by Renee Fowler
“That’s okay. After the look he gave me earlier, I figured he may have put two and two together.”
“I made him promise not to tell.”
“Would it be the end of the world if he told?”
“No, it wouldn’t be the end of the world, but some of the people there already hate me.”
“No one hates you, Penny.”
“A couple of them do.”
“Who?” Liam demands.
I shake my head and laugh. “I’m not going to tattletale over some dirty looks.”
“A few might be a bit jealous,” he says. “But I can’t imagine anyone hating you.”
“Well, whatever it is, I’d rather not make it any worse. I’ll still have to deal with them after you’re gone.”
Liam wets his lips and gives me an intense stare I can’t quite figure out. “What if I don’t go?” he asks.
“Hmmm.”
“What does that Hmmm mean, Penny Abbott?”
“It means - Hmmm, I don’t know about this Liam Thibault guy. I don’t know why he would stay here, and I’m not sure if I can trust him yet.”
“That’s a very loaded Hmmm,” he remarks.
A week later, after our third performance of Unravel, Andrea asked me to meet with her in her office. I can’t imagine what for, and I’m a little nervous from wondering. My anxiety hits critical levels when Liam wanders in with his phone in his hand. “What’s up, An-” he pauses when he sees me.
Why does she want to see the two of us together? My mouth is unbearably dry.
“It’ll be just a minute,” Andrea says. “We’re waiting on Seth.”
I relax to a degree, although not all the way. When Seth arrives a few minutes later, Andrea informs us that a local news station wants to interview us all about the currently running production.
“On camera?” I blurt out, wringing my hands together so hard my fingers ache.
“Well, of course.” Andrea gives me a serene smile. “This would be good publicity for the theater, Penny.”
“Liam is the one who wrote it. They should interview him.” I pull at the hem of my top, rub, rub, rubbing my thumbs across the ribbed fabric.
Seth gets very animated in the seat beside me. “I’ll do it.”
“I assumed,” Andrea says. “But they ideally want to speak with all three of you.”
Seth’s arm circles around my shoulder, and he gives me a little shake. “Come on, Penny. This will be fun.”
Fun? No part of this sounds fun. “Do I have to?”
Seth immediately answers, “Yes!”
After a slight pause, Andrea agrees, “Yes, Penny. I would consider this compulsory in your position, and it’s only going to be a very brief segment.”
“Hmmm.” Liam leans in the doorway, and crosses one ankle in front of the other. If we were alone, I’d ask him what that Hmmm means. He rubs his chin, and meets my eyes briefly before addressing Andrea. “I’d like a list of questions they plan to ask each of us, and I want it made clear that they’ll be expected to stick to that script.”
“Ahh… I don’t see why that would be a problem,” Andrea says.
Biting my bottom lip against a huge smile, I highly suspect Liam did this for me. If I can prepare ahead of time, it won’t be so bad. Obviously it will still be horrible, but I’ll survive it.
A little while later I catch Liam alone and tell him thank you with a kiss that ends with a light bite against his bottom lip. “I really appreciate it.”
“You can show me how much you appreciate it later tonight.” Liam gives me a teasing smile and skims a fingertip along the outer shell of my ear with just the precise pressure to make me shiver.
Are we spending too much time together? Probably. If I’m not careful, I’m going to get hopelessly attached to Liam, and it will be devastating when he eventually leaves.
The truth is, I’ve never had this issue before. I typically have a pretty low tolerance for people in general, but Liam is different. He understands that sometimes I don’t want to be touched or talked to, and he doesn’t question me incessantly about why, or ask if he did something wrong. I explained in the beginning, and he just… got it. He gets me.
Oh, god. I am so screwed when this eventually falls apart.
Chapter 18
Penny
Seth hands me a lilac colored envelope with a flourishing bow.
“What’s this?” I ask.
“Open it and find out.”
I tear the envelope, and withdraw the single sheet of cardstock trimmed with shimmery spiderwebs, and laugh loudly.
“What’s so funny?”
“For a second I thought this was a wedding invitation.”
“Who would I be getting married to?”
“Evan?”
“I told you, we are not exclusive. How many times do I have to tell you that, Penny?”
“Well, you’re throwing a halloween party together.”
Seth waves his hand through the air. “You will come,” he says this like a statement, not a question.
“It’s not going to be one of your pervert parties, is it?”
“People having sex is not perverted.”
I widen my eyes at him. “A whole pile of people having sex together is very perverted.”
“Penny, you really are sexually repressed. Seriously.”
I grumble under my breath. “To each their own, but I’m not up for an orgy on Halloween night, or any other night for that matter.”
Seth laughs. “It’s not going to be an orgy this time. It’s just a costume party, see?” He flicked his finger against the card stock. “Come. Wear something pretty. We’ll drink and have fun. You need more fun in your life. Everyone is coming.”
“You invited everyone?”
“Yes. Everyone is going, including you.”
I relax to a degree. If Seth is inviting everyone from the theater, then I doubt very much it’s going to be like the Eyes Wide Shut affair he tricked me into going to a year and a half ago. I showed up at Evan’s fancy house, wearing a fancy dress, expecting a fancy dinner party. Instead I was confronted with a full blown, all out orgy, which I promptly fled from in tears. I didn’t speak to Seth for a week after that nonsense.
