Chapter 2 #2
“How would you . . . have them . . . do it?” Ricky says with morbidly piqued curiosity. “I just read . . . a cyanide toxicity
report in . . . fruit juices. Watch out, everyone,” he says, casting a foreboding look at each of us. “It’s too easy.”
Too easy to what, Ricky? Kill someone?
Are these really things you should announce out loud?
This from Ricky, for the record, is normal. We are informed on a daily basis via email or otherwise how something can and
will kill us. And it often ends with a statement about just how easy it’d be for he himself to do it. Reassuring stuff.
We all ignore him.
“The whole incident with the stereo is too funny not to use in a book,” Crystal says. She hoists her camo backpack that’s twice the size of her body higher over her shoulders
as she strides alongside us, her little legs working like a seagull on a brisk walk. “It’d be a travesty not to show the world the hilarious moment of the Pip Breakdown. I’m working on a book set here in Miami—”
“Is that what we’ll refer to this incident as?” Gordon says, ever the one for naming things. He has an entire language he’s created for curse words, which he uses, in our real world, on the daily. “Binks” is
one of them.
“Finks” if you’re going for a low blow.
You should see Gordon and all his buddies at Comic-Con in their wizard hats holding thirty-two-ounce sodas, each tossing their own made-up languages into the pile of conversation, each secretly, desperately hoping their made-up words will catch on.
And while Neena and Hugh and the rest carry on, arguing over exactly who is going to get the honor of using Pineapple Trunks in their next novel, I glance to the shore, back to the specific spot
in the distance where I completely lost it.
Man, I really lost it.
In all the lifetime events of Penelope Mae Dupont, none will be as extreme as this. Mom likes to talk about how I once walked
outside of my room as a three-year-old and peed on the carpet in defiance while in time-out. But that’s the point. People
who know me laugh, precisely because it’s the exact opposite of something I’d do. I’m compliant and obedient.
I obey laws.
I give away cats when the landlord says they are no longer allowed (difficult, I assure you).
Hugh gives me a deadline for two days from now? I do it in one.
Hugh wants me to fly with him on a whim to an abandoned hospital in the middle of Nowhere, America, for some terrifying research?
I say, “Shall I pack one bag or two?”
But that spot on the shore . . .
It seems that everybody’s relieved I actually have a breaking point.
For weeks they’d been trying to get me to open up, to display any emotion, and I’d clamped my mouth shut.
I had composed myself.
I’d brushed my unruly hair until it went into a nice, neat ballerina bun.
Every single one of my cardigan buttons was looped in place.
I put on a polite smile and said to every single person who dared ask, So how are you, Pip .
. . really?, “Me?” (as though it was funny they should ask such a surprising thing).
“Oh, I’m doing well. Really well. Thank you so much
for asking. And how are you, [insert anyone from distant aunt to secretly unsympathetic, gossipy downstairs neighbor]? How
is your [dog, geranium, wart issue, whatever possible topic comes to mind to get the subject off me]?”
And I had just gotten to the point where everyone was possibly believing the ruse—including myself—when today happened.
The moment the man broke my perfect peace bubble and was so wholly inconsiderate, not thinking for a moment about how his actions affected the rest of the world around him, that I lost it.
Because the reality is, what you do with your life affects other people.
Thinking only of yourself comes with a cost, always.
You just may not be the one paying it.
People should know that.
Michael should know that.
Pineapple Trunks—and every other person on earth for that matter—should know that.
And be held accountable.
“Well, I think it’s safe to say on behalf of everyone, we are all very proud of you, darling,” Neena says quietly, bringing
me back to the world around me. The beating Miami sun overhead. The blue and white bunting flags of the cruise ship snapping
in the wind. Nothing depressing or unhappy in sight.
She’s now got her arm wrapped around me as we walk several paces behind the others.
“I’m never dating again,” I mutter as I grunt along, dragging our suitcases.
“We’ll never date again, together!” Neena agrees in a tone that suggests, Whatever you say here, I’m going to echo, darling. Because that’s what you need right now. A good corroborating spirit over
facts. The captain of the ship glides past our periphery, and she follows his gait. “Except for men in hats,” she says. “I’ve always
had a weakness for a man in a good hat.”
“You know, this could be an interesting start to kick up your novel,” Hugh says cheerily. The fact that all my dirty laundry has been and continues to be so obviously aired in group conversation
speaks volumes to my mental state right now. And to our group closeness.
