“Good morning,” I said, moving to sit beside her on the edge of the bed. I offered her the glass of water, and she took it. “I expect you’ll be needing this.”
Her eyes narrowed further. “Not to be ungrateful, but do you have any orange juice?”
I lifted a brow and added yet another item to my growing grocery list. “I think you know the answer to that already.”
“Right.” She looked at the water like it was a death sentence.
“You’ll need these, as well.” I pulled the bottle of pills from my pocket, and she managed a smile that might have been holding back vomit.
Ah, to hell with it. I reached into my pocket, again. “Oh, and one more thing…”
She looked at the paper in my hand as though it were the most complex puzzle she’d ever laid eyes upon. She put the glass on the nightstand and unfolded the fortune with trembling fingers, casting a suspicious glance up at me. Then, she read it and she froze for a split second before looking up sharply. “You said you didn’t save this.”
“I lied.” I smiled through my sudden nausea. Penny was hung over on the whisky; I was hung over on my anxiety about last night’s declaration of love. A declaration she hadn’t returned, and which seemed far more important to me with every passing hour. “Happy Labor Day.”
“I…” It was likely not a good sign that she immediately started sobbing. And not the type of sobbing you’d see in a public proposal.
Despite the sinking feeling in my gut, my main concern was for Penny’s tears, which I already knew I would never become immune to. If someone offered me a chance to ensure nothing but happiness for her for the rest of her life, with the caveat that I had to cut off one of my own thumbs, I would have grabbed a pair of scissors without hesitation.
“Hey, hey.” I put my arms around her cautiously. “What’s that for?”
“Because I ruined everything.” Her voice was so raw my throat hurt on her behalf.
Bewildered, I tried to figure out how she’d ruined everything. “By trying to have sex with me?” Oh God, I’d declined her drunken offer, and now she was crushed. “I wasn’t rejecting you, Doll, I—”
“I know, I know.” She sat back and wiped at her eyes as though she was ashamed to be crying. It was an odd contrast to all the weeping she’d done the night before. “I wouldn’t have wanted to fuck me, either.”
It was only through great effort that I didn’t burst out laughing at the absurdity of that statement. I couldn’t very well prove to her how much I wanted her—it didn’t seem appropriate to announce that I’d jerked off thinking about her less than thirty minutes ago—but I couldn’t deny it, either. “Believe me, it wasn’t that I didn’t want to fuck you.”
“But I was trying to use you to make myself feel better about some other guy,” she clarified. “It was so awful of me.”
She covered her face, either to block out the light or from shame, I couldn’t be sure which. But she needn’t be ashamed; she was far from the only person in the room who’d made foolish, embarrassing choices in a moment of heartache. Telling your sister that you cheated on your wife because you were too cowardly to admit your marriage had just failed, for example.
I hushed that awful voice. “You were in a bad place. It won’t be the last time, I promise.” I tried to laugh, but that truth was too awful. I just didn’t want to be the cause of that kind of pain for her. I certainly didn’t want to frighten her away from sharing her feelings; that hadn’t worked with Gena, that was for bloody certain. “And you’ve yet to see how badly I can fuck things up. But I’m ready to be in this with you. All of you.”
“I just thought…” She shook her head and looked up. “I was kind of desperate. After all that stuff we talked about… I didn’t want to make you wait.”
I took her hands. They were small and vulnerable, and the memory of her palm over my heart lingered as a dull ache. I lifted her bent fingers to my mouth and kissed her knuckles. “I’m not them, Penny. I’m the guy who’ll actually wait for you.”
She tackled me. There was no other word for it. One moment, she was looking up at me with those wide, helpless brown eyes then she was practically in my lap, knocking the wind out of me as she wrapped her arms around my neck.
“Careful,” I managed, once the shock wore off. I tilted my head back to look at her and brushed her hair out of her eyes. “I’m not as shiny and new as you are.”
