Picture Perfect Page 6

  “Totally. What I don’t get is why Dad is so determined to ruin my life. It’s not like I ever did anything to him.”

  “What happens now? Do you have to go to court or something?”

  “Yeah. Next Thursday.”

  “What will they do to you?”

  “I don’t care.”

  “Yes you do.”

  “They’ll probably go harder on me than the others, just because I’m the judge’s kid. Otherwise people will say I got off easy because he’s my dad.” Zane stood up. “I need a shower, and some sleep.”

  I hugged him. He smelled like sweat, paint, and beer. “I am so mad at you I could kill you, but I’m glad you’re okay.”

  “Sorry I scared you. I wasn’t thinking straight.”

  I left him alone after that. I fixed myself a bowl of cereal and took Lucky outside. I was teaching him to come and to sit. He was catching on pretty fast for such a little guy.

  Zane slept practically all day. Daddy came home with a bucket of chicken for dinner, which we consumed in total silence. Afterward he and Zane went into the den and closed the door.

  The next day was the worst. Zane and Daddy were barely speaking, and I was maintaining a low profile, keeping Lucky out of the way. I was in my room reading when Mama called. Daddy picked up in his office, Zane was on the extension in the kitchen, I picked up the cordless beside my bed.

  “Sumner?” Mama said after we’d all said hello. “What’s the matter? You all sound so strange.”

  “We’ve had a little crisis here, Beth,” Daddy said.

  “What kind of a crisis? Is somebody sick?”

  Zane made a sound in his throat. “It’s me, Mama. I messed up.”

  Then, with Daddy breaking in every other second to fill in more details, Zane told Mama what had happened and that he had to go to court.

  “Oh, Zane,” Mama said. “I do not have time for this. Whatever possessed you to do something so stupid?”

  “Ask Daddy,” I said.

  “Sumner?”

  “It was just a teenage prank that got out of hand,” Daddy said. “I’ll be with him in court on Thursday. There’s no need for you to come home.”

  “Yes there is, Mama,” I said. “Your son needs you. We all do.”

  “I know that, Phoebe, and I’d like to be there, but I made a commitment to the company.”

  “What about your commitment to us?”

  Mama sighed. “Sumner, will you please talk some sense into your daughter?”

  “She’s fourteen,” Daddy said, as if that precluded any rational discussion.

  Zane said, “Never mind, Mama. I can handle it.”

  “They won’t send you to jail, will they?” Mama asked.

  Daddy said, “Not likely.”

  “Well,” Mama said. “This is certainly a fine kettle of fish. Not what I needed to hear just before the regional sales conference.”

  “Heaven forbid anything should disrupt your work!” I said.

  “Listen,” Mama said, “I need to go. Sumner, you call and let me know what happens, okay? And Zane? I love you in spite of this. You too, Phoebe.”

  Like it was my fault!

  “We love you too, Beth,” Daddy said.

  And we all hung up.

  When Thursday came, I wanted to go to court with Zane so he’d have somebody on his side, but Daddy said spectators weren’t allowed in juvenile court. It was a lousy day anyway, dark and pouring rain. Lucky freaked when I opened the umbrella over his head, and I nearly fell down trying to hold on to his leash and keep from getting soaking wet. Later, after Daddy and Zane left, I made eggs and toast and watched TV for a while, trying to keep my mind off of what was happening at the courthouse.

  Just before noon Daddy and Zane came home. Lucky ran circles in the kitchen, yipping and jumping up to get their attention. Daddy tossed his keys on the counter. Zane ducked his head, muttered something about changing clothes, and ran upstairs.

  “What happened, Daddy?” I picked up Lucky so he wouldn’t get into trouble.

  Daddy closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “The juvenile court judge was fair. Zane will pay his portion of the cost of replacing the mailboxes, and he and the other boys will be responsible for removing the graffiti from the store windows downtown. And he’s to perform forty hours of community service.”

  A wave of relief washed over me, and I realized that I had been holding my breath. “But he won’t have a record or anything, right? He can still be on the swim team and drive his car.”

