Emergency Contact(12)

Penny silent-screamed.

“Then why pick the one that is clearly pistachio?” asked Jude. “It literally has visible pistachio pieces on it. Mal, it’s green!”

Jude picked up the offending pile of mash with her bare hands and looked for somewhere to deposit it.

Penny silent-screamed harder.

In a flash, Penny removed a package of wet wipes from her backpack and handed one to Jude. Then she squirted hand sanitizer in her hands since she couldn’t bleach her brain. Best friends were one thing, but this was perverse. Who touches someone’s half-chewed food? And who spits out half-chewed food in public in the first place?

“Thanks,” said Jude, bundling the lump into the wipe. “How’s the pie?”

“Good.” Penny passed the rest off and took another half a donut before Mallory tainted the rest.

“Shit.” Jude bolted upright. A lurid red dollop of filling toppled onto her white shirt.

With her free hand, Penny offered Jude another wet wipe and a stain stick.

“Seriously?” Mallory grabbed Penny’s kit from her lap before she could protest. “Clown car much? Are you going to pull out a ladder and a Volkswagen bus next?”

Penny wanted to ask who in the hell would put a bus in a car but was distracted by whether or not she’d packed anything mortifying in her go bag.

“Good Lord, it’s like doomsday prepping in here.” Mallory pawed through the pouch. “Band-Aids, ChapStick, tampons . . . I’ve heard of teen moms, but you’re a teen grandma or something. Let me guess—you have little packets of Sweet’n Low and coupons too? How adorable.”

“So adorable,” repeated Jude, smearing the stain stick onto her shirt.

Penny despised the word “adorable.” It was trivializing.

Mallory continued laying out the contents of Penny’s emergency crap bag onto the coffee table as if they were surgical instruments. Hand sanitizer, ear plugs, thumb drive, Advil, Q-tips, bobby pins, sewing kit, tiny IKEA pencil . . .

“Ooooh, and a single condom.” Mallory held the foil square between her thumb and forefinger.

That was it.

Penny snatched back the condom and the bag, gathering her things off the table.

“Mal,” Jude admonished, sweeping the rest of the items together. “Don’t be a dick.”

“I can’t be inquisitive?” Mallory objected. “Besides, I’m saying nice things.” She leaned back with smug satisfaction and regarded Penny. “You’re so organized. I bet you’re a math genius or something. Let me guess—you’re an overachieving Asian kid who skipped ten grades? Are you secretly twelve years old and a freshman in college?”

Penny glared.

“Come on, you can tell me,” said Mallory.

Reasonable responses to a mildly racist verbal attack that was also somewhat complimentary: 1. Slap the ever-living shit out of her with the other half of the pistachio donut.

2. Calmly tell her that you are a genius and a witch and that your binding spells had the added effect of rendering your enemies bald. Especially the asshole racist ones.

3. Scream at Jude, ban Mallory from their room. Slap everyone.


“Come on, Penny,” said Mallory after a while. “I was just teasing.”

“You know what?” Penny turned to Mallory. “I’m only being nice to you as a courtesy,” she said. “You don’t get to be bitchy for no reason, and you don’t get to be racist to me. And certainly not in such a lazy, derivative way.”

Penny felt the familiar prickle of moisture at her eyes. She rarely cried at sad things, mostly mad ones. It was a fun and easy way to lose arguments. She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.

“Racist?” said Mallory. “Who the hell are you calling a racist? That’s such an offensive thing to say to . . .”

“Jesus, Mal,” said Jude. “Stand down.”

“I’m a lot of things,” huffed Mallory. “But I’m not racist.”

“Said every racist ever,” spat Penny. She rolled her eyes so hard she saw brain.

The three girls finished their coffees. Penny wondered if her entire college experience would be this much fun. It was like high school except that it followed you into your bedroom. Great.

Finally, Mallory broke the silence.

“My boyfriend got a new truck.”

The comment was met with more silence.

“This is my attempt at changing the subject,” Mallory said after a while.

Penny relented. “What kind of truck?”

“A Nissan.”

“Mallory’s boyfriend is Benjamin Westerly,” said Jude meaningfully.

“Who the hell is Benjamin Westerly?”

“He’s huge in Australia,” said Mallory.

“I have no idea what that means,” said Penny.

Jude chortled.

“Ben’s in a band,” Mallory explained. “He’s famous to roughly a hundred thousand people who absolutely worship him. His fan army’s very passionate. Plus, he’s twenty-one. Australia is incredibly progressive. They had a woman prime minister.”

To Penny, Australians felt like off-brand, bizarro British people. But then again, Penny didn’t personally know any Australians. Though it said something shady that every other place on Planet Earth went placental for their animals while Australians held on to marsupials. Wow, maybe Penny was racist too.