He nodded. Penny was elated. “Because I need your help on act two,” she said. “It’s a mess logistically and there are certain inconsistencies I can’t reconcile, and I made a spreadsheet the way you told me except then I read this thing about how your narrative should be a snowflake and I’m not that good at math.”
“Ugh, loser. Okay, send it to me,” he said. “I’ll have it back to you by the weekend, but you have to help me with my dialogue. I’m holding your pages hostage until you get mine back.”
Penny duffed him on the arm as she imagined a pal would. “I love the protocol!” she said.
“Great,” he said, socking her back lightly. “This is probably for the best anyway. You’re so strange.”
Penny practically skipped home.
When she got back to her room from class, she was stoked to find Jude reading a magazine and eating goldfish.
“Suup, slut,” she said before turning back to flip through the pages.
“Do you want to go do something?” Penny said, sitting on Jude’s bed. Penny was still high from her talk with Andy. She was batting a thousand when it came to friendship. “I’ll drive.”
Jude studied her face. “Really?”
Penny nodded and smiled wide.
“What, did you and your secret boyfriend break up or something?” asked Jude.
Penny kept her smile in place and barreled on. “Going once, going twice . . . ,” she said.
“Just kidding, yes.” Jude sprang into action and tossed her magazine aside. “I’m dying of boredom and have to read The Communist Manifesto by tomorrow and yeah, no. Why isn’t there an animated movie version?”
Penny shrugged.
“We gotta get Mal too,” she said.
They swung by Twombly. “Where are we going?” asked Mallory, jumping in the back. It was such a new dynamic, to have Penny in charge of the night for once.
“I want to see the ocean,” Penny announced.
“Yay!” the girls chorused. Penny felt as if she could’ve suggested anything from the zoo to the airport and they would’ve been game.
The closest beach was three and a half hours away, but Penny was hell-bent on making it to Galveston in under three. Jude was responsible for the music and directions. Mallory was responsible for making them stop every half hour so she could pee. The girl had the smallest bladder in the world.
“Penny, I haven’t seen you in one thousand years.” Mallory handed her a Red Vine. The only benefit to stopping every thirty miles was the snack haul remained bountiful. “That party was so fun.”
“Yeah,” said Jude. “Speaking of which, what’s up with Andy? He’s so hot.”
By dusk they’d made it to the halfway point, where there was a glowing power plant up ahead. It was beautiful, like a space station on the cover of a sci-fi paperback from the seventies.
“Seriously, what or who have you been doing?” Mallory poked Penny’s cheek with the wet end of her Vine.
“Stop,” yawped Penny. Mallory cackled. “Nothing. And yeah, Andy’s great. He’s helping me with my project.”
“I wish he’d help me with my project,” retorted Jude, and they laughed.
“I’m up to my eyeballs in homework and ignoring my mother,” said Penny. “Same as everyone.”
“Oh!” said Jude, swatting Penny’s arm. “Your mom friend requested me on Facebook.”
“Shut up.” Penny groaned.
“Yuck!” exclaimed Mallory. “That’s such a violation. You didn’t accept, did you?”
“No,” said Jude. “I mean, Celeste is adorable but, yeah, no way. Obvious violation. She did it literally the night we hung out.”
Penny felt her cheeks redden. “Did I tell you she sent Mark, as in my ex-boyfriend Mark, a message after we broke up?”
“Whaaaaaaaaaaaat?!”
“Not only that.” Penny got worked up again. “But she went on a full lurk and told me he was dating someone new. Why would you tell your daughter that?”
“That’s egregious,” Mallory confirmed.
Jude patted her shoulder in sympathy. “Completely egregious.”
“I mean, your mom’s cool, but sometimes I can’t tell if a cool mom is better than a completely out-of-touch Stepford Wife mom like mine,” said Jude. “At least Nicole isn’t thirsty.”
