The Jennifer McMahon E-Book Bundle (31 page)

She let her fingers touch her lost friend’s face.

“Can I keep this one?” Rhonda asked her father.

“Take the whole album, Ronnie. Your mother and I don’t look at them much anymore. In fact, I think I even have that old video of
Peter Pan
if you want it.”

Rhonda nodded. She’d forgotten there was a video. Clem shuffled back into the bedroom and returned in a few minutes, videotape in hand.

He looked relieved to see it all go; like if you took away the proof, you could imagine whatever you like—even erase Daniel and Lizzy from the landscape of their lives.

Could it be that easy?

L
AURA LEE HELPED
Greta with her crocodile costume, and when she showed it to everyone at last, they were all quite impressed. Even Peter was pleased, and he was not one to give compliments easily.

“You’re some crocodile,” he acknowledged with a wide grin.

The costume was made from a series of cardboard boxes. The largest box was the torso, and it was where Greta hid inside and crawled around. Another long, narrow box made up the head, and a series of boxes attached to each other with string going from largest to smallest made up the tail. The crocodile’s feet were made from four small boxes stapled to the body. The whole thing was painted bright green, and covered (everyone figured this must have been Laura Lee’s touch) with silver foil scales. The narrow box up front had round egg-carton eyes and a painted-on toothy grin that sparkled in the
light (the teeth were made from glued-on tin foil also). Greta navigated through a small slit cut in the front of the body, just above the head.

“Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock!” she cried out, her voice muffled as she clambered her way around the stage, chasing Lizzy, cardboard tail dragging, foil scales and teeth gleaming.

Even out of costume, she chased Lizzy. Greta took great delight in sneaking up on poor unsuspecting Captain Hook during breaks, or popping out from behind a tree first thing in the morning.

“Tick tock!” she snarled, snapping her arms menacingly as Lizzy jumped back.

“See,” Rhonda whispered when the others were out of earshot.

“I told you she had a crush on you.”

This got Rhonda a strong thump on the shoulder from Lizzy’s hook, which got caught in her nightgown, ripping it.

“Hey!” Rhonda shouted, fingering the rip. “I’m gonna make you sew this.” But Lizzy had walked away and was standing with the crocodile.

GRETA, AFTER PUTTING
so much effort into the costume, was angry that she wasn’t in more scenes.

“Tick
tock
,” she snapped at Peter. “Shouldn’t the crocodile be there during the war with the lost boys, pirates, and Indians?”

“I don’t know, Tock. I guess I could stick you in here and there.”

Greta smiled to show she was pleased with both the plan to put her in more scenes and the new nickname.

She sat lurking at the edge of the action in nearly every scene, making her clock sounds, watching, just like she had done from the trees, only this time she had a front row seat. She was a part of things.

RHONDA HAD BEEN
studiously avoiding her father, using the play as an excuse to be away from home as much as possible. She would run in for meals, let her mother heap tuna sandwiches or pork chops on her plate, while Rhonda sat in her white nightgown and told them little details about her day, like that Peter had let that awful Greta Clark join the play. But she couldn’t avoid her father forever.

“I think it’s time you and I had a talk,” he said to her after dinner, when her mother had cleared the table and was running water in the sink. Rhonda nodded. “Come into the office. You haven’t even seen where I hung your picture.”

So, reluctantly, Rhonda followed him into the office and saw her drawings, tucked behind the new sheet of glass, hanging on the wall beside her father’s desk.

“They’re beautiful drawings,” he told her. “I look at them all the time. You got every detail just right, right down to the buttons on the uniforms.”

Rhonda nodded.

“It’s the best birthday present I ever got.”

She nodded again.

“Ronnie, about what you saw…”

“It doesn’t matter,” Rhonda said, staring down at her sneakers.

“Of course it matters. And you deserve an explanation. I made a mistake. And you caught me. But it’s not a mistake I’m going to make again. Do you understand?”

“Not really,” Rhonda mumbled.

“What is it you don’t understand?”

“How you can be married to two people at once,” Rhonda said.

“I’m not. I’m married to your mother. And I’m going to stay married to her.”

“But you
were
married to Aggie.”

Clem reached into his shirt pocket and took out a cigarette.

“Yes,” he said. “I was once married to Aggie. A long time ago. Before I met your mother.”

“Does Mom know?”

“Of course.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I was waiting until you were old enough to understand. And now you are.”

But Rhonda
didn’t
understand. She didn’t understand how you could marry one person, then another. Once you got married, it was supposed to be forever. If she married Peter, she would make sure it lasted. But now, she wasn’t sure she could marry Peter, because, it dawned on her, the fact that his mother and her father had once been married might make them related after all. Her head spun. She had to get out of the office.

