She hoped Sasha wasn’t home.
She rang the bell, and Jaime answered the door, keeping the screen between them. They didn’t speak at first.
“This is crazy, Pen,” he said finally, rubbing a palm along his jaw. She could hear the rasp of a five-o’clock shadow.
“I know. Let me in, okay?”
He swung open the door, and she stood in the hallway, close enough to feel him, but she didn’t touch him.
“We have to just stop this thing,” he said softly, his hand brushing her cheek. It came away wet with tears.
“What thing? We haven’t done anything.” But Penelope knew it was a shit excuse. “We’re friends.”
“Which is why you’re standing in my hallway crying. Why you looked like you were going to die when I left with Willa the other day.”
“I know. I know.” Penelope straightened her shoulders. “Everything feels so out of control. Not just you. My whole life. I don’t know. Brett got sick and Willa is there, but something isn’t right. She’s taking over everything. My kids, my husband . . . you.”
“She says she’s helping you?” Jaime raised an eyebrow—skeptical of Penelope or Willa? She didn’t know.
Penelope took a step toward Jamie, reached out, and ran a hand across his shoulders, her fingertips cupping the back of his neck.
Her lips pressed against his before he could stop her. His mouth opened to hers immediately, his hands running down her back to pull her against him, quick and hard, like he wasn’t surprised by the kiss. Like he’d been waiting for it.
She thought maybe if she just kissed him, got it out of her system, she could forget him. God, what a ridiculous idea.
His mouth was soft and strong, and she felt dizzy with desire. Had she ever felt physically dizzy from kissing Brett? She couldn’t remember.
“Pen,” he whispered hoarsely into her mouth. He pulled away, rested his forehead against hers, breathing heavily. “This is not okay.”
“You’re the one who sent that note to me,” Penelope whispered, her fingertips running along his neck, watching the trail of goose bumps in their wake. “Don’t act like you don’t want this.”
“God, I want this more than I’ve wanted anything in recent memory. I’ve regretted that note every single day since I sent it. I even hoped—” He took a step back and slammed his hand against the wall, turning his back to her. “I even hoped you didn’t actually get it. You never said anything.”
Penelope leaned her cheek against his back. “I didn’t know how to tell you. I didn’t want to ruin our friendship. You were—are—the one constant in my life.”
After a moment: “What about my life?”
“I know. You deserve more than a tortured half affair with your kid’s best friend’s mother.” Penelope stepped back. “Brett is home from the hospital. I didn’t plan to come here. But . . . you’re right. This has to stop. You go out with Willa. I’ll go to therapy.” She laughed hollowly, longer than seemed acceptable, and hiccuped. “Maybe Brett can recommend someone.”
“I don’t want to go out with Willa.” Jaime tried to grab her arm as she left, but she stepped out of his reach. Back in her car, she practiced deep breathing—like Brett always talked about, with her eyes closed, feeling the breath deep in her belly—before she pulled away from the curb. In the rearview mirror, she could see Jaime through the screen door.
He didn’t wave goodbye.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Then: Every Day
To the left of the kitchen was a set of big double doors that opened into the courtyard. A garden took up the majority of the courtyard, but at the moment it was overrun by tall, spiky wildflowers. The patio held cracked and broken flagstone, uprooted by weeds and moss. Off against the house stood a round wooden table and four plastic chairs, chipped and splintered. The remodeling felt very haphazard, as though Parker had chosen bits and pieces to tackle on a furious whim.
She’d only been out in the courtyard once or twice—the outdoors, in general, made her itch. The mosquitoes tended to feast on her, and she sweated almost immediately in warm weather. Nothing about being outside in June felt comfortable. Flynn and Bree worked together in companionable silence, and both looked at ease in the blazing sun.
Flynn had set up a wooden easel, a thin stretched canvas resting on the lip. He had a full set of jars and water, a palette of white cardboard resting on his knee.
Penelope tiptoed behind him to take a look and gasped. “That’s Bree!”
Bree looked up from the center of the courtyard, a white vision amid the tall greens, a wispy smile on her face, and closed her eyes, preening. “He always paints me.”
