Perfected (Entangled Teen) (12 page)

Sixteen

W
hen I woke the house was still quiet. Ruby wasn’t bouncing through the rooms the way she normally did. She and Penn sat somberly at the dining room table, slowly chomping their cereal.

I wavered in the doorway, hesitant to break the silence, but as soon as she looked up, Ruby let out a little yelp of joy and pushed back her chair. She rushed to me, throwing her arms around my shoulders in a strangling hug. “I’m so glad you’re back,” she said into my hair. “Everybody was really, really worried about you. Especially me.”

I swallowed back the lump in my throat. How could I have dreamed this child up? Her little body warmed mine and I smiled, letting myself relax for the first time that morning.

“Are you okay?” Penn asked, coming to stand close to my side when Ruby finally let me go.

“Yes, I’m fine.” Flustered, I pulled out my chair. If I looked up into his concerned face I might break down, so I stared out the window instead. The backyard looked the same as it always did. Every trace of the party had been boxed up or swept away. Besides a few large holes in the grass where the tent had been, it was like it had all just disappeared.

Penn’s hand hovered at his side, like he wanted to reach out and touch me. “They didn’t hurt you, did they?”

“No,” I said.

The congressman’s wife appeared in the doorway. “Penn, Ruby,” she said. “Would you mind giving me and Ella a moment alone?”

Penn’s jaw clenched but he didn’t argue as he led Ruby out of the room.

She pulled a chair up next to me and perched herself on the edge. “John’s certainly relieved to have you back,” she said coldly. “Everyone was in quite the uproar when they found out you were gone. So much fuss.”

She stared at me for a minute, perhaps waiting for me to begin eating, and even though I didn’t have an appetite, I brought my spoon to my mouth.

Her eyes narrowed just a bit. “Of course once the kennel informed us about the microchip John was convinced they’d find you. And look, you were gone for less than a day. Weren’t we lucky?” She paused. “I didn’t even realize they’d given you one.”

“What is it?” I asked.

“The microchip?” She shook her head dismissively. “It’s a little device that they implant under the skin. You wouldn’t be able to see it. They use it to track things…although those things are usually animals.” Her voice sounded bitter. “I would have assumed that you’d remember getting it, unless you were too young.
Do
you remember?”

With trembling fingers I brought my hand slowly to my neck, tracing my thumb along the thin skin directly behind my left ear. Finally my shaking fingers stopped, settling on a bump the size of a pea beneath my skin. The kennel put it there when I was twelve, right before they transferred us to the training center. I hadn’t realized what they were, or even what they were called for that matter. It hadn’t hurt to put it in, a quick prick and then the pain receded. It used to be that I’d touch the lump whenever I was bored, my fingers drifting to the spot almost subconsciously. But it had been too long since I’d thought about it.

“Is that where they put it?” she asked.

“I didn’t realize what it was.”

“No matter,” she said, sighing. “That whole Harper woman incident was just a big mess. I don’t suppose there’s anything you could have done about it.”

I set down my spoon and folded my napkin, setting it delicately on the table. The congressman’s wife’s gaze flittered to the leftover food in my bowl. She opened her mouth as if she was about to speak, but something stopped her. Instead, she gave me a quick pat on the hand before she stood to go.

“We were invited to brunch at one of my friend’s houses this afternoon,” she said. “John isn’t happy about leaving you alone after what happened, but there’s really nothing I can do. It would be very rude to cancel now.”

“I’ll be fine,” I told her.

“I know,” she said. “Rosa has the day off, but I had her prepare your lunch. It’s in the fridge. Do you think you can manage to heat it up?”

I had no idea how to go about using the stove to heat up food, but I nodded anyway. “Yes, thank you.”

N
ormally I would have been excited by the prospect of having the house to myself so I could play the piano without being invited, but I wasn’t in the mood for making music. Needing to feel some of the happiness I’d found before Ms. Harper took me away, I headed for Penn’s garden.

I slipped out of my gown and into my bathing suit. The tiny little patch of fabric had frightened me before, but now it seemed so much more natural than my other clothes. Those dresses, with their yards and yards of fabric that twisted and bunched around my legs whenever I tried to sit, were an impediment. I could actually move in this.

