“Let me guess,” he said to Penny. “You want a bone-dry half-caff cappuccino with a caramel drizzle?”
Penny cleared her throat and nodded.
“What are the odds?” he asked her, fairly certain that it wasn’t at all what she wanted.
Sam studied Penny out of the corner of his eye. Her messy hair lent her an air of zaniness. She looked like a scribbled-in-graphite drawing.
“Actually, may I have an iced coffee?” she piped up.
“Of course you may,” he said pointedly.
“Oh, Uncle Sam?”
He swiveled to see Mallory leaning toward him, elbows hooked on the bar. Her not-insignificant boobs were hoisted to where they almost hit her chin. She lowered her sunglasses with a silver-painted talon. Clearly, too much time had elapsed since Mallory was paid attention to.
“What’s up?”
“Is it true that you bake?” she asked.
He nodded.
“Maybe someday you’ll bake something for me,” she said, suggestively tilting her head.
He tilted his head to mirror hers.
“No maybes about it, Mallory,” he said. “Eat off Jude’s plate right now and I’ll have baked that for you. Happy trails.”
“You’re funny,” she tittered, sashaying off to follow her friend.
Sam shook his head. There was no way he was going to mix it up with a freshman. Let alone a friend of Jude’s. Even he wasn’t that dumb.
PENNY.
The three girls sat on a floral couch toward the back with Jude in the middle. They set down their drinks, and Penny noted that Jude’s femur was almost twice as long as hers.
“So.” Mallory leaned to address Penny. “Jude mentioned you were an only child too.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“I have two little sisters,” Mallory continued, sipping her coffee. “Whereas Jude hasn’t had to share anything in her life, let alone a room.”
Jude jabbed her friend in the ribs and grabbed another donut.
“What Mal’s so subtly trying to tell you is that I’m a slob.” Jude took a bite, spraying crumbs in her lap to prove her point. “Look, I’m way too busy living life to mull over something as dull as cleaning. Besides, everyone knows geniuses are messy.”
Mallory plowed on.
“It’s just that I happened to notice earlier that you were highly organized,” she said. “It’s going to make things interesting. I live in Twombly, but you should expect me around a lot.”
Ah, Twombly. Rich-bitch housing.
Penny wondered why Jude couldn’t just visit Mallory at Twombly. They had a Pilates studio in the basement and a screening room that showed movies that were still in theaters.
Sam met them with an espresso and set it down on the coffee table.
“Can you visit more with us?” Jude asked him.
“In a bit,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”
The girls watched him go.
“Whoa,” said Penny, realizing what should have been obvious. “It’s not just the shoes,” she whispered.
“What?” asked Mallory in an outside voice. Penny huddled closer.
“Me and your uncle are wearing the same outfit.”
Jude and Mallory craned their necks. It was true; they were both wearing black T-shirts with three-quarter-length sleeves, black belts with burnished silver buckles, and skinny black jeans with holes at both knees and black high-top Chucks.
“Oh my God,” said Jude. “He was such a skater when we were kids. I didn’t realize he’d crossed over to the dark side.”
Mallory snorted.
“Remember in sixth grade when you had the wallet chain and those enormous, disgusting khakis?” asked Mallory. “God, you were obsessed with Uncle Sam. Watch, Jude’s going to start dressing in mourning garb now.”
Sam was arranging dirty mugs on a tray. He had a cowlick on his head. An unruly little curlicue that rose off his otherwise very cool hair. He probably hated it. Penny loved when that happened. When a single detail rebelled against the package. She wanted to touch it. Penny looked away before she got caught staring.
Mallory bit into one of the donuts. “Ack,” she said, sticking her tongue out like a baby. “I hate pistachio.” She removed the offending clump from her mouth with her fingernails and set the damp mass on the table.
Penny silent-screamed.
“Then why pick the one that is clearly pistachio?” asked Jude. “It literally has visible pistachio pieces on it. Mal, it’s green!”
Jude picked up the offending pile of mash with her bare hands and looked for somewhere to deposit it.
Penny silent-screamed harder.
In a flash, Penny removed a package of wet wipes from her backpack and handed one to Jude. Then she squirted hand sanitizer in her hands since she couldn’t bleach her brain. Best friends were one thing, but this was perverse. Who touches someone’s half-chewed food? And who spits out half-chewed food in public in the first place?
“Thanks,” said Jude, bundling the lump into the wipe. “How’s the pie?”
“Good.” Penny passed the rest off and took another half a donut before Mallory tainted the rest.
“Shit.” Jude bolted upright. A lurid red dollop of filling toppled onto her white shirt.
With her free hand, Penny offered Jude another wet wipe and a stain stick.
“Seriously?” Mallory grabbed Penny’s kit from her lap before she could protest. “Clown car much? Are you going to pull out a ladder and a Volkswagen bus next?”
Penny wanted to ask who in the hell would put a bus in a car but was distracted by whether or not she’d packed anything mortifying in her go bag.
“Good Lord, it’s like doomsday prepping in here.” Mallory pawed through the pouch. “Band-Aids, ChapStick, tampons . . . I’ve heard of teen moms, but you’re a teen grandma or something. Let me guess—you have little packets of Sweet’n Low and coupons too? How adorable.”
“So adorable,” repeated Jude, smearing the stain stick onto her shirt.
Penny despised the word “adorable.” It was trivializing.
Mallory continued laying out the contents of Penny’s emergency crap bag onto the coffee table as if they were surgical instruments. Hand sanitizer, ear plugs, thumb drive, Advil, Q-tips, bobby pins, sewing kit, tiny IKEA pencil . . .
“Ooooh, and a single condom.” Mallory held the foil square between her thumb and forefinger.
That was it.
Penny snatched back the condom and the bag, gathering her things off the table.
“Mal,” Jude admonished, sweeping the rest of the items together. “Don’t be a dick.”
“I can’t be inquisitive?” Mallory objected. “Besides, I’m saying nice things.” She leaned back with smug satisfaction and regarded Penny. “You’re so organized. I bet you’re a math genius or something. Let me guess—you’re an overachieving Asian kid who skipped ten grades? Are you secretly twelve years old and a freshman in college?”
Penny glared.
“Come on, you can tell me,” said Mallory.
Reasonable responses to a mildly racist verbal attack that was also somewhat complimentary: 1. Slap the ever-living shit out of her with the other half of the pistachio donut.
2. Calmly tell her that you are a genius and a witch and that your binding spells had the added effect of rendering your enemies bald. Especially the asshole racist ones.
3. Scream at Jude, ban Mallory from their room. Slap everyone.
“Come on, Penny,” said Mallory after a while. “I was just teasing.”
“You know what?” Penny turned to Mallory. “I’m only being nice to you as a courtesy,” she said. “You don’t get to be bitchy for no reason, and you don’t get to be racist to me. And certainly not in such a lazy, derivative way.”
Penny felt the familiar prickle of moisture at her eyes. She rarely cried at sad things, mostly mad ones. It was a fun and easy way to lose arguments. She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.
“Racist?” said Mallory. “Who the hell are you calling a racist? That’s such an offensive thing to say to . . .”
“Jesus, Mal,” said Jude. “Stand down.”
“I’m a lot of things,” huffed Mallory. “But I’m not racist.”
“Said every racist ever,” spat Penny. She rolled her eyes so hard she saw brain.