“I’m late for rehearsal,” she told her father.

“I didn’t think you rehearsed after supper,” her father said.

“Peter says the opening scene still isn’t right, so we’re going to work on it,” she lied.

Now it was her father’s turn to nod, and she left him there in his office, sitting in his swivel chair, staring into the eyes of the men on the submarine who were going down, whether they knew it or not.

AS RHONDA JOGGED
out to the stage, she was sure she could smell a hint of cherry tobacco smoke in the air. There was a muffled rustling coming from beneath the trap door and she snuck up onto the stage, walking on tiptoes, yanking the door open quickly to surprise him. She surprised them both.

Peter was there in the hole along with Tock and was, Rhonda quickly saw, kissing the crocodile. So much for the lesbo rumors.

Tock’s hat had slid to the back of her head, the string holding it tight around her neck. Her BB gun was leaning against the dirt wall and beside it was Peter’s still smoldering pipe.

Peter pulled away from Tock, but she kept a hand on his shoulder as Rhonda looked down.

“We were working out some details about the play. About how the crocodile should enter,” Peter said. He seemed startled, but not particularly ashamed. He made no move to shake the girl’s hand from his shoulder. Tock just smiled.

Rhonda’s face burned, her hands ached from being clenched into fists so tightly, ached with the need to hit someone. But Rhonda was not a fighter. And she knew she didn’t stand a chance against sand-throwing, arrow-shooting Greta Clark and her BB gun. She wanted to hit Peter, but what if he kicked her out of the play? The idea that she couldn’t play Wendy scared her almost as much as the idea of losing Peter to Greta. So Rhonda let her hands fall open.

“Your mother and my father were married,” she said.

“I know,” Peter answered, like it was no big deal at all.

Tock laughed.

Rhonda reached down and grabbed the trap door, meaning to slam it, but instead closing it softly over their upturned faces.

T
HAT IS ONE
fucked-up picture.”

It was the first thing Peter said after a long silence. His brow was wrinkled, his eyes searching, straining as he squinted at the picture taped to the wall above Rhonda’s bed. It was the same way he’d studied those postcards from Lizzy years ago.

And there was Lizzy, his long-lost sister, looking back at him from Rhonda’s drawing. Lizzy at eleven. Lizzy the year of
Peter Pan
. The year she lost her voice. “That’s Ernestine Florucci with her,” Rhonda explained. “I only had the photo from the flyers to work with.”

“I knew who it was,” Peter said.

He pulled a pack of cigarettes from his T-shirt pocket and lit one, still squinting at the drawing like the images were off in the distance somewhere.

Rhonda had spent the entire afternoon on the drawing, an
image from her submarine dream. As soon as she was finished, she called Peter. It felt important to her that he see it. She hadn’t imagined how he might respond to seeing a picture of his sister—if she’d thought it through, she would have realized she was running the risk of having him shut down. Lizzy was another topic never mentioned, not quite as taboo as Daniel, but close.

It had gotten to the point where Rhonda rarely let herself think of Lizzy. It was like shutting a valve somewhere—the Lizzy pipeline—a trick she’d learned from Peter. But now, here was her once-upon-a-time twin. Back again, the valve broken by that damn rabbit.

When Lizzy stopped talking after Daniel left, nobody took it very seriously at first. She was upset, naturally, and if she was reacting a little dramatically, well, she’d always been dramatic, hadn’t she? She’d talk when she was good and ready. Aggie herself was so distraught about Daniel, she barely seemed to notice Lizzy’s new silence. Eventually, though, there were doctors’ visits—a speech therapist, a psychiatrist, even a pediatric neurologist over at Dartmouth, who ruled out a physical cause and called it “elective mutism.” But the diagnosis was essentially the one the laypeople of Pike’s Crossing had already made: Lizzy would talk when she was good and ready.

Months went by, and then years, and she continued to choose muteness. Then one morning, two weeks after they’d started high school, Lizzy disappeared. Peter had offered her a ride to school, but she waved him on. He was the last one to see her, her book bag slung over her shoulder, as she made her way down Lake Street.

But the Lizzy in Rhonda’s drawing was from a time well before that. It was the Captain Hook Lizzy she’d put in the submarine, just as it had been in her dream. The Lizzy who hung from her closet for fifteen minutes each day, trying to make herself grow.
The one whose voice was good and strong as she belted out crazy songs or threatened to make you walk the plank. The girl who wanted, more than anything, to grow up to be a Rockette.

