father, would be there, looking loving over the appetizer.

Her mother's voice interrupted Willa's fantasy. “There are some things you can't do just for yourself, Willa. You have to consider others.”

Willa's sudden anger surprised her. “Who?” she burst out. “What others? Us? Nicholas and me? Is it our fault?”

“Oh, Willa, you don't understand,” said her mother in her infuriating soft voice. She held out her hand. “You're a bit young, yet.” Willa's mother got up heavily, stretching backward, her hands on the small of her back. “We're having dinner guests tonight. It would be nice if you'd help.” Yawning, then stopping for a sudden bright smile to Willa, her mother left the room.

Willa was speechless with anger. It filled her body. It was as if her mother had opened a door and then shut it before Willa could look inside. Willa's hands shook as she got up. How can you love someone so much one moment, she thought, then hate them even more the next? Willa stood for a moment. Furious, she turned on the vacuum cleaner with such a vengeance that she spilled a box of paper clips on the floor. For a second Willa hesitated. Then, grimly, she bent down and sucked them up—every one—into the vacuum cleaner, clinking and clanking loudly. Wind chimes blown wild.

By the time Willa began the salad for dinner she had still not lost her anger. She was full of silence as she chopped the celery and sliced radishes. Nicholas, peering sideways at her, knew enough to keep still as he set the table. Finally, Willa could stand it no longer.

“Who's coming for dinner?” she grumped, eyeing the two additional places. “Students?”

Her mother turned at the sink, holding out a bunch of daisies and phlox. “These are for the table, please, Nicholas.” She turned to Willa. “Tonight is Horace and Matthew,” she announced. “I thought I'd told you.”

A moment passed. Matthew. Matthew must be
her
Matthew. She had only known him, until now, as Papa or Horace's father. Or her true love.

“Here?” she asked, breathless. The bouquet of flowers blurred, just as everything had the day she met Horace and his father.

Wisely, Nicholas said nothing.

“Yes, here,” said her mother, turning the flowers, standing back to study them. “There,” she said, smiling. “Just right.”

Just right
.
Just right
, echoed in Willa's mind. Slowly, Willa put up her hands to smooth her hair. And then it was too late. The kitchen door opened, and there stood Horace, plump and eager; his father behind him . . . holding flowers. Matthew smiled as he gave the flowers to Willa's mother.

“For you,” he said. “From the Unclaimed Treasures and us. And our thanks for the invitation.”

“Aunt Crystal and Aunt Lulu are asleep,” said Horace, “after a hard day of blanket birding.”

“Well, dinner isn't anything special,” said Willa's mother. “Only chicken pot pie.”

Chicken pot pie!
Willa was aghast. She loathed chicken pot pie. Chicken did not belong in a pie. Berries or chocolate did. She looked at Horace, expecting him to look aghast, too. But Horace and his father smiled.

“Chicken pot pie,” exclaimed Willa's father, “is my very favorite.”

Willa looked at her father, horrified.

“One of mine, too, now that you mention it,” said Matthew. He lifted his wineglass and looked at Willa. “What about you, Willa?”