“Did you invite Liam?” I ask casually, tracing the gold lettering on the invitation with the tip of my finger. When he doesn’t answer me, I glance up at him.
Seth’s standing with his arms crossed over his chest, grinning at me like an idiot. “Of course I invited him. I said I invited everyone.”
“That’s nice.”
“That’s nice,” Seth mocks. “You could just come together. Stop all this foolish pretending. You think people can’t see the way you two look at each other?”
“How do we look at each other?”
“Like you want to fuck each other until you’re both cross-eyed?”
I laugh.
Seth laughs too, but the sound quickly peters out to a tired sigh. “No, he looks at you like he wants to move you to the suburbs and make babies. He looks at you like he wants to take you shopping for a minivan.”
I start to crack up. “No, he doesn’t.”
Seth makes a face somewhere between sadness and disgust. “He’s going to take you away from me.”
“He’s not taking me anywhere.”
He shrugs his shoulders. “We’ll see. Has he said he loves you yet?”
My heart stammers in my chest at imagining the sound of those words from Liam’s lips. “No, of course not. We haven’t been together that long.”
“Good. There’s still time for me and you then.”
I roll my eyes and pivot away from Seth.
“What are you coming dressed as?” he asks.
“I haven’t decided yet.”
“Maybe I’ll be a caveman.” Seth pauses to lift me up and fling me over his shoulder. “Then I can drag you back to my cave while I still have the chance.”
“I thought you’ve been trying to tempt
Carrie back to your cave?”
“Trying, but she’s as prudish as you.”
I wiggle around until he sets me back down. “Carrie has never struck me as the sort who does the whole casual thing.”
“So, you’re saying I should try to woo her?”
“Woo?” I giggle. “No, I’m saying you should leave her alone unless you really want to be with her. Seth, I’m starting to think you have a fixation on unavailable women.”
He sighs heavily. “It’s not just women.”
“Do you mean Evan.”
A dark, downtrodden look flickers across his face briefly, but is quickly concealed with an eye roll and a crooked grin. “Of course not. We have a mutual agreement. No strings attached.”
I study his face, trying to discern if he is telling the truth. I have a hard time judging sometimes, even with people I know well. “Because you two have been together for a long time now, haven’t you?”
“But we’re not together, Penny. Not like that.” He shakes his head and picks up the stack of envelopes. “I need to finish handing these out before everyone disappears.”
I watch Seth saunter away, feeling a bit confused, but he’s not the only one who needs to finish up some things. I have some packages to ship for the upcoming holiday.
I send Liam a quick text letting him know that I’m heading out, because he told me one day last week it worried him when I just disappeared without saying goodbye.
Is that a strange thing for him to request? Does it mean something? I try not to think about it as I start outside, but it happens anyways. Maybe I should ask him, but what if he goes Hmmm, and I ask him what that particular Hmmm means, and he says, “It means, you’re really reading too much into things, Penny. I thought we both understood how this works.”
It’s just one possible answer, but I’m not sure if I’m ready to face that particular possibility yet.
And that possibility is the very last thing on my mind when I arrive home and spot John lurking on my doorstep. “What are you doing here?”
“I tried to call and text.”
“I know. I blocked your number when you kept calling and texting.”
John looks towards the overcast sky and lets out an annoyed sigh. “We need to talk, and I didn’t know how else to get through to you.”
Clutching my keys tightly in my hands, I cross my arms across my chest and lean against the door. “What do you want? And make it quick, because I have things to do.”
John pushes a thin breath out between his pursed lips. He shoves his hands in his pockets, and stares down to where he is digging the toe of his shoe into a crack in the walkway. “I saw you on TV the other day.”
“Okay?”
“Seeing you again, I guess it got me thinking about things.”
“Ugh. You’re wasting your time.”
“I know I was an idiot, but three years, Penny. Come on. Are you really willing to throw away three years over a little fling? It didn’t mean anything. It was just… one of those things that happens.”
“Like an accident?” I ask, laughing.
“Sort of. I never meant for it to go that far.”
“Accidents happen, but that was no accident.”
“So you’re not even willing to talk about this?”
“No, I’m not.”
“Penny, we were getting married,” he whines. “If I wasn’t such an idiot we would still be getting married.”
“Personally I’m glad you were an idiot. You did me a huge favor.”
John sucks in a few big breaths. His eyes narrow in my direction. “You act like you were so easy to be with. It’s fucking exhausting. Do you get that? Being with you is a full time job. And the way you handled that at the photoshoot. Did it make you feel better about yourself, Penny?”
“I didn’t have anything to do with that.”
“Right. Like you didn’t put your little buddy up to that scene, and I don’t believe for a second that nothing ever happened between you two either. Not for a second.”
“Seth?” I would almost laugh if I wasn’t trying not to cry. “John, I never-”
“Save it. The way I see it, you owe me.”
“Owe you for what?” I ask incredulously.
“For starters, why didn’t you tell me you were going to be working with this guy?”
