I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. My whole world was falling apart in front of me. And in front of a whole lot of other people, too.
“Dr. Booper never paid me more than minimum wage, even though that was well below the starting salary for a hygienist. When he did eventually hire another hygienist—Penny, actually—I tried to quit, but he wouldn’t let me. He said that he would turn me into the cops for having lied about being a dental hygienist, for working under false pretenses! Which I now realize”—she laughed, she actually laughed—“is exactly what Dr. Booper—sorry, Mr. McEvoy—has been doing all along. He just wanted to keep me on for cheap labor.”
By this point, the emcee had completely given up, and was now just sitting at the edge of the stage, dangling his feet. Camille and Candice gently took the microphone from Cyril’s now shaking hands and rubbed her back. She looked like she was about to cry. And then she snapped back to attention, grabbing the top of the microphone from Candice.
“And by the way,” she said bluntly, “he grabs my ass when no one’s looking.”
How could she not have told me that? How could she have never come forward with such blatant sexual harassment?
Because, I realized, I never would have believed it without seeing it. I didn’t even believe it when I saw it happening. The sweet, lovely man who I knew as Dr. Booper had to be utterly and completely defamed before I could even consider such a possibility.
“So now,” Candice said, as Camille comforted Cyril, “we at Whispers of the Serengeti think that the only option now is to strip Dr. Booper of this award, shut down his dental practice, and hopefully, put him in jail?”
Widespread applause met her at that, but I was still processing. My entire adult life had basically been a lie. And then, if Dr. Booper really and truly did do all these things…Happy Healthy Teeth would be shut down. What would happen to me? Was I going to be out of a job?
“Don’t bother trying to run,” said Candice, looking down at Dr. Booper, who was slowly starting to scoot himself off into the wings. “We’ve already called the cops.” And then the three women roughly grabbed the man we had known for years as Dr. Booper, marched him down the rickety steps into the auditorium, and back out through the doors through which I had entered. No doubt the red carpet outside would make for a dramatic arrest.
“So,” said Sven next to me, and I jumped—I had forgotten he was there. “I guess this means it’s finally time for you to stop working like we’ve been talking about for all these years?”
Oh. Right. The plan had always been for me to leave my job when we got married, so that I could spend my time taking care of the beautiful house and perfect children we were bound to have. Maybe I didn’t need to worry about having a job if Dr. Booper went to jail. Everything was working out perfectly after all
“Um,” I said, “are you saying what I think you’re saying?”
“Penny Partridge, you are the perfect woman.” He reached into his coat pocket and began to pull something out.
Oh my god. OH MY GOD. Was this really happening? Holy crap. This was the moment I had waited years for—well, my entire life for—and it was finally, finally happening. Most of the sweat on my dress had finally evaporated, and I just hoped that my makeup had worn off so that my raccoon eyes would be at least slightly less prominent.
With a start, I realized that Ferdinand was still perched on my shoulder, and I almost laughed. Not something I had ever had in mind for a proposal. Not something I had ever wanted at all.
Ferdinand licked my ear.
Sven must have been planning this for some time now. He knew we would be all dressed up, he knew that there would be photographers. That’s why he had cared what I was wearing, had wanted me to be wearing that gorgeous dress I had bought…for his proposal.
In his head, this would have been the right way to do this. Actually, for me, Penny Partridge, it should have been the right way to do this.
So why did it all feel so wrong?
And then, when Ferdinand innocently tried to climb onto Sven’s shoulder and he took a giant step back, I figured it out.
If I married Sven, it was true: I could have the perfect life. Our kids would be gorgeous, we would have enough money to buy a house wherever we wanted, and our wedding would be everything I had ever dreamed it would be.
But maybe I didn’t want to have a perfect life.
Or maybe, perfect meant something different than I had always thought.
“Sven,” I said, before he could say anything more, “hold on.”
