“And Penelope?” The question hung in the air.
“I don’t know. You’ll have to ask her. Now, if you don’t mind…” He again put his hand on the door to close it.
Nick angled his head. “Something’s up, isn’t it? Is it something I did?”
Press frowned. “You know, sometimes not everything is about you.” This time he closed the door without any problems.
* * *
PENELOPE GLANCED DOWN at her cell phone and saw the list of calls from Nick. She did the only logical thing.
She turned off her phone.
She would have unplugged the home phone, too, but she needed to leave a line open in case the university’s lawyer called back. She had also left word with the president’s office, but the lawyer said he would also speak to him directly. There was also the chance that Press would need clarification regarding her instructions to remove the Grantham Galen. But she doubted it. She had trained him well. He was smart. Unlike most people, he didn’t feel the need to ask too many questions.
She sank into a wooden chair by the small table in the kitchen and slipped the scarf off her head. She didn’t feel festive anymore. She breathed in slowly. The only thing she had eaten all day was half a grilled cheese sandwich, and she contemplated the options without much enthusiasm.
As she reached into the pantry to get a box of Stoned Wheat Thins, the phone rang in the living room. Before she got there, it rang again, obnoxiously loud, and she stared at the caller ID. Her parents. She sighed and picked up the phone. It was inevitable.
“Hello,” she said as she headed back to the kitchen.
“Penelope, this is your mother.”
As if she couldn’t recognize her mother’s voice. “Hello, Mother.” On the lowest shelf of the small pantry was a clear bottle. Grappa—Italy’s version of white lightning. Highly effective for cauterizing wounds, opening up the sinuses and achieving a rapid buzz.
“I’m calling because your father is deeply hurt by what happened today at the library exhibit.”
Penelope could sense her father standing next to her mother, hanging on to every word as she spoke. “Imagine how I feel.” She plunked the bottle on the counter and opened an upper cabinet. There was an array of drinking glasses, including decent wine and sherry glasses. Screw it, she thought, and chose a cheap juice glass. She tucked the phone under her chin, wrestled the top of the bottle free and poured herself a generous three fingers.
“Did you have to talk that way to him in front of all those people?” her mother asked.
“There was a sense of urgency to our conversation, but I discreetly pulled him to the side, to an office.” Penelope sipped the liquor. It burned her throat. She heard some murmurings in the background. She’d been right. Her father was there, using her mother as a shield.
“You know he feels ashamed, don’t you?” her mother went on.
Was he now admitting what he had done? She felt sad, but at the same time a sense of relief. “I’m glad he is willing to accept his part.”
“No, dear, I don’t think you understand. He’s ashamed that you would accuse him of doing anything so unscholarly. He feels it demonstrates a level of insensitivity on your part. That you just don’t know him.”
Penelope stared at the glass on the counter and the box of crackers next to it. She shook the box. It was nearly empty. She breathed in deeply. “I’m sorry to hear you say that, Mother.” Her voice showed no emotion. Though did she ever show any emotion when talking to either of her parents? That revelation seemed rather sad, even to her “insensitive” ears.
In the end, she said the only thing she could say. “I’m sorry, but on the advice of the university’s attorney, I can’t talk about this matter any further with anyone, including you or Father.” She waited.
There was silence from the other end. And then her mother spoke, her voice clearly shaken. “I want you to know, Penelope, that regardless of this little episode…”
Little episode? Penelope wanted to scream out loud. Instead she chomped on a cracker.
“Your father and I love you very much.”
Penelope didn’t respond.
“Penelope? Are you there, Penelope?”
Penelope detected someone coughing in the background, followed by low voices.
“I’m not sure, but I think she hung up,” she could hear her mother say.
“Nonsense. The daughter I know would never hang up on her mother.” That was her father.
The absolute certainty in his voice did it.
Penelope hung up.
Startled by her own action, she stood there, her hand still touching the cradled portable phone, wondering if her parents would call back. They never did.
Her father was a bully and a coward, and her mother would never think of challenging his judgment, Penelope realized. She turned to the chair by the fireplace—the one that her father always occupied when he came to her house.
“How can you talk about the daughter you know, Father, when the truth of the matter is, you’ve never known me—not really.” She directed her question to the armchair. “And if you’ve never really known me, how is it possible for you to have ever loved me—the real me?” She paused, deliberately wet her lips then set her jaw. “All I can say, Father, is it’s your loss. Because I’m worth knowing—and loving.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
AMARA FOUND PENELOPE sitting on the grass in the garden behind the house. In her hand she held a drink. Amara walked closer. “That doesn’t look like Prosecco,” she observed, peering at the bottle of alcohol on the stoop by the French doors.
Penelope looked up. “This is not a Prosecco moment.”
Amara slid to the ground across from her. “Something wrong?”
Penelope took a slow sip. “Something that even a grilled cheese sandwich can’t cure.”
