by Jane Matisse
There was a light clearing of a throat and Penelope jumped, pulling her hand back and looking up to find the waiter standing with a bottle of wine in his hands. Jack took a moment to take a deep breath and looked up at the waiter. He wore a small smile.
“Any more wine for either of you?” he asked.
“We’ll actually take the bill now, thank you,” Penelope replied.
“I’ll be right back.”
Jack looked down at his glass of wine. “Don’t you dare make another joke,” he warned.
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Penelope smiled.
“Here you go.” The waiter placed the bill on the table. “Thank you for coming in, and have a wonderful day.”
“Well, I guess we can thank Celeste for lunch,” Penelope replied. Jack could tell from the high tone of her voice she was masking her discomfort. He only nodded and stood, placing the cash inside the booklet and starting for the exit.
* * *
How could she be so stupid? Why did she have to be so obvious about her attraction to the guy? Yes, he was handsome, and yes, he had the ability to arouse her, but geez. You’d think the girl would get a fucking grip. Penelope was berating herself in silence when Jack spoke up, catching glances of her from the driver seat.
“So, what is a maid of honor in charge of when they plan a bachelorette party? I thought booze, chips, and salsa would be a great idea for a night in.”
Penelope scoffed. “Uhh, I don’t think so. What you just described is a sports gathering for men. Booze is a good start. God knows Celeste loves her alcohol. A few games, maybe some bar hopping, funny gifts, and maybe a few strippers,” she mumbled the last part.
“Strippers? I thought women were ‘above’ all that? I thought it was too taboo to even discuss.”
“Yikes, you’ve obviously forgotten it’s the twenty-first century. Well, just to clue you in, women work high-end corporate jobs, become their own bosses, and yes, they watch porn and own vibes too,” Penelope sarcastically explained.
Jack lost control of the steering wheel for a second and the car swerved a bit. She supposed he was a little surprised at her outburst.
He swallowed before responding. “Would it be safe for me to assume that you’re included in the modern women category as well?”
“Yeah, I am. And damned proud of it.”
“So, you watch p-porn and own a v-vibrator?” Jack asked, stumbling over the words.
Penelope froze. Did she actually say that? “Uhh, no. I don’t do that.”
“But you just said—”
“I know what I said. It doesn’t mean that I’m included in the generalization.”
“What color is it?” he pressed, a smirk on his face. Penelope sputtered, trying to form a coherent sentence. “Come on. You were the one who brought it up,” Jack coaxed. “What color is it?”
Penelope thought she was about to have a heat stroke. Her body temperature had risen, and her palms were sweating. She was glad he was too busy watching the road to look at her. She looked out the window and realized they were on her block. Saved by the bell. “You can stop here. I’ll just walk to my building.”
“I’ll walk you, no problem,” Jack replied.
“No! Just stop the car. I can walk myself, thanks.” Penelope fiddled with her seat belt. Her hands shook and the buckle kept slipping from her grasp.
Jack noticed her dilemma and parked right outside her building. He shut off the car and reached over to help her unbuckle the seat belt. She immediately pulled back. “What are you doing?”
Jack laughed a little nervously. “Hey, relax. I’m just trying to help you out here.” He went ahead and unbuckled her.
“Thank you.” Penelope immediately got out of the car and slammed the door in a hurry. She started to run up the stairs to her apartment, until she saw Jack coming right behind her. Oh shit. “Thanks for driving me back home. I appreciate it, very much. I’m sure you’ve got plenty more things to do on a Sunday afternoon,” she babbled while attempting to unlock her door. When she finally opened it, she turned to say her last thank-you and tried to shut the door.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t as easy as she expected. Something was blocking the door from closing, and she looked down to realize it was Jack’s foot. He shimmied through the crack.
“Did I do something to upset you? Because I promise I was only teasing back there. Although I’m very interested in knowing what color that vibe is,” he added with one of his sexy smirks and a lift of his eyebrow.
Penelope gave him the death stare this time. Jack immediately raised his hands in defeat. “Okay, I was just kidding. I’ll see you later then, I guess, since we’re now bachelorette party partners in crime.” He reached into his pocket and grabbed his wallet. “Mind handing me a pen please?”
Reluctantly, Penelope walked to her coffee table and grabbed a pen, handing it to him.
“Here’s my cell phone number, since you’d most likely not give me yours,” he teased, handing her a business card.
Penelope chuckled and nodded. “I’ll send you a text to see when and where we should start first.”
“I look forward to it.” Jack smiled, saluting her and walking down the steps to his car.
“My God, he has a gorgeous ass,” Penelope mumbled, watching the way his jeans fit his form ever so snugly. She shut the door before she got the urge to run down and pinch his butt. Penelope sighed and turned around, only to see she wasn’t alone.
“What was that about a vibrator?” Jasmine nearly screamed in Penelope’s ear. Stephanie had dropped the popcorn from her excitement. Both of them waited for Penelope to answer.
“Oh God, you guys! Weren’t you supposed to leave ages ago? What are you still doing here? And eating my food, too!” she said, looking at the living room table covered with bowls of food from her pantry.