He gazed at me with those beautiful clear eyes, and…I felt nothing. I knew that everyone was looking at us right now, but for some reason, my chest didn’t feel tight. Maybe it was because for the first time, I was facing the crowd knowing that I was who I was, nothing more, nothing less.
“Can we…can we talk in private?” I didn’t want to do this in front of everyone. It wouldn’t be fair.
He took another step back. “What? Why? Say it here, Penny. Say what you want to say.”
“I really think…”
“Say it.”
I sighed. At least I had tried. “Listen. I know I’ve always wanted things to go perfectly. But what I’ve learned over the past few weeks is that, well, they don’t. I thought I was building a solid career, and it turns out that I was probably only hired because I have long legs. And you…I saw the way you looked at Toby. How would you feel about me if…well, if I lost an arm someday?”
Sven grimaced. “I hope that doesn’t happen.”
“Well, me too, but that’s not the point. The point is that I don’t want the same things I thought I did. I don’t want perfect anymore. I want…what makes me happy.” I reached up to my shoulder and stroked Ferdinand.
“Uh…so you’re saying that a ferret makes you happier than I do?”
“No! I’m sorry, Sven, but I’m saying…I’m saying I think…no, I know, that I’m not the right girl for you. Not anymore. Please don’t be mad.”
There was a stunned silence from everyone but a very squeaky Ferdinand.
Without a glance over his shoulder, Sven spun around and made an exit that couldn’t have been more dramatic had it been choreographed.
Phew. That was…well, terrible, honestly. But at least I finally said what I had been feeling. At least I finally let myself realize what I had been feeling.
And all I wanted to do now was go home, curl up in bed, and not worry about life for awhile. Too much was happening and I didn’t know how to handle it.
But of course, that was only a pipe dream. The press was going nuts, and Bernard and I were immediately swarmed by journalists, asking us things like “Did you have any idea that Dr. Booper wasn’t really Dr. Booper?” and “What brand of shampoo do you use, and why?”
Ferdinand stayed in my arms for support, and he loved the attention. Especially when reporters gave him grapes. He loved grapes.
And just when I thought things couldn’t get any more ridiculous, two people came strolling toward me that I definitely didn’t expect to see here.
Mom and Cam. But why were they…?
Oh, crap.
“So, Penny,” Mom said when she arrived at my side, arms crossed in front of her. “Did you maybe forget to tell us something?”
Yep. Definitely forgot to tell them not to come today, due to the tiny detail that this wasn’t actually my wedding and that Sven and I had never even been engaged in the first place.
Cam just stood there, shaking his head at me. Because he knew. He had always known.
“Yeah, um…well, here’s the thing. This whole breakup was…a media stunt! Because we are eloping. In. Um. Madagascar.” What the fuck, Penny. You could have picked anywhere in the world, and you chose Madagascar? Where the fuck even IS Madagascar?
“Penny.”
“Yeah, it’s gonna be great. There will be lemurs and stuff.”
“Penny.”
“We have it all worked out, where we’ll be staying. We ha
ve this beautiful little cabin, and there’s a huge flock of parakeets that roost right outside, and—”
Mom sighed. “Penny, stop. You’re okay. Everything’s finally okay.”
But I was starting to realize that things are never “finally okay.” Life keeps moving forward, throwing you curveballs. You never know what you’re going to get. And for the first time, I was maybe possibly sort of fine with that. Toby was helping me be fine with it.
Perfection isn’t perfect. Nothing is.
“Mom?”
“Yes, babe?”
And it all came pouring out of my mouth—the non-proposal, the non-elopement, the truth. There was no Madagascar. There was no proposal. There was…nothing.
Without speaking, Cam put a hand on my shoulder.
I took a breath. “I mean, it’s all fine now. I’m fine.”
“Are you?” said Mom, wiping a tear from my cheek with her thumb.
I hiccuped and rubbed my leaking eyes with the heel of my hand. “Well, no. But I will be.”
Mom was silent for a moment, and I knew she was trying to come up with the right thing to say. “Penny. I am so glad you are no longer with Sven. And I’m so glad you aren’t engaged. Or married.”
