“Good morning.”
“Good night.”
“Good morning.”
“I miss you.”
“I don’t need a phone to talk to myself.
I’ll tell you more when I get back to London.”
10
PENELOPE
I used to think I was always right.
I was wrong . . .
About that.
Which really makes me wonder whatelseI was wrong about. I mean, if you’re wrong about almost always being right, anything is possible. Maybe you’re almost alwayswrong.Maybe I am, I mean.
It’s like I’m a detective who’s been solving cases for nineteen years with flawed methodology, and now I’ve had to reopen every one.
How am I supposed tooperatelike this? How do wrong people do it? (Iam a wrong person now. I’m one of them!) How am I supposed to make evenbasicdecisions now that I know how little I know?
I mean—I believed I was in a healthy relationship with a person who had already dumped me; that is astaggeringthing to be wrong about.
What other false things do I believe in?
Am I delusional? Am I hearing voices?
“You are definitely not getting your security deposit back.”
“Be quiet, Shepard, I’m trying to think.”
Talk about a giant mistake—this Normal, sitting in my living room. Still completely cursed. And now an illegal immigrant, to boot. Throw another bad decision on the bonfire. I should make a list of them . . .
It took me sixteen spells, but I’ve finally magicked our living room wall into a giant blackboard.
“You know, there’s a paint,” Shepard says, still not being quiet, “that turns any wall into a chalkboard.”
“Sorry I don’t know where to buy magic paint.”Ah, there’s my chalk. Excellent.
“No, it’s a regular paint . . .”
I writeWhat we knowin big letters on one side of the wall andWhat we don’t knowon the other.
“Penelope, this might not be my place to say—”
“Then perhaps you shouldn’t say it.”
He does, of course: “Maybe you should consider getting some sleep.”
I shake my head. “Every time I fall asleep, Simon slips past me.”
“He said he had an appointment.”
