Penny in London

by Fisher Amelie

  “There has to be at least seventy-five people here!” I yelled over the booming music and chattering crowd. “I didn’t even think I knew seventy-five people in London!”

  “Apparently you do, love!” Oliver smiled then took my hand and spun me in a circle.

  He swung me to him, our chests and stomachs pressed together. “I’m very happy,” I declared.

  This made him smile. “That’s very good news.”

  “How so?”

  “I can only be happy when you are, Pen.”

  “Are you happy then?” I asked.

  “Deliriously so, darling.”

  I kissed his cheek then and dragged him onto the “dance floor,” i.e. the connected dining to the kitchen, with the other dancers. Vampire Weekend’s “Taxi Cab” rang through the room and I wrapped my hands around Oliver’s neck. We swayed back and forth slowly, like time didn’t count, as if the song would last forever.

  “This is our first dance,” he said.

  I shook my head. “No, it’s not.”

  He looked surprised. “I think I’d remember, Pen,” he said. He turned pensive for a moment. “Oh that night in the Bray Village pub, but I don’t count it.”

  “Neither do I, but I wasn’t even referring to that one. Remember last year, we all went to that terrible pub in Kent to meet that random chick Alfie met in town the week before.”

  “Oh my God, yes, I remember that. Terrible night. We told him it wouldn’t work, but he insisted.”

  Oliver searched the room for someone. “Alfie!” he yelled out. “Alfie!”

  “Yeah, mate!” Alfie shouted back.

  “Remember that useless night in Kent?”

  “You promised, you wank!”

  “She wanted none of you, yeah?”

  “Shut it!” Alfie called back.

  Oli turned back to me. “He’s an idiot.”

  “I know,” I agreed, laughing.

  “So?” he asked.

  “So, what?”

  “The dance.”

  “Yeah. Anyway, it was late. We’d been there for hours and Alfie had gotten nowhere with that girl, just as we predicted, which made the trip even more worthless. I’d gotten bored and I begged Graham to dance with me, but he was in a foul mood and told me to piss off. Instead of ignoring me like the rest of them, you stood up, sloshed out of your mind, and you said—”

  “I’ll dance with you, Pen,” Oli offered.

  “That’s right,” I said softly.

  “I barely remember. That’s disappointing.”

  “We danced much like this,” I explained.

  “It was a slow song?” he asked.

  I nodded. “It was two in the morning, our bodies lazy with fatigue and alcohol. You leaned into me and I remember thinking that if Graham had been paying any attention, he would have socked you in the face.”

  Oli smiled. “Alcohol removes all inhibitions.”

  “That night it certainly did. You flirted with stubborn persistence.”

  “I did, did I? Had any of it worked?” he teased.

  I swallowed. “Yes,” I acknowledged. “It had.”

  Oliver watched me for a moment. “No regrets?” he asked.

  I smiled. “None.”

  Just then the doorbell rang with another guest. Oli sighed, kissed my cheek, promised to be right back, and went to greet the latecomer. I meandered a few feet toward the island with all the food, snagged an artichoke bruschetta, and took a bite. I took my appetizer and fell into one of the dining chairs Oli and I had pushed against the windows in the kitchen. I put my feet up onto the chair next to mine and ate peacefully, watching Oliver’s parents with their grandchildren. Before long, Zoe sat near my feet.

  “Hello, my love,” she said. “Having a nice birthday so far?”

  “You know, it’s wonderful,” I told her.

  “I’m glad you’re with our Oliver now,” she told me. “If that wasn’t obvious from the day we all met you,” she added, giggling.

  “I feel like it’s all a bit of a dream,” I admitted.

  “Here’s to that never ending,” she said, raising her champagne flute in the air and taking a sip.

  Shouting came from the foyer and we both jumped up to see what the commotion was. It seemed the whole party had the same idea and we couldn’t get through.

  “What’s happening?” I shouted to Alfie in the middle of the crowd.

  “Seems Oli’s gotten into a bit of a shouting match!” he told me.

  “What?”

  I pushed through the crowd, shedding my grass skirt and pulling off my lei, imploring them to let me across. Eventually I broke through to the end.