The drawing was done in pencil first, then gone over in thin black pen lines. She used cross-hatching to shade the submarine, making it a few shades lighter than the dark sea. Rhonda had used a blotchy, swirling ink wash for the water, and filled the ocean with terrible, nightmare creatures whose features could barely be seen in the wild, writhing water. It was like one of those drawings she’d been given in school years ago—a landscape where you were supposed to find the hidden images: a wheelbarrow, a clock, a shovel, and a tea pot. Only in Rhonda’s ocean, monsters lurked. A giant squid, a toothy shark, a dragon with fins. And there were ghosts in the waves, horrible phantoms, their bodies lacking true form, only open-mouthed screaming faces.

Through the portholes of the submarine, the rabbit and two girls could be seen looking out into the dark sea. The rabbit, huge and looming with paws the size of the girls’ heads, stood at the front, working the controls. His eyes twinkled with mad fury as he urged the submarine on. The girls looked like they’d resigned themselves to fright, like they’d given up on being saved.

“So what’s it supposed to mean?” Peter asked, brushing hair back from his face, showing his scar, the mark that bound him to her, as he turned away from the drawing to look Rhonda in the eye.

Her heart rose up into her throat, filling it, rendering her unable to speak. She wanted so badly for Peter to understand the drawing. She half-hoped he would tell her what it meant. But he looked a little irritated about the whole thing, like it wasn’t worth him driving all the way into town for. She wondered what he would tell Tock about it. If he’d speak in patronizing tones—

Poor, crazy Rhonda. Rhonda and her fucked-up drawing. Rhonda who can’t let shit go. Poor thing.

“It’s just a drawing, Peter,” Rhonda managed to blurt out, her words crisp and defensive. “Just a picture.”

She wanted to remind him how he used to love her drawings. How he had once encouraged her artistic endeavors. When they were kids, he would pose for her, usually in one of his costumes. How well she knew his body then, each contour, each tiny imperfection. She filled sketchbooks with pictures of him. She could do entire pages of just his nose, trying to perfectly capture its gentle slope. Or his mouth—the thin lips, the slight gap between his two front teeth, which he could whistle through.

Afternoons when they’d go swimming at Loon’s Cove, Rhonda would connect the dots of the freckles on his back and shoulders, now untouchable to her, and tell him they were like constellations, then describe each picture she saw there. Sometimes it seemed his whole life was laid out there in the pictures on his back, and it was up to her to read it, to discern the meaning of each image like some early astronomer or a gypsy reading tea leaves at the bottom of a cup.

As he lowered himself down to sit on the edge of her bed, she wondered how so much could have changed, thought how unfamiliar his body seemed to her now. His stomach hung over his jeans, his shoulders slouched forward. When did he start to slouch? He had always stood up so straight, so defiant. He crushed out his cigarette in her glass ashtray like it was an effort.

He leaned back and laid himself down on her bed, his arms clasped behind his head. His faded black T-shirt was tucked into jeans with holes at the knees. He wore basketball sneakers, black canvas high-tops, the kind he’d worn all his life. It was like he’d worn the same outfit through boyhood and it was just now wearing thin at the edges, the fabric finally giving from years of growth.

Sometimes, like right then, as he lay on her bed, she imagined he was flirting with her—teasing her, reminding her of the power
he still held over her. Some days, she flirted back in her own awkward way—allowing herself to touch his arm, laugh a little too loud at something he’d said, brush the hair away from his forehead and place a finger on his scar. But it always made her feel pathetic, second best.

“I’m glad you’re drawing again,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. “It’s just a little weird, ya know? A strange choice of subject matter. Couldn’t you do a bowl of fruit or something?”

“Do you think it really looks like Lizzy? Did I get it right?” Rhonda asked, studying the drawing taped to her wall.

“You got it right. I knew just who it was.” Peter looked up at her as he spoke. There was such tenderness in his face. He looked so at ease, there on her bed. She let herself imagine, for an instant, that it was his bed too. That he was just getting into bed after a long day, into their bed where they slept night after night.

“Don’t you ever wonder about her?” Rhonda asked, letting herself look down at Peter’s face again. “Don’t you ever hope that maybe someday she’ll come back and explain everything?”

“What is there to explain?” Peter asked, shifting his weight, sounding a little exasperated.

“I don’t know…why she left, I guess. What she’s been doing with herself all these years. Maybe she’s married and has kids. You could be an uncle! Don’t you ever wonder what she does every day, what she sees each morning when she gets up?”

“Of course I wonder, but it’s her choice that we don’t know.”

Her choice. Rhonda thought about the different choices they had all made—how much conscious decision had gone into any of them?

“Doesn’t that seem unfair to you?” she asked him.

“Ronnie, a lot of things are unfair. What happened to Ernestine Florucci was unfair.” He looked up at the ceiling, breaking eye contact with her. “Lizzy wasn’t kidnapped by a rabbit though. We lost her, but not like that. That’s what I don’t get about the drawing.”

