Chapter 20
Matt
My tea kettle screams from the kitchen.
I bolt up from my bed where I’ve been lying, staring at the ceiling, going over the unexpected events of the day, and head to the next room to make myself a cup of tea.
“The next room” is a generous way to describe my kitchen. With the exception of my bathroom, which has its own door that shuts and locks, there are no actual rooms in my studio apartment. It’s all one big room. “Big” is probably too generous a term, too. It’s all one… medium-sized room.
I’m certainly not complaining, though. I love this place, and the dirt-cheap rent—for Manhattan anyway—is just right.
As the steam rises from my cup, I flash back to when Penny met my mom today.
Talk about surreal. Introducing Penny to my mom was not something I even contemplated doing ahead of time.
We were just standing there outside the memory care building after rehearsal, and suddenly, I didn’t want to pretend with Penny anymore.
Not that I was pretending exactly. But I was withholding.
I told this woman I wanted to be her friend, and then I purposely withheld a very big part of my life from her.
Part of me thought Penny would be freaked out by the situation, either by my mom’s behavior or the fact that I even asked her to join me in the first place. But she didn’t seem put off by any of it. In fact, she was completely at ease. Softer and more relaxed than I’ve ever seen her, really.
I’ve been taking all my cues from her since the makeout-session-we-dare-not-speak-of and generally keeping my physical distance. Though today, she took my hand in hers. I wasn’t the one who reached for her first. She pulled me even closer to her at one point, and I thought she was going to kiss me.
Then when my mom assumed we were a couple, Penny let her believe that.
She called me her boyfriend.
“The most wonderful boyfriend she’s ever had,” to be exact.
My phone dings with a text.
Penny: You up?
Holy shit. She’s texting me.
Me: You know you’re never supposed to text someone “you up” unless…
Penny: Unless what?
Me: Unless you’re looking for some action.
My phone rings. A glance at the screen shows that it’s Penny calling. Shit, I took it too far, didn’t I? Now she’s gonna ream me. I shouldn’t have teased her. This was an intense day, and obviously, she’s not looking for action. Not from me anyway.
Stupid, stupid.
I pick up the phone. “Hello?”
“I’m not looking for action,” she blurts.
“No, I know. I’m sorry for saying that.”
“I mean, I’m not not looking for action,” she says cryptically.
“Huh?”
She’s losing me here.
She sighs. “I just mean that’s not why I was texting. I literally wanted to know if you were up.”
I double-check the time on my phone screen. “Penny, it’s eight o’clock. Of course I’m awake!”
“I dunno, dude! You strike me as an ‘early to bed, early to rise’ kind of guy.”
“Sure, but eight p.m.?” My voice ratchets up. “Penny, if I ever start going to bed at eight p.m., you have full permission to call me grandpa.”
“I would never call you grandpa.” She laughs. Then her tone turns serious. “But, um, I also shouldn’t have called you my boyfriend.” She clears her throat. “That’s why I’m calling. To apologize for that.”
She giveth, and she taketh away.
I knew she didn’t really mean it when she said it, and I’m not naive enough to think we’re in a relationship now, but I guess part of me wanted to revel in the possibility of it for a little longer.
“No apology necessary,” I say. “You did a really kind thing for me today. For my mom, I mean.”
“Are you sure? I’ve been doubting myself all afternoon.
My great-uncle had dementia, and his caregivers told us not to contradict him when he was having an episode.
Especially if what he was imagining made him happy.
They said that correcting him would only cause him distress.
So I guess their advice kicked in when your mom assumed I was your girlfriend and seemed so pleased. ”
Having Penny as my girlfriend would please me too.
She continues, “But your mom’s situation might be completely different from my uncle’s.”
“No, that’s pretty similar advice to what her team at the memory care center tells me. You did the right thing, I think.”
“But now what?” she asks. “Is she going to remember meeting me and expect to see me again?”
I pause.
“Matt?” Penny sounds so worried.
“Sorry, I was thinking. I mean, it’s possible that she will? I just don’t know. It’s getting harder to predict what she will or won’t remember.”
“I’m sorry, Matt. That sounds so hard.”
“It’s no walk in the park, I’ll tell ya that.” I chuckle and walk my tea across the room. I set it on my bedside table, then get settled on my bed, my back against the headboard.
“For what it’s worth, your mom seems really sweet,” Penny says. “I liked her.”
“Um…”
I should have just said, “Yup, she is,” or “Yeah, my mom’s a great lady, and she always has been.”
But those things wouldn’t be true.
