He and Jenny were still standing, while everyone else remained at the table. Abruptly, laughter gone, Jenny sat down and pushed a chair toward Rob. He sat with his back rigid, not touching the wood. Looked as if he were in the principal’s office. Jenny wanted to shake him, loosen him up, uncrimp those stiff shoulders, then realized she was sitting exactly the same way.
“That’s your mother?” Amelia Pennoyer said. “Your mother?”
“Mrs. Pennoyer, can I say someth—”
“Wait a second, wait a second, hold on.” Jenny’s father clinked down his coffee cup. As if it were a signal, they were all in motion. Amelia finished brushing the crumbs, Mimi pushed back her chair, and Frankie moved closer to her, while Ethel, staring at Rob, twitched her nose like a rabbit.
Ethel’s getting back at me for being so impatient with her, Jenny thought. Irrelevant, but her mind fixed on that moment with Ethel with something like relief. Ethel’s anger was fixable, something she could make right. She’d talk to her later, explain she’d been nervous.
“Now, let’s get this straight,” Jenny’s father said. “We’re talking here about a woman named Nell Montana, who—” He looked at his wife and said, his voice thickening, “She was in an accident with our daughter. Is that woman your mother?”
“Mr. Pennoyer”—Rob smiled uneasily—“that’s, yes, that’s my mother.”
“What?”
“My mother,” Rob repeated.
And again they all stared disbelievingly at him. But they had known, Jenny thought, from the moment she said Rob’s name. Known, but couldn’t believe.
“I know how you feel,” Rob began.
“The hell you do,” Frank Pennoyer said. He was breathing hard. An uncharacteristic flush rose under his skin. “The hell you do.”
“Mr. Pennoyer—it was the most terrible thing that ever happened to my mother.”
Hearing Rob’s words through her parents’ ears, Jenny winced. How facile it sounded. The most terrible thing … As if his mother’s pain could match the pain of Gail’s death.
“What are you doing here?” Amelia said.
“I’m—I came to see Jenny.” And again his smile, which now made Jenny want to cry out, Don’t smile.
“Rob’s here because I asked him,” she said. “He’s my friend. My good friend.”
“Oh, my God,” Mimi said.
“Your good friend,” Jenny’s mother said, almost under her breath. She pushed back her chair and stood up.
“Mom—” Jenny began.
“No,” Amelia Pennoyer said. “No. Don’t say anything to me!” She left the room, her heels rapping on the old wooden floor. A moment later they all heard the sound of her bedroom door closing hard.
“That does it.” Jenny’s father put both hands flat on the table. “I don’t know what you had in mind, Jenny, and I don’t much care.” He turned to Rob. “You leave now,” he said. “You just walk yourself out of this house, pronto.”
“Dad—please, can we talk?”
“There’s nothing to talk about. I want him out of here.”
“I think you’re all narrow-minded,” she burst out. “You won’t even listen, give me a chance—” She had thought Frankie would stand up for her, and Mimi. Yes, surely, Mimi. Irrationally, she felt the greatest anger against Mimi. Why did she sit there with her eyes down and her hands folded so demurely in her lap!
Rob stood up. “Mr. Pennoyer,” he said with dignity. “I’m really sorry I upset Mrs. Pennoyer. It was—it was nice meeting you all.”
“Oh, it was really nice meeting you all,” Jenny said into his ear as they walked into the hall.
Rob smiled lamely. “I had to say something, didn’t I?”
She leaned against the wall, her arms folded. “Now wasn’t that terrific? Wasn’t that pleasant, though? Ugh!” She hit her hand against the wall. “It was every bit as awful as—”
“Well, next time it will be a little easier,” Rob said. “At least we broke the ice.”
“Next time?” She couldn’t believe him. He almost looked cheerful, but she felt as if she’d taken a beating. “Didn’t any of that in there get through to you?”
He squeezed her hands. “Look, Jenny, don’t let them scare you. So they said boo! I can understand—it was a shock for them.”
He bent toward her to kiss her, but she sidestepped. “Not here. Not now.”
