Chapter 6 Angry-Blushing
Angry-Blushing
It’s late afternoon when I get home, and I’m exhausted, but the clock is ticking—both here and possibly in the real world, too—so I don’t have a second to spare. I need to gather as much information as I can about MASH Ruby, The Disco Diner, plus any possible escape routes.
And I plan to leave no Lisa Frank notebook unturned.
I make a pantry pit stop to gather key supplies (two packets of Gushers), then park it in the tangerine-colored study, where I sit at the massive yellow desk to rifle through business plans, balance sheets, and all the notebooks stuffed into the drawers.
Unfortunately, I don’t find any guidebooks for visitors from another dimension.
And when I unroll the mansion blueprints, I’m disappointed there’s no hidden corner marked Magic Door Here.
Stalking myself on social media isn’t much better.
Horrified, I scroll through an endless stream of cheesy selfies, roller-skating videos, and more latte vignettes than anyone should ever capture, let alone share.
In real life, I don’t bother with social media.
Meanwhile, here, I once posed with a burrito.
On purpose. In a video set to Third Eye Blind’s “Never Let You Go.”
Properly humiliated, I turn my attention to the mother ship: my email.
I’ve tried and failed to come up with the password for my work email, but my personal email is already loaded on my laptop. And my inbox is really something.
On the one hand, it’s oddly comforting to learn that even here, where my tolerance for chaos is seemingly limitless, my inbox is still maintained with precision.
Less comforting are all the bewildering messages that point to a person I’m not.
MASH Me subscribes to an alarming number of newsletters, including an advice column for entrepreneurs, a daily astrology forecast, and four separate knitting publications.
I’ve never, not once, willingly visited a craft store.
In a folder marked Notes, I discover one particularly disorienting exchange with Bridget five years ago in which my MASH self regales her with every graphic detail of a long weekend in New York with a man I’ve never met.
Reading about a hot Italian man kissing me on the rainy streets of Manhattan is like reading fan fiction about myself. It’s maddening.
I text Bridget to say so: I’M LOSING MY MIND.
Her response isn’t helpful. She replies with kissing GIFs, sending one after another. From Sleeping Beauty, The Princess and the Frog, and even the Lindsay Lohan classic Just My Luck, beneath which she writes: PUCKER UP, BUTTERCUP. Time to fall in LOOOVE.
I hang my head in defeat, hopeless.
In the mere hours since I landed here, I’ve zipped through the denial and bargaining stages of grief and landed right smack-dab in the middle of anger.
I pace along the bookshelves, wondering: Why me?
Why him? Why couldn’t the MASH gods have left a list of rules on the fridge like Mom did when we were young?
When there’s a sound outside the door, I shout, shrill, “Not a good time!” One of the tall wooden double doors pushes open anyway. Sighing, I bark, “Penn, I’m serious. I—”
A strange, strangled sound gets caught in the back of my throat.
It’s Penn, alright. But he’s wearing gray sweatpants.
Only gray sweatpants.
I struggle to speak. “What are you…”
Skin. There is far too much skin. My shirtless intruder leans one arm against the doorframe, and as he runs a hand through his damp hair, his bicep flexes. I nearly choke.
This is an attack.
I bring a hand to my forehead to block my view, because, well, abs.
I do not remember such abs on Real Penn. I used to see him shirtless all the time. As a kid, hopping over our backyard sprinkler. In high school, curled up on our couch with a bag of Cheetos. In college, playing beer pong with the aggressive determination of an Olympian.
Did he have abs then? Did I simply not notice?
My head feels like a balloon ready to lift from my body. I can’t handle the combination of acute existential panic plus Penn’s bare chest and low-slung gray sweatpants.
I reach for the desk to steady myself but accidentally bump a stack of diaries instead, sending a fuzzy pink journal to the floor.
Penn’s attention falls to where it lands on the brightly patterned rug, joining a sea of books and folders. “You know,” he says, “the idea of a library is that you own these books, so you don’t have to read them all at once.”
“The idea of knocking is to ask permission for entry,” I tell him. “Not to burst in half naked.” Penn looks down at his torso, as if he doesn’t understand. The slight movement makes everything contract. Exhaling, I sputter, “Knock and wait, okay? And keep the wardrobe PG in communal areas.”
Penn’s lips twitch. He says nothing.
Despite my clear request for privacy, he shifts past me to study the bookshelves.
“PG,” he says to himself, brushing his fingers along the spines.
The muscles in his back move. It’s obscene.
“This from the woman who answers the door in a negligee?” His gaze slants toward me before he turns back to the bookshelf, grinning.
