“Whoa, that’s amazing!” exclaimed Penny. “And your dad’s cool with it?”
“Not exactly,” said Jude, rolling her eyes. “Mostly he shit-talked Mom’s trip to Europe, since she’s hate-posting it all over Facebook. I guess he’s finally paying attention to her.”
“I need coffee,” whined Mallory, tugging on Jude’s arm.
“Okay, okay,” said Jude. “Catch you later?”
Penny nodded.
As the door slammed, Penny could hear Mallory in the hall.
“I don’t know what you see in her.”
Mallory could throw salt all she liked. There was no way Penny would go to House and let Sam see her. That would ruin everything. Sam would take one look at her and be like, “Yikes, never mind.”
Instead of writing, Penny snack-crastinated. She chewed a Lactaid, then grabbed a jar of Nutella and pulled out a heaping spoonful. She placed it in the middle of a cereal bowl and dumped a mini bag of Cheetos into it. She carefully dipped a twiglet into the hazelnut smear and popped it into her mouth. Then she checked her phone.
SAM HOUSE
Today 2:02 PM
Do you know what the simulation hypothesis is?
And when she didn’t respond immediately: Hello?
unsubscribe?
Is this thing on?
So much for not texting for the rest of the day. She wrote: Jude and Mal are en route He texted back immediately Here?
Yeah
She dipped another Cheeto.
Are you coming?
Hell no
Penny typed without thinking.
Ahhahahah thanks a lot
It’s not that they’d explicitly discussed it; they just knew.
Is it crazy that we don’t hang out?
Penny’s hand hovered over the keypad. Neon cheesy flavor crystals fleeced the thumb and forefinger of her non-texting hand. A brown-orange lichen she couldn’t wait to scrape off with her teeth.
Hang out?
She was stalling.
There was no way she’d allow him to see her do 97 percent of her normal daily activities. She was a monster. A monster who was flat as a board with no ass. In fact, the only thing she had going on in the curves department was an enormous cystic pimple on her chin that hurt when she touched it. Yeah, no.
Like for real?
Yeah
In a coffee shop Where your friends go
And your other friend works
Penny smiled at the mention of them being friends. But she also couldn’t tell if this was some kind of test. If she admitted to wanting to see him would that be disappointing?
She wrote:
No?
He responded immediately.
RIGHT?
Whew. Correct response. So why did she feel so . . . sad?
And ruin this?
She mashed the spoon into the Cheeto. It probably wasn’t disappointment she was feeling, but GI distress. Between the hardened protein bars in her belly and this trash, she might never poop again. Penny took solace in the fact that she and Sam would never have to poop in the same city block, let alone the same bathroom.
Srsly
Feels sooooo good to be in our respective metal boxes #sealed
#safe
Free from the mortal coil Yeah
What you said
Lol
So yeah no IRL for me
Why break the fourth wall?
No point
We’re perfect in here
It was true. Everything outside of the box was a mess. Penny’s “un-here” was no good. She shimmied off her bra with her clean hand and flung it onto her bed.
If I could be perfect in here And in my writing
I think I’d be satisfied
Is that pathetic?
Nope
AGREED
I think you only get to be good at two things at once
Do you think we spend too much time talking and not enough working?
He took a minute to answer.
Probably
Penny smiled.
You have to find your movies And you have to write your
big story and let me read it Maybe you only get to have one thing at once Lol
Probably
What if this is our one thing?
Lol
What like texting?
Yeah
Maybe this is what we’re good at I’m not mad
Phones rule
Humans drool
Lol
We’re the best
This is the best
And it was.
SAM.
After the lunch rush, Sam slipped out of work early and borrowed Fin’s car.
He pulled up to the Texas Workforce Commission. The state government office on the East Side was covered with prairie oaks. It was shaded and featured a poured concrete ledge in front of the building with two metal handrails that were magnets for skate rats. As long as the kids didn’t break stuff, drink, or try to catch tags on the property, the cops rarely messed with them.
Sam saw three boys dicking around on their skateboards. The smallest, a goofy-footed kid with chin-length straight hair nose-slid down the eleven-stair handrail. He had the ballsy, wiry, little-dude confidence that comes from a low center of gravity, moving as if he knew exactly what every part of his body was doing. Sam watched the other two, larger boys, attempt noncommittal backside shuvits and bailed kickflips, spending more time retrieving boards than riding away clean.
Sam remembered when he was their age and the city first put the new handrails in. It had been the big news in his crew for weeks. Most of the skaters with money, the kids with the fresh setups and new shoes every month, frequented dedicated skate parks that started springing up once the kids of the Austin tech set became of age. But these three boys were recognizably just as poor as he’d been. One had a board with a chipped tail that was plugged with peanut-buttery wood filler and sanded down, and even from a distance Sam could see their socks through the ollie holes in their soles.
Sam had been out here a couple times over the last few weeks. It was only ever the three of them, and there was something about the littlest one that was transfixing. He flung himself down the stairs repeatedly, as sure-footed as a bug.
Sam got out and walked over to them.
The three scowled as if to ward off a predator or undercover cop. With a dirty towel draped over his head and a cigarette dangling from his mouth, the youngest boy resembled those child soldiers you saw on Vice docs—with that thousand-yard stare that’s extra haunted on a kid’s face.
“Relax, I’m not a cop,” Sam said. He pulled out a cigarette and lit it.
“Yo, let me get a smoke,” said the kid, reaching toward him.
“You’ve already got one,” said Sam.
“Let me hold it for later though.” He flashed a wide grin, cigarette bobbing up.
The two other boys flanked him as if they were his backup. Sam felt conflicted about giving a child tobacco. Then he figured he’d be getting it elsewhere. Sam handed it over, and the kid tucked the loosie behind his ear.
“I seen you,” said the ringleader as he grabbed a lighter out of the back pocket of his filthy jeans and started playing with it. “Always wearing the same shit. You’re not some kind of emo child molester, right?”
Sam laughed and shook his head. “What child molester would tell a kid he was a child molester though?”
The kid laughed. “True.”
“What’s your name? It’s not Lester, is it?” The kid smirked again. “Last name molester.” His friends chortled on cue.
“Sam,” said Sam. “I used to skate here back when I was around your age.”
“What’s up, Sam? I’m Bastian. This is James”—he pointed at the shorter of the two boys, with slicked-back hair—“and Rico.” Rico nodded and cracked his knuckles. Sam nodded, stifling a smile. They were cartoon goons.
He thought about what Penny would do if he had brought her as his backup. Probably stare at them combatively, asking invasive questions. And confusing them later by offering Band-Aids and Neosporin from her kit as needed.
This morning she’d coached him on how to approach them.
None of this matters
We’re all biding time until we die anyway
He’s probably bored
Kids get bored
Go unbore him
“So anyway,” he said. “I don’t skate as much now because I’m a documentary filmmaker.”
PENNY.
My mom’s coming
It was 8:42 a.m. on a Saturday, perfect time to bring up topics she’d been avoiding for months.
Is that good or bad
Suboptimal
Not a fan?
Nope
Me neither
*Of mine
Why?
You go first Penny always had to go first.
No you
Sam went first:
My mom shouldn’t have been a mom Why?
She’s an alcoholic