Penelope in Retrograde: A Novel(32)

“I’m good.” Smith checks his watch. “I should actually call it a night. Harriet gets nervous when I’m out for too long anyway.”

“Harriet? Is that your girlfriend?” My father sways, leaning against the table for support. “Wife?”

“It’s his dog,” I snap. “Ozzie’s sister. We bought them together.”

“I thought it was an odd name for a girlfriend.” He shrugs, ignoring my tone completely. “Why don’t you bring the dog over here? We’re still just catching up.”

Out of everything that’s happened today, this moment right now is the most shocking of all. My father has never once asked Smith Mackenzie to stay longer in his home. Never. In fact, he’s been known for doing quite the opposite. Now, he’s fangirling over him. He’s a glass of scotch away from throwing his panties at the man.

“Gee, Dad, why don’t you invite him for a sleepover?” I grab Martin’s Jack and Coke and take a sip. It tastes like kerosene. “Maybe if you ask Mom nicely, you can go over to his house tomorrow.”

“Penelope, stop it.” My mother scowls. “Your father is just being polite. It’s been a long time since we’ve seen Smith.”

“Really? Remember when you saw him on the front lawn half an hour ago and wanted to deck him?” I fire back. “You called him a douchebag.”

“I did no such thing,” my father snarls. “I called him a jackass, and that was before he apologized to your mother and me.”

“Apologized to you?” I stand, seething with anger and hurt. “What the hell does he have to apologize to you for?”

“Let’s calm down now.” My mother taps on the table, trying to regain some semblance of order. “It’s been a long day for everyone. Why don’t we retire to the living room for the evening and catch up on some television.”

“Yes. We could have Marie prepare sandwiches and have a little picnic,” Nana Rosie adds. “Martin, Smith, have either of you seen The Bachelorette? It’s a fascinating program.”

“He needed to apologize for leaving you in an airport.” My father slurs his words. “For running out on his commitment to you. That’s what he apologized for.”

The room goes still. Frozen and icy cold. Nobody seems to have any idea where to look, other than not at me. The secondhand embarrassment is brutal.

“I need some air,” I say quietly.

“I’ll go with you.” Martin takes my hand. “Smith, it was nice to meet you.”

“Pen, wait.” Smith starts to stand, but Martin waves him off.

“I’ve got her,” he says. “She’ll be OK.”

Will she? I think as I make a beeline out of the dining room. I grab a coat off the hook and pause. An immediate feeling of déjà vu washes over me. Why am I always running out of this house? And why doesn’t anyone in my family ever bother to stop me?





Chapter 11


The night air hits my face like pins and needles. I struggle to put the coat on, until I realize that it belongs to Falon and there’s no way it’s going to fit me.

As if on cue, Martin covers my shoulders with his jacket. His hand once again rests on my lower back, but I brush it off. I don’t want comfort right now. I want to be pissed and mad and sad and full of the kind of angst that’s common among emo teenagers and punks.

Those are the sort of feelings I’m used to having when I come home. I know how to deal with those feelings. They may not feel good, but they’re familiar, and right now the only thing I want—other than Dorothy’s red slippers to take me home—is for something to go as expected. And taking comfort from a man my mother probably paid to stay over for Thanksgiving isn’t on that list.

“Do you want me to call a rideshare or something for you? My treat,” I huff, keeping a solid two steps ahead of Martin. “I can have them pick you up on the street corner. You won’t even have to show your face back in that house. I’ll tell my parents you joined the witness protection program. I’m sure they’ll understand, because apparently they can understand any human who isn’t me.”

“So I did that bad of a job?”

“Huh?” I slow my pace and look over my shoulder. “What are you talking about?”

“My performance as your boyfriend.” Martin hurries his pace. “Personally, I didn’t think it was that bad. In the scope of everything that transpired over drinks, it was actually a pretty minor role.”

The corners of my lips tug with a smile that I one hundred percent am not consenting to. I force a frown and hang a left at the corner of Clementine Street.

“I don’t know if you caught it, but I covered pretty nicely when Carter asked if we’d met. Then I slipped in that dear, which I definitely think Smith noticed.”

“You lost it when you mentioned my books.”

“I picked up on some tension around that subject, which was unexpected.”

“Nobody in my family reads my books,” I say. “We don’t talk about it.”

“Why? Did you pull a Christina Crawford and Mommie Dearest them?”

“Worse.” I chuckle. “I write romance novels.”

“I see.” He cocks his head and smiles. “Can I read them?”