Читать книгу Twice Kissed - Lisa Jackson - Страница 13

From beneath the water’s shimmering surface, Maggie saw Mary Theresa, sunglasses propped on the bridge of her nose, string bikini showing off every inch of her tan, stroll along the edge of the swimming pool. She kicked out a lounge chair, away from the overhang and shade of the eucalyptus tree, then plopped down just as Maggie’s lungs, burning from her length of time under the water, forced her to swim frantically upward. Shooting through the surface, Maggie gasped, gulped in air, and tossed her wet hair out of her eyes.

“What are you doing?” her twin asked, the corners of her mouth turned down in flat-out disapproval.

“What does it look like? Underwater laps.”

“Why?”

“I’m gonna try out for the swim team.”

“Again?” Mary Theresa sighed dramatically and dabbed at the corner of her mouth where a canker sore dared show on her lips. “You know you’re not going to make it. Just like the last time you tried out when we were in high school. Junior college will be lots tougher.”

“But I talked to the coach. So did Mitch.”

Mary Theresa’s pouty little mouth acted as if it had been drawn together by purse strings, and she swatted at a bee that buzzed near her head. “You asked Mitchell to put in a good word for you?”

“Yeah.”

“With the women’s coach at the college?” Mary Theresa asked, as if Maggie was dense as tar.

Maggie flipped onto her back and started swimming backward. She didn’t need any of Mary Theresa’s crap. Not today. “Uh-huh.”

“Will wonders never cease?”

“What’s it to you?” Maggie knew she shouldn’t let Mary Theresa get to her, but she couldn’t help it. Mary Theresa had become more and more distant and it seemed to have started three or four years ago, about the time her sister’s breasts had developed into “round, ripe melons,” as Billy Norton had been so proud of saying when they’d all been in the eighth grade. Billy was a pimply-faced geek whose talent for math made him think he was God’s gift to teachers and all females on this earth.

“Your sister has the biggest tits in the whole damned school, and that includes Mrs. Nelson, so what happened to you?” He’d looked to his circle of friends for some support as they’d stood in the hallway near the library. It was just after lunch about two days before they’d graduated from George Washington Junior High. The other boys had sniggered loudly, but had been blessed with enough decency to look embarrassed. “I thought you were supposed to be identical twins.” Billy was always persistent.

“And I thought you were supposed to be smart. You figure it out,” she’d retorted angrily, though she’d been dying inside and had wanted to drop through the stain-covered carpeted floor. What was it about boys that found a girl’s breasts so fascinating? It was as if they’d been weaned too early and were, ever since, dying for a peek, or touch, or even grosser yet, a taste of some girl’s tits. The bigger, the better.

“You’re just jealous ’cause you got sold short,” he’d hooted.

“Tell me about it,” she’d said, then narrowed her gaze on his oversize shorts in the area where his alleged male anatomy had been hidden. She’d breezed off, wounded on the inside, her cheeks burning, her eyes filled with unshed tears. Around the corner she made a mad dash to the bathroom, where it took almost ten minutes to regain her composure. By the time she’d returned to the library, class had started. All the kids, sitting in their seats, had stared at her as she’d taken the only desk left, in the front of the room.

Mrs. Brady didn’t ask any questions, just scribbled on a yellow pad, and handed Maggie a copy without so much as faltering over one single syllable as she ranted on and on about the new computer system the school was supposed to get—if there was enough funding, of course. Money was tight in all the public schools, but Mrs. Brady was ever-hopeful. Maggie had clutched the tardy slip in her sweaty fingers, slunk to the desk, and prayed for the humiliating day to be over.

“Hey, what’s the difference between Maggie Reilly and a singer who’s off-key?” Billy had whispered loud enough for her to hear. She felt hot tears glistening in her eyes.

No one answered, and Maggie hardly dared breathe.

“Nothin’,” Billy said under his breath. “They’re both flat.”

More nervous chuckles. Maggie snapped her pencil in two. Mrs. Brady’s eyes, behind the shield of thick glasses, narrowed on Billy. A tear drizzled from Maggie’s eye, and she brushed it angrily aside before enduring the longest forty minutes of her life.

In the end, because of the tardy slip, she’d had to suffer through work detail, cleaning the hallways of litter before she’d been allowed to graduate.

