Rhonda the Rubber Woman
Page 26
“Dear Nancy,” it said. “I haven’t been able to find a way to say this. You know I’m not too good with words. But I wanted you to know this Carl Markell that you told me about isn’t your father. Carl Markell must have run around with one of the other girls at the factory. Your father was somebody else, a real good man, but he died before he got a chance to know you. It was an automobile accident out on Wind Gap Junction Road. It was very sad. It made me too sad to think about it. That’s why I never said anything before, but I wanted you to know now so you and Bobby can go on with your lives.”
Bobby and I looked at each other and gasped. We read the letter again then we hugged and twirled around in a circle. All of a sudden I started to laugh and cry at the same time. I pulled back and stared at Bobby.
“She made this up. If you’d seen her face the day I mentioned the name Carl Markell, you’d know she made this up.”
I looked back at the neat rows of handwriting and a tear streamed down my cheek. After all those years, she finally made up a story about my father.
“But it still gives us an out,” Bobby said, his cheeks pink with excitement. “And what’s better, we have it in writing. People can suspect anything they want. We have a letter that says we’re not related.”
I smiled but my voice seemed to be bunched up in my throat. After a minute you could see Bobby’s face change, too, as he realized that we would always know the truth. We stood quietly and watched a young boy kick a can along the pavement across the street.
When my bus arrived, Bobby helped me settle into a seat and stashed my suitcase in the overhead luggage compartment. He slipped into the seat next to me for a second, gave me a wide smile and said, “Okay, here’s looking at you, kid,” then pressed my hand and left. I watched him walk back to the Buick, moving with smooth, sure steps,
The bus pulled out and I read the note from my mother over and over. Bobby was right. Even if it wasn’t true, Bobby could tell his mother it was, and she might suspect different but she’d never really know. She’d have to take our word for it.
I looked out the smudged bus window. The day had brightened and the sun threw buttery splotches on the sides of houses. Wasn’t that just like my mother, to come up with a way to pretend things were fine. Except this time she was doing it for me. I leaned my head back against the blue upholstered seat and closed my eyes, a slice of sun warm on my face, when I heard a musical laugh behind me that sounded like Shirley Metzger. I turned and spotted three girls wearing sloppy joe sweaters and bright faces, talking with a confidence that told you they knew where they were going in life. Facing front again, I thought I could understand how a fatherless girl with a scatterbrained mom could go bad but I wasn’t convinced it had to be that way. Maybe you just needed something or someone to coax you along.
I squinted out into the sun. There was a lot I still had to learn, but one thing I knew for sure. I wasn’t going to waste any more energy trying to be a small-town hot-shot like Shirley Metzger. Another thing I knew was that I wasn’t meant to be the kind of girl who’d one day put on a satin gown and take a solemn oath to be a Worthy Advisor in the Order of the Rainbow at the Marysville Elks Club and I wasn’t the kind of girl who’d be content crocheting afghans, bragging about her Kelvinator and her Hotpoint.
I closed my eyes and watched the sequins flash. Rhonda. She bent and twisted, hair swinging, muscles stretching, air crackling with the energy she gave off. I’d been thinking a lot about her lately. I hadn’t figured out why yet but there was something about her that seemed to carry the secret I was looking for about life. Maybe it was however tightly Rhona twisted and turned, she could always untangle herself and toss her hair. Rhonda was her own person.
I reached into my purse and fingered my Dorothy Parker book. I pulled out a sterling silver ballpoint pen Aunt Cora had given to me as a going-away present. A ballpoint pen was something new. You didn’t have to dip it into ink, just flick it and write. I turned the pen this way and that, watching the silver catch the colors of the sunlight. I opened my notepad and wrote my name; the pen worked perfectly. No inky blobs, no chicken scratches, just firm, swirly indigo blue letters. A nice color of deep blue with a silvery edge to it that reminded me of the Delaware River early in the morning when the mist is rising and the sun is flirting with the water in little prickly flashes in the distance.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1998 by Norma Peterson
ISBN: 978-1-5040-2485-3
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