Don't Stop Now

by Julie Halpern

  “Yeah, but I think that’s how Penny’s head works. I bet she didn’t even think of that. It’s like every thought she has is based around Gavin. Remember how every time we went to a movie and we’d invite her, she’d have to ask, ‘How long is it?’ Because she might be expecting a text. So I’d say, ‘Just keep your damn phone on,’ and she’d be all, ‘No, because Gavin freaks on people who text during movies, and I don’t want to piss anyone off.’ Um, Gavin’s not even at the theater, and he’s the person you are hoping to get a text from anyway, so why would it matter if you texted him at the movies? And she’d say, ‘He knows.’”

  Josh lands in front of me and plops himself down on the woodchips at my feet. “So let’s put ourselves in Penny’s brain.” We both shudder. “Penny wants to leave town. She needs to move on from Gavin, distance herself from family, suburban life in general. There’s some nice guy in Portland waiting for her. But because of some not-so-nice guy here, possibly psycho, she needs to go away secretly. Not of her own volition? If she just leaves, she has to give reasons to everyone—”

  “She could just leave without telling. She doesn’t have to fake her own kidnapping,” I interrupt.

  “We’re in Penny’s brain, remember? If she’s kidnapped, well, what choice did she have in getting away? Maybe this is her ploy to get Gavin to actually worry about her instead of making her worry.”

  I think on it for a minute. “I guess. Still sounds completely absurd. And I don’t think she’d really do it, do you?”

  “Not sure. But what did she mean then by ‘I did it’?” We spend a minute perplexed; Josh allows the summer breeze to sway him. I draw stars in the dirt with the stick.

  My cell phone rings, and we both startle. I check the caller ID. “Oh my god.” I look at Josh. “It’s Penny’s home line. It’s gotta be her dad.”

  Josh drops down and puts his hand on my shoulder. “It’s probably just Penny, telling you that what she meant by ‘I did it’ was that she bought a new pair of shoes or something.”

  I shake my head. “She never calls me from this number. She always calls from her cell. I only know it’s her parents’ number because they always call me when they’re looking for Penny because she refuses to answer her cell when they call.”

  “Are you gonna answer it? Maybe it’s nothing.”

  But I know it’s something. She did it. Whatever “it” is. I click the answer button. “Hello?”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Rewind to the beginning of senior year. I’m on my no-AP cruise-control plan. Applied to a handful of colleges with good creative writing departments, but nothing overly ambitious to keep me out. Lots of room for a chill senior year. Figured I’d work hard when I’m actually paying for the classes.

  Lando Cronenberg (I know, right?) threw a Labor Day blowout at his parents’ condo. Not much of a blowout, considering he has neighbors above and below, and his mom and dad are heads of the condo association. But still, fun enough with the usual crew, a few close friends, Josh, and an assortment of people who know people I like and would say hi to me in the hall or sit near me if no one I liked more were in one of my classes. We were playing dirty Scattergories and eating lots of Lando’s patented seven-layer guac when in walks Penny Nelson. Shriveled into herself, long brown hair, floor-length black dress. I guess she could have been classified as emo or goth except that her demeanor and behavior just didn’t seem that outwardly expectant. She wasn’t doing it for everyone else’s attention. Whatever she was doing, in fact, seemed to garner her as little attention as possible. In the three previous years we spent together at school, we never actually spent any time together. Well, that’s not entirely true. I can probably go back and look at pictures from any party or show or coffee shop that I went to with a group of people, and she’d be there in the background, holding up a wall.

  Lando’s Labor Day extravaganza was like any other, except that this time I noticed Penny before she melted into the scenery. Maybe it was the way the light hit her face or the fact that the room was only a little bigger than a shoe box, maybe a boot box, but she looked sort of broken. Shadowed and caved-in and unbelievably sad. Gavin, her Neanderthal, was there, too. They walked in together, and the second they entered the room, he beelined for the beer and left her to fend for herself. Not that anyone should be fending when they know everyone in a room. But if what I knew about Penny was any indication, she probably didn’t really know anybody.