  “Whether he stays on the team is a matter for his coaches. The car stays in the garage until he complies with all the court mandates. Then we’ll see.”

  “But that’s not fair! How will he get downtown and back without his car?”

  “He can walk.” Daddy opened the fridge. “I’m starving. Let’s make lunch.”

  Just like that the subject was closed. I didn’t see how Daddy could put all the different problems of his life into separate little boxes and pretend they weren’t there. When even one thing goes wrong in my life, I can’t rest until I figure out how to fix it. I helped Daddy make grilled cheese sandwiches and iced tea. I yelled for Zane to come and cat, but he hollered back that he wasn’t hungry. Which was pretty unbelievable. Zane was always hungry.

  When Daddy went back to the courthouse for the afternoon, Zane came down and raided the fridge, then went out to the porch to eat. Rain dripped from the eaves and plopped into Mama’s azalea bushes. While Zane devoured two sandwiches and a bag of chips, I picked at a chocolate brownie and told him about the e-mail I’d just received from Lauren. “She’s going to Six Flags Over Georgia and then to a concert,” I said. “I’m stuck here and can’t do anything.”

  I didn’t mean to blame Zane, but summer was slipping away and I didn’t have anything to show for it.

  “Don’t be mad at me. Everybody else in the world hates my guts. I need at least one person who doesn’t think I’m a total screwup.”

  “Nobody thinks that.”

  He snorted. “Yes they do. Dad reamed me out all the way down to the courthouse and back, and then when we were on the way back home, Mama called to see how it all turned out and took the opportunity to tell me once again how disappointed she is. Mr. Threadgill won’t even let me talk to Ginger over the phone.” He folded his napkin, then tore it into long, narrow shreds. “But you know what I dread the worst? All the gossip in town and the talk at school.”

  “School is two months away. This will be old news by then. And you know how people in Eden are. They’ll talk for a couple of days, until they find some new piece of juicy gossip to chew on.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  “Besides, the Fourth of July is coming up this weekend. Everybody will be thinking about the barbecue and the parade, and having a good time.”

  “Maybe. This morning I heard a couple of deputies talking. There’s a rumor that a bunch of war protesters are planning a demonstration at the courthouse on Independence Day. The sheriff is afraid it’ll get ugly.”

  “Protesters are nothing new. Remember those people who showed up at the courthouse last year when the county wanted to put that new road through the middle of town?”

  “Democracy in action,” Zane said. “That is what makes America so great.”

  “You sound just like Daddy.”

  “I was being sarcastic.”

  I picked up our tray. “Come on. Help me load the dishwasher.”

  We went inside, and I forgot all about our conversation until the Fourth of July arrived and, as Daddy later said, all hell broke loose.

  It started off like a typical July Fourth in Texas, with the rising of the white-hot sun in a cloudless sky and the smell of burning charcoal in the air as people tired up their grills. The annual parade was a big deal, but not as big a deal as eating barbecue, which is practically a religion in Eden. Despite what I’d said to Zane about kicking back and enjoying the festivities, I was dreading the
holiday because Zane and Daddy would be spending so much time together, and how tense would that be? Though, surprisingly, Zanc’s brush with the law had brought them closer in some ways. Maybe Daddy recognized Zane’s behavior as a cry for help, as the TV psychologists say, or maybe Daddy was trying harder to make up for Mama being gone.

  Anyway, during breakfast Zane and Daddy talked about the fall schedule for the swim team, and my brother actually cracked a smile that wasn’t meant to be sarcastic. I fed Lucky bits of my pancake, breaking them off and handing them to him under the table, until he choked and Daddy made me stop.

  Afterward I walked Lucky and settled him in his playpen with a chew toy and one of my old shirts, and we drove downtown to watch the parade. Daddy parked in his reserved space behind the courthouse, and we headed for our usual viewing spot on Main Street. Everybody in town was there. Kids from school stood in a tight knot on the corner, laughing and teasing one another. A couple of girls from last year’s English class waved to me. I waved back but stuck close to Zane as we made our way through the crowd of parents with toddlers in strollers, old people with umbrellas unfurled to ward off the sun, and a bunch of parents in band booster shirts carrying cameras. As we took our place on the sidewalk, several people came by to talk to Daddy. Some of them just wanted a chance to stare at Zane, who crossed his arms over his chest and stared back until they moved on.