Not exactly what I was expecting to hear.
Cam smiled. “Yeah, Sven’s the worst.”
“The worst!” Mom agreed, and I stared at her in shock. “He made you get rid of all of your things!”
Cool. So Mom and Cam had both always hated Sven?
“Why didn’t you guys tell me?”
Cam looked at me seriously. “I tried. Mom wanted to be supportive or whatever.”
And then I remembered that anytime Mom ever said anything slightly negative about Sven, I would get angry and hang up on her, or storm out of the room, or accidentally-on-purpose spill her water glass all over her.
So maybe she had tried to be supportive, while still gently telling me what she really thought.
And maybe the reason I always got so angry at her was because I knew from the start that she was absolutely right.
“I’m sorry,” I said quietly. “I’m sorry for not listening to you. And for getting mad at you when you were always just trying to be supportive. And for—”
“Hey, hey, hey. You’re my kid, remember? No need to apologize for everything. I’ll be happy when you’re happy. Which, for the first time ever, seems to be with an animal.” She gave Ferdinand a nod. I had gotten so comfortable with him that I had forgotten he was there.
“I just can’t believe you thought that I’d believe you were engaged.” Cam shook his head with a smirk, and took a bite out of a brookie from the dessert table.
“Wait, you can’t be eating that!” I nearly yelled, slapping the brookie out of his hand to the floor. “You’re diabetic. You need to be in control of your blood sugar, what are you doing?”
Cam looked unhappily at his ruined dessert on the ground, and then even more unhappily at me. “What’s wrong with you, Penny? You think I don’t freaking prick my own finger throughout the day and administer insulin to myself?”
“No, I just—”
“Come on, Penny, seriously. You only call me when you need something, not even to just check in or say hi. You don’t see me take care of myself all day, every day. It’s like you think I’m irresponsible or something when I don’t actually have the option to be, not if I want to stay alive. You don’t trust me, even though you don’t open your eyes long enough to see that there’s no reason not to.”
I looked to Mom for support, but she was definitely siding with Cam. What the hell?
I just wanted what was best for Cam—I wanted him to stay as healthy as possible. He hadn’t known Dad like I had, and I couldn’t bear to go through losing someone else again. I was just protecting him.
“Cam, I—”
“It’s selfish, Penny.”
How was that selfish? I just wanted what was best for my brother because I was scared of…
Oh. I was scared of losing him. But that was no reason to treat him like he wasn’t the most intelligent little brother in the world. That was no reason to talk down to him. And that was certainly not an excuse for only calling him when I wanted to talk to him about my own problems.
“You’re right. But it’s only because I love…no. I’m not going to make excuses. I do trust you. Whether or not I can see what you’re doing, I know you’ll always make the right choices. Can you forgive me?”
“Penny, it’s okay, relax. You just need to be more self-aware, that’s all, okay?” Jesus. Damn seventeen-year-old, making me feel like an idiot.
“And you’re sure you measured out the right amount of insulin for those desserts?”
“What did I just tell you?”
Right, right. “I need to go talk to someone. Can you two entertain yourselves for awhile?”
I hadn’t seen Cyril since she helped to usher Dr. Booper to the police, and I hoped that she and Lester had gone home so that she could decompress. Maybe read some Wendell Loom or something.
Camille and Candice were back onstage, now surrounded by quite the crowd of supporters. They were holding themselves so elegantly and passing out business cards so smoothly that I didn’t even notice they were doing it for awhile. They seemed to have a lot to say about the whole Dr. Booper thing—certainly more than I did on the matter. It was incredible to me that they knew so much about this whole scandal—and even more incredible that they had never bothered to say anything about it to me. We were roommates, after all.
Although, come to think about it, maybe I couldn’t exactly blame them. I had never gone out of my way to be particularly nice to them, let alone even to have a conversation. Maybe if I had listened to them once in awhile, they would’ve warned me.