I sat down at the pond’s edge, staring out at the length of water stretching in front of me. It seemed endless. Even though I knew the other end couldn’t be more than twenty feet away, it might as well have stretched on infinitely. No matter how hard I tried, I’d never be able to get to the other side.

“I was hoping you’d be here.”

I turned to see Penn walking through the garden gate.

My throat tightened. “I thought you went with your family to brunch.”

He sat down on the side of the pond but he didn’t put his feet in. If I stretched my arm out, I’d be able to touch his knee.

“I didn’t feel like going,” he said. He leaned forward and scooped a layer of soggy leaves out of the water beside my legs. “It’s not so bad underneath the leaves, but you probably shouldn’t get in. I don’t think this thing has been cleaned in forever.”

I could feel him looking at the side of my face, but I kept staring forward toward the other side of the pond. What would it be like to dive headfirst into the water?

“Listen,” Penn said, his voice wobbling slightly. “About the other night. I can’t stop thinking that if I’d stayed with you instead of caring what my mom thought, none of that stuff with Ms. Harper would have happened.” He sighed loudly. “I’m really sorry.”

I couldn’t meet his eyes.

“Please don’t apologize to me,” I said. “There’s no need, really.”

Penn leaned back on his hands and stared up at the sky. I was tempted to look up, too, but I held still.

“Okay, listen,” Penn said after a minute. “I suck at apologies. I do. How about we forget about all that and start over? You could come up to my room, I could fix you one of my killer banana splits, and I could play my guitar for you.” He scooted forward now, splashing his legs into the water beside me. “What do you say?”

The sun was hot on my face and my neck. I couldn’t stay out much longer without turning pink. “I don’t know what a banana split is,” I finally said. “But I’m guessing it’s probably not one of my approved foods.”

Penn laughed, taking my acceptance to his apology for what it was. “If you don’t tell anyone, I won’t tell anyone,” he said. “Believe me, you don’t want to go another day without tasting one.”

P
enn spent almost fifteen minutes preparing his famous banana split. I watched with a mix of horror and delight as he transformed a plain banana—a food I actually was allowed to eat—into a volcano of goo. He carefully explained each step, as if he was one of those men Ruby liked to watch on the food channel.

“First we take an almost ripe banana filleted lengthwise and arranged at the bottom of a deep dish,” he said. “Next, three scoops of ice cream. One vanilla, one chocolate, and one strawberry, for color, of course.” He took his time arranging them in the bowl. “Now, on top of the ice cream, we’ll add a generous layer of hot fudge.”

My eyes widened while he poured on the thick, dark goo. “You eat that stuff?”

“Hot fudge?” Penn asked. “It’s chocolate. Of course I eat it.”

When my expression didn’t change, he groaned. “Don’t tell me you haven’t eaten chocolate?”

I shook my head.

“That’s unacceptable,” he said, dipping his finger down into the brown sticky syrup and bringing it up to my lips. Hesitantly, I licked off a tiny bit, almost dizzy with the warm, sweet rush that filled my mouth.

“It’s good, isn’t it?” Penn smiled, licking the rest from his finger.

The next few steps blurred together as he began dumping spoonful after spoonful of toppings over the chocolate: yellow pineapple, red strawberries, crushed brown nuts. Finally he sprayed on a mountain of white cream out of a can and topped it off with a bright red cherry.

“Maraschino,” he said, smiling wickedly.

Upstairs, Penn’s room was dark and cool. He’d tidied up a bit since last time and I took a seat on a wide, leather chair beside his desk, cradling the massive bowl that held my banana split.

Penn sprawled out across his bed, facing me and propped his head up on his hands. “Aren’t you going to try it?”

I stared down at the concoction, not knowing where to begin.

“Always start with the cherry,” Penn said, acting out how I should pick it off the top and plop it into my mouth.

I grabbed the stem and copied him.

Penn stared, watching my face as I chewed the overly sweet cherry. I took a small bite, my spoon dripping with pineapple and chocolate. “You usually eat this whole thing?”

“I won’t hold it against you if you can’t finish it all on your first try,” he said.

“It would take me a month to finish this.” I took another bite, scooping up a bit of strawberry ice cream and the rich chocolate syrup.

