by Naomi Niles
Inner struggles. Character flaws. I tried to think of it in terms of my own life. Was there anything keeping me and Darren from being really happy together? Sometimes I thought what we had was perfect. But then there were those moments, like on the tower on Wednesday, when I could tell I was making him nervous, when he seemed to be wondering what he had gotten himself into and whether there was a way out.
By now I was almost done getting ready, and I paused to examine myself in the mirror. I was wearing a blue beaded bracelet and a pair of long dangling peacock feather earrings. I was just applying an extra dab of body lotion to both wrists when the front doorbell rang.
“You want me to get that?” asked Dad, rising from the bed.
“No, I’ll get it.” I ran ahead of him, heart pounding with fear and excitement. Darren had never met my dad before in the capacity of being my dad, and I hoped their first meeting wasn’t horribly awkward.
He stood at the door wearing a red flannel shirt and a pair of dark jeans. I was so used to seeing him in his grease-stained blue uniform that for a moment I stared in surprise. “Are you going to invite me in?” he asked.
“Sure, come right in,” I said slowly. “I’d like you to meet my dad.”
Dad shambled slowly forward and extended his hand. “Darren Savery,” said Darren. “I’m kind of amazed we haven’t already met; Penny talks so much about you.”
“Only good things, I hope.”
“Yeah, she really loves you.” He had taken three steps into the house; now he stood in the doorway, silhouetted against the late afternoon sunlight and smelling strongly of cologne. Flashing me a warm smile, he added, “I find that Penny is a loyal and kind person in general.”
“Y’all are too nice to me,” I said, blushing. “I’m only loyal because I have people in my life who are worth being loyal to.”
“You’ve never given yourself enough credit,” Dad said with a shake of his head. It felt weird to be standing here talking with both him and Darren, two sides of my life that had never previously mingled. “You turned out so much better than I had any reason to expect.”
I had never much liked being the center of attention, especially when it was flattering. “Well,” I said, turning to Darren, “shall we get going?”
“Yeah, I guess we’d better. Your dad probably has things he wants to do tonight.”
“I think I’m gonna go lay down.” Dad turned and began shambling back in the direction of his room.
“Do you need me to come tuck you in?”
“Don’t worry about it. I just want you to be safe tonight. Darren, you look after her and make sure nobody hurts her.”
“I will protect her with my life,” Darren replied, and I didn’t doubt that he meant it.
Chapter Twenty-One
Darren
“So how’s your book going?” I asked Penny.
We were sitting in the back of Meso Maya, an upscale Mexican restaurant in downtown Dallas. I was eating a wood-fired marinated steak with charred salsa while Penny ate pollo con mole, a chicken breast served with white rice, a plate of chips, and queso fundido with oregano and grilled onions.
“It’s going well, actually.” She brushed her hair back behind her ears. “My dad just finished reading the first five chapters, and I can already tell I’m going to have to rewrite huge chunks of it.”
“Did he not like it?”
“I think he liked it okay. He knows a lot more about literature than I do, and I didn’t understand all of his criticisms. But I think what he was trying to say is that my characters need to be better developed. They’re so busy trying to save the world from fascism that they’re not paying much attention to their emotional lives.”
“I think that’s the risk you take when you fight fascism,” I said, taking a sip of my root beer. “I haven’t read the story, but I’m sure you’ll find your footing once you’re more than a few chapters in.”
“I hope so,” she said sadly. “This is why I never share my stories with anyone before I’ve finished them because if they criticize them, it discourages me from wanting to finish. I’m tempted to go back and scrap the chapters I’ve written so far and start over.”
She cast her eyes down on her plate; she’d been downbeat ever since we got into the car. Not wanting her dad’s criticism to dampen our whole dinner, I fumbled for encouragement. “I’m sure you’re a good writer. Sometimes it just takes two or three drafts before you figure out the story you want to tell.”
“I guess. I’ve just never been very good at accepting criticism.”
“Well, think about the first couple books you wrote and how much better of a writer you are now—and how much better you’ll be after you’ve got five or six books under your belt.”
Penny smiled a weak smile and reached for a chip. “This is my fourth novel, and so far probably my favorite. My first two were just utter trash. When I go back and reread them, I just want to set my computer on fire and hide in the woods.”
A smile played at the corner of my mouth. “You mind if I read them?”
“Ugh, no!” Penny recoiled in horror. “Maybe after I’m dead, and maybe not even then. They’re honestly so bad; you have no idea. Inconsistently written characters, factual errors, long awkward passages of dialogue that make me cringe when I read them…”
“It sounds great,” I said with a laugh. “One night, we’ll buy ourselves a bottle of wine, and we’ll go back to my place and drunk-read them.”
“No, we can’t!” cried Penny, practically in tears. “You would question why you ever went out with me. Commas in the wrong places, whole chapters that should probably be taken out—you’ll just have to accept that your girlfriend is not a very good writer.”