  One of the sheriff’s deputies stopped to talk to Daddy, and while they were comparing notes, Zane elbowed me and muttered, “Look who just showed up.”

  Beverly was standing across the street talking to a guy in a business suit and dark glasses. With everybody else dressed in shorts and flip-flops, he stuck out like a sore thumb.

  “Must be from the Mafia,” I said.

  “Maybe he’s her boyfriend,” Zane said. “Maybe now she’ll let Dad alone.”

  I inched my way a little closer to the curb, hoping to block Daddy’s view of her.

  A whistle blew and the Eden High School marching band led off the parade.

  “There’s Ginger,” Zane murmured to me as the woodwinds section marched by, followed by a Volkswagen full of clowns and a red convertible carrying Meribeth Culpepper, the current Eden Sweet Potato Queen.

  Behind Meribeth came the Lions Club float and then a float from the Eden Garden Club, complete with a giant watering can and several ladies holding straw baskets filled with real flowers.

  “The one in the green dress is Caroline’s mom,” Zane said as the float went past. Behind the garden club ladies came a group of elementary school boys in their blue-and-gold Cub Scout uniforms, marching along with their den mother.

  A popping noise erupted behind us. At first I thought it was firecrackers until somebody yelled, “He’s got a gun!” and a bare-chested man in a crew cut and tattered jeans raced across the street, nearly knocking down the members of Miss Patricia’s School of Dance, who were marching along in their red-and-white spangled costumes. A woman screamed, and people started shoving their way through the crowd. The parade broke up as the band members ran for cover. Miss Patricia herded her dancers onto the sidewalk, and the den mother hurried her Cub Scouts into the drugstore. A couple of sheriff’s deputies tackled the man and took away his gun.

  It seemed like the group of flag-waving protesters who suddenly overran the courthouse steps had come out of nowhere. Later the paper would say there were only thirty people or so, but when it was happening, it seemed like a lot more. They were chanting, “No more war!” and punching the air with their fists.

  A bunch of men from the old soldiers’ home started yelling at the protesters, then somebody threw a punch, and all at once the whole town started shoving and cursing, choosing up sides. The police and the county sheriff’s deputies waded into the melee with bullhorns and ordered people to go home.

  “Let’s go!” Daddy tried to elbow his way through the crowd to get me and Zane out of there, but people were bunched so tightly we couldn’t move. A couple of protesters set a flag on fire and cheered while it burned.

  Then the agitators smashed the courthouse windows, and the air filled with the smell of gasoline. Flames licked the windows, and a cloud of black smoke billowed up. People began to run. Someone shoved me so hard I nearly fell. A man in Bermuda shorts and a red ponytail spilled soda down my back and stomped on my foot. Despite the chaos Daddy held my hand in a bone-crushing grip. Caught in the crowd, I couldn’t see a thing.

  “What’s happening?” I yelled above wails of approaching fire engines and police cruisers.

  “The courthouse is on fire,” he said calmly. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

  “This way, Dad!” Zane yelled, and we cut through an alley behind the barbershop and down a side street littered with deflated balloons and crushed soft-drink cups, some of them still oozing soda and ice.

  Before we could make our way back to the court-house parking lot, the fire engines arrived, and right behind them, a news crew from the TV station. The police and sheriff’s deputies were busy arresting people and herding them into white vans parked at the curb.

  One of the deputies looked up as we made our way past. He jerked his thumb at a group of scowling protesters sitting in the vans. “Looks like you’ve got your work cut out for you, Judge.”

  Daddy nodded, and we cut across the lawn to the parking lot. I was impatient to change out of my sticky shirt and cool off, but we got caught in a huge traffic jam and spent an hour inching along the street, stopping every few feet to let groups of pedestrians cross or a police car pass. By the time we got home, the phone was ringing. Reporters from newspapers and TV stations all over Texas were calling Judge Trask looking for quotes about what should happen to people who burned the flag and tried to destroy a government building.

