Losing Penny (5 page)

From
Losing Penny and Pounds

When Penny met
Shep face-to-face, she knew she couldn’t live with him. Yes, he was
as big and as ugly as his picture had promised—maybe that was the
problem. She had studied up on German Shepherds, and she had read
most of the sales pitch coming from the shelter’s director.

“German Shepherds are the world’s leading
police, guard, and military dog,” a woman with the name Nelly
stenciled on her shirt said. “Approachable, direct, fearless,
energetic, and fun-loving.” Nelly opened the door to Shep’s
kennel.

Shep curled his lip and the fur on the back
of his neck rose making Penny think of two things: Cujo the killer
dog, and an article she had read online about the warning signs of
German Shepherd behavioral problems. Penny didn’t remember the
warning signs, but she did know that she absolutely didn’t want to
hire a pet psychiatrist. She had more than enough crazy in her
life; she didn’t need to invite doggy-psycho to her party.

“He’s not for me,” Penny said, backing away
from Shep’s hostile glare.

“Are you sure?” Nelly asked, closing and
locking the door. “He really is a sweetie.”

Penny studied Shep. Cream puffs,
snickerdoodles, and lollypops are sweet. Bloodthirsty dogs are
not.

“No? Well how about Wolfie here?” Nelly led
her down a narrow walkway. The dog cages reminded Penny of the
prison cells she had seen on TV. Some dogs stood nose to chain link
fence to watch her walk past, most barked, a few wagged their tails
with excitement, some just lay on a scrap of towel looking forlorn
and forgotten, but Wolfie jumped to attention when Nelly stopped in
front of his cage.

Penny took one look into Wolfie’s big brown
eyes and fell in love.

Nelly opened Wolfie’s door and he bounded
out. Before Nelly could stop him, he jumped up and placed both of
his paws on Penny’s shoulders and gazed into Penny’s face.

Penny’s eyes met his, and in them she
recognized true love and devotion.

“Sorry about that.” Nelly grabbed him by the
collar and hauled him away. “Goodness, he’s almost as tall as you.”
She clicked a leash on him, straightened, and tried to look in
control. “Airedales can be very rowdy! They need exercise like a
duck needs water. Do you have a large yard?”

Penny nodded, watching Wolfie buck on the
leash as Nelly dragged him toward the play yard. “We’ll be spending
the summer up in Washington on the beach.” She tried not to think
about Wolfie in her tiny Laguna apartment after the summer.

“Wolfie needs to be trained, and he needs an
owner who knows how to be Top Dog.” Nelly looked Penny up and down,
sizing her up. Penny stood straight and tall, emphasizing her
entire five-foot-four stature.

“You’re a tiny thing,” Nelly said.

Even though Nelly didn’t mean it as a
compliment, Penny flushed, warming toward Nelly. Penny had been
chunky all her life and she’d been called many things—tiny was not
one of them.

“An Airedale may have dominance challenges
toward family members he sees as submissive,” Nelly warned. “Wolfie
will be happy to please you if there is nothing more interesting
going on. Airedales are avid hunters, and believe me, you are not
as interesting as a chipmunk or another dog.”

Since Penny was used to not being as
interesting chipmunks or other dogs, she knew she and Wolfie would
get along great.

“Can I pick him up next week?”

***

The next morning Penny woke to a knock at the
door. Her heart sped and then slowed. Knocking wasn’t the Lurk’s
mode of operation. He left her flowers, wrote her love notes, and
delivered gifts. He didn’t knock. Penny shuffled into her robe and
slippers and opened the door for her aunt.

“I’m sorry to come so early, but I have
tragic news.” Aunt Mae limped into the apartment and sat down with
a “humph” on the sofa. Penny trailed after her.

“Tragic?” Penny thought of planes crashing,
bridges falling, and burning asteroids.

“Richard and Rose had a fight and Rose wants
to postpone the wedding, but Richard says that he’d rather call it
off than postpone.” It all came out in a rush. Penny let the words
wash over her, devastated for her brother, yet so grateful that she
didn’t have to wear the ice cream cone dress. She settled down on
the sofa beside her aunt.

“Where’s Richard now?”