Billy Norton hadn’t been one to let sleeping dogs lie. He’d found out what day her work detail was scheduled and, knowing she would have to clean it up, had spread the remains of his lunch—an uneaten sloppy joe and french fries drizzled in catsup—on the floor. To add insult to injury, he’d also filled a condom that was probably way too big for him with meat from his sloppy joe, then left the ugly mess in the hallway by the seventh-grade stairs. He and his gang had gotten away scot-free while Maggie had to pick up the icky thin sheath and discard it, along with the rest of the garbage, into a big plastic bag.

All because she had been blessed with smaller boobs than Mary Theresa.

What a joke.

Now, as she stroked easily backward through the sun-warmed water, she told herself not to let Mary Theresa bug her. Lately Mary had been edgy, restless, and secretive. Several times Maggie had come upon her sister and cousin Mitch, whom her parents had adopted before the twins had been born and after his mother had died. They just hung out watching TV or listening to tapes of the Rolling Stones or Pink Floyd. They’d been laughing and talking, pushing each other. Upon spying Maggie, they’d both shut up, smiled falsely, and acted like stone statues. They pretended that nothing was out of the ordinary when there were all sorts of weird vibes sizzling through the air.

It was as if Maggie was suddenly the outsider, when, for most of her time on this earth, she and Mary Theresa had considered Mitch a pain in the butt—the one member of their family who hadn’t fit in.

Mitch had worked hard to foster that separateness, not wanting his younger, dweeby cousins-cum-sisters anywhere near him from the time he’d entered kindergarten. He’d acted as if Maggie and Mary Theresa were strychnine, and his attitude had only gotten worse as the years rolled on.

When the girls had been in second grade, their mother insisted that he walk them to school. He’d grudgingly agreed, as he’d had no choice in the matter, but the minute they turned the corner and were out of view from the kitchen window, he’d ditched them and sworn he’d “beat the shit” out of them if either twin had the guts to rat him out to their parents.

“He’s a jerk,” Mary Theresa had decided.

“Who needs him?” Maggie had preferred to walk to school on her own anyway. “He’s just a pain.”

Mitch had gone to great lengths to show his disdain of the girls. He’d laughed at them with his friends, shown Maggie’s diary to anyone who wanted a peek, and put locks on the door of his room to make sure they wouldn’t violate his privacy and sanctuary.

But now things had changed. Mitch’s animosity had diminished, and Mary T, as he called her, didn’t seem to mind hanging out with him. Maggie secretly thought Mary Theresa had finally figured out that Mitch’s heretofore nerdy friends had become hot when they’d started driving, playing varsity sports, and growing serious facial hair where there had once only been severe cases of acne. Whatever the reason, these days Mary Theresa spent more time with Mitch and his friends than she did with Maggie.

Not that it mattered a whole lot. Sure, Maggie missed hanging out with her twin, but it wasn’t the end of the world. They were starting to separate finally, their interests weren’t the same anymore, and probably the biggest reason they didn’t get along was that Maggie refused to be led by the nose by her sister.

Mary Theresa had always made the decisions about what they were going to do, what friends they would share, or where they would go. But Maggie was sick of it. Sick of being a twin. Especially being the paler version of her flashy sister.

When they had started having “woman cycles” or “the monthly curse,” as their mother had called their periods, Mary Theresa was the first to get a cramp and therefore able to give Maggie more advice than she’d ever hoped to hear by the time her body had come to grips with womanhood six weeks later. Somehow it made Mary Theresa a know-it-all on all things related to blossoming womanhood and femininity.

A few years back Mary Theresa had gotten into clothes and nail polish and lipstick and listening to music that didn’t appeal to Maggie. She’d taken to smoking cigarettes in her room and blowing the smoke out her window late at night, bleaching streaks into her hair, and sneaking out once in a while, never confiding in Maggie about where she was going or what she was doing or whom she was meeting.

“You wouldn’t understand,” she’d said once when Maggie had caught her slipping through the window. Mary Theresa had been wearing skintight white shorts and a cropped-off yellow top that showed off her flat abdomen. “Just cover for me.”

“And say what?”

“I don’t know. Use your imagination. You’re supposed to be so good at it. All the English teachers say so,” she added with an envious edge to her voice. “As if you’re gonna be a writer or somethin’.”

“Well, I can’t imagine where you’re going or how I’m going to lie to Mom and Dad.”

