44. Penn
Chapter 44
Penn
"Help me understand why I found Duke passed out cold in his car last night," Hugo says, joining me in the line to order lunch at Sammich.
I pluck a bag of barbecue potato chips from the wire rack near the cash register. "He fucked around and found out."
I'm expecting Hugo to lecture me, but he laughs. "I miss having you around here. I miss you being"—he shrugs—"you."
"Stop," I say, peeling apart the top of the chip bag. "You're going to make me cry." I say it like I'm joking, but is there a heat pressing at the back of my eyes? There sure is.
"Well, hey there, fellas," Margaret says as we step up to order our lunch. "Are you here for a Monte Cristo, Peter?"
Hugo glances at me, waiting to see if I'm going to correct her. And I do. "Margaret, I've been fibbing since I came to town."
Beside me, Hugo mutters the word 'fibbing.'
"I gave you a different name because I wasn't sure how the people of Olive Township would take me being back. But I've decided that it's better to be honest. My name is Penn Bellamy?—"
"Bellamy," she breathes. She leans over the counter to get a better look. "Dear Lord, you look nothing like the boy who disappeared. Where the hell did you go?"
"My mom and I moved to San Diego. That's where I've been since."
"I always liked your mom. How is she doing?"
Someone talking about my mom with affection in their tone is making my heart do weird things. Namely, swell.
"She passed away a few months ago, actually."
Margaret's face falls. "That's why you came back. That first day you were in here, you said..." Her voice trails off as she recalls our conversation. "You said you were in town to deal with a house that had been abandoned a long time ago."
Pinching my pointer finger and my thumb, I wince and say, "It was a little bit of truth."
She guffaws. "I've been known to spin some yarns myself a time or two." Winking at me and Hugo, she rings us up for two Monte Cristo's and hands over a plastic number to place on our table. "I'd pick a spot inside," she advises. "Looks like we're going to be getting some moisture pretty soon."
The sky, a muted gray when I walked in here, has already darkened. Hugo and I take her advice and grab a table next to the window.
"Only people from the desert want to watch the rain," I say, giving my best friend a little shit.
"I've been in plenty of places when it's been raining," Hugo reminds me. "Something about a storm in the desert hits different."
"I didn't notice when I was a kid, but I'll pay more attention in the future."
Hugo lifts a brow. "Does that mean you're sticking around? Longer than selling off your house?"
Duke's words from last night nestled their way into my mind, and I hear them again. Am I supposed to stay here and fight for Daisy? When I'm with her, it's a resounding yes. But then there's Duke, and his words that were unkind yet true. Would Daisy really choose me, when she has so much riding on her impending wedding? Who am I to ask that of her, to put her in that position?
"I don't know, Hugo."
"Time is not on your side, my friend. You better figure it out."
A Sammich employee, a young kid with shiny braces and floppy hair, delivers our food. We tuck in just as the first raindrops fall.
Across the street, an old white-haired couple exits a store. He wears a plaid golf hat, she carries a purse on her forearm. She frowns up at the sky, but the husband reaches for her arm, tugging. She looks back at him, and he takes his hand away, only to offer it to her once more, gallantly this time. She shakes her head, but smiles at him affectionately, like she knows what he's doing. And then she places her hand in his and tucks her shopping bag up over her shoulder. He pulls her in and she spins into his chest, a slow revolution, all their motions at half speed. When he has her positioned against him, he puts his cheek to her cheek, and they sway slowly. Raindrops tap dance around them, but the couple doesn't seem to mind.
"Think of everything it took for them to get to this moment," Hugo says, ripping my attention away from the couple. "You look at something like that, and you have to wonder if maybe they were just lucky to have found each other."
"It's true love."
Hugo stares at me in surprise. "You believe in true love?"
"Yeah, I do, even though it probably seems like I shouldn't. I didn't watch two parents in love. Mostly all I saw was my dad's back when he was leaving, and my mom trying to hold herself together every time he left, until one day he stopped coming back and she stopped getting up off the couch. But why did they keep doing that, time after time? It was the search for true love, propelling them to give it chance after chance."
Hugo scratches his head. "I guess when you think of it like that, you could see it as them teaching you everything not to do."
"That's the spirit," I say, biting into my sandwich. We watch the old man spin the old woman out from the safety of his chest. She does a sweet and borderline sassy shake with her hips, and the old man laughs. They step in together, sharing a chaste peck. The rain picks up, and the old couple walks hand-in-hand down the sidewalk.
"Do you want that some day?" I ask Hugo. He doesn't talk much about dating. I think a lot of it has to do with his dad's death. Hugo once told me it's difficult to date with that in his past. If he says it on the first date, women either get spooked, or weirdly into it. If he saves it for a later date, women feel like it's something he should have revealed sooner. How do you tell somebody your dad was murdered, and the case is still unsolved? he'd asked. I understood, to a much lesser degree. I wasn't particularly jazzed about telling dates at any point in the dating stage about my childhood.
Hugo looks at the spot where the old couple danced. "I want that," he confirms. "My fencing career is behind me. I'm back home for good. I'm helping run the mill. And..." he sighs. "I want that. How about you?"
"More than anything." Funny how, just one month ago, that would not have been my answer.
"With Daisy?" Hugo asks, pushing the last of his sandwich into his mouth.
"How can you ask that when you're friends with Duke, too? Don't get me wrong, I prefer you on my side."
Hugo shrugs. "Duke's my friend, but so is Daisy. And she doesn't look at him the way she looks at you." He lifts his flattened palms in front of his chest. "I'm just calling it like I see it."