Dr. Booper looked me up and down, furrowing his eyebrows in a pitying sort of way. “Penny,” he said, “I really just don’t have the budget for raises right now. You know how things have been lately.” I honestly didn’t, but I nodded as if I did. “I wish I could give you more money—if I had it, I’d triple your salary, I think you know that.”
I choked down the bite of Thin Mint that had become mushy in my mouth. “Yes. I guess I was just hoping...because like, when I started here, you did promise that after six months my wage would increase. And when that didn’t happen, I didn’t say anything. And you give me lots of responsibilities all the time, but you never pay me for them. But...I understand.”
“I can’t make money magically appear, Penny,” he said apologetically. “But! I know something that might cheer you up! I know how you love designing things—why don’t you talk to Bernard about the new ‘Thank You’ postcard we are sending out to new patients? He’s struggling quite a bit with it.”
Oooh! A new project!! And this one sounded right up my alley. I thanked him, then bounded out of the office to the front desk, dumping the uneaten part of my Thin Mint in the trash.
“Bernard! I’m supposed to help you with making those postcards!” I said a little too loudly. I had always enjoyed graphic design, and had been making my own greeting cards and photo collages on the computer since college.
Bernard’s nose was inches from his computer screen, and he was shaking and sweating. Before I could ask him if he had a fever, he said, “I got the shaft end of the stick on this one. Absolutely the most stressful thing I’ve ever had to do. You can go ahead and take over if you want, I’m done.” He gave me his chair and went outside for some “fresh air,” but I knew it was really to look at the robin’s nest by the back door. Birdwatching was one of his favorite activities.
Beaming, I got to work, and made not only “Thank You” cards, but “Get Well Soon!” “Sorry for Your Loss” and “We Really Don’t Like You, Please Find a Different Dentist” cards. It was a good day.
It wasn’t until my commute home that it occurred to me that I had, yet again, taken on yet another responsibility for no more pay.
Chapter Four
Relationships Are Great!
“DIE! DIE!” I screamed at the television, pressing random buttons on Sven’s Xbox controller as fast as I could. “HOW ARE YOU BEATING ME?”
Sven was lounging lazily on the loveseat, absolutely murdering me at Player vs. Player Call of Duty while hardly lifting a finger. I, on the other hand, was kneeling on the floor, so close to the TV that my nose was nearly touching it. Probably had something to do with why I never saw the enemies approaching in my periphery.
“You gotta chill out, Penny, it’s all way easier when you’re relaxed,” he said. He was beating me one-handed, the other hand holding a slice of dripping pizza.
This was the first night I had seen Sven in a week: I had refrained from calling him, texting him, and sending him inappropriate gifs for an entire 24 hours, which I considered to be a crowning achievement. For some reason, Sven was less impressed. He didn’t particularly appreciate my 3am phone call when I suddenly realized that there was one season of The Office that I had somehow never seen, nor did he enjoy my texting him eggplant emojis for the entire duration of a work conference I had to go to called “Orifaces and You.”
Eventually, though, Sven did get lonely, or possibly, I just wore him down. Either way, we had planned a long evening together, just the two of us, and it was going really well. We had ordered an extra-large mushroom-and-sausage pizza, had several bottles of wine at our disposal, and it was Friday night—no responsibilities tomorrow. It was perfect timing, really; after a whole week, I had been getting lonely—and so had my vagina.
“COME ON, ASSHOLES, GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER!! GET OUT OF MY WAY, SVEN, YOU’RE RUINING MY FORMATION!”
He was just laughing and licking sauce off his fingers. I was getting angry.
“I’m pretty sure my controller’s broken.”
“No, it’s not, you’re just...really bad at this!”
“BUT THE GUYS AREN’T LISTENING TO ME! And I keep spinning in circles staring at the sky. There’s no way that’s my fault.”
Sven grabbed the controller with his saucy fingers, and within thirty seconds, had killed every other player, including himself.
“See?” he said, tossing the controller back to me. It was covered in pizza oil. “Not broken.”
Normally, I wouldn’t have been able to stand an oily Xbox controller and would have immediately wiped it down with a napkin, but I squashed my impulses and instead crawled up on the loveseat next to Sven.
“It’s good to see you,” I said, squeezing his arm.
Sven grinned at me. God, he was so handsome. I often wondered how I had ended up with such a sexy guy. He was most definitely out of my league. I sucked in the roll of fat on my stomach and smiled back.
“Well, absence makes the heart grow fonder.”
Alright, Shakespeare, take it down a notch. It’s not like I asked for this. It’s not like this is a whole blessing in disguise or whatever. This sucks.
But it’s what he wanted.
“It was already pretty fond before,” I said playfully, nuzzling his shoulder.
He wrapped his arm around me and squeezed my butt. I snuggled in closer, bringing my nose up to his chin. And then we were kissing.
I had really missed this. Mostly. Part of me missed that feeling I used to get with him, where I was all tingly everywhere, but we had been together a long time. It made sense that that had gone away a bit.
His hands reached under my shirt, sliding beneath my bra and grabbing at my breasts. It hurt a little bit, but I wasn’t going to say anything. It had been awhile for both of us.