“You’ll come up with something,” Mary Theresa had replied, clutching her pack of Virginia Slims in one hand while holding on to the sill with her other. She flashed her sister a radiant smile, then slipped into the yard, ducking past the pools of lights from lamps placed strategically between the rosebushes that had been in full, fragrant blossom.

Fortunately, their parents had never noticed Mary Theresa’s absences, and Maggie had never been forced to lie. Well, not yet anyway.

Now as she skimmed through the water and closed her eyes, concentrating on her breathing and the steady rhythm of her strokes, the unrest in the family ate at her, destroying her concentration.

Whenever Mitch’s friends came around, Mary Theresa lit up like a Christmas tree while Maggie felt as if she disappeared into the woodwork. Mary Theresa flirted and giggled, dodging playful pinches, hot-blooded leers, and sensual remarks with an aplomb that left Maggie speechless.

It was bound to happen, she supposed. Who cared anyway?

She sensed rather than saw the edge of the pool, touched it with the tips of her fingers, and tucked quickly into an underwater somersault that propelled her back toward the house where Mary Theresa, disgruntled at the shade cast by the hedge, was shifting in the chaise.

Quickly Maggie swam twenty laps without a break. Her muscles began to ache. One more turn. She saw the edge of the pool near the house and knifed through the water. Stroke, stroke, stroke. Her lungs burned. She stretched and finally her fingers touched cement at the shallow end. She broke surface and gulped in air.

“Done already?” Mary Theresa asked, one eyebrow lifting over the tops of her Ray-Bans. Her body was slick with oil, tanned to a dark tawny shade, her hair piled onto her head.

“For now.” Maggie snagged the white towel she’d dropped at the pool’s lip.

Mary Theresa sighed. “Waste of time,” she muttered under her breath.

Irritated, Maggie patted her face dry, then, spying Mary Theresa basking with conceited calm on the lounge, she reached into the water, and on a whim, flung some cool drips onto Mary’s flat belly.

“Hey!” Mary Theresa shrieked and shot out of the chair. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Nothin’.”

“Nothin’,” Mary Theresa mimed in a high-pitched voice, her face pulled into a nasty pout. “Pulllease, grow up for God’s sake, Maggie. Do you know what an embarrassment you are?”

Unperturbed, Maggie placed her hands on the ledge and hauled her body out of the water in a quick, lithe motion. She didn’t see how she could be that much of an embarrassment because she looked a lot like her sister. Maybe not quite as pretty, but close enough that once in a while people called them the wrong names. Oh, that really burned Mary Theresa’s butt. Maggie loved it. “You’re an idiot, a…a…kid. Why don’t you go and ride your damned horse or something?”

“I will.” It sounded like heaven. Anything to get away from this house and all the ill will that seemed to grow as the summer wore on. When had it started to happen, Maggie wondered, thinking back to when she and Maggie were in junior high and Mitch had just started high school. They’d been happier then. All of them.

Maggie didn’t remember the muffled arguments behind her parents’ bedroom door, or the empty vodka bottles piled high in the trash, or the frigid silence from their mother, an intense, heavy lack of conversation that seemed to radiate from her while quieting everyone else. Bernice Reilly’s deadly silence was able to numb them all. One icy look from her furious eyes was capable of bringing conversation and laughter to a standstill at the dinner table or stopping all communication in the car.

As Mary Theresa brushed the offending water droplets from her body, Maggie eyed the long, rambling house set on the crest of the hill. This place had been her parents’ dream, and recently, she thought, it had turned into a nightmare. Ancient oaks, olives, and eucalyptuses shaded a well-tended yard and the stucco house where they resided. Painted a soft dun color and resplendent with a sweeping red-tile roof and terra-cotta patio that stretched to the pool—their father’s pride and joy—the house seemed cold and empty as a tomb to Maggie, and she longed for their little three-bedroom rambler in the valley.

But with his professional jump to a rival company, Frank Reilly had elevated himself to this house, a new pool and sporty red Mercedes while Bernice had been able to hire Lydia, their Spanish-speaking maid, and for the first time in her life was able to spend hours having manicures, pedicures, and facials between her tennis matches and bridge club.

Maggie wasn’t certain the move had been so good. She missed the neighbors and small yard where she could sneak through the broken fence into Jamie Tortoni’s vegetable garden. They could share secrets while watching Jamie’s father’s goldfish swim lazily in a cement pool he’d designed and built. Whenever Maggie had been fighting with Mary Theresa, she’d been able to count on Jamie as a friend and confidante.