“Do you?” Penelope turned to Flynn, open mouthed in surprise. “Why?”
Flynn gave her a puzzled stare and shook his head. “She’s beautiful.”
“Oil?” Penelope asked, knowing nothing of art, just that oils were painted on easels and canvas, but Flynn shook his head.
“Acrylic. I can do the same thing with acrylics, but I like the sharp edges. Oils tend to bleed. Plus they make a mess.” Flynn did come across as someone who was predisposed to cleanliness. “And the cleanup stinks.” He made a face.
The painting was striking, particularly for how quickly he must have done it. Bree, in the center of the courtyard, was surrounded by plants—mostly wildflowers—in her eyelet white dress, her red hair braided with tendrils curling around her face. She was wearing her old plastic flip-flops and pulling at the giant plants. The painting captured the exact image in broad, bold strokes, Bree’s hair a mane of orange and red, wilder on the canvas than in real life, the gentle slope of her back, the delicate curve of her neck.
“How do you do that?” Penelope asked Flynn softly. “See all the colors instead of the light?”
“I don’t know; I just do,” said Flynn. “You don’t?”
“No. Where the sunlight hits Bree’s hair . . .” Penelope reached out, traced her finger along Bree’s hairline on the canvas, careful to not touch the paint. “It just looks like her hair to me. I don’t even realize that the sun actually makes it a different color. I mean, I do now. Because you painted it.” She laughed self-consciously. “Does that make sense?”
“Yeah, it’s called color constancy. Your brain adjusts the colors based on what you expect to see. If we saw everything exactly as it was, we’d never recognize basic shapes in different lighting.” His voice was low, smooth. Penelope thought she could listen to him talk about painting all day.
“Tell me more.” She sat on the ground next to him.
He laughed. “If you saw an apple at noon, and then saw it at dusk, it’s actually two very different colors. But our brains still assimilate. We know it’s an apple, no matter the color. We would even say it’s red at dusk, if asked. But it probably isn’t. It’s probably gray, or dark green.”
“So is being able to see the differentiation and process it a talent of art or science?” Penelope asked, intrigued.
“Well, arguably both. There was a German poet once, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who published a book called Theory of Colours. He challenged Newton’s theories that white light is a limited spectrum of color. Goethe instead relied on the human perception of white light and all its infinite variations. Essentially, he said Newton’s error was trusting science over art.” Flynn put his paintbrush down and looked at Penelope self-consciously. “I sound like a pompous windbag.”
“No!” Penelope was transfixed. By his graceful movements, the soothing sound of his voice, the surety with which he knew his subject. “So what do you think? Is color science or art?”
“Well, it’s both. I think the science is fascinating. We can process color the way we expect to see it, not necessarily the way it is. This is why optical illusions work so well. The art is being able to pull that out of your consciousness and transmute it onto the page.”
“That’s not just art. That’s talent,” Penelope said.
He laughed then, a bit raw and possi
bly flushed, but she couldn’t tell. “So what do I do with my talent when I’ve spent four years studying science—numbers and accounting and business?”
“Oh, that’s easy.” Penelope held up her hands, and he pulled her to her feet. “Business is just as much art as science, right? Being able to pull nebulous ideas out of your own consciousness and transmute them onto a page?” She smiled and impulsively kissed Flynn’s cheek. “That’s your creative talent.”
Flynn cocked his head, stared at her. “How do you do that, Miss Penelope?”
Penelope flushed, ignored him, and called to Bree, who was wrestling with a giant thistle. “What exactly are you doing?”
“I’m going to make us a veggie garden,” she declared in her wispy voice. “What should I plant?” The weed came out in a lurch, sending her down to her backside. She giggled helplessly and stood, her dress wrinkled and dirty.
“No beets,” said Flynn and Penelope together.
“They taste like—”
“Dirt.” They started laughing, bent at the waist, and Flynn put a hand on Penelope’s arm.
“What’s so funny, you two?” Willa struck a hip-pop pose in the doorway, a vision: a full face of makeup, round flushed cheeks, red heart-shaped lips, long dark eyelashes. Her blonde hair cascaded around her face like an embrace. She wore a thin black dress with a plunging neckline and a delicate silver chain around her neck.
