BREAKING POINT

Penny put that thought out of her mind quickly, feeling she was somehow being disloyal to Jeremy. After all, they had only been engaged a few days and there had hardly been time to discuss their future.

“How’s the job going?” Audrey asked, breaking in on Penny’s reflections.

“Progressing” Penny answered, not without pride. “I really have more work than I have time for at the moment. Making quite a bit of money one way and another”

“What are you doing with it?” Audrey asked, knowing that Penny would not resent such a question from her.

“Oh, shoving it in the bank for a rainy day” Penny replied laughing. “I’m bound to want a nice large bank balance sometime in my future, and apart from living expenses and an occasional dress, I don’t seem to have any other requirements.

Audrey did not reply, but sat smoking and thinking deeply. Although all Penny’s information regarding herself and her fiancé led her to think that her friend’s happiness was without flaw, Audrey still suspected that somewhere beneath the surface, Penny was struggling against the stream. It was too soon to judge, really, Audrey told herself. But she she intended to find out sooner or later. She wanted to look after her friend. No doubt a closer acquaintance with Jeremy would prove whether she were right.

“No doubts at all?” she asked suddenly.

Penny was caught unprepared for that blunt question. A shadow crossed her face, lasting no longer than a second, before she replied:

“No. None at all”

Audrey relaxed and sighed.

“Good, I should hate to see you unhappy, Penny. Perhaps it’s just me. I worry about you unnecessarily, but then you are so impulsive, not solid and level headed like me”  She smiled disarmingly. “Mind you, Penny, you can be surprisingly practical at times, but i think that heart of yours generally rules your head and you have never grown up”

“You sound like my Aunt Ann” Penny laughed. “I appreciate your concern, darling, but you are worrying unnecessarily. Wait until you meet Jeremy. I know you will love him. He is the most marvelous man, really he is. He is terribly good to me… Takes such care of me. Yet he, himself, hasn’t grown up. He has all the attraction of being like a kid himself at times. He rouses my maternal instincts.

Audrey looked into Penny’s shiny dark eyes and her faint doubts disappeared. Penny had obviously never been more radiantly happy in her life. There was a glow in her skin and in her eyes, even on her hair, that accentuated all that was feminine and lovely in her.

Since Audrey had last seen Penny, there was a very definite change in her appearance. She looked… Audrey struggled for the words… Like a woman who has been fulfilled. Older… Yet younger. Loved… No longer lonely.

That was it. What all women needed in life.

But Audrey was not altogether happy about her friend. She was not a prude, but she held marriage sacred and to be satisfied with anything less, meant belittling the sacrament, in her mind, she thought :

‘Perhaps that is the something not quite right that I sense in Penny. Perhaps she, too, is a little troubled and unsatisfied. Oh, Penny, i hope you haven’t allowed yourself to be persuaded into an impossible affair… That Jeremy isn’t taking advantage of your generous love ‘

Penny said suddenly :

“Jeremy hasn’t called me yet. He said he would, if he was working late”

And suddenly Audrey saw the other side of Penny.

She looked worried, harassed. She moved her fingers together nervously.

Audrey said:

“Why don’t you call him yourself, and find out for sure?”

“Oh no… He will call soon. He may be too busy to pick my call… And I don’t want to bother him”

Something is wrong. Audrey told herself. Penny is a bundle of nerves underneath that new happiness. Suddenly she asked a blunt question.

“Are you and Jeremy living together, Penny?”

The color spread over Penny’s fsfr. She reached for a cigarette and kept her eyes averted from Audrey’s gaze.

“Yes” she answered. “Do you think it’s very wrong, Audrey?”

Audrey hesitated, then shrugged her shoulders.Content (C) Nôv/elDra/ma.Org.

“Conventionally, yes. Personally, I refuse to judge. You must have your reasons. I don’t know them. One shouldn’t judge others by one’s own standards because no two people are alike”

“You mean, you wouldn’t be living with a guy if you were in my position?” Penny questioned.

“No, i don’t think so” Audrey said slowly. “But then it’s hard to say. If I and Alex hadn’t broken up, who knows what might have happened. You know I was really in love with him at that time”

“I see” Penny said. Suddenly she longed to explain to Audrey how it had all happened and why she hadn’t told her about it since. She wanted her friend to understand, to have the consolation of her approval… Or at least her sympathy.

“We couldn’t go on the way we were” she said. “Seeing each other every day, every evening. Always wanting so much of each other and never going further than making out in the back of Jeremy’s car… We were both getting irritated and nervy. I felt that things might be better this way… That Jeremy might love me more… I mean, enough to want to marry me ”

A frown crossed Audrey’s forehead.

“Is that good reasoning?” she asked. “Isn’t it a more usual fallacy that a man loves a woman less.. Afterwards?”

“Only if he ceases to respect her” Penny said quickly. “Jeremy isn’t like that. And he has been wonderful to me. Things are better. I know they are. We haven’t been really cross with each other since….”

“Well, it’s your life, Penny” Audrey said quietly. “But, honey, don’t ruin it. You are worth so much more than just being a man’s mistress”

“Audrey!” Penny flung the word at her friend reproachfully, but Audrey remained immovable.

“I’m just looking out for you” Audrey said. “Honestly, Penny, you know how much I love you and I want to see happy. I just don’t want you to make the wrong decisions. I don’t want to see you hurt for any reason. You can count on me to look out for you and let you know when I think something isn’t right. But I may be wrong… Forgive me… Whatever you need in the future, I will be right here for you….”