He ripped off my shirt, and I helped him with my jeans, and he took off his pants all on his own. I was straddling him on the couch, when over the sound of our breathing I heard a very loud, very insistent vibration.
“Oh, fuck,” he said, throwing me off him so fast and jumping to his feet that I was sure he must have been bit by a snake or something. “Is that me?”
“I think it’s...”
He began digging around the couch, beneath our clothes, under the coffee table. “Fuck, fuck, fuck. Where is it?”
“Sven!” I said, holding up my vibrating phone. “It’s mine. Relax, okay?”
Breathing a sigh of relief, he collapsed back on the couch. “I just can’t get distracted from work. We have a lot going on, and...”
I barely heard the rest of his sentence. How is spending a few hours with your girlfriend for the first time in a week getting “distracted from work”? On a FRIDAY NIGHT?!
But I didn’t say anything. This was what he wanted.
My phone had stopped vibrating, but when I checked to see who had called me, I realized there were actually four missed calls and a voicemail. From Mom. Shit. This wasn’t like her. Mom was always trying to be a “cool mom.” Back when I was in high school, she had gotten texting before any of my friends even did, and to this day it was her preferred method of communication.
What if something had happened to Cam?
He was diabetic, and had only been diagnosed a year ago. He had fallen into a coma and Mom had barely gotten him to the hospital on time. Cam was usually good about checking his blood sugar, but what if he had made a mistake?
Shakily, I hit “call back,” and my mother picked up on the first ring.
“Mom!” I said. “Is everything okay? Is it Cam? Are you okay? What’s going on? Why—”
“Penny. Everything’s fine! Why are you so anxious?”
Instead of saying “because I haven’t gotten laid in awhile,” I mumbled noncommittally.
“Hun, I’m just calling you because you haven’t UPDATED ME ON THE PROPOSAL YET! Was it amazing? Was it beautiful? Did you set a date yet?”
“OH! Right. That. Well...you see...”
Sven was listening curiousl
y, and I dearly hoped that she wasn’t loud enough for him to hear. My worst nightmare—after of course, the non-proposal that I had already experienced—was Sven finding out that I had thought there was going to be a proposal.
What was I supposed to say?
“It was amazing, Mom. I’ll tell you all about it later, but right now I’m kind of...occupied.”
“Of course, it’s Friday night, you’re probably spending some alone time with your...FIANCÉ!”
I put my thumb over the speaker as she yelled. Before she could say anything else incriminating, I turned the volume all the way down.
Close one.
“Right, exactly. So...I gotta go. But uh, first…is Cam there?”
My mom confirmed that he was, and while she was yelling for him, my body started to catch up with my brain. The panic I had felt earlier had whooshed in and out of me so fast, that I wasn’t sure what to feel, and I started trembling all over. By the time Cam got on the phone, I was taking shaking breaths to try to stop the tears from overflowing.
“Penny?” came his soft voice, and it was enough to set me off.
The tears poured silently as we spoke, and I prayed that he couldn’t hear my quiet sobs. “Cam,” I whispered, “you never call anymore.”
“Well. You’re busy. I don’t want to disrupt you.”
“Hey. Listen here. I am never too busy for you, you understand?” I didn’t say it, but I was also not nearly as busy as he seemed to think I was. Sure, I worked full-time, but that was about it. Without Sven to occupy me for the past week, I would have welcomed a long talk with Cam, in order to distract me from pacing around my apartment and bleaching everything (sometimes, I like cleaning too much).
Cam wasn’t exactly the talkative type, and he didn’t have much to say. But when he did speak, he was one of the most intelligent, insightful kids I had ever met. I was convinced he was going to work for NASA or something, but lately, all he had seemed interested in was playing Magic.
“So, you’re engaged.” It wasn’t a question.
“Yep!” I lied.
“Interesting choice.” I didn’t try to ask him what that meant; Cam had spoken cryptically ever since he read his first murder mystery.
“Well. You checking your blood sugar enough? You’re letting people know if you ever feel funny, right?”
And just like I had flipped a switch, Cam turned into a sullen teenager again.
“Penny, leave me alone, I’ve got this, okay?”
“Okay, dude. I love you.”
We hung up, and I let out a breath that I was sure I had been holding for the past five minutes or so. Totally physically possible.
Sven was no longer in the living room, but it only took him a moment to appear from the bedroom, fully dressed in his pajamas.
“Everything okay?” he asked.
I nodded. “It was nothing, but you know how I get about Cam sometimes. I don’t know what it is...it’s just like, I can’t get it out of my head that something bad will happen to him. Losing Dad was hard enough, I don’t want to lose my little brother, too.”
When I looked back up at Sven, it seemed like he had hardly been listening. “Yeah, so...I kinda need to get some rest tonight. So I think maybe you should head on home.”
Suddenly, I was very aware that I was still naked.
“Oh!” I said. “I thought...maybe you wanted me to stay the night...but...sure, if that’s what you want!”
“Yeah, I just need some alone time.”
I smiled brightly. “No problem! I totally understand.”