“Loss just feels like loss,” Rhonda said. “Maybe that’s what the drawing is supposed to be about. How easily one loss just blurs into the next.” She bit her lip, stared down at him—him, Peter, perhaps her greatest loss of all.

“Do you remember,” Rhonda asked, “how much Lizzy wanted to be a Rockette? How she was always practicing that high kick and doing all this crazy stuff so that she’d grow tall enough?”

Peter nodded.

“Maybe she’s a dancer?” Rhonda said.

“Ronnie, I don’t think any of us grew up to live the life we dreamed we’d be living. Did we?”

Rhonda thought a moment. “Tock did,” she said.

“And what was it Tock wanted?” Peter asked, shaking his head.

“You,” Rhonda said. “She wanted to grow up and be with you.”

Their eyes met and Peter took in a breath like he was going to say something, but instead, he held it. Rhonda looked away.

“Tock’s really pissed at you, you know?” Peter said finally.

“She’s overreacting, Peter, can’t you see that? I didn’t set out to traumatize Suzy. She’s a smart kid, it’s not like she hasn’t noticed what’s going on. Jesus, it’s probably
good
for her to talk about it.”

“And what were you doing at Laura Lee’s?” he asked.

“Just visiting,” she said.

“Right.” Peter narrowed his eyes.

“Anyway,” Rhonda said, desperate to change the subject, “what have you been up to? Are you working?”

“I’ve been fixing up my mom’s place. We’ve decided to put it on the market.”

“You are not!”

“It’s not like Mom’s ever going to use it again. And Tock and I have our house. Seems a shame to have a perfectly good house
just sitting vacant. Besides, the taxes are killing us, and we could use some cash.” Rhonda nodded. “Speaking of cash, have you done anything about a job yet?”

“God, you sound like my father!” Rhonda moaned.

“Maybe he’s got a point,” Peter said.

“Yeah, I know. He’s right. You’re both right…” Rhonda trailed off. “Peter, can I ask you something?”

“What?”

“Why did you decide to take the day off to go hiking? You know, the day Ernie was kidnapped?”

Peter blew out an exasperated breath. “I don’t know, Ronnie. I guess I figured I needed some alone time. So I packed some trail mix, put on my hiking boots, and headed for Gunner’s Ridge. What’s the big deal?”

Rhonda bit her lip. “I thought you said you were at Sawyer’s Pond. When Tock and Suzy went to find you, your truck wasn’t at the trailhead by Gunner’s Ridge.”

“What I meant was,” Peter said, sounding more than a little flustered, “I headed for Gunner’s Ridge, then decided at the last minute to do something different. Christ, can’t a guy be spontaneous?”

What, Rhonda wondered, would Peter say if she asked him about the missing keys she found in the cemetery? The keys were in the pocket of her jeans, and she stuck her hand in, stroked the rabbit’s foot as Peter lay sprawled out on her bed.
Another day,
she decided.

Peter laid his head back on the pillow, let out a little sigh. Then he frowned.

“What’s this?” Peter said, twisting, sliding his hand under the pillow. He withdrew a claw hammer with a worn wooden handle and nicked, black-painted head. Peter regarded it with the same look he’d used for her drawing and Lizzy’s postcards—squinting, confused. He turned the hammer in his hand, as if it was an ob
ject he was unfamiliar with. As if he were not a mechanic but a man from another galaxy.

Rhonda stepped back, alarmed at first. Then she remembered, and her face flushed. As she spoke, the story sounded made-up, even to her ears.

“Oh, that!” She gave a nervous little laugh, looked away. “Uh, I had a bad dream last night…after the submarine dream. The, um—” she flapped her hand at the hammer, “made me feel safe. I guess it worked, just knowing it was there. I fell right back to sleep.”

Peter turned the battered old hammer in his hands, felt its weight. He gave her a look she knew well. It was his worried look. His
poor, pitiful Rhonda
look. He stood up from the bed and walked out into the hallway, taking the hammer with him. She watched as he put it back where it belonged, in the kitchen drawer.

“Want my advice?” he called back to her as he came out of the kitchen and turned to leave. “Stick to drawing fruit. You’ll sleep better.”

Rhonda stood in the doorway to the bedroom, watching the front door to her apartment close, listening to his footsteps on the stairs. She heard the motor of his truck turn over, the engine revving a little too hard and fast as he put it in gear, the tires squealing. Peter never had been good at good-byes.

She turned around and eyed the drawing above her bed from a distance, pitying the girls trapped in the submarine. She stared hard at the ghost faces swirling, dancing around the submarine. And—was it her imagination?—the largest face, the cruelest, the one that hovered, looming large over the submarine, staring in at the girls, giving them an evil, screaming wink, looked an awful lot like Peter.