The Long Winter #45
Fortunate Daughter conclusion/Just Friends part one
The little airfield had a little building with a little waiting room lined by big windows giving a view of the jet that would soon be whisking Penny and Sandra to their tropical paradise. The jet was small (compared to the jumbo jet she had taken to America) and its engines were up beneath the tail fin instead of under the wings. Beyond it, there were no trees and bits of snow clung here and there at the edge of the expansive grass lawns surrounding the airfield. Penny thanked the man who brought her from her grandparents' home (a surprisingly short drive away) and accepted her suitcase as he hefted it out of the trunk of the big, black Lexus sedan he was driving. She watched in amazement as a crew worked on the navy blue unmarked jet with its six round windows between the rear door and the cockpit. Sandra greeted her at the door and led her into the plain little building with its plain white walls and plain tile floor and its big picture windows looking out at that jet.
“We’re going to be leaving in about a half an hour,” Sandra said. “I’m going to the restroom, I’ll be back in a minute.”
“Okay.”
Sandra disappeared into a restroom around the corner behind the office and Penny turned back to the window. A young man in a pilot’s uniform came out from the office door and handed her a mug of tea. She thanked him and he smiled at her and left the building for the jet. She turned again to the windows and lifted the mug to her lips and breathed in its clean vapors. She did not react to the sound of a door opening and closing behind her, nor to the subsequent footsteps.
“I’ve never been on a private plane before!” Penny turned to smile at Sandra but instead she cringed at the sight of the man before her.
“You’re a difficult young lady to get ahold of.” Senator Peter Garies stood before her, tall and barrel-chested with immaculately coiffed brown-gray hair and a meticulously trimmed beard. He had beady, heavy-lidded eyes and as he closed the distance between them Penny detected the odor of unwashed skin and halitosis. “I’m Senator Peter Garies, Braden’s father,” he said, sitting down and scooting close to her. “We have a few things to talk about.”
“We have nothing to talk about!” Penny set the tea down and jumped away from him. “You talk to my embassy and you talk to the Institute’s legal team.”
“I need to you to listen to reason,” he said. He stood and approached her again, working her into a corner away from the windows. “All those teams just put unnecessary distance between what is really a private matter between friends.”
“Friends?”
The wall hit Penny’s back and would not budge no matter how hard she pressed her heel against it.
“There’s nothing to be afraid of,” Senator Garies said, putting his arm over her shoulders and drawing her away from the wall. “You look so nervous. Let me help you loosen up.” His hands went to her shoulders and he was able to give them a quick squeeze before she shrugged out of his grip and jumped away from him.
“No! I need nothing from you. Get out. I’m getting on a plane soon.”
“You’re going nowhere until we get this situation cleared up. Come sit down.”
“I’m not sitting!” She opened her mouth to yell at him again when she heard thumping and a muffled voice from around the corner. “Where’s my friend?”
“I’ve arranged a private meeting with you. Come sit down. We’ll work this out and then you can go off on your little vacation.”
“No. Let her out. And then go away.”
“If I do that and we haven’t worked this out I’m not sure what will happen to you after your vacation.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It’s not a threat. But you’re here on a visa, right? Well, it would be a shame if your visa did not clear customs on your way back in.”
“I have diplomatic immunity. You can’t threaten me like this.”
“I’m not threatening you.” He sat down in his chair and motioned at the empty one in front of him. “Come sit down. I won’t take up any more of your valuable time than absolutely necessary.”
Penny glared at him and crossed her arms. “I’m fine right here. Go ahead and talk if you feel the need to.”
Senator Garies smiled at her and leaned back in his seat.
“My son was really enjoying his time at the Institute. He’s been heartbroken that he was kicked off of campus and really wants to return.”
“He probably shouldn’t have dumped his beer on me after publicly humiliating me at Halloween.”
“Now now. Let’s not hurl baseless accusations at him—“
“Baseless? I was there!”
“And you trust your memory of it? The way I heard it told, you were as drunk as anyone else there. A drunk party girl who was too frisky at a fraternity costume party. There are pictures of you there, smiling and hanging on a number of different people’s shoulders.”
“That’s not true. Well, maybe I was having a good time with my friends before your creep son’s creep friend—“
“Please, there’s no need for name-calling. I believe I have been nothing but civil with you.”
“Whatever. What do you want from me?”
“I want you to recant your story and allow my son to be reinstated to Gravenreuth.”
