Unravel

by Renee Fowler

  “I hope they like me.” Penny brushes her fingers across the back of my neck abscently.

  “They’re going to adore you.”

  “What makes you so sure?”

  “Because I adore you, and you are absolutely adorable.”

  Penny half laughs, half scoffs.

  “You don’t believe me?”

  She shrugs. “I believe you believe it.”

  “I do, completely and absolutely.”

  “Are you disappointed that I’m walking away from the theater?”

  “No, Penny. Not at all. I admit that it’s a little hard for me to understand, but if that’s what makes happy, then I’ll be happy with you.”

  “It almost feels like a waste, all those years I spent learning, but then I thought about the night you explained Unravel to me, and the sunk cost fallacy.”

  “Well, I did say I wanted to leave it open to interpretation.”

  Wearing a playful smile, she takes my wine glass out of my hand and sets it on the nearby table.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” I ask, feeling my mouth mirror her half formed grin.

  Penny reclines back against the corner of the sectional and plants her ankles onto my shoulders. “I’m leaving it open to interpretation, Mr. Thibault.”

  “Very subtle, Ms Abbott.” I gingerly kiss the fading, zipper of a scar up the back of her one ankle, and gently bite the back of the other.

  She grabs a fistful of my shirt and pulls me closer. “I didn’t want there to be any confusion.”

  I can tell Penny is a bit nervous, but she warms up to Cate again in no time at all, and their dog, a small yorkshire terrier that she won’t put down. Gabin’s resemblance to my brother is uncanny, although I never remember Remi being this sullen and moody, but I suppose it’s his age. I spend some time getting reaquainted with Richard and his children, and I try to appear interested as Richard drones on about his work in finance.

  “I haven’t seen you like this in forever,” Cate remarks later the next afternoon when we are alone in her kitchen.

  “Like what?”

  “Happy.”

  “I suppose you’re waiting on me to thank you for butting in and volunteering me to accompany Penny to that art show, huh?”

  Cate holds her hands up and grins. “Hey, I’m not expecting a card or anything, but if you want to open up that other bottle of wine for me, I wouldn’t complain.”

  Grinning at Cate, I turned to search through the drawer for a corkscrew. “So, I’ve finally made a decision on where I’m setting down roots.”

  “Wait. Wait. Don’t tell me.” Cate presses a fingertip to the center of her eyebrows, and widens her eyes at me like she’s trying to divine my thoughts. “Chicago?”

  “Crazy huh?”

  “Is it?”

  “I was afraid you’d tell me it was too soon.”

  “Nah. I think when you know, you know. It was like that for me both times it happened.” Cate paused to snap her fingers for emphasis. “I say if you’ve got to date someone for a year before you know how you feel about them, then you don’t feel much, right?”

  “You’ve probably got a point there.”

  “She’s really sweet, Liam.”

  I murmur my agreement and refill Cate’s glass.

  “Richard and I were talking about that last night. She’s just a sweetheart, and… I’m not sure if I can just ask you this, or…” Cate lets out a nervous chuckle.

  “What?”

  She peers through the open archway and lowers her voice. “Is she on the spectrum?”

  “Huh?”

  “Penny. Is she… Well, is she autistic?”

  “No,” I say automatically. “What would make you ask that?”

  Cate nibbles on her thumbnail as a crease forms between her eyebrows. “I just noticed… Well, with Bobby and everything, I’ve learned so much about it, but she doesn’t make eye contact very often, and she stims constantly. Not as bad as Bobby, but… you know, the rubbing and hair twirling. You haven’t noticed that?”

  “She’s just a little shy, and she’s a bit prone to anxiety, but it’s not… She looks me in the eyes all the time.” But she didn’t in the past, did she? For the longest time I could barely get her to look at me at all. I scratch along my jaw and pour myself another glass of wine. “She would’ve told me something like that, and… Penny runs her own business, and she an accomplished performer. I don’t see how something like that is possible.”