  Daddy told them all the same thing: that no matter how repulsive we thought their actions were, the Constitution guaranteed free speeeh for everyone, and everyone was entitled to the same protections under the law.

  I grabbed a quick shower, changed clothes, and got a cold can of soda from the fridge. Lucky was going nuts, jumping up and pawing me for attention, so I took him outside. Then Zane came out, handed me his cell phone, and said, “It’s Mom.”

  “Phoebe, honey!” she cried. “I just heard about the riot on the radio. Are you all right?”

  “Some jerk spilled cola all over me and almost broke my foot, but other than that I’m okay.”

  Just then a stray cat streaked across the yard, and Lucky let out a high-pitched yip, his first attempt at actually barking.

  “What was that?” Mama asked. “It sounded like a dog. You don’t have a dog in my house, do you?”

  Technically, no.

  “I’m outside, Mama.”

  “Oh. Listen, sugar, I have to go. I just wanted to be sure you were okay. I don’t know what this world is coming to. Who would have thought there’d be a riot in Eden?”

  But I was thinking about more-urgent matters. “When are you coming home?”

  “Soon. I’m right in the middle of taping a show for the Beauty Network. You would not believe how sales have taken off this summer. It’s amazing! Is Zane still there? Let me talk to him again.”

  I handed the phone back to my brother and took Lucky inside. Daddy was still giving his telephone speech, so Lucky and I went upstairs. Later Daddy went out to a barbecue joint on the highway and got ribs and coleslaw for supper, since the big barbecue in town had been canceled. He brewed up another pitcher of his famous iced tea, and we ate on the porch.

  Zane stretched his legs out and sighed. “Man, what a day. Nothing this exciting has ever happened in Eden. I couldn’t believe those guys would be dumb enough to set fire to the courthouse with the whole town watching.”

  “That’s the point of a demonstration,” Daddy said. “To do something so audacious it attracts attention.”

  “Well, they got their wish,” I said. “Mama heard about it on the radio clear out in Nevada.”

  “And there
’ll be plenty more publicity when their case goes to trial,” Daddy said. “Those guys know how to use the system to get their message out.”

  Zane poured himself some more of Daddy’s excellent tea. “Will you be hearing their case, Dad?”

  “Too soon to tell,” Daddy said.

  “I hope some other judge gets it,” he said. “You know how people in Eden are. ‘America, love it or leave it.’ If they think those guys are going to get away with burning the flag and setting a fire, things could get nasty.”

  “People have to respect the rule of law even if they don’t agree with it,” Daddy said. “I’m not expecting any trouble.”

  He got up to take our plates inside. “Who wants ice cream?”

  “I do,” I said. “Need some help, Daddy?”

  “No, I’ve got it. Be right back.” He went inside.

  Zane checked his watch. “There’s a sci-fi movie coming on TV in a few minutes. Want to watch?”

  Personally, I do not care for science fiction, but with all the big events in town canceled and Zane’s car still impounded, there was nothing else to do. I shrugged. “Might as well.”

  Then Beverly drove up in her convertible, jumped out, and ran lightly across the lawn to our house.

  “Hey, Trasks!” She came up the porch steps, jingling her keys. “Quite an exciting day today, huh?”

  “Yeah.” Zane rattled the ice in his glass.

  “Too bad the fireworks got canceled,” Beverly said. “I was looking forward to it. Especially with my editor in town. I promised him a genuine small-town celebration, and then those demonstrators had to go and ruin it all.”

  The screen door squeaked open, and Daddy came out with our ice cream bowls on a tray. “Beverly! Want some ice cream?”

  “Hey there, Sumner.”

  Whenever Beverly talked to my dad, she sprinkled a little more magnolia into her voice, so his name came out sounding like “Sum-nuh.” It was sickening. Beverly said, “I’m leaving tomorrow for a couple of weeks, and I was wondering if you’d mind keeping an eye on the house. I’ve hired a boy to mow the grass, but I need somebody to water my orchids and take in the mail.”