Island of Lost Girls

by Jennifer McMahon

“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.

  The time has come. He knew it would. She’s been telling people about him. Drawing pictures of their secret places. Carrying the stuffed bunny to school and showing him off at show-and-tell.

  The rabbit isn’t angry. Only sad.

  He picks her up in his submarine for the last time. Touches her shoulder. Thinks there are some things gestures cannot convey.

  He turns away from her. Grips the wheel. He knows what has to be done. He has a plan. And she trusts him so completely, it will be easy.

  And when it’s over, they’ll all live happily ever after, just like a real-life fairy tale.

  JUNE 16, 2006

  IT WAS TEN A.M. when Rhonda found herself underneath the parrot wind chimes once more, calling Laura Lee’s name. Behind her, a motorboat started on the lake. A loon called—its song a haunting vibrato. There was no response from Laura Lee.

  “It’s Rhonda Farr!” she yelled. “You home?”

  She heard only a low moan, then the sound of breaking glass.

  “I’m coming in!” Rhonda shouted, pushing the unlatched screen door open.

  The kitchen was even filthier than it had been during her last visit. Piles of moldy dishes sat undone in the sink. Flies buzzed. Rhonda moved through the kitchen and into the living room, where she saw Laura Lee sprawled out on the floor, bleeding from the hand. The remains of a shattered highball glass and its sticky pink contents were on the coffee table.

  “You okay?” Rhonda asked, getting down on her knees.

  “Just a little tipsy, lovie. Nothing to worry over. I have low blood sugar, you know,” Laura Lee said. Rhonda helped her to her feet.

  “Steady now,” Rhonda said. “Let’s get you into the bathroom and clean up that cut.”

  Rhonda found some peroxide, a roll of gauze, and some surgical tape in the medicine cabinet. Laura Lee sat slumped on the toilet while Rhonda administered first aid. The cut wasn’t very deep and Laura Lee seemed to be feeling no pain.

  “Where’s your boyfriend?” Laura Lee asked.

  “Warren? He’s not really my boyfriend.”

  “What are you waiting for, Ronnie? You’re not getting any goddamn younger. When a good one comes along, you hold on. Understand what I’m saying?”

  “Maybe you should lie down,” Rhonda suggested.

  “A fine idea. First, let me refill my glass. What did I do with my glass?”

  “Let’s get you another one, okay?”

  Rhonda settled Laura Lee in on the couch under the afghan, with a plastic tumbler full of sangria. “Can I ask you something?” Rhonda asked. “You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”

  “How intriguing. Ask away, love.”

  “Did you and Daniel have an affair?”

  Laura Lee smiled. “Who on earth told you that? Oh never mind, it’s not important. It’s ancient history. And for the record, yes: we were fucking like rabbits.”

  Rhonda cringed.

  “You’re not shocked, are you?”

  “No. Not at all. I was just wondering if you might know where he went?”

  “Honey, if I’d known that, I would have hightailed it after him. I was in love. God, he was a wreck. But what a goddamn handsome wreck.” Laura Lee sighed grandly. “I truly don’
t know what happened. He was in so much goddamn trouble that summer. He owed a lot of money to people. And he and Clem had some horrible blowup.”

  “About what?”

  “I don’t know, Ronnie. He never told me. He was a broken man. I think that at the very end, I was the only thing he felt he really had. But evidently that wasn’t enough. Ain’t that just the story of my goddamn life?”

  RHONDA DROVE BACK to Pat’s only to find she’d be working the phones alone. Pat and Warren had gone up to Burlington to hand out flyers and Pat was going to be the guest on a cable access show. Jim was in the garage and a greasy kid named Carl was running the register. Carl, Rhonda remembered, was the one who’d been working last Thursday, when someone picked Ernie up from school in Laura Lee’s VW.

  Pat’s Mini Mart was dead. No phone calls, no one stopping in for gas. Rhonda was trying to figure out how to check the e-mail from the Find Ernie Web site on the laptop when Carl sauntered over, hitched up his voluminous jeans, and went to work opening a stick of beef jerky he’d helped himself to.

  “Not much action, huh?” he said. Rhonda shook her head.

  “Carl, I saw that you were working last Thursday.”

