Chapter 23
Twenty-Three
JuneBug: We’re taking off soon. I’ll miss you, Penny Lane!
Penny: Me too. I wish you didn’t have to go. I love having you guys with me. Safe flight.
MayDay: I hate that we have to go back to class! WHYYYYY???? Love you, Pennywise! Give our bro a big ol’ kiss will you?
PennyWise: uh-huh
MayDay: Srsly. Kiss him! Bet he melts into a puddle of jock-goo
PennyWise: That sounds disgusting
JuneBug: I agree; kissing August is disgusting.
MayDay: Yeah, but someone has to do it. Might as well be Pen
PennyWise: I’m not kissing August
JuneBug: What never?
MayDay: Or hardly ever?
PennyWise: BYE!
MayDay: Mwah!
Augie: Safe flight, brats
MayDay: Good game, noob
JuneBug: Take care of our Penny
Augie: Of course
MayDay: I swear to G, Aug, if you don’t tap that and wrap it up in a bow, I’m gonna be pissed at you forever
Augie: March? Did you steal Thing 2’s phone?
MayDay: So even our goober brother agrees? Should tell you something, bro-ho
Augie: Bro-ho? Simmer down there, mini March
JuneBug: May’s colorful suggestion aside, be careful, Aug. It’s Penny. She’s special
Augie: I know
Pen
The girls go home. Weeks pass. October rushes toward November.
I attend August’s games, and we go out for dinners so the press can take pictures.
But August has become increasingly busy.
It isn’t a surprise; he warned me his schedule was nonstop.
And, really, we aren’t a real couple. What personal time he has should be spent with his actual friends.
The thought hurts. More than is safe. Somewhere along the way, I’d convinced myself we were real friends.
“No, we are,” I mutter, pacing my empty kitchen. “We are.”
But I find that I’m . . . lonely. In a way I haven’t been in a long time.
I want friendship. Unfortunately, I haven’t taken the time or made the effort to cultivate any.
That’s on me. But, I have to believe a person can change their patterns if that’s truly what they want.
To quote the late, great Heath Ledger in A Knight’s Tale, “A man can change his stars.” I don’t have to remain cosseted away, afraid to fully soak up life.
I’ve been doing that for far too long. All that is required is action.
In that vein, I take a big breath and decide to invite Monica over.
Okay, sure, she’s a world-famous movie star and I’m a college student with a somewhat famous fake boyfriend.
Details. We’ve sat beside each other for a few games now, and she gave me her number, said we should hang out.
I’m going to take her at her word. Besides, I like her.
This is what I lecture myself on, while inside I’m a shaking anxiety ball as I text her.
My existential crisis eases a fraction when Monica answers almost immediately to say yes.
I give her directions, then promptly go on a tear throughout the house, picking up discarded clothes, a mug in the den—not that I see us going in there—and then clean up the kitchen.
There isn’t much. I’m one woman in a big house. An empty house.
It never bothered me before. But hanging out with August is changing me too. I find myself wanting to talk, to share thoughts that pop into my head, hear someone else’s too. Okay, mostly I want this with him.
Nothing about our interactions feels fake or forced.
I know this. Only, he’s pulled back a bit.
Not in any obvious way: He still texts and calls whenever he can.
He still teases and flirts. But sometimes it feels .
. . cautious, is the only word I can think of.
As though he’s catching himself when he’s being too friendly or too familiar.
As though he’s mentally pacing himself in some way known only to him.
“Ridiculous.” I toss the cleaning rag into the sink and set my hands on my hips to survey my now spotless kitchen. “I’m being paranoid and ridiculous. And talking to myself!”
Thankfully, the gate bell rings, pulling me away from a full-blown rantus-paranoius.
“She’s here!” I do a little panic dance and then hit the open button on the security app. My fingers tremble, besieged with “new friend” nerves. I haven’t tried for one in years. “Changing stars. Changing stars.”
Speaking of stars. Monica knocks on my door. I jump like a horse out of the gate and go to answer.
Worry recedes when I open the door and greet Monica. I’m enveloped in her slim arms and a fragrant cloud of Baccarat Rouge 540.
“I brought my bikini,” she says, pulling back. “And cocktail fixings!” She holds up a big black cooler tote with a smile.
“Excellent.” I step aside to make way. “Come on in.”
“You said you just moved in, so I figured you might not have much in the way of liquor.” She stops in the hall and looks at me with wide eyes. “Do you drink? I didn’t think to ask.”
Maybe Monica is a little nervous too. The idea calms me even more.
“I drink. And you’re right, I have nothing here but a few bottles of wine.”