Anger returns, red-hot and pulsing in my chest.
It’s just—how dare Penn barge in here? Looking like that. In my dream house.
On a Sunday.
“From now on, I shall wear nothing but winter coats,” I vow. “And how do you know the word negligee, anyway? I thought your vocabulary cut off at anything over six letters.”
Penn shrugs, absentmindedly paging through a paperback. “Believe it or not, Wynne, there have been women who wanted me to see them in lingerie.”
I roll my eyes, resenting the uncomfortable heat low in my belly.
“I’ll admit it, though.” He eyes me. “That scarf-and-nightie set was a good look. Points for creativity.”
“Ditto your disco-wear. Make sure to fluff up your chest hair even more next time, huh?”
Penn’s smirk inches up. “Make sure you stop blushing before I get the wrong idea, huh?”
Growing fury fizzes in my veins. “I’m just angry-blushing,” I explain.
“Mm, I’ve heard about that,” Penn deadpans. “Angry-blushing. Sounds serious.”
I want to throw the pile of books in his face. Scream. Ram myself into the bookshelf like it’s the Narnia closet.
“Did you need something?” I ask.
“Dinner’s almost ready.” I must look puzzled, because he adds, “I owe you a meal. I had three Disco Diner cotton candies on the house. And that was just today.”
“Disgusting.”
He shrugs. “The heart wants what it wants.”
“Oh, yeah?” I set my hands on my hips. “And what does your heart want?”
Penn stops, pinning me with his stare. He’s so still, I can see him swallow, nearly see the pulse in his neck. I inhale sharply, thrown off by all that skin and his short silence and the strange, taut air between us.
“Spaghetti, meatballs, and garlic bread,” he says finally. “Hope you’re hungry, Rollergirl.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“You called yourself that. On multiple platforms.”
“Well, then I was embarrassing.”
Penn’s smile spreads slowly. “Still are,” he says, knocking on the doorframe.
He leaves, and I slouch back into my chair, gathering myself. If there’s a maximum cortisol level that any one body can handle within twenty-four hours, I must be close to hitting it.
I stare at the blinking cursor in the password box. Somewhere in the kitchen, Penn’s banging pots and pans. I glance up at the door, then back at the computer, and I try it. Rollergirl.
It doesn’t work. I try it with a u. Rollergurl.
Bingo.
In celebration, I toss a Gusher into the air and catch it in my mouth, grinning. But my excitement is short-lived, because when I see his name at the top of my work inbox, my heart belly flops into my stomach.
From: Connor Reynolds
I bend toward the screen, the words blurring as I skim through not just one email, but an entire chain between Connor and me. He’s following up and I’m on top of it and all our messages are cordial. Professional. Polite.
Here, Connor isn’t my ex. He’s my accountant.
My hands shake as I scroll back to his most recent message.
Hi Ruby,
I’d be happy to talk through appraisal options. Please let me know when you’re available by phone or in person to discuss next steps.
Connor Reynolds, CPA
Reynolds & Reynolds Group
I press my steepled hands to my lips, my brain struggling to catch up.
Yesterday, I dropped off this man’s dry cleaning.
He made my coffee with exactly the right amount of the overpriced almond milk that he buys for me each week.
He held my hand over the middle console while we drove to Lakeville, and he didn’t complain about my sad-girl pop playlist.
But I can’t get distracted by the world I’ve left behind.
I need to focus on getting back to it.
With that in mind, I star Connor’s email, planning to reply later, and search for the word I’m looking for: Rollerworld. An email pops up: Disco Diner x Rollerworld.
Dear Ruby,
It was a pleasure speaking with you last week, and as promised, I’m following up to see if you’d like to continue our conversation. With your creativity and our strong financial position, I truly believe Rollerworld and The Disco Diner would be even better together.
Please reach out if you have any questions, and I look forward to hearing your thoughts.
All my best,
Sloane Bishop, Rollerworld
I set my head in my hands, staring at the screen through my splayed fingers.
The details are vague, but the message is clear: There’s an offer on the table.
Earlier, I felt sure that saving The Disco Diner could help my cause.
Now, though, I’m not sure if I’m supposed to save it or sell it.
I don’t know if Sloane Bishop is good news or bad, or if anybody else knows about her interest in a partnership—which sounds an awful lot like an acquisition.
Bridget and Penn must not know, or they’d have mentioned it.
There’s a knock at the door. I mumble-whine into my palms. “Yes?”
“Dinner’s ready,” Penn singsongs. “And I swear it’s edible.”
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