SAM.
Sam heard the garbage trucks. Then the birds. His body knew it was morning before the light changed and the room warmed. It used to be that he’d be getting home with the trash collectors and self-satisfied joggers. Sam would marvel at the joggers—humans with whole separate wardrobes dedicated to particular tasks—people who owned camping equipment and tennis rackets. People for whom having kids made some kind of sense.
Sam couldn’t tell if he’d slept. For weeks when he first stopped drinking he’d had terrible nightmares. Vivid dreams of fistfights with his father or Lorraine’s funeral—Psych 101 stuff. Then it flipped for no reason and he slept like the dead. Dreamless slumber he had to wrench himself from in the morning, pillow damp with drool, deep creases on his face where his skin had folded and he hadn’t moved. Now insomnia popped up once in a while to mix it up.
Good morning! he typed into his phone.
It was the first thing he did now.
Sam showered. The hot water coursed over his body, poaching his skin. Seeing Lorraine had been discouraging. Sad. He felt emotionally hungover from the night before. As if he’d clenched all his muscles the entire time.
He missed his friends sometimes. Gunner and Gash were entertaining, but without booze and bars, he knew they’d have nothing to talk about.
Sam towel-dried his hair and shook it out. At the top of the summer, Gunner’s ex, April, came by to give him a cut. She’d come alone, which was awkward enough, and when they set up on the back porch, her hands lingered on the back of his neck, suggesting she had something else in mind. Sam couldn’t bear it. He sent her away with a coffee cake with promises to keep in touch, and when she never came back he was relieved.
His phone buzzed.
Tacos y pelicula?
Shit, Jude.
They’d planned on dinner tonight. Well, dinner and a movie. Sam had made the suggestion. Al Pastor tacos at the good taco spot, not the ruined shitty philanderer taco spot, followed by a late-night screening of Gremlins 2 at Alamo Drafthouse, where they’d have crème brûlées.
Whenever Jude texted him, Sam unfailingly thought, Shit, Jude, despite his affection for her. Jude was a sweet kid. It’s just that he already saw her most mornings when she picked up coffee before class, and that was plenty.
Sam made himself an espresso. Would it kill him to have dinner with her?
Probably.
He exhaled the breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding, cringed, and typed.
I’m so sorry J
Have to work
He pictured Jude staring at her screen and hating him.
He typed again.
Next week?
Uuuuuugh. Why did he do that?
Penny texted him back.
Good morning!
Did you know da vinci didn’t sleep
Only naps
30 mins/4 hrs
He knew when she texted in bursts that she had something else going on. He checked the time. It was 8:08. She was either in her writing class or running late to it. Sam loved that he could talk to her all day without worrying about seeing her.
Historically, communicating with girls wasn’t hard. When they show interest, you show interest back by asking a ton of questions. Penny was receptive to questions, though her responses were rarely coy or suggestive. Plus, she made zero effort to hang out. She seemed somehow immune to the mechanics of flirting. Sam wondered if she found him attractive.
EMERGENCY PENNY
Yesterday 4:37 PM
Dogs or cats?
It cracked him up that Penny was in his phone as “Emergency Penny” since none of her texts constituted an emergency.
Sam typed back:
BABY GOATS
He was pleased with that one. He had a supercut of goats ready to go. Sam pasted the link and hit send.
Whoa
Thursday 12:09 AM
Pie or cake?
Sam was making a pecan pie with an ornate lattice on top and wanted to show it off if pie won out. He’d perfected his crust with frozen butter that you grated like cheese.
Cake
Sheet cake
From a box
What???
Gross
You’re insane
He slid the pie into the oven, feeling stupid for how deflated he felt.
Pie obviously. Cobbler above sheet cake. Ew. He wasn’t sure they’d recover from that.
Sam knew pie versus cake wasn’t their only incompatibility. He couldn’t imagine the space Penny would take up in his life if she sprang out of his phone. He couldn’t envision her from across the room laughing with people he knew. Or scooping peas into her mouth at a table. In fact, sometimes he could barely make out her likeness in his head since it had been so long since he’d seen her and there were so few images of her online. There was a photo from a school yearbook, but she looked so young and unhappy at having her picture taken that Sam felt strongly that he was trespassing.
His phone buzzed again. Jude.
It’s OK!
Next week is great
Good luck with work
Penny was still on some tangent about polyphasic sleep schedules.
Nikola Tesla too
No sleep club
Or sleep sometimes club
So tired
Did you sleep
HOW ARE YOU?
Penny always asked how he was doing.
No sleep!
It was a supermoon tho
Makes your brain chemistry insane
Shitty moon
Hate the moon
I tried to write this morning
And?
Well I tried
Brb class
:(
Sam realized he’d also become way too accustomed to emoji. He felt like a teen girl. Penny was a teen girl, he reminded himself. He should really start thinking about women his own age, say, the one who was carrying his unborn child. Sam groaned into his empty room. Penny was Jude’s age, which made her seventeen or eighteen. Sam wondered about her birthday and what her favorite type of boxed sheet cake was. Probably chocolate with white icing. Some sprinkles maybe. Glittery black ones to match her hair. Not that it mattered. He imagined how horrified she’d be if he showed up at her dorm with an actual physical cake IRL.
Maybe they could be friends when she was old enough to count as a person. Perhaps when she was twenty-five and he, at twenty-eight or twenty-nine, could be the cool, older guy-pal who would give her tax advice and beat the living daylights out of any age-appropriate boyfriend who mistreated her. Or at least glare at him in a menacing way. God. Sam would be almost thirty by then. Disgusting.