“Not even beer?” She steps in and looks around in interest. “I’d have thought August would take care of that.”
Hell. August probably would have stocked up on beers if he spent a lot of time here. If he was my actual fiancé, I’m guessing we’d spend every night we could together. I know I’d want that. With my fiancé, that is. When I truly have one.
The bottles within the cooler clank as I take the bag from her. “He doesn’t drink much during the season.” God, I hope that’s true. I think he said so once. I can’t remember. “We ran out.”
I’m explaining myself way too much. The first sign of a liar. My insides roil. I don’t want to lie to Monica. But it’s not my place to tell her. August trusts me to play this part.
Worry pulls at my steps as I lead her farther into the house. I’m trying to make friends with a woman I’m ultimately deceiving. What is wrong with me?
Thankfully oblivious to my turmoil, Monica slows to peer at the framed picture gallery that runs along both walls in the front hallway. She halts before an old black and white in an ebony frame, and her mouth falls open. “Is that . . . That’s Rita Hayworth!”
“With my Great-grandmother Lola. She wrote a few pictures Hayworth starred in.”
“I love how you call movies ‘pictures.’”
“It’s what they were back then.”
“You look like her. Your G-G Lola.”
“Hmm. Funny, it just hit me that you look a little like Hayworth.”
“Thank you for that.” The glossy curtain of Monica’s hair puddles on her shoulder as she tilts her head, considering the photo. “I’ve been approached about doing a biopic on Rita. Maybe . . .”
She steps to the next photo. “Get the fuck out, that’s Cary Grant!”
“With Cole Porter, Fred Astaire,” I point them out as I go. “And my great-grandfather, Linus.” The men are hamming it up, crowding around a piano, laughing and smoking cigarettes, as I’m convinced everyone over the age of twelve did back them. Strange times.
“I repeat, Cary Grant is sitting . . .” She gasps and weakly gestures to the grand piano just visible in the corner of the living room. “He was sitting right there!”
“The whole wall is filled with snapshots of parties over the years.”
It was way before my time, but there are moments I hear the ghosts of those days, a lilting laugh, a few bars of music, the clink of glasses.
Entranced, Monica strolls along. “I don’t usually get starstruck, but this is Hollywood royalty. The originals, you know? Hold up!” She frowns at a color photo toward the end of the hall.
I know this one well: It’s of Pops, Pegs, my mother, and me at six cuddled in her lap.
Monica slowly turns, one brow lifting eloquently. “Your mother is Anne Morrow?”
“You know her?”
“Pen, I’m an actress. She’s a multiple Tony winner.” The exasperation is clear.
“Yes, true. But not many people outside of New York follow the theater. Not like they do film actors.”
“Act-tress,” she enunciates, poking herself in the chest for emphasis.
I throw up a hand in resignation. “Fair point.”
“You have her last name.”
“Mom changed my name to hers after the divorce— My father is Douglas Merriweather. He treaded the boards as well. But his career fizzled after he ran off with my nanny.”
“Karma,” Monica says succinctly. “Were you okay with your mom changing your name like that?”
“I wasn’t asked. At any rate, I didn’t mind. My father left us. Mom wanted to be a united family of two after that. Felt reasonable.”
“But this was his parents’ house?” She follows me through the living room and past the breakfast porch.
“They left it to me. He’s a bit of a shit.”
“His loss. I’d rather have my daughter’s love.”
Me too.
We enter the kitchen, and Monica does a slow spin, taking in the spreading wings of the house and the pool courtyard. “It’s beautiful, this house. Really beautiful.”
“Thank you.” I heft the bag on top of the island. “I can’t take any credit for it, though. My grandmother updated and redecorated the whole place a few years back.”
“She did a great job. It’s so restful.” Monica opens the bag and starts pulling out bottles.
Gold bangles chime musically on her slim brown wrists.
“I just had my place done. Hired a designer to do everything. Asked for Boho cottage core. Though I think it’s giving more eccentric cat lady.
Which is cool. Only I don’t own a cat. Anyway, I can’t pretend that I had much to do with the process either. ”
There’s something mesmerizing about the way she moves about like a dancer, chattering with cheerful self-deprecation.
“I can tell just by the way you put yourself together that you have great taste.”
She’s wearing scuffed black motto boots with brown linen bubble shorts and a draping pale pink T with Chanel printed across the chest in bold black. It’s not something I could pull off if I tried. But she looks great.
Monica, however, snorts. “Girl, I have a stylist to pick my clothes too.” With a shrug, she deftly sorts through her supplies. “I’m a manufactured image. It goes with the territory.”