  I stood up, climbed over a few floor-seated buddies and grabbed myself some tortilla chips and a scoop of dip. I approached Penny cautiously, as one would to get a closer look at a deer without scaring it off.

  “Hey,” I said and smiled a closemouthed, not too over the top, but trying somewhat to be warm smile.

  “Hey,” she replied, with a dart of eye contact and an equally noncommittal grin.

  “You want some dip?” I asked. I don’t know why, but I felt like it was my duty to get this girl out of her slump and into this party.

  She shrugged an answer that I thought meant no, until she reached a ghostly hand toward the chips, grabbed one, and dipped the tiniest corner into the guac. Her fingernails were chewed to the quick, and her deep blue nail polish was chewed along with them. She cautiously brought the tortilla chip to her mouth and bit off the barely green corner.

  “Good, huh?” I asked enthusiastically. It felt like I was force-feeding a child. Like, “Choo choo, open wide.” I took up a chip of my own, slathered on the dip, and stuffed it in my mouth. Aware of the guac goatee I had just given myself, I looked over at Penny and gave a guaccy grin. That’s when she smiled, a real smile, a smile that showed she actually had teeth and made her eyes crinkle and everything, and that’s how it all started. It became my goal, my mission, my quest, to get this girl to smile again. Even if that meant putting effort into something during my senior year.

  The nice thing about including Penny in my periphery of friends was that she wasn’t usually available to hang out, so it wasn’t always all that different from life BP (before Penny). She was usually so glommed on to Gavin that my friendship with her mostly involved me asking her to hang out and her telling me she was busy. All right. But when she was available because of being ditched or dumped or any other variety of Gavin neglect, she was more or less a tagalong. Because no matter how much we tried to include her, Penny just sort of dragged herself behind us, like a deflated balloon left on a string.

  I’ve had friends who talked about their boyfriends a lot, and I’ll admit to being that girl once or twice (when my short-lived relationships consumed every bit of my soul, only to turn out to be imposters of shams of relationships and really just mildly amusing grope sessions that ended with little to no conversation and even less admiration. No thank you). But Penny’s boyfriend-speak is painful, and constant. And try as I might, nothing I say has changed that. Fight after fight, breakup after breakup, long-sleeved shirts in the middle of Indian Summer…She just stayed with him. Even when he wasn’t with her.

  My friends, the close ones, made it question number two every time we made plans. 1. What do you want to do? 2. Is Penny coming? And based on number two’s answer, people might show or not show. Except for Josh. He always showed, at my request, even when he had something better to do. Sometimes even when he had a girlfriend, he was ditching last minute to be there. I should’ve just dumped Penny, left her behind to do whatever it was she was doing before I took on her charity case (What was she doing?), but I just couldn’t. She was a quest, after all.

  I hate sitting alone at lunch. But I hate when people ask me to eat with them. Just leave me alone. Isn’t that what my face says? I can’t even eat this crap. Where is Gavin? He told me he’d meet me here. It’s our lunch table. The farthest one in the corner by the window. He once told me he picked it because it made us feel like we were the only two people in the world. In the lunchroom, at least. He can be so sweet. So romantic. So where is he? I don’t want to be alone here. I’ll give him three more minutes, an
d then I’ll hide in the library. They leave me alone there. As long as I’m quiet, it’s like I’m not even there.

  It’s been one minute. I wish I’d brought a book. Maybe I should just go to the library now. To get an actual book. But then the librarian might say something about what I’m reading or about this cut on my hand or ask how I am. I hate that question. Why do you care? You don’t.

  One more minute. Now the lunchroom’s getting crowded. That lunch table always looks like they’re having so much fun. Lillian from gym class and her gorgeous, perfect boyfriend, Josh. They look so comfortable. Not like she’s wondering if he really likes her. If he’s going to leave her for someone skinnier or prettier or sluttier. Who would leave her, though? Perfect. I wish I were her.