Regardless.
“I don’t have a novel,” I say automatically. “There is no novel.”
“Sometimes when you don’t have the inspiration, you just have to make it,” Hugh says in his I’m guiding voice. “Sometimes the best way to get your foot in the door if all the doors are locked is to simply build a new door.”
My brows cinch together. These “words of wisdom” are frequent, by the way.
He’s always trying to push me into writing and I’m always trying to push him out.
His brilliance just assumes everybody else’s mind can work the same as his.
“What?” I say. “What do you mean by just build a door—”
“Butt out, Hugh. This is my pep talk, not yours,” Neena says, shooing him off with her hand.
“You had to let it out sometime,” she says, squeezing my shoulders despite the fact that I’m now (a) being pushed along on a gangplank, (b) dragging two heavy suitcases, (c) with gusts of wind trying to blow me over the railing and into the water below.
“Nobody can live very long with that kind of passion inside without it eventually blowing up and out. It’s human nature. None
of us are immune, no matter how much we sometimes wish it were so.” She gives me a kiss on the top side of my head (blinding
me in one eye with her hat while doing so) like the doting-but-eccentric grandmotherly figure she is.
“You know what, love?” she says in an entirely new tone. “This really might be the perfect time to let me see that novel of
yours—”
“That’s what I said,” Hugh interjects.
“Get your mind off things,” she continues, ignoring him.
“It’s not a novel,” I say.
“I heard you’ve got three chapters in!”
“I’ve been writing those same three chapters for three years.”
“I heard you entered it into a writing contest and earned fourth place,” she continues triumphantly.
“There were three contestants total,” I reply. And after a pause, “Somebody’s name was duplicated.”
Neena purses her lips.
Yes, Neena. Try to find something positive to say about that one. The sad little “novel” I’ve been writing on and off (mostly
off) for the past three years is nothing. Really.
Those evangelical pamphlets people leave beneath windshield wipers are longer than my “novel.”
My new vacuum cleaner has a manual longer than my “novel.”
It was stupid of me to even try to write a while ago.
But it was like cigarettes, really. When everyone around you just so happens to be a literary giant and eat writing, drink writing, breathe writing, you can’t help but pick up the proverbial cigarette eventually and say, “Hmm. What if I tried just one?”
The answer, in my case, was you cough and spasm and turn out to be totally, absolutely wrong.
“Hugh says one day you’re going to take the mystery genre by storm. And he knows,” she says, tapping her nose. “He has a sense
for these things.”
“That I do,” Hugh chimes in.
“Shh,” Neena says tersely, pushing him forward.
She stops us and waits ’til everyone moves on.
When he’s shuffled ahead so far that he and the others are on board, she continues. “Hugh really does know, love. When he’s
right, he’s right. He called out Bick Denton before he ever even picked up a pen. I thought it was crazy at the time, but sure enough, now
he’s Bick Denton and giving us all a run for our money.” She smiles motheringly as she looks at me. “And he says the very same of you. Says
your research skills are bar none. And I’ll tell you what right now. It’d be a true pleasure to see you giving us all a run
for our money too.”
“Just because I can find him a unique set of weapons, means, and methods for his books doesn’t mean I can piece all those
facts together into anything cohesive. Believe me, Neena. I’ve tried. Researching pieces and parts for Hugh’s books is one
thing. Writing a masterpiece, as I have discovered to my great disappointment, is another. I can talk about dimethylaminopropionitrile
all day long, but creating anything with actual creative genius is another.”
“Hugh disagrees. He says you’re talented.”
“Yeah, well, currently my ‘manuscript’ is something between a journalistic piece and a medical dissertation, a bunch of technical
terms gurgled up and emotionlessly splattered on the page.”
She shrugs. “Hugh says though, love.”
“Yeah, well, he can be wrong sometimes.”
“That he can.” She pauses. “But not when it counts like this.”
Agree to disagree.
“Oh, you just need someone to push you off the ledge is all,” Neena says, shimmying herself through the narrow entrance on
board the ship, holding on to her hat like Marilyn Monroe. The silvery heads of several staff members turn.
An attendant opens his mouth to welcome us on board, but Neena raises a finger with a smile. He waits, gloved hand over gloved
hand.
“I’m going to tell you a little secret, darling.”
“I don’t believe you are capable of secrets, Neena.”