Page 72 of Drawing Home
Uh-oh. “Soon,” Penny said, wondering how she was going to pull that off.
“Maybeyoushould have a Fourth of July party,” said Mindy. “That way we could have our own thing without Jordan ruining it by being a total bee-atch.”
The master suite had a big terrace with a professional-looking telescope; there was a Jacuzzi in the bathroom and a nearly movie-theater-size TV screen on the wall. But Mindy wasn’t interested in any of these entertainment options—she headed right for the medicine cabinet.
“Party favors,” she said, passing around a prescription bottle of Percocet. “Then we go outside. If Jordan’s kicking us out of the house, we’ll just take over the deck.”
Penny swallowed one of the pills with a swig of her Diet Coke, then followed Mindy, Jess, and Robin downstairs to the back deck. She settled onto a chaise longue and waited for the warm buzz of the medication to wash through her. After a while, Penny looked up in the darkness to find Robin looming over her.
“Come on—we’re going on the boat.”
“I’m fine right here,” Penny said.Finewas an understatement. She didn’t know if it was the music (Rihanna, “Hate That I Love You”), the breeze off the bay, or the winking lights of all the party yachts in the distance, but it felt like maybe the best night of her life.
“You’re not fine where you are. You’re just high. Let’s go.”
Robin grabbed her hand and pulled her to her feet. “Come on—I don’t want them to leave without us.”
Penny ran alongside her to the short dock where the Bankses parked their speedboat. It was white with a navy canvas roof over the helm andThe Adventurerwritten in navy-blue script on the stern. There were two seats at the controls, already filled by Jordan and her boyfriend. Behind that was a curved, upholstered banquette that could seat maybe eight people. In the middle was a small white table with a drink holder in each corner.
“Design brilliance,” someone said, sticking a beer bottle in one holder.
To the side there was a small sink and standing room for a few more people.
“Mindy, get your loser friends off. It’s too crowded.”
“Who made you the boss?” Mindy called from a corner of the banquette.
“The captain is, by definition, the boss! Ever hear of fucking maritime law?”
Penny laughed. Everything was funny. Everything was perfect. She looked up and saw a million stars in the sky. The universe was smiling at her.
The motor rumbled to life and someone cast off the lines. Penny grabbed the railing as the boat lurched out of the slip. Water sprayed her face and she laughed giddily.
A bunch of kids sitting around the table laughed and shouted back and forth. The only people Penny recognized were Mindy and Robin. Jess wasn’t on board. Somehow, she hadn’t made the cut and Penny had. Was this decision Robin’s call or Mindy’s? And, really, did it matter? No. She was there on the boat in that glorious moment. She wanted to memorize everything about it, to take a mental snapshot so that when she was stuck at home feeling miserable, she could pull it out and remember what it felt like to be happy. Was that the sort of thing Dr. Wang had been trying to teach her to do? To manage her thoughts? For once, everything made sense. When she was feeling bad, she could think about what this moment had felt like and then superimpose that positive feeling onto her bad ones. Like cutting and pasting emotions. As simple as that. Why hadn’t she realized this before?
Music played on someone’s phone but you could barely hear it over the motor. She watched someone from the banquette pass Jordan a beer and wondered if drinking while driving a boat was as bad as drinking while driving a car. But the worry was fleeting. How could she worry? She was free.
“Okay, we’re going back and your friends are getting off so we can pick up more people. Next trip out is seniors only,” Jordan called to Mindy. More squabbling ensued as the boat circled around and headed back to the house. The boat seemed to pick up speed even as the dock came in sight.
“Slow down!” someone yelled.
Penny felt the first trickle of alarm. She tried not to panic, telling herself there was plenty of time for Jordan to reduce the boat’s speed before it reached the dock.
Until, very quickly, there wasn’t.
Emma sat on a bench on the dock, staring out at the boats in the distance. Next to her, Alexis finished eating a cup of frozen yogurt and checked her phone.
“Sean texted he’s just a minute away,” she said.
Emma nodded morosely. Alexis reached over, the gesture made musical by the half a dozen silver bangle bracelets on her wrist clinking together. She was dressed in a flowing batik sundress and wore a straw hat over her long, pink-tinged blond hair. Alexis had an enviable millennial-flower-child look that was effortless and beautiful. And she had a personality to match. She was a decade younger than Emma but had become a close friend in the past year or so. And Emma knew Penny liked spending time in the bookstore and looked up to Alexis. Henry was gone, but at least there was someone still around for Penny to talk to about books and art.
Alexis moved the paper bag holding their six-packs from the ground onto the bench. She pulled out a beer. “Do you want to start without him?”
“I wish that would help,” Emma said.
“So what, exactly, did Jack say?”
“It was something like ‘Your personal life has made it a problem for you to work at this hotel. I need to let you go.’”
