Part 3 (1/2)
ELENA.
The next day was a Sat.u.r.day and I took Penny up on her offer and we spent the day moving my things to her Brooklyn apartment. Penny even managed to find time to retrieve my stuff from Nick's place, and it took her less than an hour, despite Nick's groveling, which made me grateful for her being there. He still hadn't stopped sending me those texts and he still kept calling me. I never responded, not even once, not by a text and I was certainly never taking any calls from him. I knew he couldn't keep this up for long, he would give up eventually and I just had to wait. In the evening Penny and I did a bit of celebrating by going out to her favorite bar. Because I was there, Penny pretended not to like the guys over there and even though one of them even left her his number on a napkin, Penny was determined not to get carried away. Me, I was trying my best to stay cheery but it wasn't working as well as I had hoped. Nick's texts seemed to have increased in number somehow, and the groveling was positively aggressive. Ultimately, I gave up and put my phone in my purse so I wouldn't get the alerts, and I decided not to look at it until the next morning.
The next day was Sunday and by the time Penny woke up I had her favorite breakfast ready for her. Since Penny knew even less about cooking than I did, she looked incredibly happy. Over breakfast, we talked. ”I'm going to have to start searching for a job soon,” I said. ”The royalties aren't going to be enough, and I don't have a lot of savings.”
”When are women going to learn to be money-wise?”
”Hey, I know plenty of men who aren't money-wise either.”
”That's not the point,” Penny said. ”Women have it decidedly worse. They need to pay more attention to this stuff.”
”I made a mistake, alright? Point is, what am I going to do about it?”
”I'll see what I can do about the work thing,” Penny said. ”But I'm not too hopeful. It's very tough landing a job these days.”
”I know, and I appreciate your help.”
”I'll ask around and try to find you the best possible job, but we have to be realistic.”
”I understand completely,” I said. ”You know I'd do anything. I wouldn't mind flipping the proverbial burgers if I have to.”
”I know, babe. But still, it's better if you can find some real work.”
”I don't even have a college degree. Who's going to hire me for a real job?”
”We'll figure something out,” Penny said, rea.s.suringly. ”And what about your writing?”
”The stuff I've written it's not earning that much,” I admitted. ”I've been working on something new, but it might take a while to finish.”
”That's not why I asked,” Penny said. ”I just want to make sure this whole thing doesn't stop you from your writing.”
I wasn't sure, to be honest. Something inside me just didn't feel right. I hadn't been able to bring myself to write a single word for so long and that was part of the trouble. Ever since things with Nick started to go really bad a few months back, it started affecting my work.
”It won't,” I tell her, even though I don't really feel it. ”I'll be fine. I promise.”
When I checked my phone, Nick's texts were staring back at me again.
”He's still doing that?” Penny asked. She must have seen the look on my face.
”Apparently, he's in love with me,” I said.
”Really?” she said, mockingly. ”Could have fooled me with that other b.i.t.c.h lying in your bed.”
”We don't even know that she's a b.i.t.c.h.”
”She's sleeping with a married guy for goodness sake. She's a b.i.t.c.h.”
”Maybe she didn't know.”
”She didn't see all those photographs, of you and him in the bedroom? She didn't notice that there was someone else living in that house with him?”
Penny had a point.
”You can't feel sorry for someone like that,” Penny said. ”She is as much at fault as Nick in all of this.”
”I know but I just think she has nothing to do with this. Pen, she's just a placeholder. If Nick wants to cheat on me he'll find women to do it with him.”
”I don't know what anyone sees in him.”
”There's something about him,” I tried to explain. ”When he's nice to you, when he's telling you something, you want to believe it. Come to think of it, he's not even that good an actor you know? You're left wanting him and then, when he is clearly not giving you enough, you start asking yourself why? You start wondering what you've done wrong instead of asking what he's done wrong. I don't know how he does it.”
”That is a load of bull and you know it.”
”You don't know him, Penny. He's a charmer! He could sell an Eskimo a block of ice if he wanted to.”
”Yes but sadly, he isn't selling Eskimos anything. He's selling his cheap a.s.s to women who don't deserve it.”
I smiled at the way Penny said this, how her anger was making her furious about the way Nick was behaving. She hated it more that he wasn't leaving me alone. I think a part of her feared I might start finding the good in him somehow, that I might go back. If I really dug down deep, there was one part of me, a tiny little bit of my old self that just wanted things to go back to normal.
Even if that normal wasn't right.
THORNE.
When I came back to the loft after a tiring business trip Wednesday morning, there was no sign of Lane anywhere. I hadn't seen him all week. There were phone calls on my land line, messages left on my answering machine and the one I had to return right away was Dad's. When I called him he was in his study, reading and sounded annoyed which was unlike him. Mom was usually the one constantly aggravated, not Dad.
”Thorne?”
”Yes Dad.”
”Why did you call back so late?”
”Dad, you know I have a cell phone right?”
”Hmmm.”
”What's going on?”