  “Look, mate, you’re drunk,” Oliver told a staggering Graham. “Go home then and sleep it off. I’ll ring you in the morning.”

  “What are you doing here?” I shouted at Graham, astonished.

  “Pen,” Oliver pleaded, “go back inside. I’ll take care of this.”

  “How did you even know we were here?” I asked Graham, ignoring Oliver. I turned toward Alfie, who’d joined the crowd spilling out from the house and onto the sidewalk. “Did you tell him?” I found Charlie and the rest of the boys. “Did you?”

  They all raised their hands and shook their heads no.

  “You told me, babe,” Graham hollered.

  Oliver looked a bit betrayed when he heard this.

  “I most certainly did not!” I yelled at Graham. “I did not,” I told Oliver, my tone much quieter but firm.

  Graham started laughing. “You did, though, love. In that ridiculous vlog of yours this morning, remember?”

  I felt all the breath in my lungs leave at once. “You’ve been watching my vlogs?”

  “Of course,” he said without further explanation.

  “Please leave, Graham,” Oliver asked. His face gave away how annoyed he really was, though. “We’ll go back to our party and I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

  Oliver looked toward the street for a passing cab, but there were none.

  “You’re together now? The two of you?” he asked us.

  Oliver looked at me then back at Graham. “Yes, we are,” he told him.

  “Isn’t that amusing,” Graham expressed.

  He dug into his pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. He brought one to his lips, which confused me. Graham had never smoked when we had been together.

  “It was Chloe,” he explained, reading my thoughts, and lighting up. He took a giant drag and turned his head toward the street, smoke billowing out from between his lips. “She insisted I start,” he continued. “I always thought them vile things but she loved them. I figured if I couldn’t get her to quit, I would start just so I didn’t have to look past the smell of them.” He barked out a short laugh. “Look where it’s gotten me now, though, yeah? No more Chloe. Only, the habit’s stuck.”

  I opened my mouth to tell him I was actually sorry to hear that he and Chloe had broken up. I surprised myself that I thought it and was even more amazed that I held no more resentment toward him now that I had Oliver. After all, I wouldn’t have him without Graham’s cheating ways. I was grateful as odd as that seemed.

  “Graham,” I began at the same time Oliver addressed him.

  “Graham,” Oliver parroted, “you have to leave, mate.”

  “Uh,” Zoe told the party crowd, “let’s all head inside. Let them work all this out,” she said, ushering people indoors.

  Soon it was just the three of us. Without the buffer of our guests, the tension was palpable. Graham watched me, swaying slightly, his eyes burrowed themselves into my skin, making me want to flee.

  “You know he wanted you first?” he asked me, throwing a shoulder toward Oli. I refused to answer. “He wanted you first, which made me want you too. I called dibs, you know, and he gave in so easily. Like you were a piece of property.” Graham started laughing then sighed. “That’s what you are to us, Penelope. You’re our property, our plaything.”

  “I belong
to no one but me,” I told him.

  “Zoe!” Oliver yelled through the open door. “Can you ring up a cab, please?”

  “Done!” she called back.

  Graham took another drag from his cigarette. “Oh, you’re our plaything. A proper plaything.” He shook his head. “I didn’t really even want you all that badly,” he revealed, wounding me.

  “Shut up,” Oliver gritted out.

  “I only took you because I knew you’d go for me, and this boy,” he said, pointing to Oliver, the cigarette dangling between his fingers, “this boy you see in front of you, was such a fucking sap, he let me. What kind of man lets another man take like that?” Graham laughed again. “I’ll tell you, Penelope Beckett. Your Oliver’s that kind of man.

  Oliver’s jaw tightened, the sinewy tendons in his throat pulled taut, his eyes narrowed in careful control.

  Graham ignored him. “That’s why I’m here. I’m taking you back, Penelope. I’ve developed a taste for you, it seems, and now I’m enchanted.” He nodded like the egomaniac he was. “Yes, I think I’ll take you back,” he drunkenly slurred.

  It was my turn to laugh. “You came here with nothing and you will leave with nothing.”