  Three minutes is up. Guess I’ll go hide in the library. I hope Gavin doesn’t show up and get mad that I’m not here. Maybe I’ll just stay one more minute.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “Hello?” I answered the phone, Penny’s home number glowing on the caller ID. Ninety-nine percent sure it would be her father on the other end. I can’t say I ever deal much with fathers, especially my own (I’ve got Selfish Divorced Father Abandonment Syndrome), but Penny’s dad is always the one to call me or wave to us while he’s watering the lawn or ask when she’s going to be home, not her mom. He never seemed that nice or affectionate, but he always had this look of guilty concern on his face. Maybe he knew something was going on with her and never could figure out just how to help her either.

  “Lillian, this is Mr. Nelson.” Check. “Is Penny with you?” He doesn’t sound overly traumatized, just trying to figure out where his daughter is. Which is not at home. But that doesn’t mean anything. He probably saw her yesterday, and this is just an everyday, ordinary Penny misplacement.

  “Sorry, Mr. Nelson. She’s not with me.” I feel like I’m lying, when I’m not at all. I’m not even withholding information, since I don’t have any and since there is no need for any information that I don’t have to be withheld. All he wants to know is if she is with me. And she’s not.

  “Oh. OK. Well, if you see her, can you please remind her that she’s supposed to watch Annabelle today?”

  “Sure thing, Mr. Nelson,” I tell him. We say goodbye and I hang up, relieved.

  “What did he want?” Josh asks. I stand up, so Josh and I are almost eye to eye. I’m five eleven to his six three; a perfect match if you ask me. Sometimes I even borrow his pants.

  “He wanted to know how much ransom is and if I wanted it in unmarked one hundred dollar bills.” Sarcastic look from Josh. “I don’t know. He was just looking for her. She’s supposed to babysit her sister today.”

  “Shocker,” Josh says, and he grips the bar above again to hang.

  “Dude, put the pits away,” I tell him and step back from the hairy armpit dangling in my face. Not that he smells so bad. “And no, it’s not a shocker. Sometimes I think the only reason her parents had Penny was so that they’d have a babysitter for Annabelle. Like My Sister’s Keeper, but in reverse and without the cancer.”

  “That almost makes sense,” Josh chides. “Let’s go sit on the swings.”

  We walk over to the swing set. Two of the swings have been flung over the top of the bar, so that the seats are so high only a person of, say, approximately six feet could untangle them. “It’s our responsibility to undo these, you know,” I tell Josh and point to the wrapped swings.

  “Why us?” he asks, sounding accused.

  “What are those poor kids going to do when they get here and see that two of the swings are out of commission? They’re going to have to battle it out for the remaining swing, possibly with a dance-off.”

  “Or they could just climb up the side of the swing set and whip them down,” he argues.

  “Just do it,” I command. I reach up and grab the black plastic seat with both hands, then give it a good thrust forward and upward so it flies over the top. I duck out of the way, and the seat lands one roll farther down with a jangle. I grab it again and throw it back over. Josh does the same thing next to me. As the swings get lower, it gets more dangerous and inevitable one of us will get hit. I dive away each time the swing flops over the top, while Josh nonchalantly dodges. Once the swings are fully down and the chains are unchinked, Josh dusts off the seat of one swing with his hand and offers it to me. “Why, thank you, sir,” I say and sit. He sits on the swing to my right, and we kick off from the ground to start swinging.

  “Why does Annabelle even need a babysitter? Isn’t she, like, nine?” Josh calls from his place in the air.

  “Nine isn’t that old, Josh. But I don’t know why they always expect Penny to do it. It’s not like she doesn’t have stuff to do. And it’s not like her mom’s ever doing anything. She doesn’t even work.” Penny’s mom, who is always home whenever I go over to Penny’s (noted by her gigantic silver Hummer parked in the driveway, but never by an actual sighting) is a QVC addict. When Penny and I first started hanging, she told me her mom watches QVC twenty-four hours a day and orders all of her clothes, shampoo, makeup, jewelry, and food off the TV. I totally thought she was exaggerating, until the first time I entered their house. I arrived at the same time as the UPS guy, and he literally had to take six trips to his truck and fasten his heavy load belt just to carry all her boxes to the door. For Penny’s last birthday, her mother bought her, no joke, an olive tree. From QVC. That’s how in tune and involved her mother is in Penny’s life. Thanks for that olive tree, Mom. I’ll be sure to get right on that olive harvesting. Makes me glad I’m an only child with a mom whose crazy work schedule at the hospital means that she’s actually happy to see me. When she’s around.

