Footsteps raced up from the basement. Paul burst out through the door, galloped over to me, and lifted me in the air before I could even let out a breath. “Babe, babe, babe, babe, babe, my babe, my baby…”
He was squeezing me so hard I couldn’t breathe. Which is how it should be, I suppose.
* * *
He dragged me down into the basement a few minutes later. This was where we usually hung out. This was where we usually had sex. I’ll marry Paul, fine, I’ll do it to survive, but, man, I don’t know if I could have sex with him.… I’m sure I could eventually. I’m sure I’ll forget about my three days at Wild Wolf Resort with Benedict Pendleton. I’m sure I’ll eventually convince myself our hours in the warming hut were just a dream.
“Babe, babe,” he said, sitting me down on the black basement couch. “What did you hear? What did Stacy tell you?”
I just shook my head. He thinks I’m going to care if he screwed another girl. I don’t care at all. I don’t care at all, Paul, just let me live here and don’t try to kiss me. You can have sex with whoever you want, just let me stay here with you and your family.
“Stacy told me to come over and her parents weren’t home and we got drunk, so I’m not sure any of what she said even happened but you believe me, right?”
“Yes,” I said, even though I didn’t believe a word he said. But I don’t care, Paul! Stop thinking I care! I think you’re a moron! But I don’t care!
“She’s a fat pig anyway. She’s a fucking whore.…”
Whore. Whore. I don’t know. That word. I hate him saying that word.
“So I don’t want you talking to that whore ever again. You hear me? Never again.”
“Don’t use that word.” I couldn’t not say that. I’ll live here, I’ll pretend I still love you, but please don’t use that word.
“What? What’s your problem?”
“Just don’t use that word.”
“Why the fuck are you telling me what to say? What’s wrong with you?”
I should apologize. I just need to hide. Hide here.
“What happened? Your mom called earlier in one of her rampages. Said something about how I better keep you away from the retard. What the fuck did she mean? I thought she was in one of her moods, but now, you talking back to me, I don’t know.…”
“Don’t use that word either.”
“WHAT THE HELL IS YOUR PROBLEM?”
Become invisible. Become invisible. Become invisible.
“Have you been talking to that Benedict kid? Is that the retard? Have you been talking to him? If I hear you’ve been talking to him, I’m going to be pretty pissed, Pen. Pretty fucking pissed.”
Stay invisible? Stay invisible? Stay invisible?
He stood up, loomed over me. “Where’s your phone? If I find his name on your phone, I’ll murder him. Fucking murder that retard!”
* * *
Oh … Benedict …
Oh, Benedict.
It was never going to work. I know. It was only a matter of time before you saw my mom go nuts. When you saw that, you would know I was doomed. You would know I wasn’t worth it. I wish it wasn’t today. I wish that wasn’t the way it happened. But it was always going to happen.
I’m glad we happened anyway.
I’m glad our mystical trip inside the warming hut happened.
Because I can’t go back.
I can’t be invisible.
I have to be me.
The me you loved.
The me I like.
* * *
“Paul, I’m sorry I came here. I don’t care that you slept with Stacy. Over the past three days, I fell in love with Benedict.…”
His open palm was descending so fast I didn’t even realize it was coming at my head until impact. My body went limp, bounced off the couch, and onto the ground. Paul was yelling. He was half apologizing and half blaming.
Yelling and screaming and hitting …
I get it, Mom and Dad. I get it. My whole body is flowing with adrenaline. I feel alive. Not alive like I felt in the warming hut with Benedict. Not alive like I’m excited to be alive. More like alive in that I need to fight to stay alive. So I get it. If you had to choose between death and this, I guess I’d choose this. But all this, all this yelling and screaming and fighting … was my parents’ way of feeling alive. They can fucking have it. I want my own.
I stood up, taking in as brave a breath as I could even though I was sure he was going to hit me again. He was pacing, circling, like a dog. Maybe I could escape.
“Paul. I’m leaving.”
“No you’re not, Pen! No you’re not!”
“I’m leaving. If you hit me again, or ever, ever even talk to Benedict, I’ll tell everyone about—” He didn’t let me finish. He hit me again. I was ready this time, but he still caught me across my mouth. I managed to stay on my feet, but my face burned. Fire. Flames. I said no more yelling, but I have to yell so that I can save myself. It’s okay to yell to save yourself. You can’t be silent if silence is death.
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”
He tried to tackle me, to quiet me, but I screamed until his mother came downstairs.
“What’s wrong? What happened?” his mother said, then saw my face. Her reaction made me taste the blood in my mouth. “Oh, no, no, Paul … no, no … Why’d you do this? Why? Come on, honey, I’ll get you some ice.” But I could see her darkness building. I’d never seen it in her. It looked just like my mom’s. She twisted back at her son and yelled, “Paul! Why’d you do that!”
And she slapped him.
I had never seen her do that before. But it all made sense now. Why he was drawn to me and I was drawn to him. Why this felt like a second home. Because it’s just like my first home. They just did a better job of faking it.