“What guy?”
“Liam Thibault.”
I blink at him a few times, trying to make sense of this conversation. “Does it matter?”
“Of course it fucking matters. Because of you, I lost out on the opportunity to do that photoshoot.”
“It wasn’t my fault! Besides, I thought you got paid for it anyways.”
“That show is kind of turning into a big deal. You think I wouldn’t mind having that to add to my portfolio?” John scowls down at me.
Sometimes I can’t tell when someone is flustered, or angry, or all the other things a person can be, good and bad, but John is so obviously furious, there is no mistaking it. I slink back towards the awning. If I unlock my door and go inside, will he try to follow me?
“Aren’t you going to say something?” John demands.
Why am I like this? In tense, adrenaline soaked situations, I don’t choose fight or flight. I freeze. If I was an animal in the wild, I would have perished long ago thanks to my cowardice.
“I swear to christ, Penny. Sometimes I think there is something fucking wrong with you. Are you seriously going to stand there and stare at your feet?”
He’s right. I can’t just stand here, and I don’t know what to say, so I pivot away from him and start walking.
John’s hand clamps down around my upper arm. “I’m trying to talk to you.”
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to say,” is what I try to say, but what comes out is a whispered, incoherent mumble.
His grip increases, and he twirls me around to face him. At the same time he pulls my head back so I’m forced to look at his face. From the outside I bet it almost appears choreographed, except no one clued me in on these steps ahead of time. I’ve never seen John so angry, and my mind is spinning in fast, futile circles trying to process this.
He sucks in a few deep breaths, and the lines of his face smooth out a bit, but his grasp on my arm doesn’t let up. “Like I said, you owe me, but I’m willing to do you a favor.”
“I don’t want a favor.”
The corners of his mouth tick up into a smile, but it’s not one I’ve ever seen him wear before. “I have some pictures of you, I’m sure you remember which ones, that could probably fetch a lot of money from the right buyer. I thought I might give you the opportunity to buy them from me first.”
“Why did you keep those?”
John laughs. “That’s the wrong question, Penny. The right question is, how much.”
“H-How much?”
“Five grand.”
“I don’t have that much right now.”
He laughs harder. “Okay. Ten.”
“What? If I don’t have five, then you know I don’t have ten.”
“But you know where to get it, right?”
Widening my eyes to keep the tears from spilling over, I shake my head at him.
“Maybe it’s time to make up with dear old dad, don’t you think?”
“Who?”
“Foster Abbott.”
“He’s not my dad.”
“Well, whoever the hell he is, the guy is loaded, right? Why didn’t you ever tell me about him, Penny? After three years, you think you know a person, but I’m starting to realize you hid all kinds of shit from me.”
I didn’t tell John about my stepfather, because I met John after my mother’s death, after I had essentially written Foster out of my life completely. “I don’t want to talk to him, John.”
He shrugs his shoulders and lets out a mocking laugh. “I could talk to him for you. Maybe he’d be interested in buying those pictures off me, huh?”
“Why are you doing this? I d
on’t understand why you’re being so mean.”
“I could write an entire fucking book about the things you don’t understand, Penny.” John lets go of my arm, flinging me back a step. “Unblock my number, and you better pick up when I call the next time. You’ll be hearing from me soon.”
Chapter 19
Liam
When Penny texts to say she has work to catch up on, I don’t think much about it one way or the other. She’s already mentioned that she has some extra business with halloween coming up. The next morning when she isn’t at the theater bright and early like normal, I’m not too worried either. Occasionally she doesn’t show up in the mornings.
Thirty minutes before curtain, when I haven’t seen or heard from Penny all day, I start to worry. Then she scurries in out of the wind unannounced. Her eyes are puffy and underlined by dark smudges, and her face appears paler than usual. She breezes right past me without even an acknowledgement.
“Penny?”
“I need to get ready. I’m getting ready right now.” She slams her dressing room door, and I hear the lock click.
Sometimes it feels like the longer I know Penny, the less I understand her.
Penny emerges from her dressing room with ten minutes to spare wearing an obscene amount of makeup.
“Is everything okay?” I ask, falling in step beside her.
“I can’t talk right now. This is a bad time to talk. Not now, Liam.”
The part of me who is here to direct this performance knows I should step back, let her get on with the nervous tapping and rocking routine she does before heading out onto stage. The part of me that is hopelessly in love with her despite the fact that she confuses me endlessly, dictates that I pull her close enough to whisper in her ear, “Let Carrie do this tonight.”
“I can do it.” Penny wiggles free of my grasp. “I can do it, Liam.”
A few of the other dancers watch this exchange. Who knows what they’re thinking. I really could care less at the moment. My main concern is Penny.
And despite my concerns, Penny turns on like a light at the appropriate time. She bounds gracefully around the stage with the length of silk fluttering behind her. There is a playful smile fixed on her face as she skips around Seth, and ducks beneath his outstretched arm. She throws him a practiced, come-hither look over her shoulder, and he gives chase. Then the silk is stretched taut, abandoned on the stage floor, and the roles are reversed. Seth leaps backwards, and Penny advances slowly with a flourishing sway to her hips.
