Emergency Contact(83)

Jude walked over to Penny’s desk and pointed. “Then I realized your pouches were here with your backpack, and that’s when I started to get hysterical.”

She turned to grab her phone off her pillow. “See,” she said, showing Penny her outgoing calls. “Six times I called you.”

Penny sat on her bed, dazed. “Jude, did you sleep at all?”

“No, asshole,” she said.

“Mallory had some guy over, so I got home at one and you weren’t here, which is fine. Except then I texted at one thirty and again at three, and when you were still gone, I couldn’t sleep. Jesus Christ, Penny, what the F?”

Penny went over to Jude and hugged her fiercely.

“You scared me,” said Jude quietly. Penny held her tighter. People scared Penny all the time. Like her mom and even Sam. It meant she loved them.

? ? ?

“The dumbest thing happened,” said Penny. They were lying on Jude’s bed. “My mom OD’d.”

Jude turned to Penny, horrified. “Holy shit. What?”

“No, no, no,” Penny corrected. “She’s fine. It is the stupidest thing. She overdosed on weed brownies at her birthday dinner, lost her mind, and had to go to the hospital.”

Jude fell silent and then erupted into laughter, which made Penny laugh.

“I only got back,” she said, skipping over the detail of spending the night at Sam’s house and making out with him in the morning and bolting like a dork.

“How is she?” Jude asked. “Poor Celeste.”

“She’s fine,” she said. “I met her shit-kicker boyfriend. Who’s handsome, younger than her, and was wearing these insane Lucchese cowboy boots.”

Jude smiled. “That’s so Texas,” she said. “How’d she seem?”

“I didn’t see her.”

“Penny.”

Jude nudged her. “Can you do me a favor? Can you tell me this story the opposite of the way you’d tell it normally? Start at the beginning and don’t leave anything out.”

“No, that was everything,” she said. “Her boyfriend called, said she was in the hospital. I figured you were too pissed to come with me, so . . .” She took a deep breath. “I called Sam and he drove me.”

“Okay, Sam we’ll get back to,” Jude told her. “You should’ve called me anyway, you know. Possible dead mother calls for a cease-fire. Even you have to know that.”

Penny continued. “Anyway, I get down there to discover that in true Celeste form, she was totally fine. She was in the hospital for no reason on her fortieth birthday other than that she’s a needy, messy monster.”

“Come on,” said Jude. “I’m sure she wasn’t stoked to be there.”

“I don’t care!” said Penny. “I’ve had it. As soon as I heard she wasn’t dead, I turned around and came back home.”

Jude’s mouth hung open.

“You didn’t talk to her? After you drove all the way down there?”

Penny shook her head.

“But, Pen, you’re the one who ditched her on her birthday.”

“I’m over it,” said Penny, throwing her hands up. “I’m done worrying about her. She’s the mom. I’m sick to death of looking out for her and being paranoid she’s going to do something dumb.”

If anything, Celeste was lucky she hadn’t gone in to visit her. Penny would’ve strangled her.

“Okay,” said Jude. “Well, thank God nothing truly bad happened. We all make mistakes, which, by the way, you might know something about.” Jude shot her a meaningful look. “It wouldn’t kill you to give your mom a break.”

Except that maybe it would.





SAM.


Sam measured out the flour. He hadn’t made hamantaschen in a while. Brandi Rose loved the prune ones best, so he was making those. It was time to go see his mother.

As he threw the mixer on low speed, his mind wandered to Penny. Dark eyes. Hands pulling him closer by the belt loops of his jeans. Her breath hot against his throat.

Jeez. What was that?

Sam recalled the impossible softness of her skin. The way her hair fanned out on his pillows as if she were floating on top of water.

But then she took off.

Sam didn’t know where to go with her and how far. Maybe Penny changed her mind. Maybe she’d tried it out and realized—to her horror—that she’d made a mistake and decided that they were better off as friends.

It would make sense if she were skittish, given the events of her life. But she’d been the one to kiss him first. Sam’s mind flashed back to the way her lips yielded to his and the sigh that escaped when his mouth brushed her shoulder.

When the cookies had cooled, Sam drove over to his mother’s. He took the left into Forest Park, through a cluster of mobile homes that had been built before the highway in 1964. He wiped his sweating hands onto his jeans.

Sam knew she’d be home. Brandi Rose stayed home most afternoons, ever since she sought early retirement and workman’s comp for fibromyalgia—a mysterious rambling pain that assaulted her extremities. Autry, her current boyfriend, took care of her most days.

Sure, Austin had a few kitschy trailer parks, cutesy chrome Airstreams that were rejiggered as Airbnbs or else food trucks and cozy bars where the cocktails cost as much as Sam’s pants. Sam’s mom’s place was nothing like that. The rooms were drafty and the neighbors rowdy, and they only got rowdier when they drank. Which was often.