Chapter 21

Wendy looked at the three girls standing before her and the smile froze on her face. She didn't want to do this. She couldn't! She had to. Michael was depending on her and Peter Pan never failed and rarely forgave those of his minions who did. And whether she liked it or not, she was one of his minions. Her shoulders slumped.

"Hey," Joellen said, concern writ large in her brown eyes, "what's the matter?"

Everything. And she couldn't say a word about it. She bit her lip. "Muir," she whispered, pointing to the name tag that Joellen had just pinned to her camp shirt. "It's spelled M-U-I-R, not M-O-O-R-E." It was close to her second name, Moira, which was why she'd chosen it. That and she really did have some distant relations in Scotland with that surname and that spelling. At least, she thought with a pang, she'd had some about a century ago, when she'd left her house in Bloomsbury forever. Who knew whether they were still about now?

Joellen grinned. "Sorry! Your guardian registered you over the phone; I guess we took the name down wrong. Here," she scratched something on her clipboard. "C'mon. Let me make you a new nametag and… problem solved!"

Wendy nodded and tried to look happy. If only all her problems could be dealt with so easily!

Phyllis gritted her teeth, while she listened to what Rory was telling her. "Guess I ought to give you some credit for telling me face to face instead of calling me during business hours and leaving a voice mail," she said.

Rory smiled. "Well, it did cross my mind," he admitted suavely. "But I think you deserve better."

"Don't we all," Phyllis snorted. "So, you're bankrolling her at the Hilton?"

"Redbury," he corrected. "I couldn't very well leave her in the middle of the Mojave."

Phyllis sighed. "No, I guess not. So."

"So," Rory repeated. "I don't suppose there's any way that you'd consider letting her perform with you? I've done some research and her career… Well, she doesn't seem to have much of one at the moment. Giving her some exposure now might change that."

Phyllis raised an eyebrow. "When I'm not trying to fit back into my leopard prints, I'm a social worker with the DCFS. Nobody promises anybody that they can keep churning out platinum albums and Grammys, year after year. If the music gigs aren't coming, let her train to do something else."

Rory nodded. "I know, but she's still hoping for a comeback and she told me she's willing to do the benefit, even there isn't any money involved."

Phyllis shook her head. "Baxter's already signed her contract. You want to buy her out and stick Roxy back in? Because that'd be a damned shoddy thing to do to that kid."

"You surprise me," Rory said slowly. "It strikes me as exactly the sort of thing you might have done ten years ago."

Phyllis shook her head again. "If that's how it strikes you, then you never knew me at all," she retorted. "Yeah, I might have pulled stuff like that to sabotage a rival band," she went on, remembering with a pang how she'd got her father to buy Howard Sands' movie studio, just so she could ruin Jem's movie. "But not my own! Do me a favor: do a little more research. Find out how many concerts Roxy's either cancelled or just not shown up for in the last couple of years. Track down the people she's been working with and ask them what they think of her. Then tell me what turns up. Or better yet, don't tell me. I don't need to know that bit. Just tell me if you still think I should hire her."

Rory frowned. "You're sure she's that big a liability?"

Phyllis sighed. "I try not to believe everything I read in the tabloids, but when even the mainstream entertainment mags don't have much to say and less of it's good… Do the research, Rory. Find out what's facts and what's gossip. Until you do, the subject is closed."

Rory nodded. "With the benefit less than six weeks away, I'll get my people on it this afternoon. Nice seeing you again, Pizzazz."

"It's Phyllis, now."

"I know."

Emma was having the time of her life. The other girls were great. Nobody was hassling her for being in the System, when more than half the camp was. She wasn't the best artist in her bunk or the fastest runner or the most talented dancer—she'd been thrilled to find out that the dance instructor was Giselle from Haven House—but she wasn't the worst, either. And even though she was the only girl in her bunk who couldn't swim, the only who was afraid to put her face underwater—and came up sputtering and coughing when she did—nobody cared.

On her second day of camp, she was splashing about in the lake, having fun with Casey and two of the other girls, when she spied Wendy sitting by herself, some distance away, with an unhappy expression on her face.

Just then, a bucket of lake water emptied over her head, and she gasped and coughed, as some of it went up her nose.

"Emma!" Casey exclaimed, laughter dying on her lips. "Oh my gosh, I'm sorry! I didn't mean to… Are you okay?"

Emma was still coughing. She turned to her friend, wiping her streaming eyes with one hand and covering her mouth to block her coughs with the other. As soon as she could, she gasped, "I'm okay! It's okay."

"I thought you were ready for it." Casey was still apologizing.

"I should have been," Emma admitted. "Don't worry about it."

"You sure?"

For answer, Emma brought her own pail up and flung its contents over her friend, who squealed, ducked under water, and surfaced, splashing Emma as she came up again.

The water fight continued for another few minutes. When Emma looked to where Wendy had been sitting before, the other girl was gone.

In her hotel room at the Redbury, Roxy stewed. She was back in LA, but Rory hadn't been to see her. He hadn't called. All he'd told her was that he'd pay for a week here—room and security deposit only; not room service and that he'd speak with Pizzazz. So far, she hadn't called either.