Amara made a face. “That bad, huh?”
“That bad.”
“It’s not because of anything I did, like with what’s going on with my father?” she asked. The last thing Amara wanted was to drag Penelope into her family’s mess.
Penelope reached across the small space of lawn and patted Amara’s hand. “No, it’s nothing to do with you. If anything, you’ve been a breath of fresh air in my life—a reminder of all of life’s good and exciting possibilities.” She smiled weakly before removing her hand. Then she took another contemplative sip. “I believe my father has done something terribly wrong,” Penelope said in her straightforward fashion.
“He didn’t kill anyone, did he?”
“No, nothing like that. But something immoral, nonetheless. Intellectually dishonest.”
“It has to do with the exhibit, doesn’t it?”
Penelope nodded.
“Press said that you’d asked him to remove the Grantham Galen from the show.”
“I really can’t talk about it. It’s a legal issue, you see.”
Amara didn’t, but she nodded anyway. She hated to see Penelope so unhappy. She bit her lip, trying to think of something that might help. “Maybe, even if he did do something, he didn’t really know what he was doing? I know that’s no defense, but…” Her words trailed off.
Penelope blinked slowly and stared off into space. “I try to tell myself the same thing. That’s what I want to believe. That he was young and simply too excited to ask larger questions.”
“Well, maybe he is innocent?”
Penelope refocused on Amara. “I just can’t be sure, even if he claims to be so.” She paused. “And that’s the real crux of the matter. I’ve arrived at a point where I don’t trust him anymore. And without trust, I don’t believe you can love someone.” She seemed to wrestle with her words. “I want to love my father, I really do, no mat
ter what. He’s my father, after all. But I find I can’t. So, you see, in a way, it’s my failing. I can’t find it within myself to forgive him no matter what. In fact, I also believe that I am complicit in this matter, which makes me untrustworthy, and by inference, unlovable.”
The doorbell rang.
Penelope turned her head to the living room. “You don’t think he could have come over? My father, I mean.”
“Well, there’s one way to find out.” Amara rose, and strolled into the house
A moment later she returned.
* * *
“IT SEEMS TO BE RAINING fathers today,” Amara announced.
Penelope glanced over her shoulder.
Nick wiped his brow with the back of his hand. He was sweating, and the short orange jacket of his toreador costume had dark crescents under his armpits. The white T-shirt underneath stuck to his chest. “Sorry for barging in like this. That kid—” he stopped “—Press told me I might find you here, so I ran all the way from the library. I didn’t want to miss you.”
Penelope unfolded her legs to get up. “Perhaps it would be better if I went inside?”
Nick held out his hand. “No, there’s no need. Besides, this is your house.”
“In which case.” Penelope settled back on the grass. She made a grand gesture to the stretch of lawn before her.
He crouched down. There was the sound of tearing. He swung his head around and felt the back of his tight pants. “That was probably a mistake.” He looked at his daughter and Penelope. Neither had a smile. Okay.
He settled gingerly on the ground and turned to Amara.
She raised her chin, daring him to knock the chip off it.
He breathed heavily. Then he collected himself. You can do this, he told himself.
“First off, I want to say how sorry I am for not calling your headmistress right away. I have no excuse.”
Amara crossed her arms.
“I also want to let you know that after The Parade I immediately called her and got through. She verified that you will be able to graduate along with everyone in your class, and that the school would not notify Grantham of the incident. So there’s no need to worry on that account.”
“She said the same thing to me over the phone already,” Amara stated.
“And did she tell you that they came to this decision due to the girl you helped? She knew to step up and do the right thing. That took a lot of courage. Clearly she’s a good friend who values you as a good friend, too.”
“She’s all right, though? I mean, she’s not kicked out?” Amara asked.
“There’ll be some punishment, but nothing too drastic from what I understand.”
“And she’ll still keep her scholarship?”
Nick nodded. “As far as I know.” He paused. “Listen, as soon as your mother gets back—”
“She comes back Monday,” Amara interrupted.
He nodded. “Fine, two days from now, then, after you ask her all about her honeymoon, you better tell her what happened. She should hear it from you first.”
“I know.”
“And when you do, you don’t have to sugarcoat my ineptitude in handling the situation—although I don’t think that will surprise her.” Nick worked his jaw. “Amara, that’s about all I have to say, except how sorry I am that I disappointed you. I would like to tell you that it will never happen again, but I don’t want to make any promises I can’t keep. I’m certainly willing to try harder. And needless to say, I’m more than willing to listen to regular reminders about how I should behave properly. An occasional kick in the pants would also not be out of order.” He looked back and forth between Amara and Penelope.
Amara glanced over at Penelope, but she sat there silently, her hand cupping her glass. Amara scrunched her nose. “Great, thanks for coming by and telling me all that.”
“I know it doesn’t make up for what I did, but I was kind of hoping you’d…” He stumbled for words.