It was the first time she had ever referred to herself as my girlfriend, and she seemed to regret speaking the words as soon as they left her mouth. Her face turned slightly pink, and an uneasy silence fell over the table. I went on eating the last of my steak while she pulled out her phone and began typing.
“Who are you texting?” I asked after she had been doing this for some time.
“Nic,” she said, returning her phone to her purse with a guilty look. “She wanted to know how it was going.”
“What did you tell her?”
“I said it was going well. Hey, do you want to run by the store after we’re done eating? You never did pick up the exhaust system I ordered you.”
I paid for our meal, and we left. Outside, it was one of those warm spring evenings with a slight breeze carrying the scent of toffee and ice cream. I unlocked the car, and we got in, but I hesitated for a moment before starting it.
“Are you gonna go?” asked Penny, a little nervously.
“Yeah, I just had a question.” Leaning against the steering wheel, I turned to face her. “Before we go anywhere, I need to know: how do you see us as a couple? Are we dating?”
“I mean, we’re on a date.” She sounded offended by the question.
“I know, but that’s not what I mean. Are we in a relationship, or aren’t we? I assumed we were, but I realized we’ve never made it official.”
“Do you want to be?” asked Penny. “It’s whatever you want.”
I couldn’t understand why she was being so stubborn. “You’re a part of this relationship, too, and I want to know what you want. I think you already know what I want.”
“What do you want?” She was looking in my direction but couldn’t quite bring herself to face me.
“I’m pretty taken with you, if you don’t mind my saying. You’re not the sort of girl I would ever have expected to end up with, and I thought I would care, but I don’t. You’re one of the better things that’s happened to me, and I’d love it if we made it official.”
“That’s sweet, I guess,” said Penny in that same infuriatingly petulant tone.
I turned all the way around in my seat. “Is there a problem? Did I say something to upset you? Because you’ve been acting quiet and sort of rese
rved since the end of dinner, and it makes me think maybe I did something wrong.”
Softening a bit, Penny said, “Sorry. I don’t take criticism very well, and I’m still kind of upset about what my dad said. But also, when I hear things like that, it makes me think that maybe you would be better off with some other girl. Someone who’s a good writer and not an idiot and won’t embarrass you. And then I get mad because I can’t understand why you like me so much.”
“Hey,” I said firmly. “If I thought you were an embarrassment, I would never have asked you out. I really like you, but you’ve got to start loving yourself more. Sometimes you get so lost in your own head, worrying about what others think.”
“I guess that’s true. Whenever I’m writing, it feels like there’s a team of judges reading over my shoulder and holding up scorecards. I felt the same way the first time we slept together, like you were judging me—like you were probably thinking you couldn’t wait to get it over with because you had better things to do.”
“That’s not what I was thinking at all,” I replied. “I think I was enjoying myself too much to be thinking much of anything.”
“That’s sweet.” This time it sounded like she meant it. “You want to get going, then?”
The rest of the way to the store, we were silent as I brooded over our conversation. I wanted to show Penny in more than words that she wasn’t an embarrassment—that I loved being with her and had every intention of continuing to go out with her.
We pulled up in front of Car Quest. The lights were out in the store, and only a single street lamp illuminated the empty parking lot. Penny retrieved a key ring from her purse and went to unlock the door. I followed close behind, the wind warm on my skin.
Rather than switching on the overhead lights, Penny used her phone to light the path in front of us. An eerie stillness lay over the room that reminded me of an aquarium after all guests have gone home for the night.
“It’s so spooky back here at night,” Penny whispered. “One time I had to be back here by myself while I was doing inventory, and I heard a noise, and I honestly thought a burglar had broken into the building. Turns out it was just a large rat, so large that it didn’t run away, it just waddled.”
“I think I’d take my chances with the burglars,” I replied.
Penny stifled a laugh. “You were supposed to say, ‘I don’t think those exist.’ Haven’t you ever seen that movie?”
“It’s been a while.”
“It’s one of my favorites.”
It occurred to me as I followed her toward the back that I had no idea where we were going or how I was going to pay for my muffler, given that the store was closed for the night. She led us through the back room where the green-tinted bulb glowed with a pale, sickly light, then glided on like a ghost through the door and out into the grass.
I ran along behind with a growing feeling of curiosity. There was never any telling what Penny might do next, and that unpredictability was both exciting and a little worrying at times.
I found her standing barefoot in the grass staring up at the sky. Out here, away from all the lights of the city, we could see the stars shining in the fullness of their splendor. For a moment, I stood there in silence, lost in awe.
“Is this where you’re keeping my muffler?” I asked her after a long pause.
She smiled and shook her head. “I just like to come out here and look at the stars sometimes. I like to think of them as friends.”
“Doesn’t it ever make you sad, though?”
“No, why would it?” She turned toward me with a look of mild curiosity, her hair blown by the wind.
“Because it makes you feel so insignificant, thinking about how many other worlds there are, and how we live for a moment and die in a moment.”