  “Must be nice,” Josh says. “Not working.”

  “Yeah. And you should know.” I pump my legs to catch up to Josh’s swing height.

  “Not for long. My dad told me yesterday that I have to get a real job or go to college. No way in hell I’m going right back to school, and no way in hell I’m getting my life sucked out of me by a nine to five. Hope it blows over.”

  Josh has not worked a day in his life, thanks to his overly spoiling and accommodating (not to mention pretty loaded) dad. Not that I’m bitter, but I wouldn’t have minded not having to work the last few summers in cruddy retail jobs to add to the bat mitzvah pot for college. I’m just glad my mom gave me the opportunity to choose what I want to do this summer. I can concentrate on my last summer of nothingness before I commit to becoming something for the rest of my life.

  Josh doesn’t seem too concerned that he has to commit to something when he yells, “Get out of my bathroom!” I start laughing so hard at the memory of being a little kid and landing in the same rhythm of another swinger and having to yell, “Get out of my bathroom!” What does that even mean?

  “But I have to pee!” I scream, and we both begin pumping our legs frantically to go higher.

  “We jump on three,” Josh calls. I haven’t jumped from a swing in forever, and we’re pretty high up considering our heights and the fact that the swing set is bucking under the weight of two full-grown teenagers’ abuse. I’m game. “One…two…three!” Josh yells, and I propel myself off the swing, landing shakily on my legs. Josh lands next to me, much less planted, and falls onto me for support. We both topple over onto the woodchips, which, as suspected, do not act as a soft landing pad.

  We’re out of breath and laughing hysterically, and Josh says, “I think I got a splinter in my boob.”

  “That’s what you get for being in my bathroom,” I manage to scold him through my laughs. We’re laughing uncontrollably now, when Josh pauses to say, “Your hair looks red today.” My hair has its own chameleonic way to it, sometimes more blond, sometimes light brown, sometimes reddish. I didn’t even know what to put on my driver’s license.

  “I like it when it’s red,” Josh says softly, and leans forward to touch a strand. All laughing stops. He looks into my eyes, or at least makes great eye contact, and I look into his, our eyes
both so dark brown, they’re almost black. We used to say we must be related. But I shouldn’t be thinking what I’m thinking about any relative.

  A buzz from the woodchips breaks the brown-eyed trance, and I see my cell has fallen out of my pocket. I pick it up and look at the caller ID. It’s an unknown number, which I never answer because I was once suckered into a twenty-minute conversation with an old man named Hoyt who called me by accident, and after telling him I was NOT his long-lost daughter, Erma, about sixty times, I had to fake it and tell him what I’d been doing the last thirty years. Of course I couldn’t just hang up. This time around I wait and assume whoever is calling will leave a message if it’s anything important.

  “You hungry?” Josh asks as he shakes out his shoes for possibly hidden woodchips.

  “I could be. What are you thinking?”

  “Chocolate chippies?” He slips on his Chucks, and I hear the buzz of my voicemail.

  “Sounds good,” I say absently, pressing a button on my phone. The voicemail lady blathers on about the time. “Yeah, yeah, I know,” I tell her. Then the message begins.

  “Hey, Lil, it’s Penny,” she whispers again, this time rushed and more urgent. “I’m flying out in a few minutes. I just wanted to make sure you got my first message and, um, beg you not to tell anyone where I’m going.”

  “But I don’t really know where you’re going!” I yell at the message. Josh looks at me like he’s about to ask what’s going on, but I shoo him so I can hear the rest of it.

  “I don’t have my phone, so I’ll call you when I get there. Promise you won’t tell, OK?” Announcements mumble in the background. “I gotta go. Talk to you later.” And she hangs up.