  “That’s why they call it a spectrum though. It affects some people more than others. I actually remember reading something about how girls and women show it a little differently. They can hide the symptoms more, so they don’t get diagnosed as frequently. And ten years ago, who was even talking about this stuff? Honestly, Liam, she might not even know.”

  Blinking down towards my wine glass, my mind spins back through the time I’ve known Penny, all the little quirks and peculiarities I’d chalked up to her being a bit unique, a little eccentric.

  “Liam, I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  “You didn’t upset me. I’m just… shit.”

  “This doesn’t have to change anything though, right? You two love each other, and you finally seem like… you again. These past few years you’ve been so blah.” Cate pauses to shake her head. “Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything.”

  “No, I’m glad you did, and of course I still love her, but… it would certainly explain some things.”

  That evening while Penny is curled up with a book I know she’s read ten times, I peer down at my phone, feeling oddly traitorous as I consult google for information. So many things are making sense to me suddenly, but I’m not exactly sure how to broach the subject. Do I drop a few subtle hints, on the off chance that she is aware? Penny has never done subtle well though. I turn off my phone, curl up behind her and bury my face in her hair, deciding to wait until we arrive home the next day to bring it up.

  Chapter 24

  Penny

  The truth with set you free, but first it will piss you off. It will make everything that happened up until that moment feel like a lie. The truth will make you send away your lovely and beautiful boyfriend because you need a few days to process things. It will make you curl up into a ball and cry. It will make you call up friends and ask if they ever suspected. It will even prompt you to call your stepfather, who you’re still somewhat ambivalent about, to get a little clarity.

  When Foster informed me that they not only suspected, but had their suspicions confirmed by a doctor when I was eight, a breath lodged in my throat and wouldn’t budge.

  “Penelope, are you still there?”

  Swallowing thickly, I taste nothing but bitter. “Why didn’t anyone tell me?”

  “Your mother and I didn’t want to stick you with that label, and look at everything you’ve accomplished. You’re perfectly well adjusted, and-”

  I hung up the phone, and I didn’t pick up when he called back. I sat and stared at a shaft of light on the wall for an hour, trying to make sense of it all. When that didn’t work, I sat in bed and stared at the painting Liam bought me for another hour.

  I learned how to fake being normal enough for Foster to consider that witholding a success. In his mind, not telling me was for my own good, but it might have been nice to know growing up, to have a name for my strangeness. I suppose from the outside looking in, I’ve adjusted well enough, but inside is another story.

  I lock myself away in my apartment for days, not answering the phone, eating only when my stomach gnawed and growled with a vengeance. I read articles and books and first hand accounts online, stopping only when my eyes were gritty and the words blurred together.

  After my exhaustive research, I’ve concluded I’m somewhere in the range of high functioning autism, asperger's, or PDD-NOS, which stands for pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified. I guess I could call Foster back and ask for specifics on what they were told when I was young, or I co
uld contact a specialist to find out for myself now, but I don’t see the point. They all mean basically the same thing. I’m strange, which I already knew. My brain is wired wrong, which I didn’t.

  My habit of staring at people’s mouths when they speak for fear that they can actually see inside my pupils, and my brain, and my soul, is not normal. Other people don’t have to silently count in there mind, one mississippi, two mississippi, when forcing themselves to make eye contact. I’ve learned through trial and error that it’s abnormal to never make eye contact, but you don’t want to stare too intently for too long either. There is a precarious art to it that evades me, but for most everyone else that ability is innate, I now know.

  I learned about self-stimulatory behaviors, a method of self soothing. Well, I didn’t learn about them. I’ve been doing these things for as long as I can remember. I just never had a name for them before now, and I’ve figured out ways to incorporate them into my daily life without drawing too much attention to myself.

  A grown woman spinning in circles is cause for concern. A dancer doing an endless series of pirouettes, fouettes, and piqué tours barely raises an eye.