“Oh no you don’t! You don’t get to change the subject. We want to know what you guys were talking about on your way here,” Stephanie demanded.
“And don’t forget to tell us why Celeste called you guys in the first place!” Jasmine added.
Penelope walked over to the couch and threw herself on it. Too much was happening too soon, and she really didn’t know what the hell was going on herself. She explained what had happened at the restaurant and the ride home with Jack. Her friends drank up every detail like it was the last margarita on Earth.
“Oh, he totally wants to bone you again.” Jasmine spoke first.
Penelope laughed. “No way! I think the guy just wants to work things out with me because I’m his best friend’s sister. They’re close.”
“Wait a minute. How close are we talking?” Stephanie asked, stuffing a handful of popcorn in her mouth. Penelope had always envied the fact that the girl could eat junk food as much as she did and still maintain her supermodel figure.
“I don’t know. I’m guessing pretty close, if she asked the guy to be her maid of honor. She chose him over her own sister. Which is fine. I’m slowly getting over it,” Penelope responded.
“I don’t know, Penny. I’d have to agree with Stephanie. It’s like there’s a gravitational pull between you two.”
Penelope scoffed. “You and your fairy tale talk. The only gravitational pull I have is the one that keeps me from falling off the face of the Earth. Why are you guys so interested in this anyway? Don’t you have your own love lives to keep you entertained?”
“Penny, it’s not every day that our bookworm of a friend has a one-night stand with a man who can only be described as sex on legs. Not to mention that the same man is our friend’s sister’s best friend and is now playing MOH.”
“Thank you for that detailed explanation, Steph,” Penelope answered, a little annoyed. She felt like a fish in a glass bowl with no artificial cave to hide in.
“Penny, your love life sounds like one of those books with the half-naked men on the cover. Don’t you get it? You’re finally one of those heroines in the books you edit!” Jasmine exclaimed a
little too enthusiastically.
“You guys are on crack. This is real life. How that one-night stand happened weeks ago, we will never know. Call it luck, call it fate... whatever it was, it was just one time. I’m back to being me. Never in a million years would a guy like Jack even think of going out with someone like me. He’s not the commitment type.”
Stephanie sighed. “I just hope you come to realize the real you soon instead of this watered-down vision you have of yourself.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
There are two gifts a man could give me that will make me fall hopelessly in love with him forever: Chinese takeout and Coke. It’s as simple as that. Of course, I’ve never met anyone who has unknowingly fed my vice.
DIARY OF A WALLFLOWER: Entry 151
She was so close to throwing it all in and giving up on the bachelorette party. It had been two weeks already and it felt like every day was filled with white lace, salmon or steak, and strippers. Jasmine and Stephanie, who couldn’t wait to find out what Jack and Penelope had in store for Celeste, always brought up the last topic.
Penelope and Jack’s relationship... friendship... acquaintanceship? God, she didn’t even know what the hell to call it. They were civil to one another, which was good. They hardly fought, even though they butted heads at every decision made. If Penelope wanted white, he wanted black. If she said up, he chose down. Nevertheless, they hadn’t killed each other, which had to be a good thing, right? Stephanie kept insisting it was all part of their own kind of foreplay. Their fighting was all pent-up sexual energy vibrating between them.
When Penelope heard that, she burst out laughing. She didn’t think of herself as an ogre’s twin, but she also knew that she didn’t stand a chance against the leggy supermodels Jack loved to date. Or take to bed. She wondered if they ever took any of his clothes home with them. She felt a little pathetic when she decided to wear his hoodie when she was snuggled up on the corner of her couch watching a BBC show.
Yes, it was pathetic, but at least no one was around to witness her creepy attachment to Jack’s clothes. Darcy was right in the middle of professing his love to Lizzie when there was a knock on her door. Penelope checked the time on her cell phone.
2:00 a.m.
Who the hell was visiting her so late? She got up from the sofa and walked over to the door, looking through the peephole. Just her luck, it was the owner of the hoodie himself.
“Penny, I know you’re still awake. I can see the shadows under the door,” he stated. She caught a little smirk on his face. The man and his stupid smirk.
She looked down at her state of dress: her Chip ‘n’ Dale pajama pants and his hoodie.
Yikes, that won’t do.
“Just a second!” she replied, slipping off the hoodie and stuffing it behind one of the throw pillows on the couch. Once it was safely hidden, she opened the door. “Hey,” she said breathlessly. No matter how many times the guy came by her house to pick her up, he always took her breath away just by standing outside her door with that lazy smile and those happy eyes.
“I brought some Chinese takeout and a six-pack of Coke, in glass bottles,” he added. For the first time since she opened the door she noticed the bags he held in his hands. The world could have been ending and she wouldn’t have noticed.
He walked into her living room and set the bags on the coffee table. “I brought a few different entrees because I wasn’t really sure what you liked,” he said taking the many containers out of the bags and placing them on the table. “I brought chopsticks so you can eat out of the cartons, but just in case you don’t know how to use them, I made sure to bring forks too a—” he stopped unpacking the food when he realized Penelope hadn’t moved from the door. “What’s wrong?”
