Page 4

Penny

WHEN PENNY WAKES UP, NAOMI’S SLEEPING BAG IS ALREADY GONE. She must’ve left to get an early start on filming her makeup tutorials. Penny stretches her arms above her head, breathing in the quiet morning—and there’s the scent of coffee. Strange. Nobody is supposed to be home.

“Mom?” she calls.

“In the kitchen, sweet pea.”

Anita Emberly is seated at their small dining table, which is actually a converted diner booth with cracked, comfortable brown seats. The table is overflowing with houseplants and bills and an unruly stack of tarot cards. When Penny walks in, her mom is writing in her diary, the pen moving fast across the lines. She’s wearing her favorite sundress, which is bright against her suntanned white skin. Her blond hair falls softly on her shoulders.

People are always surprised to find out they’re related. Maybe it’s because Penny looks like her dad, or because she knows how to blend into a crowd and stay away from drama. In that sense, Penny and her mom are opposites. Anita moved to Idlewood when she was in high school, but thanks to her determination to live exactly the way she wants, the town still treats her like an outsider. Penny’s early memories are a mishmash of whispered judgment: people at the grocery store falling silent as she and her mom walked by, or church ladies congregating outside the café just to peer in and whisper and shake their heads. But Anita has never cared. Sometimes she starts friendly conversations just to make people uncomfortable. You’ll be hard-pressed to find a Hoosier who is bold enough to return your polite hello with silence. Instead, Idlewood’s residents save their whispers until Anita’s back is turned.

But they never cared if Penny heard. They never considered that their whispers would create a fight-or-flight response so intense that Penny would wish she was invisible.

Now Penny keeps a low profile. She doesn’t date, she limits herself to two beers when she’s at parties, and she doesn’t spread gossip. If nobody glances her way for an entire day at school, she awards herself five points.

She has a lot of points.

If Penny was more like her mom, she wouldn’t care about any of this. But she’s not as strong as Anita Emberly, and she never will be. So Idlewood can gossip all they want, but it will never be about Penny.

“You look amazing,” Penny says, sitting down at the table.

Her mom smiles and sets the diary aside. “And you look exhausted. Did you have fun last night?”

“Yeah, we… yeah.”

“Convincing!”

There’s already coffee in Penny’s favorite Avatar: The Last Airbender mug, and she takes a sip. “Why aren’t you at the café?”

“Because we’re visiting your dad today.”

Penny gasps and shoots to her feet. “Oh my gosh, I’m sorry, I completely forgot!”

Anita laughs. “Drink your coffee first. You slept past eight, so I’m guessing you’re hungover?”

“Don’t sound so hopeful.”

“I just want you to enjoy your youth.”

“Right, because you’re not enjoying your life anymore?”

Anita gasps. “Are you saying I’m not young and beautiful?”

“You’re the most beautiful woman in the world. Just not the youngest— stop! ” Penny laughs as her mom tickles her side.

“You deserved that. Now drink your coffee and get dressed. We need to leave in fifteen minutes to beat the funeral crowd.”

An hour later, Penny and her mom spread their picnic blanket on top of Nathan Emberly’s grave. Penny unpacks their brunch: more coffee, egg sandwiches, and melon wrapped in prosciutto. Anita stares at Nathan’s headstone, a sad smile on her face, while Penny pulls her knees to her chest and gazes at the spot where the cemetery meets the woods.

When Penny was little, she hated these picnics, because her dad wasn’t there. Not really. He couldn’t spin Penny around or play his guitar or dance with Anita like he used to, so what was the point of coming to the cemetery?

But as the years passed, Penny started grasping for pieces of her dad like snowflakes. She took out the photos of him again, years after she’d hidden them away. When she couldn’t sleep at night, she would listen to the music he’d made with his band. She learned to be happy with only her memories. Now she loves these picnics. They’re peaceful.

“So,” Anita says after a few moments of quiet, “any cute boys at Sango’s party last night? I’m sure your dad would like to know.”

“Not really.”

Penny’s mom cocks her head and says, “Any other details you’d like to share? Drama? Secrets? Confessions? ”

That’s all it takes for Penny to give in, because she’s weak and bad at lying. “Our plans kind of… changed. We didn’t go to Sango’s party.”

If Anita were like any other parent, she would probably demand to know where Penny went and why she lied, or at the very least give her daughter a disapproving look. But Anita is Anita, so she nods and waits.

Penny clears her throat. “I went to Corey Barrion’s Fourth of July party.”

