Two Sisters Times Two Page 3

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  Penni looked at Randall across the wide backseat in the pale glow of the car’s courtesy lights. Her eyes were lit by a glow far brighter than that of those courtesy lights, a vivacity and cheerfulness that originated inside and was quite amazing, particularly given the exhausting demands and stresses of the past twenty-four hours, starting with last night’s rehearsal and dinner. But then Penni was no ordinary young woman, a fact Randall affirmed through heavy-lidded eyes much more weary and a little bloodshot, his body reclining into the corner like that of a child about to take a nap on their ride home from a long trip.

  “Can you believe we made it?” Penni asked, her tone answering her rhetorical question.

  “Unh-unh,” Randall grunted.

  “What do you mean ‘unh-unh’?”

  “Unh-hunh?” Randall tried.

  Penni tilted her head coquettishly and purred, “Are you going to fall asleep on your wedding night?” She reached across to grab his near knee then directed her hand slowly upward across his thigh.

  Randall’s left eye, nearest Penni, opened wide in sudden interest and anticipation. “Umm,” he said, as if weighing the respective merits of sleep versus remaining awake.

  “Unh-unh,” Penni mimicked as her hand ever so slowly crept toward Randall’s crotch.

  “Unh-hunh,” Randall said, firmly this time.

  When Penni and Randall were first dating, during their last undergraduate semester, they had quickly moved from hand holding to good night kisses to outside the clothing fondling to inside the clothing petting. By the day of their graduation, the climax of this progression appeared in sight. The prospect riveted them both, though perhaps more so Penni, who was a still a virgin, than Randall, who had had several sexual relationships with long-term girlfriends, starting in high school. The end to their longing seemed destined to happen during a weeklong beach trip, in a rented condo with only one bed, they’d planned for the end of that summer before they parted to go to separate graduate schools—Randall to medical school at Center, Penni to Georgetown for a masters (and later a doctorate) in public policy.

  But two days before they were scheduled to go to the beach, Jodie stopped by home on her way back to Seattle from her annual visit to her father and his family on Shawnituck Island, a tiny island off the coast once accessible only by ferry but now with a bridge connector. She’d been making these annual visits every summer since Brooke and her father had divorced when she was three. When they were younger, Penni had envied Jodie for these annual excursions and for having a second mystery family. In Penni’s youthful eyes, it was as if Jodie the teenager could step off the face of the earth and into her version of The Secret Garden or Jodie’s Wonderland during these long absences. And Jodie happily enhanced that impression, returning with tales of adventure and intrigue she would share at length with her younger sister as they sat in Penni’s bed with the lights out until Penni drifted off to sleep. But once Jodie had gone off to college and, later, moved to the west coast, and Penni was herself engaged in a range of summer activities, they rarely saw each other during Jodie’s brief stops on her way to or from Shawnituck. Some years she didn’t stop at all, though home was less than a half hour from the airport she flew into and out of.

  But this particular summer, Jodie did stop; and she was a mess. It was unclear to Penni exactly why Jodie was upset. She refused to share specifics, had never shared details of her personal life with her half-sister who was ten years younger. But she wore the emotional distress just as conspicuously as the five rings in her right ear and the stud in the side of her nose. She was chain-smoking—in the dark on the picnic table in the backyard, not in the house—and a fidgety wreck. Penni, at her mom’s urging, went out and sat with her, trying to calm her and, failing that, just keeping her company. At one point, Jodie grew suddenly still then looked to Penni and asked “Who am I?”

  Penni had answered simply, “Jodie Elizabeth Howard.”

  And Jodie laughed hysterically, frighteningly, for what seemed an eternity before leaning forward and saying quietly, “Then tell her,” pointing at Brooke standing in the light over the sink squinting out into the dark toward her shadowed girls.

  That night, Penni decided she and Randall would not consummate their relationship during their summer-ending beach trip. They would never consummate it in any way that might result in the conception of a child out of wedlock. They could find plenty of other outlets and opportunities for expression of their affection, and in fact over the years had grown quite creative in this regard. But sexual intercourse would only happen once they were married and prepared to raise the child that might result.

  And tonight, they were married.

  Penni’s hand continued its slow passage up over his thigh toward the all too conspicuous bump beneath the zipper of his pants.

  Randall slid further down on the seat till he was all but lying across it.

  Penni’s body started to slide toward his. Shortly, she’d be fully on top of him.

  Then the car stopped at a traffic light.

  Penni sat up quickly and glanced toward the front seat.

  The driver—his name was Al—redirected his gaze from the rear-view mirror to the windshield.

  Penni giggled. She pushed the button to raise the window dividing the front seat from the back. Al could still see them but at least they had a little more privacy. She straightened her skirt then her hair and sat prim and proper on her side of the seat.

  Randall slowly sat upright himself, his eyes now wide awake.

  Penni looked at him with a wink and whispered, “Soon, Tarzan,” alluding to a game they’d created that involved him swinging her back and forth upside-down. Sometimes their Tarzan and Jane wore loincloths, sometimes not.

  Randall thumped his chest a couple times in affirmation. An envelope fell out of his coat’s breast pocket.

  “What’s that?” Penni asked. She had their tickets safely stowed in her purse.

  Randall shoved the envelope back in his pocket. “I’m sworn to secrecy.”

  Penni looked at him slyly and cooed, “Jane won’t come out to play if Tarzan keeps secrets.

  Randall caved in all too easily. “Your dad gave it to me at the house. He said to buy you something nice to remember the trip but not to tell you where the money came from.”

  Penni reached into his coat for the envelope. Randall grabbed her hands. They tussled a little bit until Penni whispered “Al” into his ear. He let her go.

  She sat upright with the envelope in her hand. It was a standard bank envelope, shaped to hold bills, with a resealable flap. “Did you look in it?”

  “Not with him standing there!”

  She opened the flap and slid the contents partway out. There were at least twenty crisp new bills, all hundreds. She looked back at Randall. “And you were going to buy me something?”

  “Of course.”

  “And pretend it was from you?”

  “I guess.”

  “On your student’s budget?”

  He shrugged. “I have a piggybank.”

  Penni laughed, then slid the money back into the envelope and resealed the flap. “O.K.,” she said. “Your secret is safe with me.” She handed the envelope back to her husband of five hours and forty-two minutes according to the digital clock blinking off the seconds just above the limo’s partition.