“Well, she’s obviously not hungry,” agreed Mallory. “I’m pretty sure the only food Nicole eats is Ativan.”
“I love my mom.” Mallory rummaged in her shopping bag for a bottle of Big Red. “She’s completely out to lunch, like all moms. I don’t know, though. At some point in high school we became friends. The thing is, P, you can’t ignore them.”
Penny couldn’t believe that the craziest girl in the car probably had the healthiest relationship with her mother.
“Moms are like cows,” Mallory said. Jude shot a glance at Penny. This was going to be good. “You’ve got to milk them or they lose their minds.”
Mallory leaned into the front of the car so the girls could feel the full weight of her wise words.
“They’re shoplifting teens,” she pressed.
“Wait, I thought they were cows,” Jude said. Penny couldn’t meet her eyes for fear of a giggle fit.
“They’re both. However, they’re more shoplifting teens because it’s not about the intention. It’s about the at-tention.”
That did Jude in. She cackled boisterously.
“What are you talking about?”
“Wait, I actually think I know what you’re getting at, Mal,” said Penny. “You’re saying that ignoring my mom isn’t the right way to go because her cow milk or need for attention or whatever gets insane and she’ll burst or do something stupid. But if I pay consistent attention to her, she’ll chill the F out.”
“Exactly,” said Mallory, leaning back into her seat satisfied.
There were worse theories.
“But what if your mom is the most annoying human in the universe?” asked Penny.
“Dude.” Jude knew the answer to this one. “Every mom is the most annoying human in the universe, but most of them, besides the super-abusive genuinely bad ones, are in your corner.”
“You know what I do that helps?” Apparently Mallory wasn’t done dispensing gems. “I imagine how my mom would feel if she could overhear the mean shit I said about her. It makes me say way less mean shit, which makes me think way less mean shit. It works.”
Penny’s heart sank. It would destroy Celeste to know how she felt about her and what she’d been keeping from her. Pushing her away was Penny’s way of protecting her. Of protecting them both.
“Okay,” said Mallory, interrupting her thoughts. “Enough about moms. We’re going to play a game. We’re going to go around in a circle and ask questions and answer them truthfully.”
“So, truth or truth?” asked Penny.
“Yeah,” said Jude. “Although I already know everything about Mal because she and I are the oversharing queens of the universe.”
“How very dare you!” said Mallory in mock outrage. “Though in the spirit of full disclosure: Everyone may as well know that I have a UTI and am drinking boatloads of cranberry juice because of the sheer volume of sex I had this past week. Hence my current rate of peeing.”
“Wait, I thought Ben left,” said Jude.
“He did,” replied Mallory. “That’s why it’s a particularly sordid truth.”
“J’accuse!” exclaimed Jude.
“Okay, me first,” said Jude, flipping on the dome light so the car resembled an interrogation room. “Penny,” she boomed in a TV-announcer voice, “did you or did you not recently sleep with someone who is responsible for giving you that radiant, highly irritating glow?”
That was easy. “No,” she said.
“I’m dubious,” said Mallory. Penny glanced at Mallory in the rearview.
“I’m a bad liar,” Penny told her.
“That’s true,” confirmed Jude. “And it’s not Andy?”
Penny smiled.
“It is Andy!” Jude swatted her arm.
Penny wiped the grin off her face. “It isn’t. I promise!”
“My turn,” said Mallory.
“Wait, isn’t it my turn?” asked Penny. She wondered if this was a thinly veiled attempt to ask her a series of deeply invasive questions.
“You’ll go right after,” said Mallory. “Besides, this question is for Jude.”
“I’m ready,” said Jude, turning to her bestie.
“In a parallel universe in which the practice wasn’t frowned upon and utterly Appalachian, would you or would you not have sex with Uncle Sam?”
Penny’s stomach lurched.
“Eeeeeeeeew,” screamed Jude. “Mallory, why are you such a perv?”
“I take it that’s a no?” said Mallory, grinning evilly.