Darlene Gardner - The Truth About Tara

“You want to see some gross magic?” Jack asked, using two words sure to appeal to any boy.

Just as Jack knew he would, the child nodded.

“I can separate my thumb from the rest of my hand,” Jack announced. “Watch.”

He placed his left hand palm down with the fingers together and stuck out his thumb. With his right hand, he covered his thumb with a fist and pretended he was trying to detach it. At the exact moment he tucked his left thumb into his palm and jerked his right fist forward, he snapped two of his hidden fingers together.

“Ow!” Jack cried.

“Gross!” the boy yelled, the bag of potato chips falling to the floor.

Just as quickly, Jack brought his hands together and pretended to screw his thumb back on. Then he opened both hands to show that all ten of his fingers were intact.

“Again!” the boy cried, all his attention focused on Jack’s hand.

Tara had almost reached them. Jack turned his head to look at her fully. In a sleeveless yellow shirt, sandals and tight-fitting khaki shorts that extended almost to her knees, she looked even better than she had the first time he’d seen her. Her skin had a healthy glow from her tan and her reddish-brown hair swung loose around her shoulders.

“Let’s make sure it’s okay with your mom first,” Jack said.

“I’m his foster sister,” she said shortly. She barely met his eyes, but relief hit him hard at her pronouncement. He checked her ring finger again. Still bare.

Tara stooped in front of the boy. “You shouldn’t have run from me, Danny. And you’re not supposed to talk to strangers.”

So that was how she thought of him. He shouldn’t have been surprised after he’d practically accosted her in the street. In retrospect, that probably hadn’t been the best way to approach her.

“He took off his thumb!” Danny said. “Do it again!”

“Is it okay with you?” Jack asked.

She didn’t answer immediately. Even unsmiling, she was pretty. About the only thing he didn’t like about her was the unfriendly gleam in her eyes. There had been nothing frosty about her when she was in the parking lot with her foster brother. She’d been laughing as she leaned over and gave him a warm hug, affection pouring off her. That women, he thought, was the real Tara.

“Use your manners, Danny,” she said. “You’re supposed to say please.”

“Please take off your thumb,” he cried.

“Everything okay, Tara?” One of her neighbors, a heavyset man in his sixties, called from the end of the aisle.

“Thanks for checking up on us, Mr. Ganz,” Tara called back, geniality radiating from her. “We’re fine now.”

Jack repeated the trick. It had been one of his younger brother’s favorites when they were kids. A wave of sadness hit Jack, as it always did when he thought of Mike. He thrust the melancholy feeling aside, concentrating instead on snapping his fingers to make it sound as though his thumb were breaking off. He winced and grimaced his way through the reattachment sequence until he was supposedly whole again.

Danny clapped his hands.

“Thanks,” Jack said. “How ’bout I introduce myself so we’re not strangers. I know your name is Danny. Mine’s Jack.”

“Will you be my friend, Jack?” Danny asked.

“Sure,” Jack said. “If that’s okay with Tara.”

She didn’t look as if she wanted to give her permission. “That depends on what you’re doing here.”

“Grocery shopping.” He held up his handbasket. Unfortunately, it was empty. Their aisle smelled of the ground coffee on the shelf behind him. He turned, picked one out at random and dropped it into the basket. Maybe not his smoothest move judging from the way her lips thinned.

“Here in Wawpaney?” she asked.

The skepticism that ran through her question was so heavy she could just as well have accused him of following her. It didn’t seem like a good idea to admit he’d decided to come into the store only after seeing her hug Danny in the parking lot.

“Shell Beach doesn’t have a grocery store,” he said, naming the Chesapeake Bay community about six or seven miles away where he was renting a house. “I’m pretty sure Wawpaney’s the closest town.”

Her mouth dropped open.

“C-can you take your thumb off again?” Danny interjected.

“Maybe later, buddy,” Jack said.

“My name’s not buddy,” the boy said. “It’s Danny.”

Jack smiled. “Sorry, Danny. I can’t take off my thumb right now. I need to talk to Tara.”

“How do you know my name?” she asked sharply.

“You told me,” he said. Hadn’t she? Suddenly he wasn’t so sure.

She shook her head. “I didn’t.”

That was right. The waitress at the diner had provided Tara’s name when she’d spotted the age progression of Hayley Cooper.

“I thought you were passing through town,” she said.

“I liked it here, so decided to stay awhile. What better place to hang out than the beach?” When she didn’t agree, he looked down at Danny. “You like the beach, right?”

“I like fish,” he said.

“Me, too,” Jack said. “I was thinking about getting a couple poles so I can fish off one of the piers.”

“Danny means he likes the schools of tiny fish you sometimes see in the tidal pools,” Tara said. “He gets a bucket and rescues them.”

“I’m their hero,” Danny said proudly. “Right, Tara?”

“If those fish don’t love you, they’re crazy,” she said, smiling down at him with all the warmth she wasn’t showing Jack.

“Crazy fish,” Danny echoed. “That’s funny.”

“Maybe you can show me how you rescue them sometime.” Jack nodded to Tara. “You can bring your foster sister with you.”

Again a mask seemed to cover the real Tara. “I don’t think so.”

“But I wanna—” Danny began.

“You’ve got a busy few weeks coming up, Dan the man,” Tara interrupted. “Camp starts Monday.”

Although the excuse seemed legitimate, it also sounded like a brush-off. Jack had expected as much, but he also subscribed to the school of thought that you can’t get what you want if you don’t try for it. He wanted to get to know Tara better and see if he could bring out the softness in her that so intrigued him.

“Jack can come to camp,” Danny announced.

“No, Jack can’t come,” Tara said quickly. “The camp is for kids.”

“You’re c-coming!” Danny said.

“That’s because I’m working there,” she said, her voice even. Jack admired her patience. Although Down syndrome children were known for their sweet and cheerful personalities, from firsthand experience Jack knew it wasn’t always easy to deal with them. “Now let’s say goodbye to Jack so he can get on with his grocery shopping.”

She put heavy emphasis on the last words. Yep. She didn’t trust him. Jack supposed he couldn’t blame her. She didn’t know anything about him except that he claimed to be the brother of a private investigator. Never mind that it was the truth.

“Say goodbye to Jack, Danny,” Tara said.

“But I don’t wanna—”

“Bye, Danny. It was nice taking my thumb off for you,” Jack interrupted, loath to cause any trouble between Tara and her brother. He was gratified when the boy giggled. “Bye, Tara.”

Her eyes flicked to his. “Goodbye.”

She took her brother securely by the hand and led him away, her carriage almost regal. They’d almost reached the end of the aisle when Danny wrenched his hand from hers and ran back to Jack with pounding feet.

“Danny!” Tara called after him.

He ignored his foster sister, not stopping until he reached Jack. His chest heaved up and down.

“Come see me at c-camp,” he said somewhat breathlessly. “You can take off your thumb again.”