Page 19 of On His Mind
He steers me toward the fridge, where Drew is standing with a guy I recognize from practice but haven’t met — dark hair, the kind of guy who walks into a room and has it easy.
“Freshman,” Stanley says, dropping me into the gap between them like a chair he’s brought to the table. “Theo Marsh. Theo, freshman. Percy. He’s a goalie and he’s better than Kowalczyk and we’re not saying that out loud yet.”
“Deveroux.” Theo puts a hand out. “Heard about you.”
I shake it.
“He doesn’t talk,” Stanley says.
“Cool,” Theo says, and lets it go, and I decide I don’t hate him.
Drew’s not listening to any of us. He’s watching the hallway that goes back toward the bathroom.
“She actually came,” he says.
Theo looks. “Who?”
“Ventura.”
Theo’s whole posture changes about two degrees. “Penelope’s here?”
“Ivory brought her.” Drew tips his cup. “I told her to.”
“You told her to,” Theo smirks.
“I did,” Drew says. “For you. Because I’m a team player.”
Theo laughs.
“Something spilled on her,” Drew adds. “Whole front of her dress. Ivory’s got her in the bathroom.”
“That’s a shame,” Theo says. “Terrible. Maybe I should help her out of it.”
My heart pinches in my chest.Penelope Ventura.I look at the floor I just cleaned.
“Don’t,” Stanley says.
“I haven’t done anything.”
Stanley points the neck of his beer at him. “She’s too good for you.”
“Obviously she’s too good for me.” Theo shrugs, easy, no bruise on it at all. “She’s too good for everybody in this house.” And he says it like it’s funny.
Drew laughs. Stanley says something back. The conversation keeps moving without me in it, the way conversations do, and I stand there holding a wad of wet napkins and let the sentence go all the way down.
She’s too good for everybody in this house.
He said it as a joke, but he’s right. It’s none of my business, but I know what he means immediately because I saw it. Before I knew her name, before any of this, in the eight seconds I had my hands on her — I saw the dress, the way it was cut, and the way she stood in it. I saw a girl take a ruined evening and make it small on purpose so a stranger wouldn’t have to feel it.
The difference between me and Theo Marsh is that he can say that sentence out loud and laugh at it, because for him it’s a joke about a girl.
For me, it’s not that funny.
“I’m gonna go say hi,” Theo says.
“Sayhi,” Drew says, and howls.
Somebody in the living room howls back, and then the whole house is doing it, forty guys baying at a ceiling, and Stanley throws his head back and joins in at a volume that removes about a year from my life.