Mae shrugged. “He’s gone to that cabin of his
in Alaska to sulk.”

Penny groaned. “That’s stupid! How is he
going to reconcile with Rose if he hides in Alaska?”

“I’m not sure he wants to reconcile.”

“I don’t believe that.” Penny stood quickly
and went into the kitchen. “Do you want a muffin?”

Aunt Mae raised her eyebrows. “I thought this
place was a muffin-free zone?”

Penny pulled open the fridge and started
piling ingredients on the counter: eggs, almonds, oranges, and
cranberries. She stuck her head around the corner and smiled at her
aunt. “I can make sugar-free, fat-free, and even flour-free
muffins.”

“I think this situation calls for high-octane
muffins,” Aunt Mae said.

Penny shook her head. “No, then we’d be only
sad with 400 calories on top.” She grabbed a bowl and cracked an
egg into it with too much force. Frowning, she tried to remove all
the pieces of shattered shell with a fork.

Penny wanted to ask why Richard had confided
in her aunt, and Mae must have read her mind, because she said, “I
saw the text from Richard this morning. He must have sent it last
night. I bet if you check your phone, you’ll see you got one
too.”

Penny slammed the orange on the counter.
“This is not something you text! This is something that should be
shared face-to-face.”

“You know Richard isn’t a spill-your-guts
kind of guy.”

“I have to talk to him.” Penny dumped all of
the ingredients into a mixing bowl and attacked the batter with a
whisk.

“You know there’s no cell service or Internet
at that hole, or cave, or wherever it is that he stays.”

“So what do we do now? Try and talk to
Rose?”

“Not if we want Richard to still love us when
he crawls out of hiding.”

Penny hunched her shoulders in defeat as she
poured just enough batter to fill two muffin tins.

“Just two?” Aunt Mae squeaked.

Penny nodded.

“But they’re tiny!”

So was Penny, thanks to a wedding that almost
was.

***

The first thing Penny did when she got
Wolfgang home was get out an electric shaver and buzz his fur. Then
she turned the scissors on herself. Her head felt light as her hair
fell into the sink. Contemplating her new curly, chin-length do,
she winked at Wolfgang. “We sort of match,” she told him.

Picking up a box of hair dye, she read the
instructions while she slipped on the gloves. When she mixed the
dyes together, Wolfgang ran from the room to avoid the smell, or
perhaps he was worried about his own fur. Half an hour later,
Penny’s strawberry blond was a deep auburn. She slipped on a pair
of sunglasses and considered her reflection in the mirror.

A brand new Penny. A new life…well, summer.
She hoped that by the time she returned the Lurk would have lost
interest and moved on.

***

Penny pointed Phoebe’s car at the distant
Mount Shasta. She could make a Mount Shasta Lake Cake. But no. She
was supposed to be in Europe. She’d have to save the cake for when
Phoebe hit the Alps. An Alps Cake. No, she didn’t like the sound of
that. The Batterhorn? Maybe. Devils food, shaped like a mountain
with a rich, cherry liqueur filling and creamy white frosting. Then
she’d put a hole on the top and fill it with dry ice to turn it
into a smoking volcano. She’d never look at Mount Shasta the same
again.

Beside her Wolfgang whined. “We’ll stop in
Medford,” she told him. “If you can be good while I tour the Harry
and David factory, then when we get to Tillamook, I’ll get you some
cheese. You’d like that, right?”

It made her sad that Wolfgang’s food had to
be so strictly regimented. She had learned the hard way that any
deviation from his steady diet of dried kibble resulted in a mess
of vomit…or worse. How tragic to spend a lifetime eating just
kibble and itty-bitty bites of cheese when there was an entire
world of culinary pleasures just waiting to be tasted.

But Wolfgang, with his ears blowing in the
wind, didn’t look the least bit sad. Penny smiled at him as they
crossed over the blue mountains, the Volkswagen convertible racing
down the slope toward their next stop. Harry and David’s
kitchen.

Free chocolates at the end of every tour.

He knew that he must leave, but as of yet he
hadn’t recovered the strength. Or so he said. But how could he
return to his father’s great hall and admit to the loss of his men?
How could he face the sadness and questions in his mother’s eyes?
How could he leave the gentle warmth of Ingrid?

