Enchantment Under the Stars — Prom of 1992.
Tina stared at the picture for several seconds, and then peeked into the drawer to see what else was in there. A wedding photo greeted her. It sat atop a wedding album.
She pulled it out. Together Forever — Memories of Stanley Thompson and Rebecca Collins Wedding — August 26, 1992 was embedded in gold on the thick cover, an image of the two kissing in front of the altar pressed into it beneath the words.
Tina opened the book and started looking at the pictures, her eyes growing wet as she saw the happy, yet nervous face of her father captured time and time again throughout the wedding ceremony and celebration. Rebecca looked happy as well, though her thick white gown did not have the same effect that her prom dress had had in the other picture. Truth be told, the wedding dress almost looked as if it was holding her hostage, the thick layers of fabric acting like restraints.
Your mother probably picked out the dress and made you wear it, whereas you were the one deciding on the prom dress.
Tina shook her head and closed the book, her mind wondering what the hell her father had been thinking. Why marry the bitch, especially right after school like that? Why not go out and enjoy life for a while? It just didn’t make any sense. Her father should have been smarter than that. Shit, her father was smarter than that.
But he was in love.
She looked at the prom picture again and saw it in his eyes. Rebecca had it too.
Puppy love.
She peeked into the drawer after that. Other photo albums were there, as were dozens upon dozens of loose pictures that had just been dumped in. Each one was a picture of Rebecca and her father, or just her father.
Tina pulled out a pink album that had the words It’s A Girl printed across the front.
A chill crept down her spine.
She opened the book.
A picture of Rebecca lying in a hospital bed, face plastered with sweat, looked back at her. Her father was in the picture as well, leaning over the bed and looking at the camera, smiling. Tina lay between them, eyes closed, her tiny body wrapped in a small blanket, pink socks covering her feet.
Several more hospital pictures followed, and then one of the two standing outside of an apartment building, Rebecca holding Tina. Snow covered the ground and each of them was wrapped up tightly, Tina included, a warm baby outfit hiding just about every part of her body. Written beneath the picture on the caption spot was Home For the First Time — January 1993.
Tina smiled.
She remembered the apartment, but not her mother being there. Instead she had memories of her grandparents coming over and staying with her during the day while her father went to work and then night school, something which he finished when she was in first grade. Her grandparents and she had sat in the hot sun while her father had gotten his diploma, her grandmother taking pictures like crazy, her father looking funny in the black square hat. Tina remembered the event. She had no idea what was going on at the time, just that it was important and that soon after they were able to move into a house rather than an apartment, the same house they had lived in until his death last year, one that wasn’t displayed in any of the pictures she found in the drawer.
Daddy, where is Mommy? Tina remembered asking once.
She lives with her Mommy, her father had said.
Why?
The answers had stayed pretty simple until she had been old enough to understand the reality of the situation.
She put the baby album away and looked at some of the stand alone pictures. In some her father and Rebecca looked happy, in others they just looked like any other married couple who had grown used to the constant companionship.
Tina dumped the pictures back into the drawer, and then replaced the two albums, her mind still startled by the wedding one because she had never seen any of those pictures before.
She wondered why Rebecca had been the one to get the album, especially since she had been the one to walk away, but then figured her father probably hadn’t wanted the constant ‘in your face’ memories the album would carry. Plus he probably figured it would act like a thorn in Rebecca’s side, its purpose being to constantly remind her that she had abandoned her family.
He wouldn’t think that way, Tina said a few seconds later.
She looked at the prom picture.
God, if only you knew what she would do.
She wondered what her father would have thought at that moment if he knew that within a year he would be married and have a daughter.
Hell, not even a year, more like — she quickly counted the months in her head — nine months.
She shook her head and put the picture away and started for her room, the prom ticket safe and sound in her pocket where it would stay until prom night.
Megan was staring down toward her purse, but not really seeing it, her mind projecting a pleasant fantasy as she took one of the boards in the corner and beat in Jimmy’s head until his skull split like an oversize eggshell, when suddenly the purse sprang to life with a series of barks and growls.
Shouting, Megan tried backing herself away from the small leather bag, but the ropes wouldn’t let her get very far and for one brief moment she had a vision of something horrible exiting the purse and coming for her, her body unable to get away and moving in small circles as she danced around the angry creature.
But then things clicked and she realized it was not the leather coming back to life, or some other horrible monstrosity, just her phone, which had different ring settings for different people, her mother’s being a dog barking and growling because sometimes the lady could be a real bitch. Her other family members had personalized rings as well, her little brother’s being ‘If I only had a brain’ from The Wizard of Oz and her father’s being a series of Barney Fife statements from the Andy Griffith Show, though she had been planning on changing the latter one because none of her friends understood what they were.
The phone stopped growling after six series of rings.
Please no voicemail, Megan said to herself, but then the happy little half ring echoed once the message from her mother was complete.
Oh God!
Her phone was programmed to beep every ten minutes when she had a message. Normally such a feature didn’t bother her because she didn’t get that many messages, and when she did she usually listened to them right away. Now, however, the stupid phone would beep every ten minutes, driving her crazy, and she would have no way of turning it off. Even worse, the thing was fully charged, and had a really long battery life, one that lasted even longer when no one was talking or texting.
At least they are wondering where you are, her inner voice said.
The question was, would they be able to find her in time — in time meaning before Jimmy spread her legs and fucked her. Or would she be a withering mess of flesh, simply dangling from the ropes when they finally discovered the secret location.
Or a rotting mess of flesh tossed in the woods — one that the coyotes and birds have been picking at for days?