Penelope didn't get very far on her drawing during the flight. She managed to get the rough sketch mostly done but the coloring and the layers would take forever.
She had drawn two versions of herself back to back. One was the way she looked when she was back in her world: her hair in a simple ponytail or braid wearing jeans and a casual blouse with worn out sneakers. The other was meant to be Penelope Cross in her fancy clothes.
There was a dividing line down the middle with different backgrounds depicting their separate lifestyles but the two Penelopes' hands overlapped the middle because they were handcuffed together.
"What are you drawing?" Everett asked, startling her so much that she accidentally made a wrong line across the drawing with her stylus.
Penelope clicked 'undo' immediately and tried to calm herself. "Nothing in particular," she lied.
At least she hadn't gotten to coloring yet. Right now the two girls could feasibly be different people because they had different hairstyles and clothes. It would be kind of hard to explain that she had drawn two different versions of herself.
"You creative types can't turn it off, can you?" Everett observed.
His words were slightly derogatory but his tone was matter-of-fact. Penelope couldn't tell whether or not she had been insulted but was too afraid to ask. She simply gave him her best version of a polite smile before returning to her task.
Thankfully he let the matter drop and didn't speak to her again until after the plane landed and he asked her if she had a carryon bag in the overhead bin. She did not.
Penelope couldn't get off the plane fast enough but her seat was pretty far back so she had to wait for other people to disembark first. She had been suffocating ever since Everett spoke to her.
When they finally all met up and got their luggage from the baggage claim, the group headed to go rent a van everyone would fit in together. They wanted to check into the hotel at the same time since people were sharing rooms.
Penelope ended up sharing with Hayley. Thankfully she wasn't terribly familiar with her other self because they were in different departments so they were able to do basic small talk 'get to know you' questions.
Hayley was a friendly woman who appeared to be in her mid-thirties and she ended up initiating the conversation. "Your ring is beautiful. Are you engaged or married?"
"Married. It's been four years now. What about you?" The less she had to say on the matter the better. She was afraid of tripping up somehow.
"Eleven. My husband and I have a ten-year-old daughter and a six-year-old son. Do you have any children?"
"No, not yet."
At this rate, Penelope wasn't sure if she ever would. But 'not yet' sounded better than a hard no in this sort of situation. She didn't want to make a bad impression on this woman she would be seeing a lot of the next week.
"Life gets ten times crazier with kids, let me tell you! Enjoy your time alone with your husband while you can," Hayley advised with a laugh.
She nodded her agreement even though she wasn't sure if she would be able to do that because Roman wasn't actually her husband. It was easier to agree.
Penelope braced herself for a long conversation but it only last about fifteen minutes before Hayley's children called asking for help with their homework, claiming their dad was hopeless. She apologized and took the call onto the terrace before turning on video mode so she could see the assignment.
That left her free to continue working on her drawing. She ended up doing that until it was time for everyone to meet up and get dinner.
She stuck to Max like Velcro because he was going to function as her human shield for the next week. He didn't seem to notice anything off about it because they tended to stick together at the office too.
Everyone was chatting around the tables they had pushed together in the semi-casual buffet style restaurant when her phone buzzed with a text from Roman. 'How's it going so far?'
'We haven't done much yet but the woman I'm sharing a room with is the chatty type so we'll see how the week goes. We're at dinner now. Have you eaten?' Penelope responded.
'Just about to'
Max noticed her texting discreetly under the table and decided to tease her under his breath. "We not interesting enough for you?"
She rolled her eyes at him. "You know that isn't true. It may be bad form to text at the table but it's also bad form to ignore your husband."
Like she was one to talk. She had been doing her best to ignore Roman ever since she came here. Her hypocrisy levels had become much higher than usual since ending up in this parallel world.
"I'm just messing with you," Max said with a laugh. "How is Roman, anyway? It's been a while since I've seen him."
How was Roman? An excellent question. Penelope wasn't entirely sure herself but he didn't seem okay emotionally. He needed his wife to make him a priority and that was going to be difficult (if not impossible) because she wasn't actually the person he needed to do that.
"He's doing well," she lied. "How's your love life looking? Go on any interesting dates lately?"
Her journal talked about how he broke up with his most recent girlfriend last year and began pestering his coworkers to set him up with someone new a few months later. All of her friends were in relationships so she hadn't been able to help him out.
Max sighed dramatically. "Interesting bad or interesting good? Because there's a huge difference, believe me."
He launched into a woeful tale about a successive series of bad dates and used such hilarious imagery that Penelope nearly snorted soup out of her nose. She barely managed to stop herself from spewing it everywhere. Talking to someone funny while eating was never a good idea.