  “Come now, love, we both know you’re only with him because you want to remain close to me. That’s why you stayed in London. It’s why you dug down with him. He’s a poor man’s Graham.”

  “Graham, that is enough!” Oliver shouted, his face a shock of red. “You’re not welcome and you’re done here!”

  “Oooh, look at him go now,” Graham sang, flicking his finished cigarette at his feet.

  Oliver looked livid, his jaw set, his eyes narrowed. Without warning, he jumped forward and tossed Graham into the brick, his arm pressed into Graham’s throat. “I’ve put up with a lot of shit with you, Graham! I’ve born some horrifying things from you, watched you do reprehensible things, but this is one that will not, cannot be tolerated. You had your chance with her, you cheated on her. How in the fuck could you do that to her? It’s Penelope! She’s gosh damn Penelope, Graham!”

  Graham drunkenly pulled at Oliver’s arm, but his arms failed to make purchase. He was having trouble breathing.

  I walked toward them and looked into Oliver’s eyes, tugging gently at his arm. “Let him go. Come back inside with me. Show me love in there. Far away from here.”

  Oliver watched me and nodded once, relaxing his arm. He let Graham fall to the ground. I grabbed him around the waist and we started to ascend the steps to the door.

  “You threw yourself down that sunken terrace, Penelope,” Graham quipped, out of breath, as we reached the door. “Oliver even thought so. We all had a good laugh about it at the pub the next week. Remember, Oliver?”

  I looked up at Oliver, feeling hurt.

  “I did not do that, Pen. None of us did. He’s lying,” Oliver assured me calmly.

  “We all thought you were trying to off yourself,” Graham prodded.

  “I was not,” I explained to Oliver. “It was an accident, pure and simple.”

  “I know,” Oliver said softly.

  His hand went to push open the door farther.

  “When I found out what you’d done,” Graham tormented, “I thought I’ve done it again.”

  Oliver and I froze where we stood. My breath sped in my chest. My hand held tightly to Oliver’s arm.

  Oliver slowly turned around, breaking my hold, but I couldn’t find the courage to do the same. We stood facing one another, side by side.

  “Whatever do you mean by that?” Oliver demanded of him.

  I felt Graham climb a few stairs behind me. “I had no idea I had such a strong effect on women.”

  “What the fuck do you mean by that!” Oliver roared, descending two steps toward him.

  “Put it together, Oliver,” Graham baited.

  “No,” I whispered in disbelief. I turned to Graham. “No,” I insisted.

  “Oh, yes,” he confirmed with a bristling smile, teetering on the edge of the stair he stood on. “I’d flirted with Brooke many times. Never thought she was into it, always calling me ‘blockhead’ and whatnot, but one day, I got her. One day Oliver was working late and she’d just joined the lads at the pub, pissed at him, and I knew I’d get her. She melted beneath my touch that first night.”

  “Shut your mouth,” Oliver seethed.

  “Then it was everything I could do to keep her off of me,” he kept on but turned, for some reason addressing me. “We’d meet mostly during lunches, or the occasional night he worked late. Eventually the guilt weighed too heavily on her and she broke it off. It wasn’t a month later she jumped onto those tracks.”

  “You goddamned asshole!” Oliver yelled, pushing him off the stairs.

  Graham toppled backward, his back hit the sidewalk in a deafening thud, yet he laughed, pleased with his sick game.

  I bolted through the door yelling for Alfie, Charlie, and the other boys. They whisked past me just as Oliver had reached Graham, his hands around his throat.

  The rest of the house came spilling out and around us, people yelling, trying to figure out what was going on. I sat at the edge of the stairs, my hands on my knees.

  “You killed her!” Oliver yelled at Graham. “You murdered her!”

  “What’s happened?” Zoe asked me before turning toward the front door again. “Mum, can you just take the kids to Oli’s room then?”

  Zoe looked at her brother shouting at the top of his lungs at Graham, both men held back by their friends who looked shell shocked, trying to figure out what was going on themselves.

  I stood and faced Zoe. “Brooke’s affair?” I swallowed. “It was with Graham.”