“Forgive you?” Penelope spoke up for the first time.
He glanced at her. “There is that, although that might be stretching things.”
She didn’t respond.
Then Amara sighed loudly. “You know, I don’t want to have to keep going through this whole thing with you again and again—having you promise to do something, then failing miserably, then me getting all upset, followed by you apologizing, leaving me having to say it’s all right.”
“I know. That would be really pathetic, especially if I have to keep running around town in this ridiculous outfit. And now I’m sitting here with my pants split open.”
Amara rolled her eyes. “Da-ad. This is not some joke.”
He shook his head. “You’re right. It’s not. Sometimes I can’t help myself—especially when I’m nervous.”
Amara looked shocked. “Nervous? You get nervous?”
“Doesn’t everybody?” He raised his hand, shook it, then clenched his fist. “Listen, I don’t want you to constantly be disappointed and then later feel obliged to make me feel better, either. I want to take responsibility. I don’t want you to have to be the parent. If I do a good job, you don’t have to thank me. That’s what I’m supposed to do. If I mess up, you don’t have to make excuses for me. Just tell me I messed up and demand that I do better.”
Amara bit down on her lower lip. “You hurt me bad, you know.”
He gave a brisk nod. “I know I did.”
“I’ll have to think about what you said—the whole ‘father’ thing. And that’s the best I can promise now.”
“Then that’s what I’ll take.” He rubbed his open palms against the grass.
“But if we’re going to have this discussion again, you’ve got to lose that outfit,” Amara reprimanded him. “At least you’re not wearing that stupid hat.”
Penelope raised her glass. “Now, that is funny.”
“But just because I made a joke doesn’t mean we’re squared away—not by a long shot.” Amara gave it to him good.
Finally—finally—he suppressed his smile. “I know. I realize that. But at least let me extend the offer for you to come to my Class Day speech. Let me show you that I do know how to do some things right.” He held out a hand.
“I might have accepted, but your timing’s bad—as usual. See, Mom and Glenn are coming in on Monday, and I was thinking of going back home tomorrow to make sure that the house was all in order. Maybe get them eggs and milk, or whatever you’re supposed to have in the refrigerator.”
“Flowers. Flowers are always appropriate—not in the refrigerator, though,” Penelope piped up.
Amara bobbed her head. “Good idea. In any case, that means I’ll have to take the train tomorrow.”
“Perhaps it would be better if I drove you. It can’t be that far to go back and forth in one day,” Penelope offered.
“Farther than you think,” Nick said. He was astounded at her offer.
“No, just to the train station in Grantham Junction will be fine,” Amara responded. “In any case, it’s time I became a little more independent, don’t you think?”
“Independence is always a good idea,” Penelope agreed. Then she slowly turned and looked out over the lawn as it fell away to the lake.
Nick knew there was more to that statement, but he needed to concentrate on his daughter now. “If you’ve already decided, then,” he said to her.
Amara nodded once up and down. “I have.”
He wished he could have had a chance to be with her a little longer—to settle things. But this way he’d just have to give her time. “In that case, I’ll just say that I’ll miss you.”
“You know, you can always send me a DVD of the speech. Georgie is filming, right?”
“Georgie is always filming,” Nick answered philosophically. He found himself drawn to the lake, as well. The water was like glass. “And now I think I need to talk to Penelope.”
“I’ll take that as my cue to go to my room and start packing,” Amara answered. She waited until Penelope glanced her way. “I’m doing this as much for you as for him, you know.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
“DON’T YOU THINK YOU should quit while you’re marginally ahead?” Penelope asked.
“You’re probably right,” Nick admitted. “I’d get another glass and join you in…” He reached back to read the label. “I thought it was grappa.”
“Mother’s milk,” Penelope cooed. The alcohol had mellowed her considerably.
“Mother’s milk—but with a kick. Unfortunately I still have to film a segment at the student center with alums and their enthusiastic family members. Ah, the joys of institutional food.”
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“Not nearly as sorry as I am.” He pulled at a few blades of grass. “I’m worried.”
“Are these worries of a global nature? Professional? Dare I say personal?”
He reached over and laid his fingers atop hers on the grass. “I’m concerned about us.”
“From a professional standpoint, I think that concern is not unfounded. As it turned out, I won’t be able to film making ’nduja with you after all. I have more pressing matters with the university.”
“Does it have to do with what we shot at the Rare Book Library? Georgie told me about your text. I thought we’d gotten all the correct permissions.”
“It’s related to that, yes. But you can put your mind at ease. You have absolutely no…ah…involvement in the case. Please, let Georgie know, will you, that it’s an internal matter.”
“But whatever it is, it has an impact on the exhibit, doesn’t it?” He cocked his thumb over his shoulder in the general direction of the campus.
She nodded briskly. “That’s probably the least of it.”
A Rare Find Page 22