  “Was I?”

  “Your name’s on the schedule.”

  He studied the beef jerky in his hand. “Guess I was here, then.” His eyes were red and glassy—he was wasted.

  “Pat and Peter were working,” she reminded him. “Laura Lee’s Volkswagen was in the shop.”

  He nodded. “Shit, that car was always in the shop. But,” he jabbed his beef jerky at her and narrowed his eyes shrewdly, “I know the exact day you’re talking about, ’cause that cop Crowley asked me about it.”

  “He did?”

  “Yeah, he wanted to know if I saw Peter take off in the VW.”

  “And did you?”

  He contemplated the beef jerky again. “Nah. I didn’t see shit. I was here by myself and we were slammed. Some Little League bus stopped off with like six hundred kids all paying for their fucking soda and candy bars separately with their little piles of change. Jee-sus.”

  “Where was Pat?”

  “Search me,” he shrugged.

  “And Peter was in the garage?”

  “Guess so. He comes and goes. I don’t always see him leaving and I can’t tell when he’s back there.” He ripped at the plastic on the beef jerky with his teeth. “It’s bullshit about Peter getting canned,” he said, spitting a corner of wrapper onto the floor.

  “Yep,” she agreed. “It sure is.”

  “And the cops riding his ass like they are…it’s not right. He didn’t take that girl.” He took a bite of the jerky and chewed hard.

  “I know,” Rhonda said.

  “Yeah, I know it, too,” he said, mouth full. “I know it for a fact. I saw him that afternoon and it wasn’t a little girl he had with him.”

  “You mean you saw him hiking?”

  “Hiking? Not hardly. I saw him pulling into the Inn and Out Motel around three. He was driving his truck and he had this real hot girl with him. Dark hair, makeup. She looked like a model. It sure as shit wasn’t Tock. So I went to him a few days later, offered to go to the cops, tell them what I saw. Give him an alibi, you know? And you know what he said? It wasn’t him!” Carl put on a prissy, uptight voice: “You must be mistaken.” He shook his head.

  “But there wasn’t no mistake. Now, if he wants to fuck around on Tock, more power to the dude, I could really give a shit, right? But in the meantime, everyone thinks he did the crime of the fucking century, and he’s cool with that? Dude really wants to keep a secret.”

  A customer came in then, went straight to the counter for cigarettes, and Carl went back to work, beef jerky stuck in his mouth like a cigar, leaving Rhonda dumbstruck.

  THE INN AND OUT Motel was up on a hill overlooking the highway and had only a dozen rooms, one of them with an efficiency kitchen. The remains of the continental breakfast were spread out on a low table against the back wall of the small lobby, not looking terribly continental: a few doughnuts drawing flies, the dregs of a pot of coffee, and a couple of black-spotted bananas. The girl behind the desk looked about sixteen—seventeen, tops. The tips of her auburn hair were dyed black and she had a pierced nose. She was staring at the computer screen, clicking away with the mouse and muttering to herself. The girl didn’t look up when Rhonda cleared her throat.

  “If you’re looking for room, we’re full up,” the girl said. As an afterthought, she added, “Sorry.”

  “No, actually, I was hoping you could help me out with something,” Rhonda said.

  The girl repressed a sigh, gave a few final clicks of the mouse, and turned to Rhonda.

  “What?” she asked.

  “See, a friend of mine was staying here a couple weeks back. An old girlfriend. We lost touch after high school…”

  Rhonda improvised while the girl looked on, bored and unimpressed by her story. Her eyes kept going back to the computer screen.

  “We were best friends in school, you know?”

  The girl nodded.

  “Then she goes off, goes to college, gets married, and we lose touch. She looked me up when she was back in town on June 5. We went out for drinks, talked about old times, old boyfriends, the crazy shit we used to do, you know?”

  She had the girl’s attention now.

  “But here’s the thing: she wrote down her name and address, but we were out drinking and I lost it. I could kick myself in the ass. I don’t even remember her married name. It kills me to think I’ve lost her all over again. Do you think you could just check and tell me what she goes by now?”

  The girl nodded, hit some keys on the computer. “I’m not supposed to give out addresses, but I don’t see why I can’t give you her name. She was here on the fifth?”

