“Oh, you’re clever,” Penn says, grinning across her desk at me when I report my early morning success story—forty late-model flat screens available for a fraction of what I’ve been able to negotiate anywhere else, provided we can haul them away by next weekend. Turns out the owner is about to foreclose. It feels kind of bad, making bank of somebody else’s bad fortune—but not bad enough that I don’t grin back when she continues, “You’re good.”
I’m embarrassed all of a sudden, not used to the praise. “It wasn’t that big of a deal, really.”
“Don’t do that,” Penn advises, shaking her head at me. “Don’t downplay what you did over there. You saw an opportunity, you took the initiative, and you got it done. I’m impressed with you, kiddo. You should be impressed with yourself, too.”
“I—” I shake my head, blushing. “Okay. Thank you.”
“You earned it.” Penn looks at me from over her coffee cup, curious. “Hey, Molly, what are you studying in the fall, huh?” she asks. “Is that a thing I know about you?”
I shake my head. “It’s not a thing I know about me, even.” I shrug. “I don’t really know what I want to do.”
Penn nods like that’s not at all unusual, which I appreciate. It feels like everybody else I know is a hundred percent sure of where they’re headed—Imogen off to art school, Gabe headed back to his org chem classes. Pretty much every girl in my graduating class at Bristol was enrolled in specialized programs in things like engineering and political communications and English lit. A lot of times it feels like I’m the only one still lost. “They’ve got a business program at BU, don’t they?” she asks.
“Oh.” I nod back, unsure where she’s headed. People always ask me if I want to be a writer like my mom. “They do, I think, yeah.”
Penn nods. “You should think about it,” she advises. “You’re good at it, what you do here. You should know that about yourself. You’re doing a really good job at this.”
I grin at that, wide and happy. It’s been a long time since I felt good at much of anything. “You’re doing a really good job at this, too,” I tell Penn finally, head out to the lobby to see what else needs to get done.
Day 30
My mom’s in New York for a meeting with her editor and a stop at Good Morning America to hawk the Driftwood paperback, so Gabe brings over a pizza from the shop and we put an Indiana Jones marathon on cable. I haven’t seen him since the other night at the Donnelly party. We haven’t been alone in nearly a week.
“You sure you wanna watch this?” he asks me, settling back into the man-eating leather couch and grinning around his slice of pepperoni. We kissed for half an hour in my kitchen when he got here, my hands fisted in his wavy, tangly hair and the capable press of his warm mouth on mine. Gabe really, really knows how to kiss. He ducked his head to get to my collarbone and sternum, and I tried to push Patrick out of my mind as best I could, I don’t like you with my brother. I keep remembering the other night on my lawn. “There’s not, like, a documentary about juicing or the soil content of West Africa you were hoping to catch instead?”
“Already seen both of those, thanks,” I tell him cheerfully. I dressed up a bit before he came over, skinny jeans and a scoop-neck tank top, two thin gold bracelets on my wrist. With Patrick, I only ever wore my usual ripped denim and flannels, but there’s something about hanging out with Gabe that makes me feel like I should dress the part. It’s kind of nice, making the effort. “There’s a thing about killer whales at SeaWorld I’ve been meaning to get to, though.”
“Dork.” Gabe swings his free arm around my shoulders and pulls me close in the half dark, just one Tiffany table lamp casting a warm glow across the room. Then, turning to face me: “So, hey, how’d it go with my brother the other night?” he asks, frowning just a little. “In the car, I mean. I’m sorry; I totally threw you under the bus there, huh? I didn’t realize how smashed I was till I was really smashed.”
“No, no,” I protest, “it was fine.” I pause, feeling careful and not totally sure why. “We had kind of a good talk, actually.”
“Oh, yeah?” Gabe grins, fingers tracing the strap of my tank top over and over. “I knew he’d mellow out eventually.”
“I—yeah.” I don’t know if I’d describe what happened the other night as Patrick mellowing out, but I’m not sure exactly how to explain that to Gabe—or if I even want to. “Yeah,” I finish lamely.
Gabe doesn’t seem to notice my hesitation, thank goodness; instead he kisses me again, licks his way into my mouth until I’m gasping. I’ve never kissed a guy and had it be like this. His hand is warm and heavy on my waist—I’ve been nervous about letting him see any part of me that isn’t normally covered by my clothes, how soft and doughy my body still feels in spite of all the running I’ve been doing, but when he tugs my shirt up it’s so slow and easy and I’m so distracted that I almost don’t even notice until it’s already happened. His fingertips set off tiny firecrackers all across my skin. “Jesus,” I mutter against his lips, breathing hard enough that I’m almost embarrassed, my chest moving with the quickness of it.
“That okay?” Gabe asks.
I nod, liking that he’s asking. I smell salt and his old woodsy soap. Over his shoulder Indy’s outrunning the boulder, the swell of the old familiar music: “This is the good part,” I murmur quietly, then close my eyes so he’ll kiss me again.
Day 31
Connie’s outside the pizza place turning the flowers in their pots when I show up the following afternoon, the sun yellow and beating on my back. “Hi, Molly,” she says when she sees me, looking surprised: For the most part, I’ve steered clear of the shop all summer. The butterflies in my chest thrum their papery wings.
“Hi, Con,” I say.
“Hi, Molly,” she says again, expression neutral as the paint on the walls in a hospital. “Gabe’s not here.”