Emergency Contact(2)
Penny longed for a crew. She was on “Oh, hey” status with a bunch of kids, but her closest school friend, Angie Salazar, transferred to Sojourner Truth High the summer before junior year, leaving Penny socially unmoored. If there were a subbasement level with a trapdoor below utter invisibility, Penny would have found a way to fall to it. Her social standing was nonexistent.
The cat continued to rattle. If it carried on in this way, it would be toast before they hit the freeway. It was trinket Darwinism. A fragile animal had no business being mounted in a fast-moving vehicle. Certainly not a fast-moving vehicle commandeered by her mother, who had no right to commandeer anything in the whole wide . . .
“Why do you do that?” Penny exploded. She wanted to punch a hole in the window and fling the cat out. Possibly hurl herself after it. Today was meant to be different. Penny’d let herself get excited about it for weeks. Her mom had taken the afternoon off, and it hurt Penny’s feelings that Celeste would ditch her as soon as she saw the Chandlers. Not that Penny would admit what was really bothering her. Pathetic outcasts had standards too.
“What?” Celeste rolled her eyes. The teen-like gesture coming from her mom set her off even more. Penny wanted to shake Celeste until her fillings came loose.
“Why do you flirt with everyone all the time?” Celeste was the mom equivalent of a feather boa. Or human glitter. “It’s getting old, you know.”
“Who are you talking about?”
“Oh, you know exactly who . . .”
“Matt Chandler?”
“Yeah, gross, nasty ‘Maddy’s Daddy,’ who, incidentally, is married!”
“I know he’s married.” Celeste huffed. “Who was flirting? I was being polite, which, by the way, wouldn’t kill you. With your eye-rolling and scowls. Do you know how embarrassing . . . ?”
“Embarrassing? Me? Embarrassing you?” Penny balked. “That’s rich.” Penny crossed her arms prissily. “Mom, he was a creep and you’re there oozing your smiley, ridiculous . . .”
The car cat clattered as if nodding.
“How is he a creep? Because he wanted to give me investment advice?”
Penny couldn’t believe how dense her mother could be. It was clear to everyone that “Matt” wanted to give her a lot more than investment advice. Christ, even Madison knew what was up.
“How is it possible that you’re this stupid?”
Celeste’s mouth opened then shut. A pained expression flashed across her face. Even the curls on her head appeared to deflate.
Penny had never said anything as explicitly, deliberately mean to her mom before. She felt bad about it as soon as it flew out of her mouth, and while her mother wasn’t dumb, she was frequently mistaken for being, well, a little airheaded. Celeste ran regional operations for a multinational events-planning agency, spoke in hashtags, and was frequently dressed as if attending a boy-band concert. That was her way.
Penny was constantly running defense for her. The neighborhood men circled Celeste like sharks, conveniently underfoot to help with high supermarket shelves or offer unsolicited mansplainage on any number of topics. The way they lingered by Celeste’s car, eyes glittering like seeds, as if waiting for something, sketched Penny out. It didn’t help that Celeste was invariably welcoming.
Just one example: Last Valentine’s Day, Mr. Hemphill, their ancient mailman, presented Celeste with a tiny box of drugstore chocolates. It was the size of a mouse coffin, with four oxidized bonbons inside, and he kept mentioning the Vietnam War as though they had something in common. It was clear that he wanted to wear their skin and as far as Penny was concerned, this was the last guy you wanted knowing where you lived. Celeste wouldn’t hear of it.
Penny gazed out the window. Fighting with her mother had become routine. But now that Penny was leaving, Celeste had to get better at navigating the world. Steering clear of unrepentant scumbags was a start. Penny was exhausted. Of worrying about Celeste. Of resenting her. The flitting fast-food restaurants and gas stations blurred in her vision. She blotted the hot stray tears with a sleeve so her mom wouldn’t see.
? ? ?
Later that day Penny’s boyfriend came by. Not that Penny ever publicly referred to Mark as her “boyfriend.” He functioned more as a stopgap for complete isolation when Angie moved away, which was a totally awful way to think about it. Especially since empirically Mark was out of her league. At least physically. Which wasn’t everything, except in high school maybe it was. Most of the time Penny couldn’t believe they were dating. When Mark first showed interest, Penny thought he was defective or else messing with her, and when he didn’t seem to be doing that, her suspicion only grew. Penny was nothing if not aware of what she looked like and what she looked like was exactly the same as she did when she was in first grade. Smallish eyes with a snub nose and humongous lips that her mother promised she’d grow into but she never did. She and Mark looked confusing together. It didn’t help that Penny had learned that relationships often seemed to mean the opposite of what you called them. You could have over a hundred “friends” on social media and still have nobody to talk to. Just as Angie (that Brutus) had dubbed Penny her best friend until she ghosted completely. And while Mark referred to Penny as “bae,” which just made her deeply uncomfortable because: gross, he also described pizza as not only “bae” but “bae AF.” Which, yeah, obviously, but that was the problem. They both liked pizza way more than their person.