“Did I say something wrong?” she says softly.
“No, not wrong. My mom is generally very sweet. Now.”
Penny stays quiet on her side of the phone, like she’s giving me the space to say more if I want to.
“I know it’s probably surprising given how lovely she was tonight, but growing up, my mother was—” I struggle to find the words to describe how she used to be. I settle on, “She was really hard.”
“Hard?” Penny asks softly.
“Tough,” I correct myself. “On me. I mean, some of that wasn’t entirely her fault. I was a handful. Especially after my father died.”
“You? A handful? I don’t believe it.” She jokes.
“Believe it, baby.”
Shit. I called her baby. I gotta watch that.
I keep talking, hoping she doesn’t register that slip of the tongue. “The hardest part wasn’t her toughness, though. It was her lies that I couldn’t take.” I pause. “She lied. A lot.”
“What do you mean?”
I sigh.
How do I explain something I don’t fully understand myself?
“What would she lie about?” Penny asks when I don’t answer right away.
“Everything. Nothing,” I say. “Sometimes it was little things like what she did that day. She’d make up these fantastical stories. For no reason at all, it seemed. But… there were big things too.”
“Like what?” she gently presses.
“Like how much money we had in the bank when we were talking to financial aid officers. Where she was when she left me home alone for days at a time.” Pause. “How my father died.”
“Oh my god,” she breathes.
“Yeah. Slowly but surely, I realized she wasn’t telling me the truth about things growing up. So it became hard to know what was up and what was down, you know?”
“I can imagine. I’m sorry, Matt.”
“It’s okay. Between my occasional therapy sessions and my daily ‘Seven Minutes in Heaven,’ I find ways to work through it all.”
“Right. You mentioned your ‘Seven Minutes in Heaven’ thing the first time I came to the gym. What, um, what did you mean by that?” she asks skeptically.
“Not at all what you’re thinking.” I chuckle.
“The loft is filled with brand-new pillows that got left behind by the previous tenants. I go up there every day and lie on the pillows to clear my head, meditate… that sort of thing. It feels like my own little fluffy cloud-pillow heaven. Gene and I have talked about renovating the space to create another revenue stream for the gym, but I dunno. I don’t think I’m ready to let it go.
” I clear my throat. “Anyway, no reason for you to feel sorry for me. I turned out okay.”
“You sure did,” she says. “And I don’t feel sorry for you. Despite all you went through, I was just thinking it’s amazing what an openhearted person you are. You could have easily turned into someone who doesn’t trust anyone. But from everything I’ve seen of you… you didn’t.”
“I think what I’ve become is someone who really values communication. I trust people, but I am absolutely allergic to lies. Seriously. Lie to me once, and you’re dead to me.” I laugh, but then register how that sounded. “Not you. I just meant anyone. If anyone lies to me, I’m—”
“Got it,” she says.
Damnit.
I’ve gone off the deep end with this conversation.
“What are you doing right now?” I ask abruptly. “I want to picture you.”
Wow, I’m batting a thousand tonight.
“Sorry! I didn’t mean that in a ‘what-are-you-wearing?’ kind of way. Just in an ‘I’m-sitting-on-my-bed-drinking-tea-how-’bout-you-what-are-you-doing?’ kind of way.”
Penny laughs. “Understood. Currently, I’m in my apartment, sitting on my prized midcentury modern chair I found at a thrift store for thirty bucks in Williamsburg and staring at my Christmas tree. Oh, and I’m sipping some red wine.”
“Mother of Junk?” I perk up. “Is that where you got the chair?”
“Yes!” she says.
“I love that place! It’s right by the gym.”
“Oh yeah. I guess it is.”
“Forgive me, but you don’t strike me as someone who enjoys a thrift store. You know, with all the designer suits and stuff you wear.”
“Where do you think I get them?” she asks.
“Ohhhhh,” I say dumbly.
“Yeah, ohhhhh,” she says, her sass returning. “Matt. Did you really think I could afford designer suits on my Herald’s salary?” She laughs.
“I guess I assumed you had some kind of trust fund situation.”
“Um, no. I make a point to accept absolutely nothing from my parents.”
“Sounds like there’s a story there,” I say.
“Not a very interesting one.” She pauses. “But if I did have lots of money and could afford those things… would that be so bad?”
I think about that for a moment.
“No,” I finally say. “No, it wouldn’t. Believe me, I wish I had more of it myself, but…”
“But…” she leads.
Sirens wail down Ninth Avenue. I closed the window I had cracked open. The steam heat in this old building gets intense sometimes.