“Honey,” he said sadly, and then, sorry, she held on to his jacket with both hands, silently berating herself. Why hadn’t she been stronger, somehow made things clearer? The moment her mother looked at her, the moment her father raised his voice, she had felt wiped out. Her father was calling her now, and her stomach started that uneasy pounding, as if she were twelve again, instead of seventeen.
“You better go,” she said to Rob. Yes, she wanted him to go, but she wanted him to stay, also. She wanted to push him out the door and wanted to leave with him.
“Jenny!” her father called again.
Rob left, and she stood at the window watching him walk down the street. Going away from her. Why hadn’t she kissed him? Why hadn’t she said she loved him? Why hadn’t she gone with him? She half-opened the door, then stopped. “Jenny, I’m waiting,” her father called.
Rob turned the corner and disappeared. Slowly she closed the front door.
Chapter 16
“Jenny!” Frank, Sr., called for the third time.
“Coming,” she called back from the hall, but she still didn’t appear. Frank’s legs ached. He kneaded his calves. Maybe he should get space shoes, the ones they molded to your feet. He drew in a deep breath, let it out. The brain was a funny thing. Right there, thinking about space shoes, he’d thought, Gail in the sky with her space shoes.
A hollow opened up beneath his breastbone. There’d been a song Gail used to play all the time, one of those Beatles songs he couldn’t understand. Lucy in the Sky with … something. Amelia had sung it to Gail when she was in the coma. They’d both sat by her bed, holding her hands, talking to her, singing, reading, the kind of thing you see in the movies. Only in the movies it would always work out. One day the beautiful girl in the coma would flutter her eyelashes, the eyes would open, and she’d … smile! And the music would rise, and even though you knew it was just a movie, you’d get this lump in your throat.
He didn’t go to movies anymore. He’d rather watch TV. Anyway, he had movies going on right in his own home. What else was Jenny’s bringing that Montana boy into their house but a bad movie?
“Jenny!” he bellowed. Mimi and Frankie talked in low tones, their heads close together. Frank drummed his fingers on the table, aware of his anger like some small creature rushing back and forth in his belly. Hastily, without thinking, he drank another cup of coffee. Shouldn’t have done it. Now he’d be up half the night—just what he didn’t need after the day he’d had.
Rough day, rough. Starting right out with Jim parking in the spot everyone knew was Frank’s. From there, it had all been downhill. One thing after another. Crystal, his best cashier, out with a sick kid. Not that Crystal usually let him down. Give credit where credit was due, she had the best work record of anybody in the store, including that idiot Jim, who, the minute the weather warmed up, called in sick. Sick? He was out on the lake with his boat.
Frank should have replaced the guy years ago, but when it came to cutting meat nobody could cut the way Jim did. When you were a store manager you had to go along with people. It was like being captain of a ship. It was up to you to keep things running smoothly, keep the crew and the customers satisfied and coming back.
Half the time what you really thought you kept to yourself. Waited to see how things worked out. Like this new girl with her la-dee-dah name. Now, who in their right mind would name a girl Morgan? Sounded more like a horse than a girl. She was no winner either: skinny, big front teeth, and always gaping at him. Today, she’d given a customer twenty dollars too much. When she discovered it, instead of coming to him, she’d gone holle
ring through the store, yelling at the customer, “Hey, you! Hey, you!”
By the time he came home all he wanted was a little peace and quiet. Looked like he was going to have it, too. Good supper, Mimi over, everything going along fine, teasing Amelia about their courtship, and then bingo! Jenny shoots it all down, brings that boy right into their house.
His temple throbbed. He couldn’t figure Jenny out. What had she been thinking of? Why do something like that to her mother? Why bring everything up to the surface again?
He had suffered over Gail. It was a hard thing to lose a child. The hardest thing. Unnatural. Something wrong about being alive when your kid was gone. He had cried in his bed many nights. Amelia would have been better off if she’d done the same thing, instead of keeping it all to herself. She was that way, though, and he had to respect her for it.