“Absolutely not.”
“We can work out a deal.”
“Can you make it so it never happened?”
“No, but—“
“Then we have nothing further to discuss.”
“We have to work something out. I’m sure I have something you need.”
“I don’t want anything from you. Just leave me alone, I don’t care what happens to your or your jerk son.”
“Penny, surely—“
“No. Don’t use my name. We are not friends.”
The senator rose and stepped up close to her once again, trapping her against the window.
“If you don’t work with us we will work against you. Any dark secrets you have, like your secret life as a cam girl—“
“Oh, you mean the videos my girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend stole of us that put him in jail?”
“You’re not invulnerable.”
“Neither are you.” She strained to look up at him, but keeping the hostile glare on her face was easy. She squared herself up with him and put her hands on her hips, just as Agent Marcotte taught.
“Well, if you are not going to cooperate, you can expect more trouble—“
“You will go through legal or through my embassy. I’m going to call both of them as soon as you leave—“
He snatched her bag from the table and pulled her phone from it.
“Hey!”
“With what?”
He put the phone between his hands and strained to break it, grunting with the exertion. He moved away from her as she stepped out to grab it back and lifted it up over his head.
“Hey! Give that back!”
“You want it? I wonder what’s on it. I wonder what I’ll find if I take it with me and have my people unlock it.”
“Give it back! You’re just as bad as your son, a big, smelly bully!”
He sneered at her and she saw where Braden got the expression. Then the senator slammed her phone down to the floor. Before it hit he was already walking to the door and as it clattered on the tiles he was shouting at his man in the hallway.
“Let the slut go. Come on.”
Penny knelt down and picked up her phone. It was fine, scratchless after what meager punishment the impotent senator was capable of. Sandra came rushing back into the room in a huff of anger.
“What the hell was that? Who were those guys?”
“Senator Garies and some guy who works for him.”
“No way!”
“Yes way. He wanted me to let Braden back into the Institute. I told him I wasn’t going to work with him and he got mad and tried to smash my phone.”
“Jesus, really?”
“That was after he threatened to do something to cancel my visa.”
“What a creep, and a fucking idiot, too.”
“It’s weird when you say fucking.”
Sandra laughed. “Clark likes it. But whatever, doesn’t that idiot know there are cameras here? Exactly for shit like this? I’ll text my dad. He has lawyers. You should call your homegirl Professor Fairchild, and you know what? I think you should call your embassy even before that.”
“That’s what I told him I was going to do. I don’t think he believes me. I think he sees me as some stupid teenage girl, and not a real threat to him.”
“Joke’s on him, he’s up for reelection next year. I’m not voting for him.”
“I hope he loses.”
“Ladies,” a handsome young man leaned into the waiting room and smiled his dashing smile at them. “We’ll be taking off in ten minutes, so let’s get you on board.”
“Okay!” Sandra turned to Penny and helped her gather her things. “You can call once we’re airborne. Or just send texts. I’ll text my dad. And then we won’t waste any more time worrying about this. We’re on our way to a tropical paradise to surf and climb and skydive—“
“Skydive??”
“—And all sorts of fun stuff. We’re going to have an adventure, Penny. It’s already gotten off to an exciting start!”
***
“We should go do something.”
“No. I just want to lay here and play with my balls all night.”
Delaney laughed at Lin. The artist lay on the floor of Delaney’s apartment tossing two fabric balls into the air. She looked over and smirked at the redhead and then shoved the balls in her pockets and sat up.
“It’s nip-freezing cold out there. Why in tarnation would you want to leave this warm, comfy studio when it’s so blasted cold out?”
“It’s not that cold. It’s barely cold enough to snow.” Delaney turned a smirk of her own back at Lin. “Why didn’t you go back to Ohio? It’s warmer down there than it is up here.”
“Cold is cold, no matter what the thermometer says,” Lin muttered, retrieving the balls. She set about juggling them, three this time.
“You can’t be serious—“
“YOU can go out there and buy us booze and then WE can sit in here where it’s nice and warm and play vintage video games with terrible action movies playing in the background.”
Delaney slid off her folding sofabed and leaned close to Lin.
“Are you and your faraway GF having maritals?”
“I’m not—“ Lin dropped her balls and gave Delaney a disgusted look. “We’re not married, you trollop. But since you’re asking and all my actual friends are gone for the holidays, yes. We had an argument. Yes, I am going to lie to you and say no, the argument was certainly not about you. We definitely did not spend two hours on the phone glaring onion stares at each other and there was no way I cried myself to sleep afterwards.”