Maybe if I were writing the fictional version of my life, I would have said something super wise and witty like “He learned it from you.” Or maybe “That’s why.” But I’m not fictional. I’m just me. So I just left.
* * *
Once back in the car, I thought about not telling anyone. Just being happy I got away.
Screw that.
I went to the cops.
I could never report my parents’ craziness toward each other when I was a kid. But I could report it being done to me.
My mom’s cop friend, Officer Roberts, was there, but I avoided him. I’m sure he’d call her. Who cares now?
I got lucky. I got a girl cop. Officer Sansone. She was sweet but serious, told me we didn’t need to call my parents if I didn’t want to. She drove me to the hospital. Talked to me while her partner wrote down the report. They took pictures.
When we got back to the police station, they said they were going to arrest Paul. It felt real. Good. They asked if they could call anyone for me, but I said no.
I had absolutely no idea what I was going to do. I had absolutely no one I could go to.
* * *
Oh. Yeah. Wait. Maybe there was one person. The person that had seen and heard so much of my life and yet had said so little.
The priest.
Father Jeremy.
I could go to him. Not to him. But maybe he’d meet me somewhere to talk. I went back into the station and used their phone. He answered. His voice had always annoyed me, but tonight it felt gentle. I needed gentle.
“Can you meet me at Roth’s Diner?” I asked.
59
B …
I didn’t know when my dad was going to come home. Perhaps tonight, perhaps tomorrow. I didn’t know. Not knowing made me not want to go home even though I had nowhere else I could go. Eventually I would have to, but I would avoid it as long as possible.
* * *
Because you’re pathetic, Evil Benny said.
Yes.
* * *
I pulled over on the side of the road and took out my phone. I signed on to Facebook because I knew why, but I didn’t want to admit I kne
w why. I wrote her back. I said, That would be nice. Are you free tonight, Allison?—Benedict.
* * *
Evil Benny said, You sound so desperate asking her out at 9:22 p.m. on a Monday.
“I am desperate,” I said out loud to the voice in my head. This was not a good sign for my mental health.
* * *
Even if Allison did write me back, I didn’t think she would respond right away. So I went to my Facebook wall to look at my birthday messages. I have four hundred friends because everyone agrees to be your friend on Facebook even though no one really wanted to be my friend. (Except Robert, but Robert wouldn’t want to be my friend when he found out I had sex with the one girl he ever told me he liked.) Of my four hundred Facebook “friends,” only eight had wished me a happy birthday. I think if you were to do a survey of all the people on Facebook who got the smallest percentage of birthday messages on their wall, I would be the smallest by a lot.
One of the eight messages was Robert. One was my mother. Three were my cousins who live in Cleveland and Atlanta. One was Allison Wray. (Happy birthday, Benedict!) One was Gator Green. (The only unexpected one. It said, happy birthday to my fellow library ghost.)
The last was from Penelope. I got excited, as if my heart had launched into my head, until I realized she had written it this morning while we were still at breakfast at the resort. That was after our first kiss, but before the warming hut. So it was like a message frozen in time. Not literally. I’m not sure how anything could be literally frozen in time. Not important, Benedict. Penelope’s frozen Facebook message said, hb b.
It was very simple. Three letters. But I could hear Penelope’s voice saying them, and once I could hear Penelope’s voice saying them, I could see her mouth saying them, and once I could see her mouth, I could see the rest of her and then I cried. I cried like a little boy would cry; my shoulders shook and snot came out of my nose, which I wiped on my car seat because car seats are a stupid thing to care about being clean when you have a broken heart.
* * *
My phone beeped. It was a message from Allison. Okay! That would be fun! Where do you want to meet?
I responded with the only place I knew stayed open after ten in Riverbend:
Roth’s Diner.
60
Penelope
I felt naked without my phone. But, I don’t know, I also felt free. I’m sure if I had it, I’d be checking it every second to see if Benedict would have called or texted and he wouldn’t because I’m sure he was banned from ever even thinking about me again and even if he wasn’t I’m sure he banned himself from ever thinking about the “whore” … yeah … yeah, anyway, better without my phone tonight. Better.
When I walked into Roth’s Diner, Father Jeremy wasn’t there yet, so I asked the host if I could sit in the closed section. I’d need to say some crap about my parents that I didn’t want anyone else hearing but I knew the only way they’d sit me there was if I told them who I was meeting, so I said, “I’m meeting Father Jeremy.” Everyone knew him at Roth’s, mainly because my mom and him came here for breakfast whenever she decided not to be a hermit, which was like every third day. And he’s a priest. Everyone respects priests, which is stupid but, hell, I was the one needing him now and I’m the last person who ever thought I’d need one. Not that I need a priest; I just need someone and he’s the only person I have left that could meet me.
The host said of course and let me past the rope and to a booth around the corner. Without my phone, I had to just sit there and wait without doing anything, which I can’t remember ever doing.
* * *
He arrived pretty quickly for an old guy and he scurried to the booth once the host pointed him my way. If he was an actor, he could play one of those hobbits in those movies.