  And all those glorious fabrics I can name by feel alone. Normal people don’t run their palms over interesting textures for an hour at a time. They aren’t utterly engaged by the shifting shadows dancing across the ceiling well into the middle of the night. They don’t wedge themselves between the mattress and boxspring because it is wonderfully relaxing.

  They don’t find social interaction with more than a handful of people so exhausting that it requires a day to recuperate either. They can tolerate the nose of a restaurant, bar, or party without jiggling their foot obnoxiously and wringing their hands beneath the table, or plucking individual hair from the back of their scalp just to feel that tiny, sharp stab of numbing pain.

  And what is the trade-off? I can recall useless trivia about a handful of TV shows and book series. I can easily and categorically remember a long sequence of dance steps. I can list off the average price per yard of a hundred different fabrics, and wax poetic about ribbons, buttons and decorative clasps. I can go for days, weeks, or months without meaningful human interaction and not feel the bite of loneliness.

  Right now I’m feeling very lonely. More alone than I’ve ever felt in my entire life, and it’s only been four days. According to all these first hand accounts I’ve read, adults who finally learn the truth are usually awash with relief. At long last things click, and the way they are in relation to the rest of the world makes sense.

  Where is my relief? All I feel is foolish for not realizing for so long, and embarrassed to learn that my normal act wasn’t as good as I imagined.

  Carrie suspected, she informed me in a quiet voice over the phone. When I asked why she never mentioned, she didn’t have a good answer. Perhaps it’s one of those things people don’t say to your face, like when you’ve gained weight, or gotten an unfortunate haircut. I’ve actually pointed these things out to others in the past, and was left confused and hurt by their anger or dismissal. I had to learn the folly of those comments through trial and error too.

  Seth didn’t suspect, but he is a bit absorbed with himself, and sex, and the glare of lights beating down over his body onstage. There is plenty he doesn’t notice.

  Paige wouldn’t give me a straight answer. Maybe she knew, but all she had to say about it is, “Who fucking cares? Everyone's a little weird, and the ones that aren’t a little weird and too boring to give a shit about.”

  Fair enough.

  Liam has called and texted plenty. Yesterday he knocked at the door downstairs for a long time, but I couldn’t bring myself to go answer it. This morning I dressed in actual clothes and started out for a few necessities, but when I spotted an envelope slid under the door, resting on the tile floor of the bottom landing, I ran back inside. I can go another day without Diet Coke and yogurt. Depending on what is in that letter, I’m not sure if I can face it quite yet.

  I’m still in a state of miserable shock when I hear movement from outside my bedroom the next day.

  The door bursts open and Seth comes sauntering in uninvited. “Why are you still in bed?”

  “I’ve been up.” My voice is croaky from days of disuse. “How did you get in here?”

  “You gave me a key. Remember?”

  “Oh.” I do remember. I’d entrusted him with picking up my mail when I went out of town last year. “What are you doing here?”

  Seth kicks off his shoes and pulls back the pile of blankets to crawl in bed beside me. “Is this what you sleep in?” he asks, tugging at the collar of my thermal undershirt.

  “Sometimes.”

  “How unsexy. I always imagined you in lace and silk.”

  “You have quite the imagination.”

  “What are you doing, Penny?”

  “What does it look like?”

  “It looks like you’re throwing yourself a pity party.”

  I roll over so I’m not facing him any longer. Seth curls up behind me and drapes an arm over my side. He’s clutching a white envelope with the word Darling scrawled across the front.

  “He calls you darling?” Seth asks, pressing the envelope into my hands.

  “Sometimes.”

  “What do you call him?”

  “Liam.”

  Seth laughs. “You never call him baby, or sweet cheeks, or sex god?”

  I let out a tired sigh. No, I’ve never called him anything except Liam, although maybe I should have chosen some cutesy endearment for him. It’s probably one of the many things I messed up because the wiring in my brain is all screwy.