Flynn let out a long, low whistle. “Where are you off to, all gorgeous and glowing?”
“Nunya, as my gram used to say.” She childishly stuck her tongue out at him, but her neck flushed, and she dropped her purse. She bent to pick it up as Bree called over, “Ya got a date?”
“Something like that. Don’t wait up.” She blew a kiss toward them all, and Bree rested her forearm across her brow bone, fingertips waggling.
Penelope jumped up and followed her to the kitchen. “Who with?” she asked, her voice low.
Willa twirled, gave her a small private smile. “You don’t know him.”
“Well, someone should know. For safety’s sake, at least. If you never came home, we wouldn’t even have a name to give to the police!”
Willa reached out and touched her chin, held it between her thumb and forefinger. “Oh, sweetie, you’re such a little mother hen.” She said it softly, but her eyes narrowed, a smile playing at the corners of her mouth.
“I care about you, you idiot!” Penelope was indignant. Willa’s moods had always been unpredictable, and yes, their friendship had always revolved around Willa. But she wasn’t letting her go off with a stranger without even giving him a name. “Did you tell Jack?”
“I’m just kidding—you know I love you.” She leaned over and kissed Penelope’s cheek, leaving a lip-gloss residue. “His name is Hal.”
“Hal what?” Penelope called after her, but she was met with the high tinkling of Willa’s laugh and the slamming of the front door.
Later, Jack came home whistling, a soft secret smile on his face as he chopped garlic. (Bree had been wrong about Jack—he loved to cook. Tonight was chicken française.) Penelope hopped up on the counter, her legs swinging next to him. “Guess what—Willa had a date. His name is Hal.”
His head snapped up, shocked. “Really!”
“Is she not allowed to date?” Penelope teased him, poking at his arm.
“She hasn’t since we’ve been here.” He rolled his eyes at her. “I didn’t know she knew anyone, that’s all.”
“She’s Willa. She probably already knows the mayor.” Penelope shrugged, breaking off a piece of peeled carrot and popping it in her mouth.
“Hal, you said?” Jack laughed. “There once was a farmer named Hal, who never talked to a gal, too timid and shy, to even say hi, spent his time with the sheep in the corral.”
“Oh my God,” Penelope covered her mouth, tried not to choke. “Where the hell did you get that?”
“I made it up.” Jack shrugged.
“That’s mean!” Penelope was impressed. “Just now?”
Jack laughed and shook his head. He opened his mouth to answer her, but Bree swung into the house, hugging an armful of greens.
“Look! Wild onions. Also, possibly a lettuce that is either delicious or poisonous.” She let out a shrill laugh. “I’m kidding! It’s fine.” She plopped the bounty on the counter, pulled a towel from the rack in the corner, and wiped her forehead and her neck, damp with sweat. “God, it’s so hot. What were we talking about?”
“Limericks. Dirty ones.” He grinned wickedly at her and poured her a glass of wine.
Bree held up her glass. “There once was a man from Nantucket . . .”
“Bah.” Jack waved his hand at her. “You can do better than that.”
She thought a moment, cleared her throat. “The thoughts of the rabbit on sex, are seldom, if ever, complex. For a rabbit in need, is a rabbit indeed, and does just as a person expects.”
Jack threw his head back and laughed. “You did not make that up.”
“Correct, I did not.” Bree took a long drink from her glass, and Jack watched her interestedly.
“Willa’s on a date.” Jack went back to chopping carrots, his voice unreadable.
“We saw her leave, all done up,” Bree said distractedly.
“I haven’t seen you date,” Jack offered casually. Penelope watched the way his face changed, a placid mask. He was always so good at the stone face. It could be infuriating. He’d been so infatuated with Bree—a simple crush, maybe. But it seemed to Penelope that he’d become a bit single minded about it. It bothered him that he couldn’t figure Bree out. That she didn’t fawn all over him.
“I think I went on a date freshman year,” Bree said, pulling the lettuce and the turnips apart. She shrugged. “Although, I will say, it’s not really any of your business.” She gave Jack a pointed look, and he laughed uneasily.
