Emergency Contact(59)

In the picture, Penny’s face was a mask. She remembered how startled she’d been when the photographer pounced. Yet wearing the black slip, with Jude’s arms encircling her waist, she appeared composed. The flash accentuated her pale skin and dark lips. Not only that, but her eyes were narrowed alluringly and her lips were curled in a confident smirk. It was Penny. Except it wasn’t. This was evil, sexy Penny. A Penny she hadn’t been aware of. Penny was captivated by her avatar.

First off, Penny had had fun. Real fun. In-the-moment IRL fun. Not the sort of fun where she had to continually remind herself to have a good time. In fact, she hadn’t checked her phone at all. As far as she was concerned, alcohol was a miracle. She felt captivating. Penny belonged at that party. She felt, okay, not to be psychotic or pathetic or anything, but she felt like a MzLolaXO.

As she scrolled through, she wondered if this was how it was to be a party girl. Regular Penny only ever took photos bearing the expression of someone attempting to pass a kidney stone the size of a chair. Yet last night there were two more party shots that were taken of her unaware. One with Mallory and Jude, doing the unimaginable—dancing in public. And another with her head thrown back, laughing at something Andy was telling her, with her hand firmly planted on his chest.

She’d spent most of the evening chatting with Andy. And his dimples. Andy who’d gone to boarding school in Hong Kong and traveled the world and played rugby and had a six-pack that Jude had molested at a certain point in the evening. Even Pete had become substantially less irritating once enough booze had tobogganed down Penny’s piehole.

Mostly they talked about school. It was liberating and electrifying to be at a party with someone you already had so much in common with.

“Yeah, it’s way too hard to try to do it linearly,” he’d roared over the music about her story within a story. “Write them as two separate things and then sort of mash the second one into the first one.”

By then Penny was on her sixth champagne, though blessedly, she’d remembered to take notes.

“It needn’t be elegant,” he said. “Not at the beginning. Have you ever read Seven Wise Masters?”

She hadn’t.

“What about Homer’s Odyssey?”

She shook her head.

“Okay, you know the Itchy & Scratchy Show in The Simpsons?”

Penny laughed. “Yeah.”

“Well, that’s the way to go. It serves to illustrate a larger theme of the episode. The first draft of that script probably says, ‘Itchy & Scratchy episode about blah blah blah goes here.’ Plonk it in when you’re about done, throw some icing around it, and twiddle with it until it’s presentable.”

Penny’s mind exploded. It wasn’t solely that writing two stories simultaneously was consistently tripping her up. It was that somewhere along the line, as she researched the court case of the real-life parents, she’d forgotten who the hero was. She’d misjudged which narrative took main stage. It was laughably small-minded. It was species-ist! The whole time Penny insisted that science fiction was boundless, yet here she was presuming human supremacy. The Anima was The Simpsons and the parents Itchy & Scratchy. Not the other way around.

Penny reddened at the memory of hugging and kissing Andy on the cheek at the revelation. Even with her hangover, Party Penny had served her well.

She’d also had a blast with Mallory and Jude. Lots of giggly joint bathroom visits.

“Yours is hella cute,” said Mallory, meaning Andy. They’d shared the stall, and normally Penny would have way too much performance anxiety to go, but this time it was fine.

“I know!” Penny exclaimed. By then her feet were bleeding and she could feel the slickness between her toes, but she didn’t care.

Andy was cute. He was well read and sophisticated and taller than her in high heels and weighed more than her, which Sam plainly didn’t. All she had to do was exactly the opposite of what she normally would to be attractive. Simple as that. Screw Sam.

Penny made a promise to never text him again. Or at least not until he texted first.

Right then, as if by magic, her phone buzzed.

It was her mom.

Typical.

Penny ignored it.





SAM.


Bastian Trejo was fourteen, looked twelve, and had started smoking when he was ten. And while the skate rat was nothing more than a runt in busted shoes, to Sam there was something intimidating about him. But after that first afternoon, by the time Bastian cadged three cigarettes and a Whataburger chicken finger meal off him, the kid let his guard down.

The only rule they’d established for the documentary was that if him, James, and Rico were skating when they weren’t supposed to be Sam couldn’t get them in trouble with their parents. Sam agreed.

“Yeah, Bastian’s mom is serious,” said James.

“Yeah, Mom’s got enough going on,” Bastian said, flicking his cigarette.

Beyond that, Bastian didn’t need any further convincing. The kid had a compulsively watchable face and knew it. Sam’s setup was too cumbersome with the DSLR, so mostly he shot with his phone, and the second it was up, Bastian was ready. Talking a mile a minute, rattling off sordid tales of every “bitch” he “bagged” and other girls who had “curved” him. He knew how to tell a story even if Sam suspected most of it was made up.