She wiped at her tears, again. “Sorry. I’m overly enthusiastic with expressions of affection. If you’re in this with me, you have to get used to that.”
“I’ll buy protective equipment.” Like a fucking gas mask, if this was her usual morning breath. I loved her, but I had to breathe through my mouth as I leaned my forehead against hers. “Penny?”
“Yeah?”
This was the sort of thing a person had to be direct about. “I want to kiss you, but your breath is fucking terrible.”
She clamped her lips shut, and her laugh came out her nose in a little squeak. With a hand over her mouth, she giggled. “Do you have any mouthwash?”
“I do. Go use it.” Thank God she hadn’t taken real offense to that. It was yet another sign that we were quite possibly meant to be.
She got up with great care, but when she swung her legs over the side of the bed, the sweet, round curve of her ass showed beneath the hem of the t-shirt she’d borrowed from me. I averted my eyes, in case she inadvertently flashed more than that. As she headed to the bathroom, she called over her shoulder, “I want a kiss when I get back.”
“Well, obviously.” My heart rate had already sped up just at the mention of it.
The fortune cookie slip lay on the bed where it had fallen. I picked it up and read the words, again. The love of my live. I wasn’t going to complain about that.
Chapter Eleven
To my great disappointment, Penny had a bit of business to take care of at her office—Sophie and her friend were stricter bosses than I’d imagined, making their assistant work on a national holiday—but it gave me a chance to gain some much needed spiritual guidance.
I didn’t call Danny right away. Instead, I cleaned up the whisky spills from the night before, made my bed, then grabbed my rosary and headed up to the deck.
Gena had never understood my need to pray. She’d never disparaged it, but she had never seemed quite comfortable with it, and that had, in turn, made me feel quite uncomfortable doing it near her, or when she was aware of it. So, I’d hidden it, telling her I was going up to sit on the deck or in the enclosed solarium to read, and she’d been perfectly happy with that explanation. Now, even though I was alone, it seemed natural to sit in the sun, surrounded by God’s creation of land and sky rather than my creation of steel and concrete, and meditate on the joyful mysteries. I put on my sunglasses and sat on the chaise, kicked my feet up, crossed myself, and tried to clear my head as I methodically mumbled my way through the Apostle’s Creed.
I made it halfway through the second Hail Mary of the first decade before I realized I was drifting again and again to thoughts of Penny. Can you really hold me accountable for this, Lord? You threw her into my path. The chain of beads sagged in my hands, and I tipped my head back against the cushion. Danny would tell me that if something was interrupting my prayer, that was the thing I needed to pray about.
I love her. And I think it’s too soon. And I’m too old for her. I thought of 2 Corinthians, the bit that said, “Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.” Renewed was putting it lightly. I wouldn’t say I was wasting away; my knees popped every time I stood, and if I got a cold it was a month-long event these days, but wasting away was a long way off, I hoped. Long enough to be a good partner to Penny? To start a family with her?
If I was going to start a family with anyone, why not a woman who was younger? Just in case? It was a grim view, but if we were to have a baby in two years, I would be in my seventies before the kid graduated high school. If I found a woman
my own age, it would be the same. And it would be all fertility treatments and horror, the kind Gena had wanted to avoid, and even then, a woman having a baby in her mid-fifties was an exception, not an expectation. Penny wanted to be a young mother, and I wanted to be a father, soon.
Then again, Penny could be hit by a bus in five years, and I would still be in the same position. What if I had a heart attack? What if I got cancer? Neil had gotten cancer in his late forties, so I wasn’t immune. There was no guarantee that anybody would exceed their life expectancy. Did I really want to leave a child alone in the world? To be raised by who? Danny? Was my desperation for a family selfish at this point?
I need to know what to do.
But I didn’t know what to do. So I went back to my rosary, to the ritual Monday meditations of the first events in Jesus’s life, from the Annunciation to when he was found preaching in the temple. By the time I was finishing up the Hail Holy Queen at the end, I knew where I had to turn next.