“Well, yeah, if you eat it that way.” Penn scooted to the end of the bed and grabbed the bowl from off my lap. “Let me show you how it’s done. You can’t be timid. No teeny tiny mouse bites. You’ve got to attack this thing.”

He dug the spoon down into the middle of the bowl, scooping out a giant, dripping bite that he shoved into his open mouth. A bit of chocolate drizzled out the side of his lip onto his chin. For just a second I imagined myself reaching out to wipe the chocolate off his face with my finger, then slowly bringing it to my own lips.

Penn scooped another gigantic bite. “Now it’s your turn.”

He hopped off the bed and stood over me with the heaping spoon. A bit of melted ice cream dripped down onto my bare leg, but he didn’t seem to notice. “Open wide.”

I shook my head, trying to shrink away from him. “No. That’s too big.”

“Get over here.”

Penn tackled me, then shoved the giant bite into my mouth. Only half of it made it in as we fell to the floor. I could feel the sticky mess running down my neck, but I didn’t care about how I must look or that it wasn’t proper etiquette to speak with food in your mouth. I wrestled the spoon from his hand and dove for the bowl, digging out a bite so absurdly huge that Penn cowered on the floor at my feet.

“No, please,” he begged, grinning. “I surrender. I surrender. Have mercy on me.”

I pounced, shoving the spoon toward him.

We rolled onto our backs, laughing. Both of us clutched our stomachs until we could finally breathe again.

“This is a mess,” I said, looking around at the smears of ice cream, bananas, and chocolate smudged across the carpet and across the front of the chair. “Rosa’s not going to be pleased with you.”

“It’s fine.” Penn shrugged. “I’ll clean it up.”

I raised my eyebrows.

“You don’t believe me?” Penn smiled. He grabbed a towel off the floor. “Here, I’ll start with this.”

He wrapped the corner of the towel around his finger and drew it gently along my chin and down my neck. He stopped at my collarbone and paused, looking into my eyes.

My breath stuttered in my throat. I leaned closer to him, and he dropped the towel, brushing the tips of his fingers along the bare skin of my shoulder and down my arm. My head buzzed. The sensation zinged down into my hands, through my stomach, into my shaking legs. Every inch of me had come alive with a mad, whirring hum.

Penn’s hand moved up to my cheek, cradling my face in his hand as he moved over me.

“I want to kiss you again,” he whispered.

I froze. Longing welled up inside me, pressing against the inside of my ribs so that it felt like I might explode if I didn’t kiss him. But I couldn’t. I was lucky that I hadn’t been sent back to the kennel after what happened with Ms. Harper. I couldn’t tempt fate again, no matter how much I wanted to.

“You shouldn’t,” I whispered back.

I scooted out from under him and leaned back against the chair. The side of my cheek was still warm from his touch, but the rest of my body felt cold. My stomach ached from the sugary sweet food. This must have been the reason pets weren’t allowed to eat this sort of thing. This must have been the reason pets weren’t allowed to do a lot of things. “Maybe I better go,” I said as I got to my feet.

“Wait, don’t go yet.” Penn jumped up. “I didn’t even get a chance to play something for you.”

His face was open, sincere, and I stopped at the door, reconsidering.

“Just one song,” I told him. “And then I need to go down and wash up before your family returns.”

Penn grabbed his guitar and sat down on his bed, tucking one leg up under his body and dangling the other off of the edge. His eyes caught mine as he strummed a few light chords, deciding what to play.

“Did you know you share your name with another Ella?”

“I do?”

He plucked lightly at the strings. “Ella Fitzgerald.” He nodded. “My dad probably wouldn’t have agreed to name you that if he knew that she’s the reason I suggested it.”

“Why not?” I asked.

“My dad’s kind of a jerk about anything that has to do with music,” Penn said. “And he certainly isn’t a fan of jazz. He says it just sounds like noise. It’s too free. There’s too much improvisation and my dad only likes things he can control. Here, let me play you one of her songs.”

His face changed, his eyes grew serious, and his jaw relaxed as he looked back down at his instrument. His fingers moved across the strings the way I’d seen a harpist play, plucking the notes tenderly with the tips of his fingers so the sound floated out, crisp and pure.