But that was a long time ago. When they’d moved, Mary Theresa and Maggie had gone to a different high school. Maggie and Jamie never saw each other anymore.

In the meantime Mary Theresa had changed. At the old house Maggie and M.T. had shared a room decorated with lavender paint, matching twin beds covered with purple-and-pink patchwork quilts and a gold-shag carpet littered with Barbie dolls, stuffed animals, and clothes that never quite made it to the laundry hamper.

Maggie remembered a time when they were about eleven—God, it seemed like eons ago. Late at night, after everyone else in the house had gone to bed, she and Mary Theresa had huddled together, hidden under the covers of Mary Theresa’s bed with flashlights to read a dog-eared copy of Playboy magazine that Maggie, while searching for Mitch’s stash of licorice whips, had discovered buried under his bed along with his crusty old socks and dirty jockey shorts.

“Yuk. Look at that,” Maggie had said, horrified as she eyed the centerfold where a tanned model with huge boobs and thatch of blond hair at the juncture of her legs was pictured in a sprawled, come-hither position. Long-maned and almond-eyed, the centerfold wore nothing but an endless strand of pearls that, caught between perfect teeth were draped from her wet lips, past her breasts to nestle deep in the misty blond curls at the apex of her thighs and disappear to God only knew where. Maggie didn’t want to consider the possibilities.

“Don’t you think she’s beautiful?” Mary Theresa, awestruck, had asked as Maggie held the flashlight so that its beam shone straight on the pages.

Maggie had shaken her head, unable to tear her gaze away from the woman’s exposed private parts.

But Mary Theresa had rotated the magazine, looking at the model from all viewpoints, pointing out the fact that the naked woman had flawless skin, interesting green eyes, and high, sculpted cheekbones. Maggie only saw her buttocks, boobs with those silver-dollar-sized nipples and…well, all that other stuff that made her blush.

“You know this is art, don’t you?” Mary Theresa had said with all her eleven-year-old wisdom.

“Then why was it hidden under Mitch’s bed, beneath his dirty clothes?”

“Because Mitch is a moron.” Mary Theresa bit at her lower lip and sized up the slick pages. “Do you think she had a boob job?”

“A what?” Maggie felt something brush against her toes as they hung outside of the sheets. “Oooh!” She threw back the covers, certain her mother, arms crossed and an expression resembling that of an army drill sergeant, would be standing at the foot of the bed. Instead, Flint, their silvery tabby cat, hopped onto the bed and walked with soft, tiny footprints on Maggie’s back. “Man, you scared me,” she said to the cat, and pulled him under the covers with her. She adjusted her flashlight again and noticed that Mary Theresa’s concentration hadn’t so much as glitched. “What were you saying?”

“I was telling you about this kind of surgery to make ’em bigger.” She pointed to the model’s enviable chest. “It’s called breast enhancement or something. Linda Stone’s mom had it done a couple of years ago.”

“How do you know?”

Mary Theresa tossed her a look that silently called her naive. “Linda said, and if you look, you’ll see that she’s a lot bigger than she used to be.” Her eyes narrowed on the picture. “I can’t see any scars.” Mary Theresa’s eyebrows drew together thoughtfully as she studied the photograph.

“Ick. Who cares if there are scars?”

“I care.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. But it seems important. Boys like big boobs.”

“Would you ever have it done?”

“Maybe.”

“Well, I wouldn’t.” Maggie shook her head. No way would she have some doctor cut her open and…and do what? She didn’t want to know. “Besides, boys are stupid.”

“I know.” Mary Theresa smiled. “Real stupid. But they like big tits.”

That statement seemed profound today, Maggie thought as the lazy-afternoon sun dried the drops of water on her body. She watched Mary Theresa stretch out on the chaise again, perfect, nonsurgically enhanced breasts overflowing from the top of her neon orange bikini.

Toweling dry her hair, Maggie stood, her shadow daring to cross Mary Theresa’s legs.

“Careful,” her twin said. She felt Mary Theresa’s restlessness, knew that she was annoyed that Maggie had disturbed her. “Don’t you have something to do?”

“Don’t you?”

Mary rolled over and sighed in disgust. “God, you’re pathetic.”

Maggie wanted to chime, I know you are, but what am I, then decided that would sound far too childish, only driving Mary Theresa’s point home.