I threw on my jeans and my shirt, stuffed my bra in my purse, and headed outside as quickly as possible. His apartment wasn’t far from mine, and even though the chill of winter was beginning to set in, I wanted to walk.
My tears mixed with the snowflakes falling gently on my lips, turning them salty.
Of course it was just my luck that when I arrived home, Gillian had just left for the weekend for a work retreat. I knew this because there was a large box directly in the doorway with a picture of a vanity on it, presumably for her bedroom, and a note that read “hey ladies, put this together for me, xoxo Gillian.” I left it where it was and stepped over it into the apartment.
I needed to talk to someone, needed some sort of distraction. Normally, Mom was that person for me, but, well...it would break her heart to find out that things weren’t going nearly as well as I had convinced her.
The only thing I could think to do, however, was seek company from the only other living being in the house—Mrs. Purrpaws. While Gillian was gone, it was my responsibility to feed her, and company from a cranky cat was better than no company at all. I whistled for her while portioning food into her bowl, and she came silently running to me.
As soon as she turned the corner and saw me by the bowl, however, she froze in her tracks. Her back stiffened, and she crouched down low to the ground. Nearly too late, I realized she was gearing up for an attack, and I ran into my bedroom as fast as I could, not even daring to look behind me.
I was in my underwear, lying in bed, blasting “Hey There, Delilah” on repeat, watching a violent encounter between two of my ants, and halfway through yet another bottle of wine when there was a quiet knock on my door. I had thought I was alone, and nearly spit a mouthful of wine all over myself.
“Yeah?” I said, pulling on a pair of sweatpants. “What’s up?”
Either Camille or Candice tentatively opened the door and poked her head in.
“We were just, uh, wondering if you could keep it down a little. We’re recording our podcast right now, and you know how sound travels through here...”
I really wished I had known they were home, or I wouldn’t have been playing such an embarrassing song. Or at least I would’ve used headphones or something.
“Yeaaaaaaah,” I said, “sorry about that.” I muted my laptop, and the silence hit me like a freight train. If the freight train was more of like, a quiet ghost freight train, anyway.
“Thanks!” Camille/Candice was almost back into the hallway when, against my better judgement I called out to her.
“Hey, Ca...wait! Do you like...want an audience or anything? Maybe I could give you feedback, or something, or...” I didn’t really have much of a plan, but the idea of being alone was even worse than being with my weirdo roommates, and desperation will do strange things to a person.
Her eyes grew wide—like, literally, became about twice their normal size, and for a moment I was sure there was a wasp or something on me. But then a huge grin split across her face.
“None of our friends have ever been interested in our podcast!” she said, more animated than I had seen her in the fifteen months we had lived together. I wouldn’t exactly call her a “friend,” but I wasn’t feeling like turning down that opportunity at this point. “We would absolutely love it if you watched.”
Honestly, I always had been a teeny bit curious about it. After all, the apartment wasn’t particularly big—where did they put all their equipment? What did they talk about? Were they more interesting on a podcast than they were in real life?
I certainly hoped so. Besides, I had to get through this evening somehow.
Five minutes later, I was seated on the foot of Candice’s bed, sucking on a stick of celery. I had a bowl celery and carrots next to me that I had been planning on eating to make up for the pizza at Sven’s, but the twins couldn’t have the loud chewing noises during their recording. So I pretended that my vegetables were lollipops.
I was so confused. This was just a bedroom, not a recording studio. There were two beds, two nightstands, and one very sad, half-empty dresser (between the two of them, they only had about a dozen outfits.)
Maybe the twins were just delusional, convinced that they were making this podcast, distributing it to thousands of people. They were probably just imagining the whole thing, studio setup and all. Yes, that must be it.
And then they opened their walk-in closet.
Instead of clothes, they had filled it with a huge desk, two microphones, a computer, and a lot of other intimidating equipment-y stuff that I couldn’t even begin to fathom what it did.
“What’s all over the walls?” I asked, pointing at the grey foamy eggcrates that were lining the entire closet.
“Soundproofing,” Camille or Candice said. “This place has thin walls.”
I watched in fascination as they put on their headphones, ruffled through a folder of papers, and sat at their giant desk that I hadn’t known existed earlier today. People can really surprise you sometimes.
Because...Camille and Candice were, well, kinda cool! Not like actually cool, and I would never tell Gillian I thought this. One of her favorite activities was making fun of them. But they were at least a lot less dull than I had always dismissed them as being.
“Today, on Whispers of the Serengeti, we will be discussing the origins of wall paint: do you really need as many coats as they say you do? We will also be interviewing several flat-earth believers, and explaining why you should believe right along with them.
Wait. Hold up. Was their show about conspiracy theories? More importantly, was it about conspiracy theories that they actually believed?
Okay, I always knew the twins were nuts. They were avid curlers, which until very recently I thought meant that they really liked using heat tools on their hair. When I found a bag of their gear in a closet, Gillian explained to me that it’s a sport where you sweep an ice rink. They also almost exclusively ate pastrami sandwiches, and read a lot of biographies. I guess that last part wasn’t so weird.
Impractically Perfect: A Romantic Comedy Page 3
