Losing Penny (6 page)

Penny loved the weathered wood floors, the
large picture windows overlooking the Sound, the white slipcovers
on the sofa and chairs, the big rocking chair next to the stone
fireplace, and the large oil painting of seascape that dominated
one wall. Time had stood still here, and she was once again that
chubby ten-year-old girl, devastated by her parent’s death. Her
world had crashed around her when her parents, her pillars that had
held everything together, had gone.

She gathered up her things and took them up
to the red room. Wolfgang followed, his toenails clicking up the
stairs, and his tail beating against the wall. Penny dumped her
suitcase on the bed and rifled through it, searching for her
bathing suit.

Cross-training had been an important part of
her weight loss plan, so even though she knew the water in the
Pacific Northwest would be brutally cold compared to Laguna Beach,
she wasn’t about to stop swimming. The room was suffocating hot as
Penny slipped into the polka-dotted suit. After fetching a worn
towel from the linen cupboard, Penny and Wolfgang headed for the
beach.

Stars and moonbeams shone through the window
and landed on Ingrid’s fair shoulder. In the flickering firelight,
she looked beautiful. Her shape hidden beneath rugs and furs, his
imagination filled in what his eyes could not see. She murmured his
name in her sleep. He had never heard a more hypnotic sound.

From
Hans and the Sunstone

Melinda smiled at
Drake over her cup of coffee. “I’m embarrassed to read this out
loud, but I know that whatever I write, you’ll make it brilliant.”
She looked down at her iPad, chewed her lip, and flashed her smile
at him again.

“Just go ahead,” Drake urged. He leaned his
elbows on the table, fighting sleep.

“Just remember I’m not a writer. That’s why I
hired you.” Melinda cleared her throat and began. “Sitting in the
dying Seattle summer’s sun, and as I look out over the city, I’m
reminded that Don Marx’s influence is everywhere in the Pacific
Northwest. From my place on top of the Space Needle, I realize that
even from this great height, most can never hope to reach the
heights of Don Marx’s success.”

Drake’s head nodded. His chin bumped against
his chest. He willed himself to stay awake.

“From here, I can see his movie theatres and
the Don Marx Community College that he built with $100 million of
his own money.” Melinda paused. “Is it bragging to mention his
money?”

Drake’s mind raced when he realized she had
asked him a question. It was a yes or no question: fifty-fifty
shot
.
“Ah, no, I don’t think so,” Drake said. He swallowed
and wiped his mouth. He always drooled when he slept.

“Oh good,” Melinda breathed. “I was worried
that it might be considered gauche to talk about how much money
daddy has spent in building up the community. I don’t want anyone
to think I’m bragging.”

“No, of course not.” Drake took another drink
of his coffee. The caffeine swam slowly to his brain, not with its
customary jolt, but like fish swimming through Jell-O.

Melinda smiled and continued. “I see the Marx
Motor Parks, his TV station, and his baseball field. In the harbor,
his yacht is overrun with Vikings. Holding the sunstone to the sky,
the crepuscular rays—”

Drake’s sleepy brain told him Melinda
wouldn’t know the word crepuscular, but he no longer listened; he
was lost in a dreamland filled with the Norse.

***

He started with one hour in
Geared
and
fifteen minutes on board the Helga, but the fifteen minutes crept
into hours before he gave up. Vikings and Don Marx received equal
time. After all, they weren’t so different. He could argue that Don
Marx was only a modern day Viking—conquering small businesses,
pillaging local economies, roaring his way into the hearts of blond
milkmaids, just like Hans.

Drake looked up from his work and flexed his
fingers. He used to write everything in long hand, his stories
messy sprawls of cursive and loops, but since Blair had left,
taking her nimble fingers with her, he had resorted to writing on
his laptop. And he didn’t like it. But typing about Hans, the
sunstone, and blonde milkmaids was much more entertaining than the
fiscal achievements of Don Marx. He wrote
Geared
on the
laptop and
The Sunstone
by hand.

He could slog through two more pages of Don
Marx. If he could read fifty pages describing the Paris sewer
system in the unabridged Les Misérables then he could laud the
praises of Don Marx.

