Twice Kissed - Lisa Jackson [41]
“Do what?”
“You know, talk to me last night.”
“I didn’t talk to you.” Mary rinsed off a breakfast plate still sticky with syrup and dropped it into the open rack.
“Yes, you did. I heard it clear as a bell. Like you were in the room. You said, ‘Don’t tell, Maggie! Whatever you do, don’t tell!’”
“That’s stupid. I wasn’t even in your room.”
“I know. So I figured you yelled it through the ducts or something.”
Mary Theresa leveled her with a glance that silently called her sister a million kinds of idiot. “Why would I do that? Who knows who could have heard me? The ducts don’t go just from my room to yours, you know.”
Maggie had thought of that, of course. But couldn’t come up with any other explanation.
“Well, you did something. ’Cause I heard you.”
“No way.”
“Didn’t you ask me to keep this our secret? That Mom and Dad would kill you if they found out?”
“I didn’t say it. I just thought it.”
“Well, I heard it. You said, ‘Don’t tell, Maggie, please, whatever you do, don’t tell. Mom and Dad would kill me if they found out, Maggie, please keep this our secret.’”
Mary Theresa’s mouth fell open. “How could you…” She dropped a plate. It landed on the tile floor. Crack! “You heard that?”
“That’s what I’m telling you.”
“But—” She leaned over and started picking up the bigger pieces of the broken plate. “I didn’t. Damn.” She sliced her finger on one of the shards.
“You didn’t what?”
“I didn’t say anything. Not out loud. You…you just imagined it.” Blood dripped from her index finger, and she stuck it into her mouth.
“No way.” With a shake of her head Maggie hopped down from the counter and started helping clean up the mess. She pulled a broom from the closet and ignored the half-full bottle of vodka she spied tucked behind a bag of rags.
“But I…I didn’t say that. Or anything like it.” Mary Theresa’s chin hardened in the same kind of determination Maggie had witnessed all her life.
“Well, I heard it.”
“You couldn’t have.” Still sucking on her finger, Mary Theresa dug in a cupboard with her free hand, found a small Band-Aid, ripped it open, and covered her tiny scratch as Maggie swept the broken pottery into the trash. Streaks of egg yolk and syrup stained the floor. “Oh, crap, Mag. Look what you did. You just made it worse.”
“I’ll get it, don’t worry.” Maggie had already rinsed out a rag and, on her knees, was polishing the floor to a shine.
Mary Theresa slammed the dishwasher door closed, then, folding her arms under her breasts, stared hard at Maggie.
“What?”
Mary didn’t reply, but her eyebrows slammed together in concentration and her lips compressed as if she were contemplating the most difficult problem in the universe.
“What’s wrong with you?”
“See.” Her expression changed. “You didn’t hear me.”
“You didn’t say anything.” Maggie stared at her sister as if she’d just grown a third eye.
“And I didn’t last night, either.”
“But I heard you.”
“You’re saying that you heard what I thought,” Mary Theresa said, wiping her hands on a terry-cloth towel. “I didn’t say anything last night, but I did think some of those things.”
“What?” Maggie stared at her sister in disbelief. “You just thought them. Come on.” Sometimes Mary Theresa was a little far out, but this time she’d really gone around the bend.
“I know, I know it sounds crazy, but last night, after I heard you go into your room, I was so miserable, so embarrassed, and so…afraid that you were gonna say something to Mom and Dad that I kind of…well, prayed…or mentally pleaded with you not to say anything.”
This was too much. After a night of not sleeping a wink, of lying in her bed with visions of Mitch and Mary Theresa, Maggie couldn’t deal with this kind of weird talk. She held both her hands