Emergency Contact(45)

He thought about what Penny would do if he had brought her as his backup. Probably stare at them combatively, asking invasive questions. And confusing them later by offering Band-Aids and Neosporin from her kit as needed.

This morning she’d coached him on how to approach them.

None of this matters

We’re all biding time until we die anyway

He’s probably bored

Kids get bored

Go unbore him


“So anyway,” he said. “I don’t skate as much now because I’m a documentary filmmaker.”





PENNY.


My mom’s coming


It was 8:42 a.m. on a Saturday, perfect time to bring up topics she’d been avoiding for months.

Is that good or bad

Suboptimal

Not a fan?

Nope

Me neither

*Of mine

Why?

You go first Penny always had to go first.

No you


Sam went first:

My mom shouldn’t have been a mom Why?

She’s an alcoholic

Whoa

Yeah

Sucks

Yeah

What else?

Isn’t that enough?

You tell me

I think she hates me She doesn’t hate you Penny wrote before she thought about it. What the hell did she know? Some moms eat their young. Some do it without meaning to.

Hate’s a strong word but I don’t think it’s too far off tbh K your turn

Lol

It’s so early for momtalk Sorry

No tell me

Mine makes me sad

Why?

She thinks I’m GREAT

Tough crowd

She wants to do everything together And?

I’m a huge disappointment How?

We’re sooooo different My mom wants to be besties we’re not

AT ALL

The whole thing is so sad It bums me out to think about Oof

Are you gonna be ok?


She wondered if she would be. Celeste set her off so easily. She remembered the Apple Store fiasco and wondered if this trip would be a repeat. Penny didn’t have the energy for Celeste, with her hugeness and her sucking-up-all-the-air-in-a-room-ness. Her mom monopolized her life so completely, and Penny was only just getting her footing in a life that was hers alone. Hers and her phone’s.

God.

Honestly, if Penny had to choose between saving a puppy or her phone from an oncoming train, she’d lunge for the phone, and that was awful. The line that separated her phone from Sam was becoming increasingly blurred. Sam was her phone and her phone was Sam. Her rose-gold friend-pal in its little black outfit.

Whoa.

Sam was her Anima.

Shit.

It wasn’t a romance; it was too perfect for that. With texts there were only the words and none of the awkwardness. They could get to know each other completely and get comfortable before they had to do anything unnecessarily overwhelming like look at each other’s eyeballs with their eyeballs.

With Sam in her pocket, she wasn’t ever alone. But sometimes it wasn’t enough. Penny knew she should be grateful, yet there this was niggling hope, this aggravating notion running constantly in the background of her operating system, that one day Sam would think about her and decide, “To hell with all these other chicks I meet every day who are hot, not scared of sex, and are rocket scientists when it comes to flirting, I choose you, Penelope Lee. You have an inventive, not-at-all-gross way with snacks, and your spelling is top-notch.”

Penny was looking at her phone when the screen lit up in her hand.

It was a call.

From Sam.

Whoa.

Penny glanced over at a still-sleeping Jude, quietly got out of bed, and went into the bathroom.

“Hi.”

His voice was deep, as if he’d just woken up.

“Hi?”

Penny cleared her throat. “You called me.”

She heard him laugh.

Penny ran the shower, as if the room were bugged.

“I’m aware of that.”

“Why the escalation?” she asked him.

He laughed again. Penny had no idea why she worded it like that.

“I mean, why’d you call?”

“You didn’t answer me.”

“What?”

Penny’s heart was hammering. She sat on the floor.

“I asked if you were okay. You didn’t respond. I became momentarily worried.”

“Oh, sorry. Yeah, I’m fine. I was thinking about momstuff.”

“Well, it’s the responsibility of the emergency contact to inquire.”

“I’m going to be honest with you: The rules of emergency contacts continue to evade me.”

He laughed again. Penny smiled so hard it broke her face.

“Moms are rough.”

“Yeah.”

Penny thought how satisfying it would be to introduce Sam to Celeste as her boyfriend. He had so many tattoos. In fact, the only upside to Lorraine being pregnant is that it would scandalize Celeste that Penny’s boyfriend was a dad. For all her “I’m a cool mom” posturing, Celeste wanted Penny comfortably settled with Mark.

“I’ve been avoiding her since I got here,” she said. “I feel kinda bad about it.” She adjusted the shower water so she wouldn’t waste so much of it.