A flash of red caught his eye: a woman on the
beach in a red and white polka dot bathing suit. She had curly hair
and curves like a milkmaid. Generally, he disapproved of redheads
wearing red, but he liked the white belt circling her tiny waist.
She dove into the water. She was either brave or stupid. A dog with
brown, curly fur ran along the sand, barking. He ventured a few
inches into the water then returned to the shore. Smart dog.

The woman didn’t bolt back to the sand
shivering as he would have expected, but cut through the water with
an easy stroke. After a moment, she rolled onto her back and looked
up at the house as if she could feel him watching. She called to
the dog who seemed to waffle between loyalty and common sense.
Common sense won.

Drake wondered where this mystery girl was
staying. He didn’t think she was staying with Melinda. Melinda
wasn’t the type to have girlfriends, although she did have an
assistant—a mousy girl with horn-rimmed glasses and mishmashed
teeth.

Drake returned to his story.
Ingrid
tightened her belt around her tiny waist and called to the errant
goat.
Drake smiled.

When a jogger takes few laps around the
track, that jogger is only moving his or her body through air. A
swimmer, on the other hand, self-propels through water, a substance
about twelve times as dense as air. That means that every kick and
every arm stroke becomes a resistance exercise, and it's well known
that resistance exercises are the best way to build muscle tone and
strength.

From
Losing Penny and Pounds

Penny swam against
the cold waves until her arms felt as powerful as strings of yarn
and her legs had all the propulsion power of jelly blobs. Letting
the tide wash her on shore, she flopped down on her stomach and
laid her head in her crossed arms.

Wolfgang snuffled his snout in her curls. She
didn’t like it, but she lacked the energy to push him away. After a
moment he laid down beside her with a humph.

The sun dried her back and a small breeze
tickled her bare skin. She still had that pinpricking sensation of
being watched. She knew she should have left that feeling in Laguna
along with the Lurk. She knew he would never follow her so far.
Thank goodness for friends. Between Phoebe’s car, Aunt Mae’s house
and the photos—Penny was safe. Or at least she hoped she was.

A faint jangle of guitars wafted from the
Marx house, and Wolfgang sat up to listen. The smell of a barbeque
drifted down the bank. Wolfgang whined. Someone must be having
party. Penny’s mind wandered into forbidden territory of juicy
burgers and crisp, salty fries. She replaced standard American
beefy fare in her diet with portabella mushrooms, grilled strips of
peppers, and onions doused in balsamic vinegar all wrapped in foil
and thrown in the fire. Despite her gurgling, though nicely flat
belly, Penny was happy.

When her back had dried, Penny rolled over
and watched the clouds chase across the bright blue sky. After a
moment she closed her eyes and dreamed of goats. Her lips curved
into a smile.

But that evening, when the dark and fog
rolled in, the enormity of what she had done sat on her shoulders.
The thought of spending the entire summer alone at the beach house
weighed on her mind and her heart. Could she really stay in this
isolated place without any one to talk to? Anxiety hammered in her
chest and Penny reached for her mind-numbing medication.

***

Hours later, Penny woke to find Wolfgang’s
snout hovering above her nose. He blew a warm, meaty breath on her
face. She tried to push him away, but he whimpered and nudged her.
She remembered that she hadn’t taken him out before she’d fallen
asleep, and the sun had long since disappeared into the Sound. A
full moon cast long shadows against the red bedroom walls.

Struggling to keep a quilt wrapped around her
shoulders, Penny cursed the big dog in vain; he already had his
nose pressed against the front door of the cottage. She padded
after him. He whimpered and pawed at the door. The doorknob felt
icy, and cold seeped through the doorjamb. Penny shivered in her
quilt and pulled it tightly across her chest. She shivered again
when the damp, frigid air blew in.

Wolfgang bolted and Penny sighed. She sunk to
a squat on the porch, pulled her knees up to her chest, and waited
for the dog to come back. Closing her eyes, she leaned her head
against the wall and wished she had a cat complete with a litter
box. She rolled her head to the side and looked for Wolfgang in the
dark. The trees swayed in the wind and the full moon’s light
filtered through clouds.

