The Jennifer McMahon E-Book Bundle (32 page)

I
SAVED MONEY ALL
through high school for this car,” Clem told her. They were side by side in Clem’s abandoned convertible beside the stage. The car had been turned into a pirate ship complete with a painted skull-and-crossbones flag that flapped from a pole lashed to the middle of the front seat. Clem had the wheel and was turning it gently with the remaining three fingers of his right hand. Rhonda thought that maybe bodies held memories; maybe when he put his hand on the wheel, he could feel all his fingers there, just as they’d been the summer after high school, when he cruised the open roads with the top down.

“A ’61 Impala. A true classic. When I got it, it was a wreck. Daniel and I worked nights and weekends on it, restoring it. I’m telling you, Ronnie, when we were through, it was a beauty. I was so proud of this damn car.”

Rhonda nodded, fiddled with the glove compartment. Usually,
she loved it when her father told her stories about his past. He got all dreamy-eyed and lost in his own memories, and sometimes he’d seem to almost forget she was there. It made her feel special; like there was a secret window into her father’s past and Rhonda was the only one he’d open it up for. Her mother wasn’t much of a talker. She preferred to read Rhonda stories out of books: fairy tales about handsome princes and fair maidens. Not much different from the romance novels she lost herself in each day.

This time was different, though. Clem was going to tell her something she wasn’t sure she wanted to hear.

“I used to take Aggie for rides. Back when I first met her. When she worked at the mill. Daniel would come along, too, sometimes. We’d go fishing. We’d all three sit around a little campfire by the stream, frying up trout, drinking beer, smoking cigarettes, thinking,
This is as good as it gets
.” Clem gave a wistful little smile that made Rhonda’s stomach ache. This was not
her
story, but the story of what might have been, and how Rhonda almost wasn’t. It was the story of a time when Clem had imagined his life whole and perfect without either Rhonda or her mother in it.

“I was nineteen years old when I asked Aggie to marry me. I took her out to the middle of Nickel Lake in this old aluminum canoe I had. Water had pooled there and soaked through my pants. I pulled the ring in its velvet box from the pocket of my fishing vest. I couldn’t believe it when she said yes.”

When Rhonda was a very little girl, one of her favorite stories was how her parents met. Clem took a trip to Hanover, New Hampshire, in the spring of 1981 to go to a forestry conference. Justine was the desk clerk at the hotel. She was ten years older than Clem and he was immediately taken by her green eyes and the faint lines around them. He thought she looked patient, kind, and wise. When she asked if he needed help getting his bags up to his room, he winked and said only if she promised not to drop them. This made Justine laugh, and it got Rhonda laughing too,
hearing the story told and re-told when she was a little girl. Justine called a bellhop to help with the bags, and Clem asked if she would join him for a drink later in the hotel lounge. By the end of the week, he’d talked her into going away with him the next weekend. She got to pick where. She picked Niagara Falls, and he proposed to her there, two weeks after they’d met.
Love is love
, he told her, down on his knee.

“HOW LONG WERE
you and Aggie married?” Rhonda asked.

“Not long. Less than two years.”

“When was this?”

“A long time ago. Before I met your mother.”

“But what year?”

“Aggie and I were married September 9, 1978.”

Rhonda frowned as she did the math.

Peter and Lizzy came crashing through the woods, up the path from their house, arguing.

“There’s no way to make it work,” Lizzy was saying.

“Come on,” Peter said. “I’m Peter Pan. If I say I want to fly, I’ll find a way.”

“I guess I should get out of here and let you kids rehearse,” Clem said, putting a hand on Rhonda’s knee before jumping out over the stuck door.

1978,
Rhonda was thinking.
And then Peter was born in July of 1979, which means…

“We’ll talk again later,” Clem promised.

Are you Peter’s father?

DANIEL’S IDEA THAT
spring and summer, the latest scheme that was going to make him rich, was coffins. His own father had died over the winter (no one had been very upset about this,
least of all Peter and Lizzy, who were never allowed to see their grandfather), and Daniel had been appalled when he was shown the coffins in the funeral home—the expense, the luxury. Daniel insisted that his father would have spat in his face if he’d been laid to rest in creamy, cushioned satin. So Daniel had his father buried in a simple pine box he built himself. (With sufficient bullying, the funeral director admitted that, strictly speaking, there was no legal requirement that Mr. Shale be interred in one of the elegant, affordable caskets available from Arceneaux and Sons Funeral Home.)