“Good evening, Penelope, thanks for meeting me,” he said as he took off his jacket and laid it on the booth behind him. He wasn’t wearing his priest uniform, the collar thing, just a sports jacket and corduroys.
“You came to meet me, Father Jeremy. I owe you a thank-you.”
“Oh, yes, I guess so.…” He looked at me like I just spoke Latin. But all I did was speak in a complete sentence to him, which I hadn’t done since maybe ever. “Well, then, thank you for giving me a good reason to get out of my apartment.”
A waitress with burnt-orange hair came over and slid two waters onto the table. “Hiya, Father.”
“Hello, Dolores. This is my friend Penelope.”
“Hiya, Penelope.”
“Hi,” I said. I felt like I was in some alternate reality where we were possessed by spirits who like to spend a lot of time saying hello.
“Would you like something to eat, Penelope?” Jeremy asked.
“No,” I said, even though I was starving.
“Maybe order something just in case? You don’t have to eat it if you don’t want to.”
“Okay,” I said, and ordered eggs because I like ordering breakfast at night sometimes. Jeremy the Priest ordered some pancakes and coffee. I guess he liked ordering breakfast at night sometimes too.
After the waitress left, Father Jeremy leaned forward onto the table as if he needed to confess something. “Before we begin, and I am open to whatever you wish to discuss including the quality of the pancakes, I would like you to know your mother called me.” I braced myself. He continued, “I didn’t tell her you called me nor that we were going to meet. But I thought you should know that I am aware of some of what happened today.”
Well, I … I don’t know … She had already won, right? My mom gave her side before I could give mine. Father Jeremy was always going to be on her side anyway, but now it all seemed pointless.
“I am also going to tell you that my relationship with your mother is more complex than you are entirely aware.…”
Oh-my-god, they are lovers or something, oh, no … wait, just too impossible …
“I do not believe in advising parents in front of their children nor children in front of their parents. It makes the person defensive to receive advice in front of others and therefore it’s not very helpful. That is why I have never said anything about your mother’s behavior in front of you.”
Which was true. I always assumed it was because she had him brainwashed with free pizza. But I guess he had never said anything critical to me either. In fact, he might be the only person who never has.
“But, when it’s just me and your mother, I try to advise her toward a more patient and understanding approach when it comes to communicating with you. I am only telling you this now because I feel we have reached a critical point and I don’t want you to think that I have, or will ever, defend some of your parents’ behavior.”
“Okay,” I said. All he said actually made me feel better, but I couldn’t tell him that.
“Fantastic. Then, if you wish, we can discuss what happened today. Or I can tell you about my very exciting day doing inventory in the church kitchen.”
Yeah … “Okay, but I guess you should know…” I can’t believe I was about to tell a priest this but I guess this me, this post-Benedict me, just couldn’t waste my time not being real. “… that I don’t believe in God. Or at least a God like the one the church or my mom talks about. I sure as hell don’t believe in religion or Jesus the way she does. So it’s not really going to help me if you start talking about it like it’s going to mean anything to me.”
“I appreciate you saying that, Penelope. I appreciate someone who understands themselves the way you do.” This conversation was already weirder than I thought it could be. But then Father Jeremy made it even weirder and said, “I don’t really believe in God the way the church does either. I suppose I did when I started out, but we all change in our hearts even if the circumstances around us can’t change.”
I’m pretty sure Jeremy the Catholic Priest just told me he wasn’t a Catholic. Not sure how to process this right now.
“Though I do ask you keep that in confidence between us. I am very gra
teful that my life in the church has provided me with the opportunities it has. Such as the chance to have breakfast at ten o’clock at night with someone like you.”
“I would never.”
“I appreciate that. It makes me feel safe to know that I can tell you something and it will remain between us. I hope you know I would do you the same honor.”
* * *
And … yeah … and so I did. Told him everything. Everything. Okay, let me clarify everything. I told him I had sex with Benedict, fell in love, all the yelling, screaming, name calling, getting hit by Paul, the police, all that. I left out details like Benedict making me orgasm. I don’t care how wise and understanding Father Jeremy is, he’s still seventy years old and a priest and there are just some things that don’t need to be said and not saying them doesn’t make you any less honest, it just makes you respectful of who’s listening.
Anyway, after I was all done, I felt better. The eggs and a few bites of Jeremy’s pancakes helped too. You know, even if he didn’t say another word, it would have been worth meeting him.
Then he said, “Today sounds like it was one of the most difficult, and special, and important, days of your life.”
“Yeah.”
“And I am very honored you shared it with me.”
Yeah … okay. I thought that was it. I “confessed.” He thanked me for confessing. I feel better. He feels like he did his job.
But then he looked off, and I could see him thinking, and then he turned back toward me and he said, “There comes a time when we must all accept that people are not going to change no matter how much we wish they would change.”
Yeah …
“Penelope, I don’t think your parents are ever going to change.”
Yeah …
“But I think you have the power to change. I know you do. So I am going to break the very confidence I’ve just spoken about … and tell you about something that happened to your mom. And to you. And to your dad.”
The Nerdy and the Dirty Page 18
