PENNY.
Well, that was it. Penny and Sam were officially multiplatform.
Penny texted him.
Hi
You’re a crap emergency contact btw
If there’s no response to “You good?”
the correct response is to send paramedics
Everybody knows that
She waited.
Great point
Such an amateur
Hi
I got your email
I’m glad you’re not dead
No thanks to you
I KNOW
I’m sorry
I missed you
Me too
Pretty good email right?
She had to hand it to him. It was the best one she’d ever gotten.
Are you at work?
Okay, so Penny knew this qualified as borderline psychotic behavior. And she didn’t want to freak him out on some “THE CALL WAS COMING FROM INSIDE THE HOUSE!” but the call was coming from inside the House. Almost.
It had taken half a beer and some serious hand wringing and five outfit changes, but Penny felt it was time for a grand gesture of her own. She didn’t even have to entertain her usual decision tree.
She’d texted him from his porch.
Yeah wrapping up
OK well I’m outside
What?
Here?
On the swing
My swing???
Sam walked out of the side door into the dark night with his phone in his hand. His face was lit blue. He continued to type.
Whoa serious escalation
Penny smiled and typed back:
Boom
“Hey,” he called out. “I guess we’re doing this now?”
“Guess so! It’s scary.” The swing creaked beneath her.
Sam laughed.
This time she had picked the perfect outfit. Penny wore Mallory’s dress again. Her feet were still healing, so she’d put on sneakers, and while she’d applied lipstick, she’d changed her mind and smudged it off onto the back of her hand like a sophisticated young lady. And to make absolutely sure that she wasn’t too exposed, she threw a ratty hoodie over the top. A perfectly Penny outfit. She stood up, which signaled the motion detector floodlight from the back lot to blind them both.
“Hell of an entrance,” Sam said, lifting his arm up to shield his face.
“Sorry to bust in on you like this,” she stammered. Penny couldn’t believe it was happening. “If you’re busy I can . . .”
“Yeah, right,” he said, herding her into the side door. “Just come in.”
Penny followed him into the kitchen. He grabbed a stool, parked it next to the steel workbench, and made her a cup of tea. She took it gratefully and sat.
“Hungry?”
She was.
Sam set to work. He didn’t ask her what she wanted. He peered into the fridge, pulled out some plastic tubs, some bacon and eggs, and palmed a half loaf of bread. They didn’t talk while he assembled. She watched as he grabbed bits of chopped-up ingredients from the tubs and tossed them into the pan. He toasted big, thick slices of bread with olive oil in the broiler and fried up the bacon and eggs and assembled everything into two enormous sandwiches that he cut into diagonal slices. He set one down in front of her.
“No cheese on yours,” he said. “Because of the whole lactose intolerance thing your mom mentioned.” Penny smiled and stared at her sandwich. She grabbed half and squished it to see if she could negotiate it into her mouth.
“Pretty good,” she said, taking a heroic bite. Part of the gooey egg yolk slid down her chin.
Sam laughed and handed her a napkin.
“Hot sauce?” he offered. She took it.
“So,” she said. “That’s crazy about MzLolaXO.” She hated that she’d brought her up so early in their conversation. Ugh, and she really hated that she’d called her by her Insta name.
It was a self-sabotaging instinct she couldn’t resist.
Sam laughed. “Her name’s Lorraine.” He took a bite of his own sandwich.
Lorraine was so much less scarier than Lola for some reason.
“I was so relieved I didn’t pass out or have a panic attack or spontaneously combust when she showed up,” he said. “Both times she turned up.”
Penny wondered how much detail he’d go into. If they’d made out on every sofa at House, she didn’t want to hear about it.
“She sounds tough.”
Sam nodded again. “Yeah, no panic attacks the first night, but I did get wasted on the second,” he said. “Like I’d mentioned in the e-mail.”
“With her?”
“Ew, no,” he said. After a pause he added, “I don’t know why I said ‘ew.’ ”
They laughed.
“I got drunk at home as a self-respecting, proper alcoholic.”
“Are you an alcoholic?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “And I haven’t decided if I’ve quit for life, like, no champagne on my wedding day or what, only that it’s bad for me right now. . . .”
Penny missed this. Talking to someone about deeply personal things. She snuck a peek and then shied away because he was chewing and she would want the privacy.
“You know, it’s funny, but I got drunk recently too. For the second time ever.” She took a sip of tea.
“Yeah? How was it?”
“Fascinating,” she said.
Sam laughed. God, she loved that laugh.
“How so?”
Penny tried not to get derailed staring into his eyes. They were deep brown but tinged at the edges with a way lighter hazel.
Penny cleared her throat.
“Well, it is a highly effective social lubricant,” she said. “Diminished inhibitions, the whole works. It makes everything so much easier. All the whirring that’s usually going on in my brain shuts the hell up.”
“But the whirring’s good,” he said. “Your whirring’s good.”
She smiled.
Sam smiled back.
She died.
“Yeah, it’s exhausting though.”
“So, it was a break?” he asked. “Like a you vacation?”
“Exactly,” she said. “Everybody needs a them vacation.”
“And you had fun?”
“I had a blast,” she said. “I made a new friend too—Andy. I guess he was an old friend. He’s in my fiction class, and booze made it so much easier to talk to him. I was enchanting.”
Sam laughed.
Penny didn’t know why she was blathering on about Andy. She wanted to reassure Sam that it was okay. That he could talk about Lorraine if he needed to. At least for a second.
“He had great advice about my story,” she said. “He’s crazy smart.”
“That’s great,” said Sam. “Wait, I gotta ask you . . .”
Penny held her breath.
“Who is your boyfriend? It’s been bothering me that I never once heard of this guy until your mom brought him up. Not that you have to tell me everything, but when I was going on and on about Lorraine, you could have said something. I hope I wasn’t so self-involved that I didn’t ask about . . .”
Sam stopped and cleared his throat.
“Sorry,” he said. He grabbed a glass of water but not before handing her one. Penny died again. “Basically, I want you to talk about whatever’s on your mind. Not all my crap.”
“Thanks,” she said, and meant it. “We broke up.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. I’m okay,” she continued, taking a sip.
All things considered, Penny did a good job on the sandwich. Two-thirds. She picked the rest apart and rooted out the bacon.
“Now I have to ask you something.” She had to know.
“Shoot,” he said.
“Are you sad that Lorraine’s not pregnant?” Penny tried the name out.
Sam took a deep breath.
He nodded.
So it was true. He was still in love with her. Penny’s heart sank.
“Did you want to be a dad?”
“I did,” he admitted. “I sound cracked, right?”
Penny waited for him to go on.
“I wanted direction. And I genuinely thought I could foist all my expectations and lack of motivation on this tiny blob and this baby would magically figure it out for me because now I had a reason to exist.”
He took another gulp of water. “Dumb,” he said. “Like so textbook.”
There was nothing Penny could think to say, so she stayed silent.
“Can I show you something?” Sam said, looking at her warily.
“Is it dead?”
“No.” He laughed. “What?”
Penny laughed too and shook her head. “Sorry, you just had this look.” She hopped off her stool. “Yes, you can show me something.”
He headed up a set of stairs left of the fridge and Penny followed him.
Sam flipped on a light and went down the hall. Penny briefly wished she had gum just in case.
The upstairs of House wasn’t anything you’d expect.
Sam walked into a dark room toward the back and switched on a lamp. “This is where I live,” he said.