“I think it’s comforting in a way,” Penny said with a shrug. “There have to be better worlds than this one, and maybe death brings them closer. Maybe we’ll be up there one day together.”
“Maybe, but I wouldn’t count on it. Even if we continue to live after death, we’ll be so changed from what we were. This moment is the only thing we can really call ours.”
She tilted her head to look up at me, and her eyes shone in the starlight. “Don’t you think our relationship could survive, though?”
“Babe, I think a relationship is lucky to last for more than a few decades, let alone eternity. Let’s just take things a step at a time.”
“Okay,” she whispered. Her face was as full of freckles as the sky was of stars, and the longer she went on looking at me, the harder it became not to kiss her. Finally, I couldn’t stand it anymore; I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her close to me.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Penny
If Darren and I were going to sleep together again, this is how I wanted to do it: outside under the stars with the wind warm on my face.
After our first time, I had felt a range of conflicting emotions. I liked that he wanted me, but I didn’t think I deserved him. I felt dirty and ruined because I had slept with a man before marriage, something I had promised myself I would never do. I cried into my pillow at night and washed my hands often.
Darren clearly wanted me tonight—he was already reaching his arms around my waist and fumbling for my belt. But I stood there motionless and trembling.
“Are you sure this is okay, what we’re doing?” I asked.
Darren paused with his hands on the top button of my high-waisted jeans. “Do you not want to do it? If you don’t want to, that’s totally fine. Just say so.”
“It isn’t that. I just worry that someone is going to drive out here and catch us. I feel so exposed under these stars.”
“It’s not very likely,” Darren said. “We’ve been out here for about twenty minutes, and not a single car has driven past. And the building hides us from anyone who might drive past and see us from the highway.”
“I guess that’s true.”
But he must have known I was still worried, for he placed his hands on my shoulders and said in a concerned voice, “What’s wrong? You look scared, and I can’t figure you out. If you’re worried that I’m only going out with you out of pity, you can put that away. I wouldn’t keep asking you out if I didn’t really like you.”
It felt like the right moment to come clean about what had been bothering me. “Do you mind if we sit down for a minute?”
I knelt down on the grass, buttoning the top button of my jeans, and motioned for him to sit down beside me. The wind whistled loudly in the branches of the evergreens that bordered the field to our right.
“You know how I have anniversaries for days of my life that are important to me? Well, today is the day my first and only boyfriend broke up with me.”
Confusion shown in Darren’s eyes. “I thought you said you had never dated anyone.”
“Well, I say ‘boyfriend,’ but we were never official. But we might as well have been given the amount of time we spent together. Liam was like my best friend.”
“Liam.” He turned the name over in his mouth as though trying out how it sounded. “You’ve never mentioned this person before.”
“I don’t like talking about it because it hurts so much. I’m over him now, but days like this are hard because they bring back all those memories I had been struggling so hard to forget. He’s married now, and there’s no way we would ever get back together; this is just one of those things I have to get through because I’m a sensitive person, and I never forget someone I’ve cared about.”
“How long ago was this?”
“We met six years ago at a church bake sale. I had just dropped out of college, and I was devastated because I felt like a failure to my dad and I worried that I would never be smart enough to make it in the real world. Liam took me under his wing and took care of me.
“We did so many things together. We used to sit on his couch for hours and hours eating gluten-free ice cream and watching Doctor Who and Bananas in Pyjamas. I co
uldn’t get anyone else to watch them, but we would sit there and laugh until we cried over the antics of the Banana brothers and Rat in a Hat. I would call him up late at night when I was hungry and wanted snacks, and we would go to Wal-Mart together because who wants to go to Wal-Mart at midnight by themselves? At Christmas, we would get in his car and drive around looking at Christmas lights, even though he didn’t like looking at Christmas lights, but he would do it for me.
“I tried to tell myself we were just friends, that I wasn’t in love with him. But we were getting dangerously close. We were always talking, always texting. I knew if I had a random thought I could just pick up the phone and text him whenever I wanted, and that would lead to an hours-long conversation. He could just look at me and know what I was thinking without me even having to tell him. He loved my little rituals and holidays because he was a creature of habit, and they made him feel all safe and cozy. We had our own words and phrases and inside jokes that nobody got but us. He was my person. My Liam.”
“Did you ever tell him how you felt about him?” asked Darren.
“No, because I don’t think even I knew until it was too late. I kept trying to shove it down hoping it would go away. I knew eventually he would leave and move on because as perfect as we were, I wasn’t the right girl for him. He needed to marry a girl who was bookish and cultured and intelligent, and I could never give him that. I couldn’t change myself to become someone else.
“And then one day he just stopped coming over. He stopped texting me and stopped responding to my texts. I went from seeing him four or five times a week to seeing him four times in a year. And I knew there had to be someone else in the picture, but he steadfastly insisted there wasn’t. Until one morning I logged into Facebook and found out he was engaged. Her name was Leslie Murkowski, and she was a teacher’s assistant at an Austin-area university working on her Ph.D.