Maybe other women were different. He wouldn’t know. He’d lived with Amelia so many years, by now it seemed it must have been destiny that they got married. What was it they used to say? Kismet. Kismet that they had met. Funny word. Kiss met. Met her and kissed her. He had, too. First time he’d seen her, that day on the Erie Canal path, seen that tall girl with brown eyes looking at him, frowning and smiling, things going across her face like clouds and sun in the sky; well, he’d just wanted her. Got her, too.
Best thing he ever did in his life. He rubbed his wet eyes. He wasn’t ashamed to admit there was a sentimental part to him.
“You okay, Mr. Pennoyer?” Mimi said, looking at him anxiously.
He nodded. “Did you kids know anything about that boy?”
“No, nothing,” Mimi said.
“He said he knew your cousin, Mim,” Frankie said.
“I’ll ask Joel. He goes to Alliance High.” She sat close to Frankie.
“So you didn’t know she was going to bring him here?” Frank said.
“Are you kidding, Dad? If I’d known, he wouldn’t have gotten past the front door.”
“Well, how was it the whole family was in the dark?” Frank said. “Doesn’t your sister talk to you?”
“I’m not Jenny’s keeper,” Frankie said, getting his old stubborn-as-a-mule, I’m-not-giving-you-anything look.
He’d always been a hard nut to crack, Frank, Sr., thought. The fact is, if you’d asked him a year ago if his youngest son gave a fig for the family, he might have had to say he, unfortunately, didn’t think so. Swear to God, nineteen years and never once had that boy looked him straight in the eye. Frank, Jr. You’d think they’d be close, but just the opposite. The truth was, to this day, when Frankie came into the room, even though they were getting along much better, Frank could feel the hairs on the back of his neck bristling.
“Where is that girl?” he said, standing up. But just then, Jenny walked in. “Sit down,” he said. Then he just looked at her, trying to think where to begin, but instead remembering how a few weeks after Gail’s funeral they’d all been watching TV and found themselves sitting like dummies in front of a show about a family that had lost four daughters. Four.
The father got right on TV and said, “We are the walking wounded.” Must have been 60 Minutes, maybe PM Magazine, one of those news shows. He’d told himself to shut it off, but before he could, Amelia had walked out looking like someone had stabbed her in the heart.
And then Jenny had turned to him and said, “Why? Why?” He’d never forget the way she said it. And even though he had the same question in his head, he’d given her an answer. “Drunken driver.” As if that were the whole answer. Maybe it was. The thing was, when kids asked questions you had to answer. That’s what being a father meant. You didn’t let them know you had questions, too. Maybe he hadn’t been the best father in the world, but he’d tried. Nobody could say he hadn’t tried.
“All right, Jenny,” he said a little more quietly, “let’s hear it. What was the idea of bringing that boy here?”
“I told you.”
“Tell me again.”
She wet her lips. “Rob is my friend, and I wanted you to meet him.” She had her legs twisted around the rungs of the chair. Like a kid. But she wasn’t a kid anymore. Seventeen. You had to be responsible for your actions at that age.
“I want a better explanation,” he said.
“Dad—”
“You’re off the wall, Jenny, you know that,” Frankie said, interrupting. “You walk in here with this guy, out of the blue. Where’s your brains? You hit Mom like a ton of bricks.”
“Frankie, stay out of this,” she said.
“No, I won’t. That was stupid, just plain stupid. How long have you known him? How come you’re friends with him? And bringing him home—that takes the cake!”
“Would you rather I sneaked around? Would you rather I gave him a false name? He’s stuck with his name, okay? And he’s my friend. Okay? Okay?”
“Why’d you have to pick him for a friend? Are you friends with just anybody?”
“Look, Frankie, I don’t tell you not to be friends with Mimi.”
“Totally different! Mimi’s mother didn’t—”
“No, Frankie,” Mimi said, putting her hand on his arm. “That’s really unfair.” And then, turning to Jenny, “Jenny, try to look at it this way—”
They were all talking at once. Only Ethel said nothing, but clapped her hands over her ears.
Frank ended it. He raised his voice. “Jenny, I don’t want you to see him anymore. You shouldn’t have brought him here. It was selfish and thoughtless.” He got to her with that. Saw her face flush, saw those long eyes fall away.