  Zoe’s mouth dropped open. “Oh, God help us,” she said, her hand going to her face.

  Oli’s dad, George, came down the stairs, looking confused. “What’s this Eleanor’s on about a fight?”

  “Brooke’s affair was with Graham,” Zoe revealed.

  George looked like she’d hit him in the head with a shovel. He was stunned and speechless.

  I left them on the stairs and cut through the mass.

  “What’s happened, then? I can’t make it out,” Alfie shouted over them at me.

  “Enough!” I yelled at the two of them. The night grew quiet. I lifted a hand toward Graham. “How could you do this, Graham?”

  “This is life, love. Shit happens.”

  I shook my head in disgust at him. “This isn’t life. This is horrifying.”

  Oliver threw his arms out to shake off his friends. His hands formed fists at his side. “How could you go out with me night after night? How could you call me your friend all the while you were having an affair with my wife?” he bellowed. Gasps sounded throughout the group. “How could you listen to me drone on and on about her death? How I thought it was all my fault? How could you let me stew in that guilt, Graham? You were supposed to be my friend.”

  “We are friends, mate,” Graham said softly.

  “No, I’m just discovering that we are very far from friends. No, we are enemies. The difference is that I didn’t know that fact until now.” He glanced at me. “I lost her because of you. All that time.”

  Seeing Oliver so distraught made me inexplicably sad for him. I wondered how he could ever look at me without seeing Graham’s face. And with that, my stomach started to tie in painful knots.

  “You will never be happy, Graham,” Oliver promised. “Never. Would you like to know why?” he asked, but didn’t wait for an answer. “Because happiness cannot spring from selfish, and that’s all you’ll ever be. Since you never think of anyone else, never think of the consequences of your actions, since you are obsessed with pleasing only yourself, and you get your jollies off destroying others, you will never be happy. You aren’t merely selfish, Graham, you’re evil. Only an evil person could do what you’ve done and feel no remorse. Only an evil person could stay friends with the man whose life he ruined. You are without a doubt the most terrible person I’v
e ever known.

  “You’ve cost me more than any man should have to pay. If I never see your face again, it will still be too soon.” He turned to Alfie. “Get him out of here. Now.”

  Alfie yanked Graham by the collar toward the lot where he parked and disappeared around the corner. At that moment, the cab Zoe called for Graham showed. Oliver looked at the people amassed around him but his eyes never found mine, leaving me colder than I’ve ever felt.

  “I have something I need to do,” Oliver told the sidewalk before walking over to the cab and settling inside.

  I warred between wanting to chase after him and letting him alone. By the time I decided, it was too late to go after him.

  “I think it’s time everyone went home,” Zoe told the astonished crowd.

  Claire found me and threw me in a hug. “Come home with me,” she said.

  I shook my head. “I have to go find him.”

  Claire nodded. Jasper came forward and hugged me quickly. “Dude, what the hell? Graham is screwed up.”

  I felt my eyes burn. “I know.”

  “Do you want us to help you?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “No, go,” I said, forcing a smile. “I’ll find him soon enough. Go, take Claire out somewhere nice. Kiss her at her doorstep. Exchange emails. Go.”

  He smiled sweetly at me, kissed my cheek, and I watched them walk off together. I kissed all my guests goodbye at the door and helped Zoe clean up the house for Oli. We were giving him space, time, but when the clock approached midnight, I’d had enough waiting. I’d had enough hoping without action and I left Oliver’s sleeping family and caught a cab to the tube station Brooke had jumped from.

  “Gloucester Road Station, please,” I ordered the cabbie.

  Somehow I was certain he would be there.

  I touched my Oyster card to the pad and descended the stairs. With my heart in my throat, I searched the edge platform but couldn’t see him. I had been so sure he’d have been there. I leaned against the wall and removed my phone. It had died hours before, but I attempted to start it up again out of desperation. It refused, so I placed it back in my bag, threading my hands through my hair. I watched as a train rode by. Click, click. Click, click. Click, click. The engine revved as it gained speed and left the station, a whirring melody tumbling behind it.