The music next door played a few dying notes
and stopped. Chatter and the clink of dishes and glasses filled the
night air. The party must be over. The Marx family had always had a
steady stream of parties in the past, but with Mae and a collection
of books and chocolates to keep her company, Penny hadn’t ever
wanted to join them. Not that she’d been invited. To the Marx’s,
Penny and Mae might as well have been on the moon.

Maybe now that she wore a size four instead
of a twelve they’d notice her. Maybe now that she had a successful
cooking show she would be worth knowing. She shouldn’t think that
way, but what was she going to do all summer, by herself? The
cookbook wasn’t going to eat up every waking moment. Her thoughts
drifted to Trevor Marx, the object of her teenage crush. She
wondered what had happened to him.

Wolfgang barked and Penny stood to see what
he saw, a shadow crossing the lawn. Wolfgang’s barks turned from
warning to ballistic and he ran toward her. Maybe not the most
brave dog, but a very noisy one. The shadow disappeared around the
back of the house. With a hammering heart, Penny followed. Wolfgang
bounced beside her, throwing a volley of panicked barks.

The intruder flipped on the switch in the
kitchen—her kitchen—and flooded the dark with yellow light. Penny
pressed herself up against a tree, hiding and watching. Tall, thin,
blond, dressed in faded jeans and a button down white shirt that
offset his tan skin and startling blue eyes—he didn’t look like a
Lurk. His gaze peered into the dark, looking past her and focusing
on Wolfgang. “Shoo!” he called. “Go home!”

Wolfgang responded with a snarl.

The blond Lurk pushed the door open and stood
in a halo of light.

Penny held still and didn’t breathe. He was
beautiful…and oddly familiar. An invisible string tugged at her,
urging her toward him, but she stayed rooted behind the tree. She
had read that stalkers, like vampires, have charisma, beauty, and
charm—wiles that trap unsuspecting females into a web. He stepped
out onto the porch. He had a knife in his hand, the moon glinted
off the long blade that dripped…something.

Penny grabbed the hem of her nightgown and
bolted for her car.

“Hey!” he called after her.

For being barefoot she was fast, but he was
faster. Penny reached her car and fumbled for the door handle.
Locked. Of course. Looking over her shoulder at the light burning
in her room, she considered running upstairs and grabbing her purse
and keys, but she knew she’d never make it. Pressed against the
Volkswagen, Penny opened her mouth and screamed. Wolfgang, a
snarling angry bundle of fur, stood guard.

The Lurk looked around. “What the hell?”

Penny opened her mouth even wider and
summoning her inner opera singer, she upped her scream an
octave.

The Lurk approached and stood in a patch of
moonlight, his arms dangling at his sides. Somewhere he’d lost the
knife.

An engine roared and a white catering van
rumbled past. Penny waved her arms at the driver, but he looked
bored and waved back at her, slowly shaking his head. She tried to
run after him, but the gravel hurt her feet. She limped until a
vice-like hand on her arm stopped her.

“Hey,” the Lurk said softly.

Wolfgang growled, his head low, his stance in
pouncing position.

“Call off your dog,” he said.

“I’m not—“ Penny began and then reconsidered.
“Attack! Wolfgang, attack!”

But Wolfgang was not an attack dog. Penny
looked at him with disappointment and then at the man holding her
arm.

“Who are you?” he asked, his gaze traveling
over her wild hair and cottony gown.

Penny struggled against his grip. “Let me
go!”

The Lurk thought about this. “I don’t think
that’s a good idea. You might hurt me.”

“Try me,” Penny said through clenched
teeth.

He dropped her arm and Penny shot out with a
right hook, smashing his lip.

He howled in pain, backing away. Penny
followed and delivered another punch to his gut. He doubled over
and blocked her next blow with his arm. “See, I was right about
you,” he woofed in pain. “Alright, I give!”

Penny’s breath came out in short huffs. This
Lurk wasn’t nearly as in shape as her trainer. If he were a rapist
or a murderer, wouldn’t he at least fight back a little? “You give
what?” she asked, backing behind her growling dog.

“I give
up
!” He straightened and
touched his bloody lip with the corner of his shirt. “What are you,
a ninja in a nightgown?”