From
Hans and the Sunstone

The stars and
moon twinkle
—

No, that sounded too much like “Twinkle,
Twinkle, Little Star.” Drake fiddled with his pencil and looked out
the window at the moon’s reflection on the Sound while trying out
his newborn sentences.

Clouds full of menace fill the sky. Winter’s
violence looms.

How will the Vikings make their way across
the Northern Sea when each day is grayer than the last?
No.
Wait. Wasn’t that Melville?

Hans watches the sky for a break in the
clouds. He fingers the pouch hanging from his waist. It holds the
key to his home and heart: the Sunstone.

Drake wasn’t even sure what a sunstone was.
The wind whistled through the cracks of the back porch windows.
Drake listened to its moaning for several minutes before booting up
his computer. He typed Viking sunstone into the search engine.

In the Hrafns Saga it says: "The weather was
thick and stormy…The king looked about and saw no blue sky…then the
king took the sunstone and held it up. The sun beamed from the
stone."

The crystal cordierite can be found on the
coast of Norway. Its birefringent and dichroic properties, change
color and brightness when rotated in front of polarized light. With
an adequately cleaved crystal it is easy to tell the direction of
skylight polarization: its color will change (e.g. from blue to
light yellow) when pointing toward the sun.

Huh.

Drake looked back out the window at the wispy
clouds shrouding the moon. Opening up a new Word document, he
typed—
Clouds full of menace fill the sky. Winter’s violence
looms. A sailor braces against the mast, his feet planted on the
slippery deck. Long nights and shortened, dark days, Hans watches
the sky for a break in the clouds and fingers the pouch hanging
from his belt. It holds the key to his home and heart. The
Sunstone.

Good exercise clothes and shoes are
invaluable. This means that you need shoes that fit well, socks
that won’t cause blisters, bounce-less bras that do their job,
shorts/pants that don’t creep into forbidden territory, and fabrics
that wick sweat.

From
Losing Penny and Pounds

The turnoff was
little more than a breather between blackberry bushes. If not for
the mailbox it would have been easy to miss. The Lurk would never
find her here. After all, she’d almost missed it even though she’d
been coming here nearly every summer since her parents’ death.

Penny’s heart swelled with gratitude. “Thank
you, Auntie Mae,” Penny whispered as she nosed Phoebe’s Volkswagen
down the mud puddle-pocked drive leading to the beach house. She
owed Aunt Mae for not only this summer, but for all the summers
spent here. Time with her aunt at the beach house, away from her
hyper-protective brother, was a breath of fresh, salty air.

Penny had only been ten when her parents had
died, and at twenty-two Richard hadn’t been ready to be a parent.
But when all his peers had been partying at frat houses, Richard
had moved back into his parent’s house to take care of his baby
sister. During her teenage years, when Richard’s hovering had
driven them both crazy, he’d invented the Watchdog: a wristwatch
that coupled as a homing device. Penny designed the watches in a
variety of hip styles, and Richard patented the idea.

“This is it,” Penny told Wolfgang, gathering
her suitcase from the back seat and opening the door. Wolfgang
jumped out, trotted a few feet onto the grass, then turned to look
at her.

She shrugged, unsure herself. Balancing
suitcases, dog food bowls, and a camera case, Penny crossed the
dandelion-strewn lawn. She really did love this place, but it had
been a few years since she’d last been able to come. Without her
aunt to take charge and keep her company, Penny didn’t know what
she’d do with herself. She couldn’t spend all day every day writing
a cookbook.

Her aunt had told her about a new café in
town, Helene’s, where the owner used food medicinally. No one took
the claims seriously, but the café had been written up in the
Seattle Times and had caused something of a sensation. And then
there was the supposedly haunted house.
That
was new. Plus,
Charlotte Rhyme’s niece had opened an art gallery.

Penny stooped to unlock the door, but it
swung open. Odd
.
The house looked exactly the same as
always, except that it was—and this must have been her
imagination—cleaner. It smelled faintly of ammonia and air
freshener, but she remembered it smelling of the ocean. Penny
dropped her things on the sofa and went to look out the window at
the Sound. A smudge stained the window, as if someone had pressed
against it.