PENNY.
Dinner was sushi someplace downtown, where she ordered tuna rolls that tasted like sawdust. While she picked at them, her mother and roommate discussed topics so titillating that Penny couldn’t recall any of them save one—Sam.
Penny counted the minutes until the Celeste Show was over and she could call him. She’d have to pretend to write or study until Jude fell asleep or take the call outside. He’d distinctly said he was going to call her, which indicated it was also a green light to call him. It wasn’t as if they worried about who texted who last, so interface rules likely applied to calls, too.
“I wish he’d confide in me,” said Jude, reaching over her to snag a piece of salmon from her mom’s plate. Penny marveled at how quickly her roommate and her mother had progressed to the food-sharing stage of their relationship. “He looks terrible and he keeps blowing me off. I don’t think he’s eating or sleeping. I hope it’s not drugs.”
Penny didn’t think Sam looked terrible at all. In fact, he looked dreamy. Perfect. She hadn’t known he wore glasses and Penny was crazy about glasses as a thing. They were so much better than contacts. Why touch your own eyeballs when you could accessorize your face? So what now? If Sam had called and Penny had doubled down and seen him in person—even if it was an accident—what did this mean? Everything was messy now. It was all Jude and Celeste’s fault. Why hadn’t Sam called? They’d left House three hours ago.
“Maybe it’s a girl,” said Celeste, pouring another round of sake. Penny’s mom didn’t think the tiny cups qualified as underage drinking. Jude clinked her glass to Celeste’s, then Penny’s, and downed it. “Maybe,” said Jude. “His ex is insane.” She pulled out her phone. “Whatever’s making him so withdrawn has to do with her. Get a load of this.” Jude pulled up MzLolaXO. Penny had taken great pains not to search for Sam’s ex after the last time, but if someone else was cruise directing . . .
“Wait, stop.” Celeste took control of the phone. “There’s a video.”
Penny held her breath. She had no idea how she’d missed it.
It was Sam peering into the camera. The background was noisy with voices and music—a party. He was smiling. Slowly. Sexily. He took a sip of beer and leaned in. “What did I tell you?” said Video Sam. “What?” objected a girl’s voice off-screen. “Why do you get to do it if I can’t?” she asked. He grabbed the phone and held it aloft, the two of their heads framed in selfie mode. He had dark hair and dark eyes; her hair was practically white and her eyes were pale. They were beautiful together. “Happy?” he asked. She smiled and nodded. With his other hand he grabbed her chin and kissed her roughly.
Jesus.
“See, they were, like, so goals,” said Jude solemnly.
“No wonder he’s preoccupied,” said Celeste. “I don’t think you get over this type of a girl.” Celeste ordered another sake.
“I bet she’s mean,” said Penny, apropos of nothing. Well, nothing other than how Jude and Celeste were practically pulling her guts out of her butt and making friendship bracelets with them.
“That kind of girl only gets more desirable the meaner they are,” said Celeste. She sighed dramatically. “I can’t believe I’m turning forty.”
Penny glared at her mother. She knew what Celeste was thinking. She was comparing herself to Lola. Any talk of desirable women reminded her mother of herself.
What was that like?
After dinner Celeste dropped Jude off and took Penny to get ice cream at Amy’s for some alone time.
“I love Jude,” said Celeste. She parked and they walked toward the State Capitol with their cones. It was beautiful when it was lit up at night. Downright romantic. “She’s so pretty and funny,” she continued.
“Everyone loves Jude,” said Penny. “And she loved you. I think she’s serious about coming to your birthday party.”
“Oh, good,” she said. “I hope you’re coming too.”
Penny rolled her eyes.
“Mom,” she said. “Of course I’m coming.”
Penny knew she was being a jerk, except Celeste could be so extra with her neediness.
“Well, I hope so,” Celeste said. “You haven’t been home since you got to school. We’ve talked maybe twice in two months.”
“Seven weeks.” Penny bit into her sorbet angrily. She wished her mom would go home. She wished her mom hadn’t come and forced her to see Sam at her ugliest, and mentioned her freaking boyfriend when she knew nothing about anything, and then bulldozed her into watching that video.
“You know what I mean,” said Celeste. “It hurts my feelings. I was worried. You go days without calling me back. Not a peep. I mean, you lucked out with Jude. I’m less worried to know that you’re living with a girl who’s so social and sweet, seeing as you can be so . . .”
“What, Mom? Antisocial and poisonous?” Penny shouted, proving her mom’s point. She stomped up the capitol stairs ahead of her.
“That’s not what I said.” Penny watched her mom eye her dessert for the perfect bite, and she could tell by her distracted expression that Celeste was liable to say something truly offensive.
Penny stared at the shimmering city. If you looked straight down Congress from the front of the capitol, everything was arranged in a perfect cross. Penny wondered if the bats were out.
“It’s just that your thing, you know, that thing you do can be tough in these situations,” she said. “Alienating. You’re either talking a mile a minute with these ten-dollar words or your eyes are darting all over the place. I know you didn’t have a lot of friends in high school, and lately, I don’t know, baby . . . And what’s going on with you and Mark? Last week he posted a picture of him and another girl. . . .”
Penny walked away and threw her cone in the trash. Her foul mood worsened.
“Pictures of Mark?”
“Well, honey, he and I are Facebook friends,” said Celeste. “Now, I know you don’t love that, but I’d called so many times and texted, and I wanted to know how things were . . .”
Celeste touched her arm with an outrageously sappy expression.
“Is he cheating on you? I messaged him to say hi and gather intel, and you know, he never wrote me back. Is everything okay between you two?”
Celeste licked her cone again. She had sushi seaweed stuck in her front tooth. Penny couldn’t believe her mom had the gall to message her ex-boyfriend. It was mortifying. Celeste was out of control. And Sam still hadn’t called. Not even a text.
Penny had never been more frustrated in her entire life.
So, of course, she burst into tears.