Page 125 of The Nanny and the Nerd
Penny stared at the phone. That had to be it! Her mother must have recruited the twins to motivate the Fennimore black sheep. God help her! If Diana doled out an inspirational quote from Thomas Edison, she might lose it.
“We got you, Penn. And to tell you the truth, I’m surprised your phone even has the speakerphone feature,” H said with that sly Harper grin.
Penny glanced around the table. She beamed at the women who teased her about her proclivity for low-tech but always,alwayshad her back. She pressed the button to answer the call, and the phone stopped buzzing.
“Penny?” Diana crooned with a hint of uppity urgency.
“Penelope?” came a second voice, and Penny’s jaw dropped as the sound of Claudia’s smooth tone floated from the phone.
Harper’s eyes went wide. “Three-way call.”
Growing up, the dreaded three-way used to occur every week after the twins left for their fabulous lives abroad. Sandwiched between her parents on the couch with the twins on speakerphone, her mother would pepper Claudia and Diana with questions about their lives while encouraging them to achieve greatness and reach for the stars. Blah, blah, blah! It was enough to inspire a notebook filled with stories featuring a grating matriarch and the downtrodden scrapper of a daughter, plotting her escape.
“Yes, I’m here. Charlotte, Libby, and Harper are with me. Is everything okay?” Penny asked, making crazy eyes at her friends.
“We wanted to check on you,” Diana answered in her staccato doctor speak.
Penny looked at her friends. They knew the torture that was the Fennimore party line call.
“Ask her why they’re calling?” Char whispered, pointing at the phone.
“Why would you need to check on me?” she asked, grateful for her wing-gals.
“Mom said you entered a writing contest,” Claudia replied.
Oh no! Her mother put them up to this call! She was sure of it. She could hear Beatrice Fennimore now!
Call your little sister, girls!
Make sure she doesn’t screw up this contest!
Remind her of what Thomas Edison would do!
Penny winced. “I did enter a contest—a short story competition.”
A beat of silence passed as Penny felt the anxiety boob sweat coming on.
“And is she driving you crazy over it?” Diana asked, her voice taking on a distinctly different quality. There wasn’t any derision in her tone—it was more like camaraderie.
Penny surveyed her besties, who looked as surprised as she was.
She cleared her throat. “Mom’s been calling me and sharing motivational quotes. That is until she left to visit you guys. It’s been pretty quiet since then.” Penny steadied herself, still not sure why her sisters had called. “Just give it to me straight. Did Mom put you up to this? Are you calling to tell me not to screw up the contest?”
A ribbon of silence wove its way around the table. And for what seemed like ages, Penny, Charlotte, Libby, and Harper sat stock-still, staring at the flip phone.
“No! No way!” Diana laughed.
“Hell no!” Claudia quipped. “We’re calling because we thought you’d need to get in on the post-mom-visit bitch session.”
“The what?” Penny shrieked as a few of the coffee shop patrons eyed their table and frowned. But she couldn’t worry about making a scene—not after the bomb Diana dropped.
“We call it theP-M-V-B-S. It’s how we get the insane Mom agitation out of our system,” Claudia explained.
Penny’s mouth flopped open like a dead trout. “You don’t enjoy her visits?”
“Um…no,” Diana shot back.
“We’re talking about our mother, Beatrice Fennimore,” Penny replied, needing to confirm this revelation.