Well, fine! Roxy didn't want to get another guilt trip about Hana May. A new thought struck her. Suppose Pizzazz showed up here with Hana May? Roxy couldn't see her. If she saw her, she'd either run away or take the kid back and neither option would be good for either of them. If Pizzazz was such a great social worker, you'd think she'd know that Roxy wasn't mother material and never had been! The absolute best thing Roxy could do for her daughter was stay out of her life. She could be the cool, glamorous mom who Hana May could point to from afar and follow in the tabloids and never realize what a mess she actually was under all the bright lights and makeup. Besides, having a four-year-old trailing around was going to seriously cramp her style. You couldn't bring a four-year-old into a bar. You couldn't bring a four-year-old into a nightclub and expect her to stay in her chair while you performed. And the money she was making now wasn't enough to pay for childcare and the pick-me-ups she needed to get through her day. And that thought brought her back full circle to her first ones: Hana May didn't need to know just how screwed-up her mom was.

Roxy bit her lip. She really was a screw-up. No money, no career, no friends, no clue how to be a mother… Her eye fell on the small refrigerator under the desk. Maybe the previous occupant of the room had left behind a sandwich or something. She opened the door and her face lit up. It wasn't a room fridge, it was a bar fridge. And its contents promised to get her out of the sorry funk in which she currently found herself…

Wendy scaled the cork oak's knobby gray bark, welcoming its roughness on her bare arms and legs. Neverland was a jungle and many of its trees were thinner with smooth bark that proved a greater challenge. In the early days, before Pan had kept her shut up in a cage more than he let her roam, she'd become quite adept at climbing. It was hardly something that young ladies of a better class ought to have been doing, and perhaps, that was why she'd liked it so.

She wondered sometimes whether Pan had indulged her because he loathed grown-ups and their rules and responsibilities and the way they tried to force their children to grow up and… restrict themselves so quickly, or whether he'd always meant to yank her new freedom away and wanted to ensure that it would hurt her more when he did.

Why did Emma have to be so… nice? Why couldn't she have been sullen and hateful and a whiny little crybaby or a talebearer and hanger-on of the sort Wendy had detested when she'd been at school? Here, she'd barely exchanged two sentences with the girl and she already wanted her for a proper chum. Instead, she was going to… to… take away everything Emma had found. She would have to destroy this girl's happiness, if it was the last thing she did!

She didn't want to. She didn't know how she could. But she would have to. There was no choice.

Wendy crushed her fists into the bark of the cork oak rested her cheek against the solid trunk, and wept.

Emma wasn't sure if she should have wandered off so far from the others. She'd waited until free swim was over; one of the lifeguards had impressed on them the need to stay with their 'buddies', even if they were staying in the shallow water, and there had been no fewer than three drills to hammer the point home. Each pair of swim buddies had been given a number. When the lifeguard blew her whistle for the drill, buddies needed to join hands and shout out their number in order, while raising their clasped hands. "If one of you needs to come out to use the bathroom, you both do. Give your pair number to the lifeguard before you leave the waterfront, so we know not to drag the lake." Emma had been fairly certain that the lifeguard hadn't been joking.

Wendy hadn't gone into water. It wasn't compulsory; campers were supposed to stay in the area during free swim, but didn't need to go in if they didn't want to. Emma didn't imagine that the other girl had gone far, but the campgrounds were vast and there were areas where there seemed to be enough tree cover that Emma thought it must be forest.

It was to some of those trees that Emma drew now. She hesitated before passing into the wooded area, making certain that she could still see the cleared land. The last thing she wanted to do was get lost.

From not too far away, she could hear muffled sobs. Frowning, she turned her head toward the direction from which they were coming and then tilted it upwards. She took a few more steps closer. She thought it was Wendy, but through the branches, she couldn't be sure. She debated turning back. Clearly, whoever it was had come this way hoping for a bit of privacy. But, Emma realized, she couldn't just leave her alone, not when she was clearly upset. Instead, she called upwards, "Hey. Girl? Why are you crying?"

Wendy felt her heart plummet to the pit of her stomach, though she'd spent enough time in trees while being attacked by pirates' cannonballs and Lost Ones who always claimed to be 'just playing' to keep her perch and not let her emotions make her clumsy. In fact, it was far safer not to admit to having them, whether one was a well-bred young lady in London or a terrified girl at the mercy of a boy tyrant. It was self-preservation and force of habit that led her to swipe at her eyes and reply at once, "I'm not crying." Her voice barely trembled, she noted with some satisfaction.

Emma tilted her head to one side. "Uh-huh," she said flatly. "Seriously, what's wrong?"