“Wow. I’m sorry.”
“Why? What for? Didn’t you just hear anything I said?”
“Lin, it’s okay—“
“It’s not. You’re not my girlfriend. Andi is. She even signs her name with a heart when she sends me stuff, like the Christmas card where she told me to drop dead.”
“Harsh.”
Lin sneered at Delaney.
“No harsher than you ditching your unicorn at that Halloween party because you couldn’t handle seeing her nekkid with some other babe.”
“Whatever.”
“And she was a babe. Holy shit. I never had a thing for Asian girls, I know, ha-ha hilarious considering I’m half of one, but I saw that shit. Hot. It was hot. I need a drink. You got any beer in this place?”
Lin stood up, using Delaney’s shoulder for support.
“No, I thought we were going—“
“You thought wrong, Del.”
Lin opened the fridge and rummaged through it.
“Mustard, olives (half gone), a quarter block of cheddar cheese. What the hell?”
“I was planning on going home for Christmas,” Delaney said. “But you’re a friend in need, and since I’m not about to abandon you for the first time ever I’m sacrificing my family Christmas for one with you.”
“Aw, that’s sweet. So sweet, in fact, I just got three cavities. I need to borrow your toothbrush.”
“It’s in the bathroom. Wait,” Delaney stood up and stepped towards the kitchen. “Didn’t you bring one of your own?”
“We’re not good enough friends to share toothbrushes?”
“No!”
Lin stood up and slammed the refrigerator door closed. She set one hand on one hip and thrust her pelvis at a jaunty angle and stared back at Delaney.
“Okay, whatever, if you want to use it I won’t think it’s weird.”
“No, it’s fine, I brought my own.”
“Ugh.”
Lin snickered at her.
“So are you going to get beer?”
“Only if you’re coming with me. You can brave the cold for beer and Chinese takeout.”
“Ugh, Chinese? That’s so cliché-y.”
“We’re going to get chopsticks and you’re going to eat with chopsticks.”
“I never eat Chinese food with chopsticks.”
“What do you use? Your hands?”
Lin laughed. “Yes, I use my hand to pick up a spoon and I use that to scoop the food into my stupid face.”
They laughed and then Lin’s smile vanished and she went back to her place on the floor in front of the sofabed. She picked at the lint on the rug with one hand and ran her other through her hair.
“I shouldn’t be here,” she said. “I’m such an idiot.”
“You’re not. You shouldn’t feel bad about it.”
“But I do feel bad. I feel bad for fighting with Andi over stupid things.”
“You said you were fighting about me…”
“And I feel bad for making you miss your family Christmas. I’m an idiot.”
“You’re not. Things happen, you know? Then you do those things and then you live with the consequences. What else can you do?”
“Kill myself.”
Delaney laughed. “I would certainly hope not!”
“Why not? I’m an idiot. The world is better off without me. My parents don’t care I’m missing Christmas. They’re not Christian anyway. My girlfriend hates me. Especially now, she super-duper hates me because I’m spending time with you. She thinks you’re Satan. She thinks your red hair marks you as the devil.”
“My hair’s not that red…”
“It’s pretty red. Maybe auburn, I guess it is a little dark. You’re not much of a ginger at any rate.”
“Thanks…”
“Whatever. You still are a ginger. Just not much of one.”
Delaney frowned at her.
“Whatever. I thought this would make me feel better, but I only feel worse.”
“We’re friends now, if you want to get drunk and cry on my shoulder you can do exactly that. But tomorrow we’re going to go out and nurse our hangovers away in the cold, snowy tundra.”
“If I didn’t love you so much I’d hate you.” Lin stood up. “Let’s go. Because it’s you, I’ll brave this frosty Antarctic weather. We’ll get beer and something other than Chinese takeout. I refuse to eat myself. I’m not that flexible anyway.”
Delaney laughed.
“Boy, if you think that’s funny wait till I get a little of the ol’ sauce in me. In you, too. The drunker you get the more amusing you’ll find me.”
“Sober or drunk I find you amusing.”
Lin smiled at her and as they stood they each fought the urge to take the other’s hand. They were only friends, after all. And as they pulled their jackets on, they wondered (in their own unique ways) just how much longer they would last as merely “friends.”