“St. Joseph, he was an old dad, wasn’t he?” I asked the moment Danny’s voice came on the line.
“Hi, Uncle Ian, good to hear from you, too.”
“I’m having a serious crisis here, Father.” I leaned on the word to guilt him. “Yes or no, St. Joseph, he was no spring chicken when Jesus was born, yeah?”
The volume of the television in the background lowered. “It’s not really a yes or no answer. Some theologians think that, yes, St. Joseph was an older widower with children, hence the references to Jesus’s siblings in the Bible. Others say an old man couldn’t have possibly travelled as far as Joseph did with Jesus and Mary. What’s going on with you, that this is such a pressing issue?”
“Do you think I’ll be a good father?” In hindsight, blurting the question out that way was bound to get the response it received.
“You did not knock up the twenty-two year old!”
“No, no. This would definitely be a St. Joseph situation, if she were pregnant.” My chest constricted a little, speaking about Penny in this context aloud. “I’m worried. I’m in love with her, and I’m worried. She wants to have a family, and I do. But I’m not sure.”
“You’re not sure if you should have kids, because of your age?” Danny asked, but he didn’t need an answer, because he rolled on. “If it’s in God’s plan for you, it will happen. If not, it won’t. You can certainly express your intentions—within the boundary of marriage, please—and open that doorway for Him. He’ll decide for you if it’s the right thing.”
“Penny’s not Catholic. I don’t think she’s even a Christian. Is God looking out for her in the plans He’s making for me? Because I’m not sure it’s right…” I swallowed the lump that had mysteriously taken up residence in my throat. “I’m not sure it’s in her best interests, starting a family with a man my age. I wouldn’t even see our grandchildren.”
“First, you don’t know that. You could live to be a hundred. No one knows when they’re going to be called home. Second, what the hell happened that you’re so rattled?” Danny demanded.
I sighed, ready for my nephew to scold me in the middle of my priest’s wise religious advice. “I told her I love her.”
The lecture I’d anticipated was not forthcoming. Danny simply asked, “You love her?”
“Yes. I think I’ve been in love with her since our second date.” I stood and paced the deck. “It’s not too soon to be thinking about these things, is it?”
“No, you should give all of this consideration before making any kind of commitment,” he reassured me. “But you’ve thought of all this before. So, I’m guessing she didn’t say it back.”
Damn his unreasonable powers of perception. “No, she didn’t.”
“There’s no shame in expressing your feelings. When she’s ready, she’ll say it.”
I wish I could share Danny’s confidence. “So, the sum total of your pastoral advice today is do whatever you want and let God sort it out?”
“Yes. It should fall in line with your religious philosophy. Do whatever I want and beg my nephew for get-out-of-Hell-free cards.” Even in my hour of need, he couldn’t resist digging at me. “Can you see a future between you and Penny?”
I let myself imagine it, for just a moment. But in that moment, I contemplated an entire possible life. Waking up with her. Washing dishes and buying groceries together. Complaining about work. Fighting. Making love and making each other happy.
I couldn’t just see it. I could live it in a single second.
“Yes. I don’t want to imagine a future without her.”
“Christ, you are really done for.”
“I know,” I agreed. “Thank you for solving my dilemma. You must come from a long line of incredibly smart, handsome individuals.”
“Yeah, on my father’s side,” Danny countered. “Be careful, Uncle Ian. You don’t need to go through another heartbreak this year.”
I glanced out at the harbor, the water sparkling in the midday sun. You’re telling me, kid.
* * * *
As far as Hell on Earth went, I felt my Thursday had been fairly close. Burt was still breathing down my neck for a decision on the Bahamas—a decision I couldn’t make without further input from Carrie—and any time one office fire seemed put out, another one caught. I was truly looking forward to the end of the week, not because all those problems wouldn’t be waiting for me on Monday—and possibly Saturday and Sunday, as well—but because I would be seeing Penny.
