“Hey, I’m trying to help. I want to figure this out. Figure out a way that we can salvage this.”
“We can’t solve this problem, Penn. I have no leverage to fix this. And you can’t do anything to help,” I told him. “This isn’t a problem you can throw money at.”
His eyes rounded. “What exactly is that supposed to mean?”
“You know exactly what it means. As much as you might have tried to get away from your roots, you are still money and used to using it to get you in and out of everything. You can take the boy out of the Upper East Side, but you can’t take the Upper East Side out of the boy.” I waved my arms around the room as proof, letting my anger fuel this argument.
“That has nothing to do with this.”
I jumped to my feet. “It has everything to do with this! You want to fix this. You want to make it all better. But you can’t. You can’t make any of this better.”
“Natalie…”
“Money fixes your problems, Penn. But it only causes mine.”
I picked up the closest thing to me, which happened to be a coaster, and hurled it against the wall. It thudded noisily before dropping to the floor.
“It’s just cruel…cruel money,” I said, my voice going shallow and fierce. “I’m seen as the help, white trash, a project. Whatever, but I’m not like you. I’m not one of you. As you said before…I don’t belong here.”
“You belong with me.”
“Do I?” I asked with wide, conflicted eyes. “No one else seems to think so.”
“I don’t care what anyone else thinks.” He stepped forward, taking my hands in his. “I only care about us.”
I wrenched my hands free and listlessly paced around the room. “Of course you only care about us. Because you have never had to consider what all of this means to someone without. What did your mother say? Diddling the help again, Penn? Again?”
He sighed. “Yeah. That was before.”
“Before what? You tried to become all enlightened?”
His jaw clenched. “You know that I’ve changed.”
“But is it really that different?”
“Yes. Of course it’s different. We are different, Natalie.”
I shook my head and tried to hold it all in, but I couldn’t. I felt so helpless. So utterly useless. I’d put all of my eggs in one basket, and someone had shattered them.
“Why are you trying to pick a fight with me?” he asked.
“Because this is my fault. I should have never let you stay that day. I should have done something else. Should have turned you away.”
“And where would we be now?”
“I’d be employed!”
“Is that more important than us?” he demanded. “You don’t need a job right now or a place to stay. You can stay here with me for now.”
“I don’t need your charity,” I hissed.
“Natalie, it’s not charity!”
“You have no idea what it’s like to have nothing.” I gritted my teeth. “If you did, then you’d know charity when you saw it.”
“You’re right,” he said, holding his hands up. “I have never been in this situation. But I am only doing this because I care for you. I want to make this right the best I can. And if I have to use my resources to do that, why does that have to be a bad thing?”
I yanked my jacket off of the floor and tugged it on. “It’s not a bad thing. It’s a great thing,” I grumbled, striding back toward the elevator.
“Natalie, where are you going?”
“I need some air. Some space to think.”
He reached out and brought me to a halt. “Please don’t run out of here like this.”
I tugged my arm away from his. “I can’t think straight right now, and if I stay, I’m going to say something else that I regret. So, just…let me go.”
“Okay,” he said softly. “I’m going to try to figure this out.”
“Go work your magic.” I stepped into the elevator.
“We’ll make this work,” he tried to assure me.
As the doors closed between us, I realized that I wasn’t sure if he was talking about my job or…us.
Natalie
35
I strode aimlessly through Central Park. With nowhere to go and nothing on my mind to see, I got lost while wandering the park and managed to run into the Boathouse. I grabbed a hot dog and bottled water before meandering back around the lake. Bethesda Fountain loomed up ahead, and I remembered us coming here with Melanie and Amy. How different that day had been. Before Penn and I