  “Yes, the fifth.”

  “And what’s her first name?”

  Shit. “Um, it’s Lisa, I mean she goes by Lisa, but that’s really her middle name. Her real first name is something kind of weird, I can never remember it.”

  “No Lisa on the fifth, but I’ve got a C. Hook who checked in that day. From Seattle. That’s gotta be her, right? I actually remember, it was right before we got so busy—you know, from the kidnapping?—so I remember. She was here with a guy. I think this is his car in the computer: a Toyota with license number DKT 747.”

  Peter’s truck. Rhonda nodded in what she hoped was a calm yet grateful manner.

  C. Hook…Captain Hook?

  Lizzy? Could it possibly have been Lizzy? Rhonda had that moving-underwater feeling.

  “Cornelia,” Rhonda heard herself say. “Her real name’s Cornelia. After her grandmother.”

  The girl shivered. “Ughh! I’d use my middle name, too.”

  “So you were working that day?” Rhonda asked.

  “I’m here most evenings. I’m not supposed to work mornings, but Jennifer called in with a migraine today.” The girl rolled her eyes. “I remember your friend. Nice lady. Real pretty. And such a sweet little girl.”

  “Little girl?” the words knotted in Rhonda’s throat, came out sounding more like a croak.

  “Yeah, she and the guy, they had a kid with them. You didn’t meet her?” The girl looked at Rhonda suspiciously.

  Rhonda shook her head. “No, I…Lisa, she said she had a daughter, but the kid was off with her uncle when we went out for drinks. I forgot all about her, actually. I wish I’d had a chance to meet her. What did…um, what did the little girl look like?”

  “Like her mom: dark hair and eyes. Maybe six…seven years old.”

  JULY 4, 1993

  YOU SMELL LIKE old piss,” Peter complained.

  It was the night of Peter’s fourteenth birthday party, and he, Rhonda, Lizzy, and Tock had ridden their bikes to the lake to watch the fireworks. They arrived at the beach as it was getting dark, and waited. They lay on their backs in the sand, looking across the water toward the center of town, listening as the band played and peop
le laughed and applauded on the other shore.

  They were the only ones at the little beach called Loon’s Cove, which was really more of a boat launch, but it’s where they always went swimming. There were people out on the water in canoes, kayaks, and paddleboats. Motorboats weren’t allowed on the water after sundown.

  “And you smell like Tock’s snatch, matey,” Lizzy said back in her pirate voice.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” Peter asked. He looked like he’d been slapped. He got up and moved down the beach, ordering Tock to come with him. Tock stayed where she was, next to Lizzy, who did reek of old pee and sweat. Rhonda was on the other side of Lizzy. A mosquito landed on her arm and Rhonda let it drink. She watched it get so fat with her blood that it could barely take off again.

  “I think you smell good,” Tock said to Lizzy.

  “Christ!” Peter yelled. “Are you going out with me or my sister?”

  “Asshole,” Tock muttered, but she got up and went to him, lying down next to him in the sand.

  The evening had started out so well. Everyone was getting along. Clem and Daniel had grilled steaks, Aggie and Justine made potato salad, corn on the cob, coleslaw. Then, there was Peter’s birthday cake, Aggie’s creation: a rectangle decorated in red, white, and blue, to look like the flag. And in the center, a ring of fourteen silver sparklers, not candles. They flashed and sizzled, leaving their ashes scattered on the frosting. The whole cake tasted like discharged ammunition.

  Rhonda lay on the beach, thinking about the painted rocks out in the middle of the lake. Each winter, when the lake was still covered in clusters of ice fishing shacks—tiny villages of men with propane heaters and flasks of whiskey, watching for a tug on their lines—when snowmobilers raced from one side to the other, the Pike’s Crossing Volunteer Fire Department would tow a big rock spray-painted in Day-Glo colors, with the year marked on top, right out to the middle of the lake. Everyone paid a dollar to guess the date the rock would fall through in the spring. There was a different prize for the Ice Out contest each year: a month of free coffee and doughnuts from Pat’s Mini Mart, a dinner for four at the Lakeside Diner, a fly rod from B&D Sports.