She didn’t bother to say goodbye, just walked into the cool house, changed, and badgered her mother to let her borrow the car so she could drive to the horse barns where her mare, Ink Spot, was leased. She spent the rest of the afternoon riding through the connecting paddocks of Rio Verde Canyon and relaxing. The sun was hot, heating her crown with lazy rays as it slowly disappeared into the western horizon.

Hours later Maggie stopped at a local drive-in, where she ordered fries and a Coke. She hung out with some kids she knew from school for a while, then, knowing she was late, pushed the speed limit on the way home and parked her mother’s car in its spot in the garage.

Her dad’s Mercedes was missing, thank God. Maggie smiled to herself as she pocketed her keys because she’d lucked out and avoided a lecture on coming home late. Obviously her parents were gone, out for the evening.

The house was dark, only the exterior lamps lighting the way to the front door, but Mitch’s Mustang sat in the driveway, its paint polished to a sheen that looked almost liquid in the lamplight.

Intent on swimming a few laps under the stars, Maggie sneaked around the outside of the house, avoiding the pools of light cast by the exterior lamps. She’d just cool off, swim three or four laps, then call it a night. She was rounding the corner and struggling to pull her T-shirt over her head at the oleander hedge when she heard the noises: the notes of a piano and Elton John’s voice singing a song Maggie barely remembered, soft, happy giggles and splashes of water over the gurgle of the hot-tub jets.

Maggie froze.

“Don’t!” Mary Theresa ordered, but her voice was playful, teasing.

The hairs on the back of Maggie’s neck raised slowly, one by one, as a deep male voice rumbled in laughter.

It wasn’t much of a surprise really. Mary Theresa attracted a lot of male attention; she always had a date.

“Why not?” the guy asked, and Maggie’s gut clenched as she recognized the voice.

“I said—oooh!”

Maggie’s stomach turned over. Her throat was cotton, and though she knew she was making an irreversible mistake of life-altering proportions, that she would never be able to undo what she was about to see, she peeked through the hedge surrounding the hot tub and stood frozen, eyes locked on the white mist rising from the bubbling water and the two heads that were visible in the muted light. Mary Theresa, her hair piled on her crown, wet tendrils framing her face, was locked in an embrace with a strong, muscular male, one who held her close, his hands splayed over her spine, his face buried in the perfect breasts that she was so proud of. A bottle of vodka—part of their mother’s stash, from the looks of it—was opened and sat on the tiled lip of the pool.

Mary Theresa was moving up and down as the man untied the back of her bikini and let it float away. He lifted his head for a minute and Maggie caught a glimpse of Mitch as he started licking and teasing at her twin’s chest.

No!

Bile shot up Maggie’s throat. She gagged, suddenly on her knees as the contents of her stomach spewed onto the ground. No! She couldn’t have seen what she’d thought. No way. Her eyes were playing tricks on her. They had to be.

“What was that?” Mary Theresa’s voice, slurred.

“Nothin’. Just a dog or somethin’.”

“No…stop…quit it…I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“Oh, come on, M.T. Please. You give it away to every other guy—”

“I…I can’t, this…oh, God, what if Mom and Dad came home?”

“They won’t. They’re at the Kavenaughs. When they do show up they’ll both be shit-faced.”

“What about Maggie?”

“Wha’ about her? She don’t know nothin’. She’s out ridin’ that damned horse, isn’t she? If you ask me, she’s havin’ a love affair with it. Won’t be home for hours.”

“She’s smarter than you think. Stop it. Mitch, for God’s sake—” There was splashing as someone climbed out of the pool. Maggie struggled to her feet. She had to run away, to hide, to—

She heard the sound of footsteps, tried to dash behind an olive tree, only to see Mitch looming, his silhouette cast in shadowy relief with the back lights of the ornamental lamps. “Jesus Christ,” he said, ramming a hand through his hair. “What’re you doin’ slinkin’ around here and spyin’ on people?”

“What is it?” Mary Theresa rounded the edge of the hedge and her eyes collided with Maggie’s. “Oh, shit.” She was tying the straps of her bikini bra.

“Nothin’ happened,” Mitch said, taking a threatening step forward, his foot slipping on the pool of vomit. “Oh, hell. What’s this? Puke? You were pukin’ here?” Twisted in pure, outraged fury, his face suddenly suffused with bright, burning color. “How long you been here?”

