Island of Lost Girls - Jennifer McMahon [46]
Does Mom know?
Of course.
Why didnt you tell me?
I was waiting until you were old enough to understand. And now you are.
But Rhondadidnt understand. She didnt 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 wasnt 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.
Im late for rehearsal, she told her father.
I didnt think you rehearsed after supper, her father said.
Peter says the opening scene still isnt right, so were going to work on it, she lied.
Now it was her fathers 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 JOGGEDout 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.
Tocks 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 Peters 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 girls hand from his shoulder. Tock just smiled.
Rhondas 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 didnt 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 couldnt 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.
JUNE 15, 2006
THAT IS ONEfucked-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 Rhondas bed. It was the same way hed studied those postcards from Lizzy years ago.
And there was Lizzy, his long-lost sister, looking back at him from Rhondas drawing. Lizzy at eleven. Lizzy the year ofPeter Pan . The year she lost her voice. Thats 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 hadnt imagined how he might respond to seeing a picture of his sisterif shed 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 somewherethe Lizzy pipelinea trick shed learned from Peter. But now, here was her once-upon-a-time twin. Back again, the valve broken by that damn rabbit.