It Happened on Maple Street

The older man’s grip was crushing, but Tim held his own. Tara’s dad said something, probably “Nice to meet you,” or “Welcome,” or maybe “You touch my daughter again and I’ll kill you.” What Tim heard coming back at him was, ”Ugh.”

They finally made it in the door, and Tara’s mom was there.

“Hi, Mrs. Gumser. Nice to see you again,” Tim said, relieved to see the familiar and friendly face.

“Come on in, Tim. Would you kids like something to drink?”

“Pepsi,” Tara said, when he was going to decline and hopefully guide her toward the basement.

“Tim?” All three of them stood there looking at him.

“I’ll have a Pepsi, too,” he said, sweating beneath the striped sweater he’d pulled on that morning, hoping she’d like it—imagining her fingers underneath it.

They all sat at the table. Mr. Gumser didn’t like him, but he was classy about it. Tara and her mom did all the talking, except when Mr. Gumser was inserting questions for Tim—all of which Tim managed to answer.

“My wife tells me you go to Wright State.”

“Yes, sir. I’m a freshman.”

“Tim’s majoring in geology,” Tara inserted quickly, and then turned to her mom. “I got my pebble paper back today.”

Tim knew about that already. She’d had to do a five-hundred-word essay describing something, and Tara had described a pebble.

Tim figured he’d have gotten ten words out of that one, if he’d been lucky.

“I got an A,” Tara told her mom.

And so it continued. Tara and her mom talking, Tara’s dad interrogating.

The man was looking out for his daughter. Tim understood that. And all in all he was happy to be there—even if they weren’t in the basement, yet.

They didn’t make it there later that day either. Tara surprised him yet again when, shortly after her father left the table she stood up and said, “You want to see my room?” She just blurted it out. Right in front of her mother. And then she looked at her mom. “It’s okay, isn’t it?”

“Of course,” Mrs. Gumser said, clearing their glasses from the table. She was making something in the kitchen—dinner, he supposed, though it was still a little early in the day for that.

“Sure, I’d like to see it,” Tim said, wondering what kind of family he’d walked into. Either Tara’s parents were the most trusting adults he’d ever met, or the most open-minded. Judging by the inquisition he’d just been through, and the girl he was getting to know, he figured it was the former.

Her parents trusted h

er. Enough to let her take a boy to her bedroom.

The room was . . . girlish. Brown carpet. Yellow walls. A big bed with some drape thing over the top of it, like a princess in a Disney flick. The rest of the furniture was kind of white with some gold on it. And there was a gold velvet-looking chair in a corner by the window. It had a lamp and marble table sitting next to it. Not one thing was out of place or just laying around.

There was nothing in the room that he could relate to, until he saw the instrument leaning in another corner.

He headed straight for it—keeping his gaze off the bed.

“Is this your guitar?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you play it?”

“For me, only. Like I told you, my dad and brother are the musicians in this family. You should hear Chum play the guitar. He’s good enough to be a professional. We actually had a band for a while in high school, but I didn’t play guitar. I just played the tambourine. And sang.”

“Your band ever play anywhere?”

“A couple of school gigs, a party someone hired us to do. And then Chum formed a band with some older guys, and they played some parties and things until he left for college.”