Chapter Twenty-Three
Darren
Penny was much more composed and confident that night than she had been before. She made out with me for a long while wearing only her high-waisted jeans and a white bra. Her breath tasted of mint and honey, and her hair smelt strongly of soap. As we kissed, the scent worked its way into my brain, slowly divesting me of my ability to reason until I was all want and hunger.
“I’ve never seen you like this before,” I said as we sat there together under starlight.
“Like what?” She leveled her eyes like lamps at me and folded her legs to her chest.
“So aggressive, so sure of yourself and of what you want. It’s kind of thrilling.”
“You really think so?” The old shyness returned to her voice for a moment.
I leaned forward and gave her a small kiss on the lips, then slowly pulled away with a dreamy look. “I do.”
“Well, what I want is to be with you,” she said. “I don’t know much else, but I know that.”
“Then we’re in perfect agreement.”
“I guess so.” She sat hunched over with her arms folded in front of her, looking cold. She had small, sloping shoulders that gave the upper half of her body a kind of oval shape, and her chest was flat and splotchy. “I can’t get over how you look at me like I’m the most perfect thing in the world.”
“It’s because you are.” I leaned forward and kissed her just under her collarbone, then slowly descended. Penny leaned her head back and wrapped her hands tight around my back.
***
When it was over, we gathered up our discarded clothes and returned to the car. Hardly anyone else was on the road that night, and the trees that lined the highway glowed eerily in the lamplight. Penny sat quietly staring out the window, looking thoughtful.
“If you want, we can go back to my house,” I said as we approached her house. “I don’t mind you staying with me.”
Penny hesitated for a moment before saying, “No, that’s okay. I wouldn’t want to intrude.”
“You sure? I’m not going to force you. I just like having you near me.”
“I know you do.” Judging from the tone of her voice, it sounded like she was already regretting saying no. She waved miserably as she got out of the car and headed up the driveway toward her house, where a single light was burning in the kitchen. I drove home through the empty streets remembering the feel of her body on mine and wondering why I suddenly felt so alone. There was a space on the bed that belonged to her, but for now, it was vacant, and was likely to remain vacant for some time.
***
It was the morning of the next day, and Mama and I were eating together in the kitchen of the farm out in Sulphur Springs. Mama had made warm buttermilk pancakes, thin chicken crepes, and smothered onions served over hash browns. It was remarkably good, even better than the meal I had eaten at Meso Maya the night before, and I wished Penny had been there to share it with us.
“Somethin’ about Carlotta always rubbed me the wrong way,” said Curtis, scratching the back of his neck. “I’ve never in my life met anyone who was both so pretentious and so dumb. Most people pick one or the other.”
“I admit I probably made a mistake going out with her. But I think you’ll like Penny. It’s hard to imagine a woman more different from Carlotta. She’s not wealthy and doesn’t have any aspirations to be, but she works hard, and she’s smarter than she gives herself credit for. She reads and writes a lot. I wouldn’t be surprised if one day she was a published author.”
“That all sounds great, Darren,” said Mama, smiling warmly. “I like the tone of pride in your voice when you talk about her.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, you never talked about Carlotta that way. You always treated her like an embarrassment, like an unfortunate affliction that had to be suffered for the greater good.”
I took a sip of my orange juice and glanced through the window into the back pasture. It was a clear, cloudless morning, and the dogs ran joyously together. “I think in my heart I always knew she was no good for me. But that’s hard to admit when you’re already dating. It’s easier just to shut your eyes and pretend you don’t see the obvious problems.”
“I think we’ve all had a relationship like that,” said Curtis, scooping some more onions onto his plate. “I think there’s a grace period when you’re young where you can make those kinds of mistakes. But after a certain point, you’ve got to grow up and settle down.”
I had an odd feeling Curtis was talking to himself as much as anyone else; his early twenties had been notoriously reckless. “It’s actually kind of liberating dating a mature, responsible woman,” I replied. “Not that she doesn’t have her own issues, but she’s a shining beacon of sense and sanity compared to my last girlfriend. I can take her out in public without worrying that she’ll embarrass me. With Carlotta, it felt like I had to watch her at all times or she might steal all my money and head south.”
“I think we all had that feeling when it came to Carlotta,” said Mama. “I didn’t like the way she kept fingering my vases when you brought her over here. It was like she was planning to sell them on eBay.”
“I remember her complaining that you seemed to be watching her the entire time,” I said with a laugh. “Looking back on it, I can’t say I really blame you. She was always engaged in some shady business or other. She’ll probably end up in prison by the age of thirty.”
“And you know, that might not be the worst thing,” said Curtis.
Just then Dad came walking out of the back room wearing his gray tweed vest and herringbone flat cap. “Y’all need to hurry up and finish. After breakfast, we’re going out to the pond.”
“Are we going fishing?” I asked
Dad laughed in a manner that didn’t leave me very hopeful. “No, some of the planks on the dock are loose, and they need to be nailed down again.”
Curtis groaned while I just rolled my eyes. “You wanna know something funny? This morning when I got out of bed, I almost put on my work boots. But then I said to myself, ‘You know what? I don’t need to wear these; I’m only going over to Mom and Dad’s house.’”
“Well, you should’ve obeyed your first instinct,” Dad said, opening up the back door and letting a blast of warm air in. “I’ll meet y’all out there in a few minutes.”
“He’ll meet you out there,” muttered Curtis, before downing the last of his juice.