Penelope in Retrograde: A Novel
Brooke Abrams
Do not swear by the moon, for she changes constantly.
—Adapted from William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet
Chapter 1
If it wasn’t for the Smut Coven, I wouldn’t be here right now.
For reference, here is the San Diego airport on one of the busiest travel days of the year: the day before Thanksgiving. It’s hell. Actually, it’s more like the place you stop on your way to hell. Purgatory? Limbo? The DMV? I’m more spiritual than religious, so the exact term escapes me. I do, however, know that as loud and crowded as this airport is, it is not hell. Hell is where I’m going next.
Hell is my parents’ home on Thanksgiving.
For the past ten years, I’ve successfully avoided the place, like a master criminal always managing to stay one step ahead of the law. I set reminders one month, two weeks, and three days before all major holidays to ensure that I’m never without a conflict. I always have a deadline I can’t get out of, a cold I can’t get over, or a household emergency that can’t be ignored. If necessary, I have all three. I keep meticulous notes on my excuses so they never repeat, thus ensuring that a separate conflict connected to my pretend conflict doesn’t arise. Being the misfit of the family takes a lot of planning.
“Penelope, are you sure you don’t want me to send your father to pick you up?” My mother, Silvia Banks, lowers her voice through the phone. “I don’t like the idea of you trying to hail a taxi after dark. It’s not safe. All the cabbies know you’re unarmed thanks to the TSA. You might as well hold up a giant sign that says Kidnap me.”
Ladies and gentlemen, my mother.
“First, I live in San Francisco, not South Dakota. I can take care of myself.” I strain under the weight of my luggage as I hoist it over my shoulder, trying my best to avoid jostling Ozzie, my elderly Pomeranian, in his rolling carrier. “Second, I don’t think anyone’s hailed a cab from the airport in the last ten years. And third, I’m never armed. Not unless you count hand sanitizer as a lethal weapon, which it kind of is, I guess, if you forced someone to drink it. At the very least, you could probably blind someone with it.”
“Penelope, I know you think your father and I are old fashioned, but crime isn’t the sort of thing that goes out of style.”
I do think my parents are old fashioned. In fact, I’m willing to bet that the greater part of people born after 1970 would find my parents old fashioned. In their defense, they are old. They’re both in their late seventies and so ridiculously prim and proper, they make Martha Stewart seem edgy. To be clear, I’m talking pre–Snoop Dogg Martha. They like their bedsheets to have hospital corners, their drinks to have coasters, and their daughters to have nice reliable jobs with health benefits. They’d also prefer their thirtysomething-year-old daughters to be married and stay married, though they’re completely fine with the chosen spouse being male, female, or any gender in between. They’re old fashioned, not assholes.
I encompass virtually none of those qualities, which makes me somewhat of a curiosity to my parents. I’m a midlist romance author, which means my paychecks aren’t bad, but they’re also not exactly reliable. The same can be said for any relationship I’ve been in that hasn’t involved a fictional character I’ve written. I was married—emphasis on was—and I’ve never owned a coaster in my life. To my parents, I’m basically a human version of an air plant. I’m alive and thriving, but they don’t really understand the science behind it.
“I’m going to book a rideshare just as soon as we hang up, Mom. I do it all the time. I even put in my preferences that I will only accept rides from people who aren’t kidnappers or murderers. So far, it’s worked out well.”
“I don’t like those rideshare things.” My mother’s voice is muffled, most likely by one of the cream puffs she’s hidden in the butler’s pantry. “My water-aerobics instructor caught pubic lice from one. Do you have something you can sit on?”
The energy it would take to unpack my mother’s concern for my genitals is too much for me to exert, especially now that Ozzie has taken to scratching his in the corner of his crate. I nudge it with my hip, hoping the five-pound ball of fluff gets the message.
“I promise I won’t get crabs, Mom,” I say a little too loudly, considering how jampacked the terminal exit is. I don’t mind the raised eyebrows or stink eyes, though. I write sex scenes for a living. These people don’t scare me. “Now, I’ve got to go if you want me to make it in time for drinks.”
“All right, dear. Oh, one more thing. Are you wearing something nice or just your regular sort of clothes?”
“I’m actually fully nude. I studied up on how livestock auctions work and decided that it was better to let the lucky gentleman you’ve suckered into coming over tonight know exactly what he was purchasing ahead of time. I’ve even considered labeling the best parts like they do with cuts of beef.”
“That’s not funny, and I hope you don’t plan on being vulgar like that at the table in front of your father’s new associate. It’s not a setup. I just hate to have an uneven table, and Martin had no place to go. He’s new to town, you know. Originally from Kentucky. Your father’s very impressed with him. He graduated first in his class from Yale, you know.”
I do know. As of eight o’clock this morning, when my mother decided to spring the news on me of a gentleman caller joining us for the holiday, I officially know everything there is to know about Martin Butler without ever having to look him up on the internet. That is exactly how desperate my mother is to make sure that I fall in love and have one hundred of Martin Butler’s babies. Because falling in love and having babies is the answer to all your problems, according to my mother and the majority of Hallmark movies.
“Are you still on the line, Penelope?” My mother’s voice snaps me back into the present. “You’re not even here yet and you’re already ignoring me.”
“It’s impossible to ignore you, Mom. You’re like one of those blow-up things with wild arms they stick out in front of car dealerships.”
“I’m going to choose to ignore that, Penelope.”
Typical.
“Did I mention your sister thinks Martin looks like that famous Christopher? Oh, which one did she say?”
“I hope it’s Walken.”
“Hemsworth!” She shouts it like she’s just gotten bingo. “Anyway, he’s very handsome and smart. I told him you write books, and he seemed very impressed by that.”
“Did you tell him I can also read? Or that I can walk, chew gum, and sing ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ backward at the same time? What about my boobs? In my experience, men seem to really like them.”
“I don’t know why I worry about someone kidnapping you.” My mother groans. “They’d bring you back within an hour. Hurry home, and for the love of god, do not drink any caffeine.”
“No promises.”
I hang up the phone and plop down into an empty seat in the food court. The smell of salty fries mixing with hot pepperoni pizza makes my stomach growl. My parents are the type that believe dinner is best served over a three-hour period, starting with half an hour of cocktails and conversation, which means if I don’t eat now, I will die of hunger with a martini in my hand.