Daniel felt sure he was onto something, an untapped market. Vermonters in particular would surely want to save money and maintain their dear departed loved ones’ dignity with a handmade, unpretentious casket. He made himself a sign, using a router and a slab of pine—
SHALE COFFINS
—and hung it on the shed. He put a few flyers up in town. He got two orders right away, one from a college student who wanted to use the coffin as a coffee table, another from an old widower who wanted to have things all prepared when he went. Daniel built coffins all spring and summer, stacking the finished ones in eerie rows on the cement floor of the shed. He waited for the rush of orders. He waited, and every afternoon, he diligently went out to the shed and got to work building more. This was where Peter and Rhonda found him that afternoon—bent over the table saw, tool belt strapped to his waist, radio turned up loud to a classic rock station.

“Hiya, Dad,” Peter shouted.

Daniel looked up, smiled, flipped off the saw.

“What brings you to the mad scientist’s lab this fine afternoon?” Daniel asked.

“We want to fly,” Peter said.

“Fly?”

“For the play,” Peter explained. “We want to be able to fly.”

Daniel nodded. “I could make you some wings,” he said.

Peter grinned. “Would it work?”

“Of course,” Daniel said. He looked around the workshop. “Ronnie, hand me one of those two-by-twos piled up there. And Peter, we’re gonna need that heavy-duty roll of plastic we bought to cover the windows in the winter. Go get it from the basement, would you?”

“Yes, sir,” Peter said.

“Where’s your sister?” Daniel asked as Peter turned to go.

Peter shrugged. “She and Tock took off on their bikes. She said figuring out a way to fly was impossible.”

Daniel grinned. “Well, we’ll show her, won’t we? Now go on and get that plastic.”

DANIEL WORKED ON
the wings all afternoon, and just before dinner, they were finished. They looked a little like bat wings. Daniel had cut thin strips of wood for the frame and covered it in plastic, stapled on. They attached to Peter’s body with a crude harness made from an old belt of Daniel’s.

“That should do it,” Daniel said, slapping Peter on the back.

“I’m gonna go grab a beer.” He turned and loped back toward the house, where they watched him head in through the cellar door—Daniel kept a second fridge in the basement, for the sole purpose of beer storage.

“It’s not going to work,” whispered Lizzy who had just pulled up on her bike and stood watching, dressed, as usual, in her Captain Hook outfit. It seemed that Lizzy never changed out of it anymore. She even slept in the shirt with the puffy sleeves, the satin pants tied at the waist with a gold rope that had once held curtains open, her wire coat-hanger hook resting carefully on the bureau beside her. She was, she explained, living the life of a true pirate, getting deeper into her character every day. She swore and spat and refused to bathe or brush her teeth, claiming that pirates
were notoriously filthy. Whenever they complained about her smell, there was Tock to back her up:
She’s a pirate, for Christ’s sake! She’s supposed to stink!

“Besides,” continued Lizzy, “Peter Pan doesn’t have wings—he flies by magic.”

“These are real wings!” Peter said. “I bet they’ll work just like a hang glider.”

Lizzy laughed. “You wish.”

“Dad said they would!” Peter told her.

“Well, Dad says lots of stuff,” Lizzy said. She toed the ground with her scuffed black motorcycle boots. Then she cleared her throat and spat.

“Come on,” Rhonda said. “Let’s get back to the stage. You can try jumping off.”

“I’ll never get enough wind under me for it to work right,” Peter said.

Rhonda watched in horror as Peter grabbed a stepladder from the workshop, positioned it against the building, and climbed, pulling himself up onto the shingled roof of the garage.

“What are you doing?” Rhonda asked. “Come down!”

“You’re going to crack your skull, matey,” Lizzy said, though she didn’t sound too worried. “Your brains will ooze all over the driveway!”

“God, you are sick,” Rhonda told Lizzy.

Peter walked to the front edge and looked down, then backed up all the way to the other side to get a running start.

“Walk the plank, matey!” Lizzy called up to him.

“Would you shut up,” Rhonda hissed at her. “Peter, don’t do it!” Rhonda yelled up. It was a stupid stunt just to prove allegiance to his father, who probably wasn’t his real father after all.

A sick feeling washed over her like a polluted wave, toxic waste and biohazardous needles in the current. She was in love with her own brother, which was not only disgusting but probably illegal.