“It’s just curious, that’s all. Have you ever had a boyfriend?” Jack had his back turned to Bree, but Penelope could see his utter stillness, the smile playing out on his face. She wanted to slap him—both for making Bree uncomfortable and for the hot knife in her own gut.
“No. Everyone asks me that; I don’t know why. What does it matter? I don’t have a boyfriend.”
“Why?” Jack’s question was innocuous, or could be construed that way. Plausible deniability was Jack’s specialty.
“I just haven’t been interested in anyone.” Bree’s voice took on a razor’s edge, sharp and thin.
“In all four years of college?”
Bree straightened her spine and held Jack’s gaze, challenging him. “In all four years of college. Men are babies.”
“What about women?” Jack’s voice lowered, and Penelope suddenly felt like she was eavesdropping on an intensely private conversation, and she tucked a flat palm under her thigh, shifting, leaning in to hear the answer, feeling her breath come short in her lungs.
“I don’t understand why you care so much.” Bree faltered then, finally her voice breaking at the end. “I just don’t have feelings the way everyone else does. That’s all it is. I can’t explain it another way.”
“What about Flynn?”
“What about Flynn?” Flynn’s voice was quiet from the doorway, a paintbrush in one hand, a color-stained rag in the other.
Jack grinned, either oblivious to the crackle in the air or deliberately ignoring it. Penelope would have guessed the latter.
“Why haven’t you two cats ever hooked up?” A quick flash of Jack’s bright-white smile, his eyes imperceptibly narrowed. In periphery, he didn’t look affable and fun; his mouth twitched with tension.
Flynn and Bree exchanged a look. Bree licked her lips. Penelope felt her throat close. She imagined Flynn telling Jack, I’m gay, right there in front of all of them. It wouldn’t have mattered to any of them, she knew. But I’m in love with you. Well, that one would land like a bomb. Maybe. On second thought, Jack might have loved it.
Flynn looked back at Jack and plaste
red on a wide grin. “Why haven’t you two?” He gestured to Penelope, and she felt her face flame.
And just like that, the energy broke. Jack laughed out loud, the glass of wine in his hand sloshing. “Who says we haven’t?” He slung his right arm around Penelope’s shoulders and pulled her against him. She felt the thump of his chest against her cheek, the smell of him, the soft scratch of cotton against her skin. Then he let go, and the room seemed to right itself. Bree laughed, Flynn smiled, Jack teased, Penelope demurred. They all found their roles again, the earlier tension so easily glossed over that Penelope later wondered, sleepily, if she’d invented it.
Except. Bree watched Jack after that when she thought no one was looking. Eyes narrowed, mouth pursed like a lemon. Penelope saw it more than once, and not just that night but later too.
After dinner (which was delicious, Willa’s loss!), they beached themselves on the various couches and chairs in the common room, drinking wine and chatting, the remnants of the strange moment earlier entirely forgotten.
“I figured it out,” said Jack, as though they had been in midconversation. “You’re the sisters of fate.” He grinned broadly as he settled in the oversize armchair, his guitar under his arm. “Willa is Clotho; she brings the life to the party. She makes us all whole, brings us all together. Penelope here is Lachesis. Sees all, knows all. She’d be a fair and just determiner. And you,” he said, raising his eyebrows at Bree, “are Atropos.”
“Why me?” Bree asked, unsure if this was a compliment or an insult, but slightly insulted nonetheless.
“Well, you’re pretty ruthless out there with your scissors.” Flynn laughed sleepily, gesturing toward the garden.
“They’re weeds,” Bree said hotly, clapping her hands in his direction.
“It’s not just that,” Jack mused. “Atropos is the inflexible one. You are kind of like that.”
“That’s rude!” Penelope threw an errant crumpled napkin in his direction.
“No, it’s not an insult. Look, Bree does whatever Bree wants. She has her garden. She works in it while Flynn paints her. Bree doesn’t eat meat, so we all eat tofu. Look, no worries! I don’t mind!” He turned and gave Bree a disarming smile. “I’m happy to be at your service.”
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