“I…I just got here. Just this minute and I got sick and you…you came,” Maggie stammered, wishing she was anywhere other than under his hard stare. She couldn’t believe what she’d seen, wouldn’t! They both had swimming suits on and though Mary Theresa was disheveled, her hair dripping, mascara running down her face, she and Mitch weren’t…they wouldn’t…

“Nothin’ happened,” Mitch said again.

“I…I know.”

“I mean it, Maggie. No matter what you heard or saw, nothin’ was goin’ on.”

Oh, God, how she wanted to believe him, but the look of sheer terror in Mary Theresa’s eyes convinced her otherwise. Her stomach quivered, she turned away and nearly retched all over again. Her head was thundering, her heart pounding, denial pouring through her bloodstream. This couldn’t be happening! It couldn’t. Not Mary Theresa and Mitch. Oh, God, no!

“Maggie—” Mitch warned, the hard edge to his voice testament to his feelings.

Emotions roiling, Maggie didn’t wait. She pushed past him and started running, through the bushes, down the gravel path, and into the street. She didn’t know where she was going, didn’t care. She just had to get away. Far away.

The soles of her boots, the ones she’d worn riding, slapped on the cement of the sidewalk. The hillside homes seemed to pitch and whirl as she flew down the street. Somewhere behind an electronic gate a dog barked. Neighboring house lights snapped on. Tears of disbelief and shame filled her eyes. Denial tore at her soul. Racing ever faster, tears streaming down her cheeks, she tried to outrun a vision that was burned into her brain. Gasping, half-sobbing, she tore down the prestigious hill with its stately million-dollar homes and the silent isolated lives within.

Mary Theresa and Mitch! Blood relatives. They were practically brother and sister! Oh, God, no. Ever downward she ran, telling herself that what she’d seen was a mistake, that somehow she’d witnessed something entirely different. It was just her wild careless imagination that was jolting her out of control, that was it.

Above the illumination from the streetlamps, the stars seemed to jumble and collide. Inside, her heart pounded hard. Ready to explode. Her guts cramped.

Reeling, she stopped at a corner, panting, crying, placing her head between her knees, and wondering what in God’s name she would do. So her sister and brother were kissing, making out in the hot tub. It wasn’t a big deal, was it? So they’d been touching…that was part of growing up and exploring and…oh, who was she kidding? It was wrong. Way beyond wrong. It was sick. Even if they weren’t actually brother and sister. Still, they were related. What Mary Theresa and Mitch were doing violated some deep and primitive moral code.

Nothing happened. Mitch’s words rang in her ears, echoed through her mind.

Somewhere in the distance a police siren wailed through the night. A garage door opened and a neighbor dragged his trash can to the curb. Think, Maggie, think. You’ve got to go home. Face them. Face Mom and Dad. Her knees threatened to give way and she clung to the lamppost, taking in deep breaths of air laden with the scents of honeysuckle and roses.

She forced herself to her feet, began running again.

Not far away tires screamed on pavement.

Just pretend it didn’t happen, she told herself, like you didn’t see anything, just like you don’t see Mother pour vodka into her orange juice in the morning, or that you haven’t found bottles stashed in the laundry closet or behind the gardening tools. The hot-tub scene didn’t happen. You imagined it. Saw something else.

Headlights flashed on the asphalt as the sound of a car’s engine, Mitch’s Mustang, neared. Maggie started running again, faster and faster along the sidewalk that skimmed the edges of brick fences and wrought-iron gates and the secrets they guarded.

The thrum of a bass guitar reached her ears, the rhythmic cadence of drums. Mitch, driving his Mustang slowly, rolled down his window. “Get into the car, Maggie,” he ordered over the loud music.

“No!” She tried to run again.

“Listen—”

“Go away.” She reached the curb, stumbled, then dashed across a side street as another car caught her in its headlights.

“Damn.” Mitch gunned his engine, and at the far curb, Maggie turned sharply, up the side street. Her lungs burned, her thighs ached so bad they quivered, but she gritted her teeth and kept running. Adrenaline spurred her on. She heard the sound of Mitch’s tires screeching as he threw the gearshift into reverse and burned rubber. There was an ominous moment of silence when all Maggie could hear was her own ragged breathing and the thudding of her heart—then the squeal of rubber on asphalt, the sound of an engine being gunned angrily, and the smell of burned rubber hanging in the air.

