Best Friends Forever

“Wait…” she interrupts, catching her bearings. “Working for him? I thought you meant—”

Ron shrugs, confused. “Well, sure. Just until you get your feet wet, of course. I’m sure you can do the job, but I can’t just take my best project manager out of it. I’m sure you understand that.”

She chews the inside of her cheek fretfully. I don’t know what her plan was, but this doesn’t seem to be going smoothly for her.

“And this job. It pays…?”

Ron shifts from foot to foot, glancing around uncomfortably. “I guess I could start you at forty-five.”

“What?” she gasps. “Ron…”

Ron looks appalled. “Okay, fifty-five? But that’s it. And you better be awesome.”

“Ron, I don’t even see how I could relocate on that. I don’t know what the housing market is like out here. But I know in New York, sixty-five wouldn’t get me a storage space, much less a house. I can’t get another place to live right now.”

“Ha! You should just live with Clay,” Ron laughs, turning to me with a desperate look on his face. “He’s got that giant mansion. And then you can have one of the Crosswind units as soon as they’re done. How about that? Would a housing stipend seal the deal for you?”

“Um, what now?” I interrupt.

“Well, didn’t you guys used to be roommates?” Ron continues desperately. “Come on, it will be like old times!”

“I really could use an assistant,” I smirk, then wish I could take it back when I see her flinch. “I mean… Forget I said that. You would not be an assistant. That was a joke.”

She smiles tightly, obviously not sure it was a joke at all. But I can see that do-or-die look on her face. Why is she so into this idea? She seems different. The Penny I used to know was not a big compromiser. She always had an idea in her head and drove toward it at breakneck speed, without even stopping to sightsee. Or looking at road signs. Or learning how to drive.

“Listen… Can we just try it? If you have room? We can make it work.”

This is really a surprise. I wonder what she is up to?

“Yeah,” I smile. “Let’s just try it.”

“Excellent!” Ron crows. “We are totally getting the band back together!”

He shuffles off after the registrar waves frantically at him, so he can finish his deal. Penny draws the coffee up to her lips, pursing them and blowing gently into the hole in the lid.

“Is this yours?” she asks shyly. “Did you give me your coffee?”

“Just a lucky guess,” I shrug, though honestly I could use the caffeine boost.

Watching her blow into the lid is sort of nice, though.

“Still a gentleman,” she muses as she sips. “I guess some things don’t change, after all.”

By her glance, and the way she enunciates “don’t change,” I can tell she expected something different.

“I’m still a Midwestern boy, I suppose,” I add, trying to lighten the mood a bit.

She raises her eyebrows in challenge. “Oh yeah? The same boy I knew is in there somewhere? Behind the hair products and fancy car?”

Wincing, I just cover it up with a shrug. “You can’t outrun your roots. But the hair was in my genes, Pen. There wasn’t anything I could do about that.”

She squints at me. “Sorry… that was rude, I guess. I actually like your hair like this, shorter, and with a touch of grey. You look… I don’t know.”

Somehow, I’m eager to know. I really would like to have this information. “What do I look like?”

She sips thoughtfully, pursing her lips as her cheeks redden from the steam.

“I guess… I don’t know!” she finally blurts out, laughing. “Like… different, okay? Grown. Grown up.”