I've been ordered to break your heart and destroy your happiness, and while I don't want to do it, my brother will die horribly if I don't. Of course, she couldn't say that! Unfortunately, she hadn't prepared a plausible lie for the occasion. And as she was, by nature, a truthful girl, she was hard-put to come up with a story on the spot. A story! Her eyebrows rose. She did know many stories; she could recite those at the drop of a hat! She just wasn't very good at concocting them on her own. But perhaps…

"Oh, well," she said. "You see, I was imagining that I wasn't in a tree at all. I'm in a tower," her voice took on a dreamy quality. "And there are no doors, so I can't escape. I've been cutting off my hair and saving it to braid into cords to make a rope ladder, but it won't reach more than halfway to the ground, and I've been at this for years and years and it's all so… hopeless!"

Despite herself, Emma found herself smiling. "Well," she said slowly, "I… guess someone could climb up the walls of the tower and help you get down."

Wendy blinked. "Y-you mean a handsome prince?"

Emma shook her head and gripped the tree trunk firmly. "Who says a princess can't do the rescuing too, sometimes? Hang on, Rapunzel," she laughed, "I'll be right up!"

And never mind that she'd never climbed a tree in her life before…

It had been like pulling teeth, but Roxy had finally managed to worm the location of the Misfits' practice session out of Riot. She was going to prove to them that she still deserved to be performing on stage with them! After all, she was a charter member of the band. She'd been there before this Baxter kid, before Jetta, hell, before Eric Raymond had caught them playing for tips in a grungy dive in Fairfax, around seventy miles north of San Jose and wondering whether they were ever going to get their big break. She'd had what it took then, and she had it now! She did, and she was going to prove it! She…

A hard, driving guitar riff startled her, and she ducked behind the support pillar in the auditorium. She couldn't see the band, so she guessed they couldn't see her either. She had to time this right, wait for her moment…

Damn, they sounded good. Hardcore good. Roxy risked taking a nervous glance at the stage, sliding along the surface of the pillar. There was Baxter, standing in her old place, and Pizzazz hadn't been lying when she'd said the kid could play. Then she leaned into her microphone, and Roxy felt her heart sink. The kid could sing, too.

Roxy stood in the shadows for another few minutes, before she carefully slipped out of the auditorium.

Nobody even noticed her doing it.

Roxy bit her lip and stalked hurriedly toward the parking lot. She'd never get back with the Misfits now. Well, not unless she played dirty.

Just like the good old days…

Wendy watched Emma's progress carefully. The other girl had tried shinnying up the trunk, but her efforts had been in vain. If she'd been trying to evade the pack of Lost Ones, they'd have had her trussed in a wicker cage by now. (Not that such a thing wouldn't happen eventually anyway. Pan often allowed her to think she stood a chance of escape, and even though she knew that a thought from him would turn a sturdy limb into a pliable vine—if he didn't choose to cause it to splinter instead—he always seemed to sense when she'd finally dared to hope that she'd actually gotten away, only to turn the tables on her in an instant and let the boys haul their 'Wendy-bird' back to her coop.)

After the first few failed attempts, though, Emma took a step back, sizing up her objective. Then she moved back several yards for a running start. When she was almost to the tree, she leaped, her palms landing flat on the lowest branch. As Wendy observed, the other girl pulled herself upwards, flipped into a handstand with a grace that even cat-like Felix had never matched, and then twisted right-side up, her feet firmly on the branch and her hands grasping reflexively for a branch just overhead. Walking sideways, she made her way toward Wendy's position and clambered up toward her. "Hey," she greeted her. "So, where's that hair ladder?"

Wendy giggled and tried not to feel guilty about what she was going to have to do.

"I must say, I was surprised when you asked to see me," Eric Raymond said, sounding every inch the business executive he'd been when Roxy had first laid eyes on him. If she focused on his face, she could easily believe that he was still wearing a suit and tie instead of a blue chambray shirt and the denim jeans she'd glimpsed before he'd sat down at the table opposite her.

Roxy shrugged. "Yeah, well. I need your help."

Eric's eyes narrowed. "Anything for a friend, of course," he said. "Though if it's something of a personal nature, I'm sure you know that all conversations are monitored here."

Roxy looked pointedly at one of the notices affixed to the wall that confirmed his statement. "I can read, you know," she snapped. It had just taken her a lot longer to be able to say it truthfully.

Eric only shrugged. "Delighted to hear you're doing better. Well, then. What sort of help were you looking for?"

Roxy winced. "Pizzazz is reuniting the Misfits and she's cut me from the roster. I want to know how to get her to change her mind."

Eric smiled. "Funny you should mention that," he said slowly. "It wasn't so long ago that she asked my help to get someone else to change their mind."

"Yeah?" Roxy snapped. "So?"

"Let's just say that the method she employed would hardly sit well with her current employer," Eric replied. "Now, obviously, I don't have all the facts, but you might want to talk to Serena Tannin for full details."

"Who the hell is Serena Tannin?"

Eric smiled. "Back in the day, she was the lead vocalist of the Limp Lizards. And let's just say that there are reasons that the fortune and fame acquired by the Misfits always passed them by."

"Yeah," Roxy shot back. "Because they were lousy, amateur hacks!"

Eric's smile became a knowing sneer. "Were they?" he asked slowly. "Were they really?"