She called me Thursday night, and I was relieved to hear her voice. It was like I’d become addicted to her presence. We’d talked for an hour the night before, a length of time I’d rarely managed to span on phone calls in the past. And though we’d talked about nothing important, it had felt important, just to spend that time with her.
So, when she said, “I hope you didn’t have big, big plans. I have to cancel on you,” I felt a moment of panic, as though I were mentally calculating how long I would have to go without another fix.
I tried to joke the feeling away. “Exactly what level of disappointed am I allowed to be without appearing needy?”
“You should be totally crushed.”
That didn’t sound promising. What the hell did she mean by it? “Oh, I am. May I ask what’s come up? This isn’t the permanent brush-off, is it?”
I tried to think of something I might have done or said, but she quickly reassured me. “God, no! No, I’m just feeling under the weather.”
“Do you need anything? I hear soup is the latest thing for sick people.” You’re being pushy and desperate, man. Get ahold of yourself.
“Um. Not that kind of weather.” Her voice lowered, and she mumbled, “The…monthly kind of under the weather.”
I almost laughed at her. I’d lived with a woman for eight years, and I had five sisters. Being scandalized by a woman’s cycle would have been silly in the extreme. “Penny? I’m fifty-three. I do know about menstruation. You’re not going to shock me.”
“Oh, good,” she said, pure relief in her words. “Well, then, you understand. I just feel so gross.”
Feeling gross seemed like as good a reason as any to not go traipsing all over New York for food and entertainment. “I do understand. But if you need anything, ice cream, hot water bottle, a hormone-fueled argument—”
“Not funny,” she snapped.
“I’m sorry.” I should have known better than to make such an insensitive comment. “But I do mean that. If you need me, I can come over any time this weekend.”
“Oh.” She hesitated. “Well, if you wanted to come over. I do have a television in my room. We could watch a movie or something.”
Ah, the days of having a roommate and keeping to one’s room for privacy. “Great, then we’re still on for tomorrow?”
“What about tonight?”
“Tonight?” There was nothing I wanted more than to see her. But I wanted to see her tomorrow, when I didn’t have to get up early and head into the office the next day.
; “Sorry. You have work tomorrow,” she apologized.
“Don’t you?” I asked, to gently remind her.
“No, I called in.”
I should have said no. It was impractical to drive all the way over there, now, when it was seven o’clock and I would have to come back in time to get a reasonable amount of sleep. I was already exhausted, but I knew I wasn’t going to turn down the chance to see her. And there was no reason I had to drive back home. I’m sure Ambrose would be content to have my bed all to himself; he hadn’t forgiven me yet for letting Penny sleep over.
I sighed at my own lack of self-control. “All right. Can I sleep there? I’ll just go straight to work from your place in the morning.”
“Yeah. I would love it if you would stay over.” The note of happiness in her voice, when she’d sounded so miserable just moments ago, made me feel as though I had some kind of super power.
“Give me about forty minutes. Do you want me to bring dinner?”
“How about pizza?” she suggested. “I’m buying.”
“You don’t—” Don’t argue with her, Ian. That would be insulting. “That would be lovely. No black olives. Anything else, just no black olives, I beg you.”
“One anchovies and pineapple barbecue chicken pizza, then.” She laughed.
I hoped she was joking.
After we hung up, I went upstairs and put my suit for the next day into my garment bag and dropped my toiletries in the bottom. Then, I looked down at what I was wearing. I’d taken off my tie and jacket and unbuttoned my shirt from the day, but that was the extent of things. Penny had teased me before about looking like an undertaker. I couldn’t go over to what was likely her hip, young person apartment with Christmas lights all over everything dressed like I was there to sell insurance.
Then again, I probably shouldn’t dress like I was trying to look young, either. It was already fairly pathetic that I was dating a woman thirty years younger than me, on a scale of one to midlife crisis. I didn’t need Penny thinking I was trying to relive my youth or something comparably creepy.
First Time: Ian's Story (First Time (Ian) Book 1) Page 15