Now Anita reacts. She presses her lips together, as if carefully considering her next words. Her hand absently plays with the charm on her necklace. It’s a black crescent moon, dull and misshapen and exactly the kind of jewelry Anita gravitates toward in a thrift shop.

“I heard those boys got into another fight,” Anita says.

“The Idlewood whisper network strikes again.”

“I don’t like knowing you were there, sweet pea. You know how I feel about those families. They cause a lot of hurt, and they take other people down with them.”

“There were a ton of people there, Mom. It’s not like I was hanging out with Corey and Alonso.”

“That’s not my point,” Anita snaps, barely sounding like herself. “They cause chaos by proximity. I don’t have many rules, but I expect you to respect this one. Understand?”

Anita almost never talks to Penny like this—like she’s five years old, as if she doesn’t have a job and understand grief and the way the world works. This is the same way Naomi talked to Penny last night when she said she wanted to keep living in Idlewood. Even Alonso looked at her like she was sheltered. Stupid.

It ignites a fire in Penny’s chest. Before she knows it, her words are shooting to kill. “I’m not friends with either of them. And even if I was, why should you care? I never judge you .”

Anita’s face falls. “What do you mean?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“I think it does.”

Instead of answering, Penny takes a large bite of her egg sandwich.

There’s a long pause. Anita sighs, closing her eyes. “I know I haven’t always made it easy for you to live in this town.”

The wound in her words makes Penny’s anger disappear in a puff of smoke. “It’s not that, Mom—”

“It is,” Penny’s mom says. “I’m always in the moment, living my life, but sometimes I forget how much it affects you.”

“People are way nicer than they used to be,” Penny says, but it sounds weak. She tries again. “I mean, I don’t get teased. Everyone leaves me alone.”

“Probably because I’ve learned not to date your school principals.”

Penny snorts. “At least that got me onto the volleyball team in middle school.”

“You were pretty bad.”

“Yeah, and the coach knew it.” Penny grabs her mom’s hand. “I’m sorry. You know I want you to be happy.”

Anita smiles, but then her eyes move to a spot over Penny’s shoulder. Her hand drifts up to her necklace, fingers wrapping around the tiny moon like it’s a lifesaver in the middle of Lake Michigan.

“What is it?” Penny says, following her mother’s gaze.

“Do you see someone?” Anita asks, her voice a low whisper.

Despite the late-morning heat, Penny suddenly feels cold. Her own words from last night come back to her, and it’s like she’s once again on the roof with Naomi, staring at a distant figure in the dark.

Penny shoots to her feet, scanning the distance, not even sure what she’s looking for. But there’s nothing. Not even a breeze. Only graves, the cracked gray of the country road, and an endless blue sky.

“There’s nobody,” Penny says.

Anita tears her eyes away from the street, but her hand is fidgeting with the necklace.

Penny sits back down. “Did someone give that to you?”

“Hm?” Anita looks down. “Oh yeah. A friend.”

“Are you dating someone?”

Anita laughs, but it sounds forced. “Why would you say that?”

“Because you’re always dating someone.”

Anita’s gaze turns to the road. There are bags under her eyes, barely hidden underneath a layer of concealer. The faraway look on her mom’s face is strange. Different. Anita has been through a lot, but she’s always energetic, always positive.

Except right now Anita looks afraid.

“You never answered my question,” Penny says. “Are you dating someone?”

After a moment Anita finally answers, “Not anymore.”

Penny’s heart sinks. As much as Anita’s dating life has resulted in rumors and drama and the end of Penny’s athletic career, Penny hates being in the dark. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“It was brief. A flash in the pan. Love is like that sometimes.”

“Is it really love, then? If it’s here and gone?”

“The person might be here and gone, but the feelings can last much longer.” Anita reaches up and brushes an errant curl from Penny’s eyes. “You remind me so much of him.”

Penny doesn’t have to ask who she means. “Dad was a grunge rocker. He was cooler than I’ll ever be.”

“That’s not what I mean. It’s in how you watch people. You’ve always been so curious, such a good listener. And it’s the way you care so much, with every tiny part of you, even though you try to hide it. And the curls, of course.”

Penny laughs, looking away to hide the way her eyes are watering. But Anita tilts her chin up, her expression sad.

“What, Mom?” Penny says.

“You’re growing up so fast. And I know someday soon, I’ll be watching you fall in love, and it’ll be so…” She trails off.

“Exciting?” Penny offers.

Anita’s smile fades. “Scary.”

“ Scary ? Why?”

“Because you’re my baby,” Anita says, “and love is a beast.”