“I see him in school every day,” she said.
“Don’t play dumb with me, Jenny!” One thing about Jenny, he always said she had brains. Still water runs deep. To tell the truth even when she was a little tyke, he’d been sort of uneasy around her. Cute little thing, but always looking at you, looking and watching, those dark eyes, and keeping her own thoughts.
“Where’s your family feeling?” he said roughly. “Where’s your sense of proportion? How can you be friends with that boy?”
“Dad.” She spoke quietly now. “I met Rob, and—and when I found out who he was, I knew—I tried not to—” She pressed her lips together, her face filled. He waited, didn’t let her tears sway him. “We’re in—” She stopped, then said, “We go together.”
“Break it off,” he said. “End it.”
“I can’t do that,” she said.
“What do you mean, you can’t?”
“I can’t. I won’t.”
Frank stared at his daughter. Defiant. She gave him back one of her long, dark stares. A pain like a streak of white light passed through his eyes. He’d be lucky to get out of this without one of his headaches.
“I’m telling you again, Jenny,” he said, controlling his voice. “You stop seeing that boy.” He pushed away from the table, heard her say, “No, I won’t,” but kept moving, going to Amelia, clamping down on the anger, but all the time wondering how things like this happened.
He’d had such big dreams and plans: great kids, his own market, making a pile of money. What a laugh. Here they were in the same worn-down, shabby house they’d been in for twenty-five years. He was as far as he’d ever go, manager of the Big K Market. And as for the kids … When they were little, you thought you could die for them, you got this big impossible feeling in your heart. Then the years passed, and all of a sudden most of them were grown up and nothing had worked out the way you thought it would. One kid was in California, one was a mailman, one didn’t give a damn for her family, and one was dead.
He turned the handle of the bedroom door. “’Melia,” he said into the darkened room, “you okay?”
Chapter 17
“Well, Jenny, what are you going to do?” Her mother had come into her room while Jenny was studying and stood by the bureau in her gray-and-yellow robe, her hair in a single braid. “What have you told that boy? Are you still seeing him?”
“Mom—” Jenny had to push past the wounded loo
k in her mother’s eyes. “If you only knew Rob. He’s the sort of person you’d really like. He’s kind and—”
“I don’t want to hear about him,” her mother said in a low voice. “Surely you know that.”
“You’re closing your mind. It’s not fair.”
“Fair?” Her mother’s hand was at her throat. “It seems to me that you being friends with him is more than unfair. It’s a betrayal of your family. Even Mimi feels the way we do. Family comes first.”
“Mom, Mimi’s got problems with her family, too.”
“You don’t have problems with your family, Jenny,” her mother contradicted quietly. “Your family has problems with you.” And she walked out.
The tension in the Pennoyer house since Rob’s visit had been nearly unbearable. “Just let me know when you come to your senses,” her father had said, anger swelling his jaw. And then he hardly spoke to her again. His silence aroused an answering silence in Jenny. But in the middle of the night, waking with her face burning, she found herself arguing furiously. Look, just let me lead my own life! I’m not doing this o hurt you or Mom. Why can’t you understand my side of things?
She didn’t tell Rob how hard it was going for her at home. Her family hadn’t exactly cut her off, but it had come down to their speaking to her only if necessary. And it wasn’t only her parents who were pressing her. From California, Vince and Valerie called one night and took turns “talking sense” into Jenny.
“Interfacing with your family is a first priority,” Valerie said, leaving Jenny torn between a desire to point out to her sister-in-law that she had hardly considered her family first when she met Vince, and an equally strong desire to laugh.
After Valerie, Vince came on the wire, playing Big Brother to the hilt. “Jenny, honey, I know how you kids take things seriously at your age. I remember, but now that I have some perspective—”
That had been enough for Jenny. She tuned out the rest of his patronizing speech. There was an unspoken agreement among all the “adults” (Frankie got included—because he was over eighteen? Or because he sided with his parents?), an agreement to refuse to believe in the depth or the validity of Jenny’s feelings. That was unimportant “kid stuff.”
When We First Met Page 8