8. Penny
EIGHT
PENNY
Well, this was not at all how I expected to spend my dinner. Crammed into a booth at Millie’s next to Josie wasn’t the worst thing in the world, but it was difficult to focus on the constant stream of rambling while across from us, Gavin was leaning back in the booth, eyes on his daughter with his arms crossed, looking like he was preparing for a trip to a guillotine.
Who knew offering to help someone out was so egregious. I certainly hadn’t but based on the man’s scowls coming from the other side of the booth, Gavin wasn’t over the offense.
Whatever. Like I’d told him, I’d done the right thing and offered.
I tore my gaze off his grumpy expression and slid my paper placemat closer to Josie. “Do you still like to play these games?” On the paper were crosswords and word find puzzles, tic-tac-toe, and coloring areas of a western, cartoonish-looking town. Perfect for New Haven.
“Yes!” She bounced in the booth, making both of us jiggle. “Do you have crayons? Or a pen?”
“Of course.” I dug into my purse that was crammed between my hip and the wall and pulled out a wrapped bundle of colored pencils.
“Thanks, Miss Pesco.” She took the pencils from my hand and went to work on the word find section, glancing up at her dad. “Isn’t she great , Dad?”
I dared to look at him over the top of my menu and found him wearing a smile I suspected he only ever showed to his daughter.
“That was nice of her, yes.”
But I wasn’t great. Not to him.
It shouldn’t have stung, but as he slowly moved to look in my direction, I buried my face, and hopefully my expression, in the menu.
I’d shown up at Millie’s dying for her homemade pot roast with carrots and mashed potatoes, the best kind of comfort meal on a cold night like we were having, and now I couldn’t wait to get out of there.
Gavin unsettled me in ways I’d never predicted happening, and now he was ruining my appetite.
“Am I still going to see you at Thanksgiving?”
“Of course.” Through the phone, Maize chomped on crackers or popcorn, something with a loud snap and crunch with every bite. “I’ll be there Wednesday sometime, probably late.”
I couldn’t wait to see her. She was two hours north of Kansas City and while I’d made the trip a handful of times to take her out for lunch, it wasn’t the same as getting to see her every day. At least she wasn’t going home to Mom’s. It’d be a toss-up if she was capable of remembering it was Thanksgiving to begin with. Although Maize was more likely to high-jump off a cliff without a safety harness than willingly spend any time with Mom.
“Good. I’m glad. Do you need money for gas and stuff to get here?”
“I’ll figure it out. Don’t worry about me.”
“Always, Maize.”
She chuckled through the phone, which was quickly followed by another chomp of her snack. With a mouth full of food, she asked, “What else is new besides school? Making friends yet? Meeting guys?”
I snorted. “Friends, yes. Guys, of course not.”
“My sweet older sister, you should have just joined a convent.”
“I don’t want to be a nun.”
“Then stop living like one.”
She had a point. I did tend to live like a nun, but we weren’t all able to be free like Maize, either. “Maize, you know?—”
“I don’t know, actually,” she snapped at me, which she rarely did, except for the verbal brawls we had about me making her go to college. “And it’s silly. I’m grown now, Pen. I’m on my own, and you don’t need to keep living like I’m the only thing you’re doing it for. Someday you’re going to have to look back and realize you never once lived for yourself, and you’ll regret it.”
“I will never regret taking care of you, and besides, I’m living for me. I’m here , aren’t I?”
“Fine. So you won’t regret taking care of me, but you’ll break my heart if you end up alone. So think about me, okay?”
I shook my head. “Nice guilt trip.”
“I know.” I could see her grin through the phone, wide and open. Maize was always my exact opposite. I loved her for it, but by the time I was twelve, I was making sure she was fed, had lunch, did her homework, and walked two miles to get her clothes from clearance racks and at consignment stores so kids wouldn’t make fun of her like they did me. I envied her but wouldn’t have traded those days for a moment.
“So now that you’re officially guilt-tripped, any guys in this new town?”
Only one. The guy who’d scowled at me all through dinner. The guy who grinned at his daughter like she hung the moon, and the guy who paid for my food before I could ask for a separate check. He’d even asked for a third fork when Josie ordered the largest chocolate slice of cake I’d ever seen in my life. Gavin made my head spin. He was rude and sometimes downright mean, and then he was a gentleman. He barely spoke through dinner, seeming content to listen to Josie tell me all the stories about her life and her day like I hadn’t been a part of seven hours of it. Every time our eyes met, my pulse leapt to my throat and he’d look away like he despised the barest amount of eye contact with me.
The man was confusing.
It was too darn bad he was so freakishly attractive.
“I’m hanging up now,” I told her.
As I pulled my phone away from my ear to end the call, she shouted, “You’re going to tell me everything soon!”
As poor as I grew up, I was used to bundling up in extra blankets and sleeping in warm clothes because we couldn’t afford to keep the heat turned up very high. Once I went to college, being able to afford heat without having to sleep in flannel pajamas and four extra blankets was one of my first goals to reach.
Unfortunately, Maize’s tuition was expensive. My rent, although much less than it was in Kansas City, was still higher than I’d hoped for, and I had a car in desperate need of service— including tires—so while I had my own home, the heat was still set as low as I could possibly suffer.
It wasn’t bad when the highs were in the fifties, but I woke up tangled in a mountain of blankets, my fleece-lined pajama pants clinging to my skin, and the tip of my nose colder than ice. Shivering, I wrapped one of my thicker blankets around me and slipped my feet into my furry slippers and trudged to the coffee pot. Thankfully, I’d remembered to set it last night, so I was greeted with a freshly filled, steaming pot of coffee. My fingers were so cold my knuckles ached as I gripped the pot and poured my first cup. That done, I went to the back door and was greeted with a view so gorgeous a smile cracked my frozen cheeks.
It had definitely snowed, more than the three inches expected. From the looks of my backyard, it looked more like six, but the early morning sun was full and bright, and the snow was sparkling. As I brought my coffee mug to my lips, my body was already warming.
This was a different snow than I experienced in the city where the scrape of plows roused you from bed before the sun rose and the snow turned brown from all the dirt and salt by midmorning. This was so peaceful I had to experience it. I unlocked my sliding back door and moved the chunk of wood I kept in the tracks for extra security, and stepped out onto my small back patio to enjoy it all.
The air was fresh, my coffee hot, and even though there was a bite to the air, I already knew this snowfall would melt soon, so I took the time to enjoy the serenity of it all before I escaped back inside.
I had to get ready for work and hoped I made it in safely. I had a full day ahead of me. Not only was it Friday, I predicted I’d now have twenty third graders who only wanted to play in the snow, not work on multiplication facts. I didn’t have any more time to linger.