In a second his car was beside her. Mitch leaned over and rolled down the passenger side window. “Get in.”

She didn’t answer, just kept running, uphill past the houses as her calves screamed in pain.

“Jesus Christ, Maggie, get in the car!”

She was gasping by this time, her lungs on fire.

“Fine.” He slammed on the brakes, threw open the car door, and, while the pounding beat of an old Creedence Clearwater Revival song rocked through the night, Mitch started running. In the best shape of his life, he caught up with her within seconds, grabbed hold of her arm, spun her roughly around, and stared down at her tear-stained face. “Let’s go home, Mag. Come on.”

“No!” She hit him then, her small fist pounding on his chest. “No!”

“Maggie, please. Oh, Christ.” He pulled her into the circle of his arms and rested his chin on her head.

She heard him breathing, felt his strong heart beating, was aware of the steel-like arms surrounding her. Mitch had always made her feel safe and now he was…was…she started sobbing again at the horrid thought.

“It’s not what you think.”

If she could only believe him.

“Mary Theresa and I were just messin’ around. We got into Mom’s Smirnoff and got a little carried away. That’s all.”

“I…I saw.”

“You don’t know what you saw. I was stupid, yeah. It was kind of a ‘You show me yours and I’ll show you mine’ thing. Dumb, huh?” Tipping her chin up with one finger he looked down at her and attempted a smile. But his face was pale, his eyes dead and she didn’t know what to believe. “Come on, Maggie. No harm, no foul. Let’s go home. Mary cleaned up the mess by the hedge and put Mom’s bottle back. No one has to know anything.”

“But—”

He dropped his arms and patted her on the head. “I’m an idiot, okay? A dickhead. I admit it. I shouldn’t drink. Ever. If the coach ever found out, I’d be dead meat, and this thing with Mary Theresa…well, it was my fault, I admit it, and we have to keep it quiet, okay? You know I love Sheila.”

Sheila Allman was Mitch’s girlfriend. They’d been going together since their sophomore year in high school. A cheerleader who had been homecoming princess and prom queen in the same year, she had been one of the most popular girls at White River High. Along with Mary Theresa.

“Come on, Mag. Get into the car.”

She couldn’t shake the bad taste in her mouth, the deep, piercing knowledge that she was being conned, but she had no choice. She had to return to the house. She had nowhere else to go, no one in whom to confide. On shaking legs she climbed into Mitch’s car, leaned against the passenger window as he cut a U-turn in the middle of the street. She stared sightlessly out the window as he drove with a little more restraint the short distance back to the house.

John Fogerty’s gravelly voice blasted from the speakers. “I heard it through the grapevine, not much longer would ya be mine…”

The music continued to pound as Mitch wheeled into the driveway and stood on the brakes. Maggie threw open the door and nearly fell from the low bucket seat to the pavement. Her legs were like rubber, her mind a kaleidoscope of horrid, ugly, sensual images. She didn’t wait for Mitch as she ran to the front door, into the house, and down the long tile hallway to her room. Mary Theresa’s door was closed, but a glow of blue light beneath the panels indicated that her lights were out, but she was watching television. Not that it mattered.

Maggie burst into her own room, shut the door, and flung herself onto the bed. She hadn’t seen what she thought she had. She had to believe Mitch. Crawling under the covers, she squeezed her eyes shut, but she didn’t sleep a wink and heard, hours later, her parents come into the house, the slam of the garage door over the shout of angry words, and the rattle of a bottle as her mother poured herself a nightcap, probably from the same fifth Mitch had tapped earlier.

It was sick. All of it. And Maggie couldn’t wait for the day when she’d be able to leave. Just the rest of the summer, then she could go move out and attend junior college. Forget living here. She wished she could just take off. As far away as possible. Away from this gloomy house with its awful, mind-numbing secrets. Away from her mother’s slurred speech and her father’s holier-than-thou attitude. Away from Mitch’s cocksure jock strut and Mary Theresa’s ever-present aura.

No more being a shadow.

Maggie rolled over on the bed, stared at the ceiling and, for the first time in her life, heard the voice, clear as a bell, as if Mary Theresa were in the room with her.

Don’t tell, Maggie, please. Whatever you do, don’t tell!

“What?”

Mom and Dad would kill me if they found out. Maggie, please, keep this our secret.