“Climb back down and I’ll tell you a secret,” Rhonda promised.

“What secret?” Peter asked.

“A really good one. Just climb down and I’ll tell it to you. Please.” Would she tell? And if she did, would it ruin everything?

Lizzy came up behind Rhonda, leaned in, and hissed, “What’s the big secret, Ronnie? That you love Peter? It doesn’t matter, matey, ’cause Pan has fallen for the crocodile. He’s slipping it to her every chance he gets.”

Lizzy’s breath was sour and fishy. She took her cheek in her fingertips and pulled it in and out fast, making disgusting wet, smacking sounds.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Rhonda said. She stepped forward, turned her hand into a visor to keep the sun out while she squinted up at Peter on the roof. Rhonda was beginning to feel like there were two Lizzys: a good one and a bad one. The good one was the Lizzy she’d known all her life, the one who wanted to grow up to be a Rockette and sang goofy songs. The bad one stank and used expressions like
slipping it to her
, complete with sound effects, and the whole thing was just plain gross and definitely not true.

“Oh don’t I?” Lizzy asked, snickering.

“Please, Peter!” Rhonda called up.

Daniel shuffled back out of the basement then, open beer can in his hand. “Hey there, Rocket!” he called to Lizzy. “Where’ve you been hiding all afternoon?”

Lizzy didn’t answer, but once Daniel was out in the yard, he turned to see what the girls were looking at up on the workshop roof.

“What the devil are you doing, Peter?” he called up. “Get your ass back down that ladder! Now!”

Peter hesitated. Looked down at the ground, then at his father.

Daniel set his beer can down and started for the ladder. “Don’t make me come up after you! You
know
you’ll be sorry!”

Rhonda cringed.

Daniel started up the ladder. Peter crept to the back corner of the roof. Rhonda held her breath.

“You get away from him!” Aggie was hurrying from the house toward the garage.

“Damn fool’s gonna bust his head open,” Daniel explained from his perch halfway up.

“Don’t you touch him!” Aggie said.

“I’m not gonna hurt him, I’m just gonna get him down!”

“He can get himself down,” Aggie said.

“I think he’s got himself stuck up there like a goddamn cat,” Daniel said.

Aggie grabbed a shovel from its resting place against the side of the garage.

“Get down from that ladder or I’ll knock you down!”

She was wielding a shovel like a medieval weapon.

Daniel backed slowly down the ladder and stood with his hands raised in surrender, calmly coaxing her, “Put it down, Aggie.”

Aggie brought the shovel up, slugger-style, and came toward him, swinging. Daniel ducked.

“What the fuck are you doing?” he screamed. She took another swing, barely missing as he jumped away.

“Mom!” Peter cried from the top of the garage. “Mom, stop!” Peter had scrambled to the edge and crouched there like a boy-gargoyle. But Aggie raised the shovel again. Daniel was backed up against the garage and was inching his way to the left, his eyes on the metal spade.

“Aggie!” Clem called. He had come running around the other side of the garage, which was weird, because it meant he must have come from Peter and Lizzy’s house. “Put it down, Ag. Easy now, just put it down.”

Aggie lowered the shovel but held on to it tightly.

She started to cry.

“You fucking crazy bitch,” Daniel muttered. Up went the shovel again, but Clem was too fast. He reached her before she had a chance to swing, and grabbed hold of the wooden handle, prying it from her fingers.

Then they all held their positions, none of them seeming to know what to do next: Rhonda in the driveway, palms red from digging her fingernails into them; Peter crouched on the edge of the garage, wings rising up behind him; Aggie sobbing, her face buried in Clem’s shirt; Clem holding the shovel high in the air, out of Aggie’s reach; Daniel, back pressed against the garage, a look of utter disbelief on his face; and Lizzy, who hadn’t moved since her father started climbing the ladder, just stood with her hook raised in the air like a kid at school waiting to get called on, her eyes blank and glassy, matted hair sticking out at crazy angles from under her black pirate hat. Then she began to cry in soft sniffles. She covered her mouth with the hand that didn’t hold the hook. It took Rhonda a minute to understand that the crying sound coming from Captain Hook wasn’t crying at all—Lizzy was laughing—and the more she tried to stop herself, the harder she cackled. All eyes were on her as she laughed so loud and hard, so hysterically, that she wet her pants there on the driveway and the realization of having done this only made her laugh harder still.