  “Well, aren’t you going to open it?” Seth asks. “I’m dying to find out what sex god has written to you, Darling.”

  I peel open the seal of the envelope with shaking fingers. There is a folded over piece of stiff, textured parchment with purposefully frayed edges.

  Liam confessed his love of nice stationary and elegant penmanship to me one night when he showed me the letters passed down to him, the ones his parents had exchanged in the time before their marriage. Flowery love letters. Sweet, not lurid. His mother had died when he was quite young, and his father never looked at another woman for the remainder of his life. It was the night I realized Liam is truly a romantic, which makes his interest in me so peculiar. Trinkets, love letters, pet names. I’ve never understood those things, and now I suppose I know why. My brain isn’t wired to understand. I’m broken in that way. Doesn’t he get that? Finally, at long last, he knows the truth and so do I.

  A pale grey feather flutters out of the envelope. Careful not to bend the smooth barbs the wrong way, I run it along the side of my cheek as my eyes digest the slanted cursive.

  Penny, I am an empty, flightless passerine without you.

  “What is that supposed to mean?” Seth asks.

  “I think it means he still loves me.”

  Seth tucks a strand of hair behind my ear and wipes his fingers along my sleeve. “When is the last time you washed your hair?”

  “Two days ago? Maybe three.”

  He makes a gentle gagging noise close to my ear, and flings the covers back. “Go take a shower and I’ll find something gorgeous for you to wear tonight.”

  “I’m not going.”

  “Oh, yes you are, darling. When a sex god like Liam Thibault choreographs a dance for you, the very least you can do is show up to watch.”

  “I’m not the one dancing in it.”

  “But he wrote it for you, silly girl.” Seth lets out a tired sigh. “Maybe you can talk to Carrie for me too. She hates me now.”

  I roll back over to face him. “What did you do?”

  “Exactly what she wanted. We had sex. Lots and lots of sex.”

  “And?”

  “Now she will barely speak to me.”

  I’m starting to think Seth is as clueless as me. “Carrie isn’t like you. She wants more than sex.”

  “You might be right,” he
says miserably. “But I thought she understood.”

  “Maybe she tried to understand, but she couldn’t.”

  “Maybe.” Seth shoots up to sitting. “Time to get ready. No arguments. You’re going. End of story.”

  Seth physically pulls me out of bed. When he threatens to strip both of us down and climb in the shower with me, I choose to stop dragging my feet.

  An hour later I am dressed in a plum colored sheath dress. My ankle is still a little wobbly at times, so I choose to forgo heels for black flats. I leave my hair loose, but brush it until it shines. Seth dabs a bit of blood red lipstick across my mouth. I tuck the feather in my purse, and place the letter from Liam inside my bedside drawer for safe keeping.

  When I see Liam again, the center of my chest aches terribly. He is speaking with Andrea, and doesn’t notice me at first. I take a moment to study him while he is unaware.

  Liam is stunningly handsome in his dark suit. His neat, brown hair framing his face that is beautiful beyond words. It’s been years since I’ve thought of him as Liam Thibault, the object of my teenage desires. The longer I’ve known him personally, the more tangible and real he’s become, but in that moment, those two sides of him meld together for me and the effect is overwhelming.

  When he lifts his head and fixes me with his hazel eyes, I’m frozen in place, transfixed and speechless as he strides confidently in my direction. He doesn’t stop until the toes of our shoes are almost touching. “You came,” he says.

  I nod. My mouth won’t work, so I open up my purse and take the feather out. I slide it into the pocket of his suit coat, and smooth down the lapels.

  “What does this mean, Penny?”

  Oh, god. Am I really going to cry? I barely manage to hold the tears back as he takes me by the hand and leads me to his office. Liam closes the door and sits me down. He kneels in front of me and rests his hands on my knees, waiting for me to speak.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t call you back,” I finally manage. “I wasn’t sure what to say. I’ve been trying to sort this out.”