Suddenly, Ferdinand started squeaking even louder than he had been, and it took me only a moment to figure out why. Walking briskly towards me was a dirty, messy-haired, bedraggled Toby.
“Penny,” he said, before he even reached me, and I found my legs carrying me over to him without me telling them to. “You’re not perfect. Okay? You’re not. And your life isn’t perfect, and it’s never going to be. But you’ve made me so much happier than I ever thought I could be.”
He took both of my hands in his left hand, and placed his other arm on top. It didn’t even occur to me to flinch when his amputation scar brushed me. “When my wife left me, I truly didn’t think I would ever figure things out. I lost everything, Penny.” For the first time, I tried to imagine, really tried, what that would have felt like. I couldn’t do it. If all that stuff had happened to me, it would have broken me. I was sure of it.
“You are so funny and silly and I just want to spend all my time with you. And look! Even Ferdinand loves you.” I looked down at the ferret, who was now curled up, fast asleep in my arms. “You hated him when we first met, remember?”
Oh, I remembered. I’d never been an animal person, and I was still slightly in shock that I was holding one in my bare hands. Animals, I had always thought, ruin your clothes and smell bad and mess everything up. I had never understood the desire for them.
Until now. Because Ferdinand was one of the most loving, wonderful creatures I had ever known. Including many of the humans in my life.
“Toby,” I said. “You’re just…you’re great.” I didn’t have words. And I didn’t need words. He hugged me close and I fell into him, Ferdinand slightly squished between us. As Toby stroked my hair, I realized I was feeling something I had never before felt with Sven. I felt like…myself. Whoever the hell that was.
“Wanna get out of here?” Toby whispered into my ear, and I almost laughed at the cliché line.
I tilted my head up towards his and smiled at him. “I really, really do.”
It took us about ten minutes to shake the crowds, by pretending that we both had to pee badly at slightly different times, then sneaking up onto the stage and into the wings. Toby had figured there would be a back entrance somewhere, and
he was right—there was a stage door that opened directly into an alley.
The air was cold, but I didn’t feel it, with Toby’s hand wrapped around my own. Together we walked, watching the city at night, two people from worlds apart, sharing the same evening, the same view, the same moment.
Walking beside Toby, I could ignore my frozen feet, my disaster of a breakup, my fear of the future. All the things that I had always thought mattered drifted away, and even though I felt like I should be feeling something more—heartbroken or upset or lonely or confused…I just, wasn’t. Somehow, despite everything that had just happened, despite everything that should have made this one of the worst nights of my life, I felt more content than I had in as long as I could remember.
We found ourselves walking amongst the beautiful buildings and monuments, lit brightly by the streetlights, reflected on the ice beneath us. We stopped outside of the Lincoln Memorial, a place I usually avoided in the summer due to ridiculous amounts of tourists. But right now, late at night, in the chill of winter, it was empty.
“Toby,” I said, suddenly turning to him. He stopped and rested his good hand on my waist, his other arm stroking my own. “What…what do you even see in me? I honestly don’t even know. You’ve always been so good to me, despite the way I’ve treated you, despite my freaking panic attacks. Like, what have I ever even done for you?”
He looked at me, eyebrows raised in confusion. “Here’s the thing, Penny,” he said, clearly trying to gather his thoughts, “I’ve had more fun with you than I’ve had with pretty much anyone. I’ve never had someone give so fully of themselves to me, without a thought for themselves. You gave up your award ceremony to find my ferret. I’ve never known a single other person who would do that.”
“Not even your ex-wife?” I said, crossing my arms.
“Nope. And Ferdinand was hers. My responsibility, though, of course.”
“Of course.”
Somehow, we had gotten even closer together than we had been before. I didn’t remember taking a step in, I didn’t remember putting my arms around his shoulders, and I certainly didn’t remember leaning in so that our noses were almost touching. But here we were.
Impractically Perfect: A Romantic Comedy Page 18