“Why are you here this late with takeout and Coke?”
“Because I couldn’t come earlier today. I was busy with non-wedding related errands. I was starving by the time I finished and just decided to get something to eat,” he explained. “Then I thought of the first person who would still be awake at this hour, and I remembered you have issues with insomnia.”
“It’s not insomnia. I just have a very fucked-up sleeping pattern,” Penelope replied, smiling a little. “Thanks for the food, by the way.”
“Oh no, please don’t tell me you’re not hungry. I can’t eat this all by myself,” Jack exclaimed when Penelope didn’t even make a move toward the food.
“No, it’s not that, it’s just...”
“What? You sick? Maybe you need some chicken soup,” Jack replied, showing some concern.
Penelope shook her head. “It’s a bit too late to eat. I shouldn’t be eating at this hour anyway. And besides, I already brushed my teeth,” she explained, a little sheepish.
“Then brush your teeth again after you eat! Eat, or I will force food down your throat. Not only is that unpleasant, but some of these Chinese dishes have red peppers in them. The really spicy kind. I don’t think you want those stuffed down your throat, do you?” He playfully shot her a stern expression.
Penelope laughed. “Okay, okay. I’ll eat! But when my pajama pants don’t fit me anymore, I’m blaming you!”
“You can just borrow some of my sweatpants.” He lifted his eyebrows. Penelope laughed and blushed a little, remembering the hoodie hiding right behind the throw pillow he was sitting on top of. They started eating and Jack glanced at the TV screen. “Is that Pride and Prejudice?”
Penelope peered up from her food to focus on the paused show, and turned to give Jack a knowing look. “You’ve watched it before?”
Jack huffed. “Your dear sister made me sit through a whole Pride and Prejudice marathon. The show, the movie, and even tried to get me to read the damned book.”
“Not an Austen fan?” Penelope laughed.
“Definitely not. She doesn’t get to the point. It takes her a full paragraph to say a single sentence.”
“Oh? And what kind of author fulfills your needs?”
“Some Palahniuk is a nice way to keep my masculinity intact.”
“Ahh, some transgressive fiction.” Jack nodded. “Do you feel like you’re just living your life through other people’s perspectives?”
Jack slurped the rest of the chow mein into his mouth and contemplated his answer while chewing.
God, he even looks sexy chewing on his food. What the hell is wrong with me?
Penelope was in way over her head. The guy was trying to make things right between them so her sister’s wedding would be a success. It had nothing to do with what her friends kept suggesting. They’d gotten to know each other a little more in the past two weeks. He was an only child, grew up in an upper-middle-class neighborhood with his parents, and in college he was a jock with the brain of a nerd. It wasn’t much to go by, but it was enough for now.
“So?” she inquired again after he swallowed.
“I think, in a way, everyone is formed by society’s standards. There are only a select few who actually go out and do what they want to do.”
“And what does Jack want to do?” Penelope asked, her eyes focusing on his every move.
“I would have liked to be a photographer. It just wasn’t an ideal job for my parents,” he replied, stuffing his face with a chunk of chicken. “Was never good at it either.”
“A photographer? Probably to take pictures of half-naked women, huh?”
“You know, you may find this hard to believe, but I’m not as superficial as you think I am.”
Penelope contemplated that. She had a feeling she had touched a nerve. “So, what would you take pictures of?”
“The city. There’s always something new to see. Any simple object can make the most spectacular photograph.”
Shit. The guy speaks in poetry when his guard is down.
“What does the transgressive Jack do for a living?”
“I work for an accounting firm. One of the branches in my dad’s company is located in Downtown LA.”
“Wow, Mr. Smarty Pants!
And rich, too. It’s a wonder my sister never snapped you up.”
Jack chuckled, a little shy. “Naw, your sister never gave me the time of day.”
Penelope laughed.
“What about you? What does the prim and proper Penelope do for a living? Has to do with books right? No normal human being keeps so many books in their house unless the written word is their life.”
“It’s true. I’m an editor. I studied English Literature in school and knew from the beginning editing was going to be my future. Started off in a journalism internship for the newspaper, then climbed my way up the ladder. I do my own thing now, and so far it’s been good to me.”
“Interesting,” Jack replied. “So, if I decided to write my life story, would you be able to edit it for me?”
“Ha ha. Like anyone would actually want to read your life story,” Penelope replied, adding a little volume to the TV.
“I don’t know. From the way you describe me, it would probably be called Jack Goodman: The Memoir of a Modern-Day Casanova.”
Penelope couldn’t stop herself from laughing while her mouth was full. Jack probably saw more than he bargained for. She quickly closed her mouth and swallowed her food, throwing a sheepish look his way.
“What’s wrong? If you like food, you gotta show it,” he barely managed to say over a mouthful of food.
Penelope smiled appreciatively and turned back to the movie. They quieted down as the voices from the TV filled the room.
* * *
Jack was dreaming. He was floating in the sky, surrounded by big, fluffy clouds. They were so white and mesmerizing, he felt himself reaching out and squeezing a cotton-like cloud. A sudden pain took over his nose.
