Sisterchicks on the Loose (15 page)

“Is the food here?” Penny opened the bathroom door, and a cloud of fragrant steam followed her out.

“Right here. And guess what? Your aunt just called, and she expects us to stay at her house. She said she’s been making arrangements.”

Penny stood still. The thick hotel towel wobbled slightly in its twisted turban on top of her head. “She wants us to stay with her?”

“Yes. I couldn’t say no very graciously.”

“Why would you say no?”

“I didn’t know if you wanted to stay with her.”

Penny sat down and blew her nose. “Of course I want to stay with her. I want to wrap her up and put her in my pocket so I can have my very own relative for the rest of my life.”

“She’s expecting us early this afternoon.”

“Perfect. Do you have any sinus medication in your purse? I think I’m getting a cold.”

“Yes. Help yourself. The white ones in the plastic bag are the nondrowsy sinus pills.”

The phone rang. Penny reached for it and listened. She
interjected a few words like, “Oh … Uh-huh … Okay … What?” Then she burst out laughing. “Yes, yes. I got it.” She jotted down a few notes. “Thanks. Bye.”

“Who was that? Marketta?”

“No.” Penny sat down and laughed. “Are you ready for this?”

“I don’t know. Am I?”

“That was baggage claim.”

My heart sank. If Penny was laughing so hard, the news couldn’t be good.

“Did they find my suitcase?”

“Sort of. You know how they print out the tags with three letters for the airport?”

“Yes?”

“Well,” Penny laughed another twenty seconds before finishing her sentence. “Your suitcase tag was apparently printed with
H-E-K
.”

“Penny! Where is
H-E-K
?”

“China!”

I stared at her.

“Your clothes took a trip without you! They went to China all by themselves.” Penny rolled over on the bed laughing.

“Where in China?”

Penny drew in a quick breath. “I wrote it down. It’s some place called Heihe, China!”

I didn’t think it was funny at all.

For the first time in my life, I wanted to tell Penny to shut up. However, being such a politely repressed best friend, I said nothing. I stood there, arms folded across the front of me, scowling like a crow.

Penny noticed my stance. She held up her hands and
pulled back her laughter. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t laugh. It’s not funny.” Then she motioned that she was zipping her lips.

I marched over to the breakfast tray, breathing deeply. With a knife in my clenched hand, I tore into my croissant as if it were a chicken I was deboning.

“Did they say anything else? Like when I’ll get it back?”

“Apparently it’s not easy to get luggage out of customs once it’s in China.”

“Ever?”

Penny shook her head. “I’m sorry, Sharon. It doesn’t look as if you’ll get your luggage back. The guy on the phone said they were going to file the claim for you. The reimbursement will go to your home address within a month.”

I took a swig of coffee and returned the cup to the saucer with a clatter. “Did they say how my suitcase got there?”

“A typo?” Penny suggested.

“I can’t believe this.”

I pictured the wife of some Chinese customs officer trying on my clothes. Certainly she would rage that the next time her husband brought home some loot, it better be of more value than the items in my worthless suitcase.

“Okay.” I allowed the slightest grin of irony to pull at the corners of my mouth. “I’m not going to let it bother me. I’ll need to go back to the department store to buy a few things before we leave for Marketta’s. Do you think we have time to do that this morning?”

“Sure,” Penny said. “Do you need anything else?”

“A few cosmetics, and I guess I’ll need a suitcase of some sort.”

“Perfect. Onward we go! Are you going to take a shower?”

“Why? Does your bionic nose tell you I need one?”

“No, my bionic nose is out of order,” Penny said with an exaggerated sniff.

I showered, Penny packed, and we checked out of the hotel before ten. Our departure was much less memorable than our arrival. The same was true of our shopping trip. I knew what I wanted and made quick decisions, putting everything on the credit card that I had brought along for emergencies. My decisions were a lot less painful than making purchases at home because I hadn’t figured out the exchange rate, so I had no idea how much I was spending. Plus, I figured the airline would compensate me.

We caught the 1:05 bus to Porvoo. Penny was sneezing like crazy. One of our purchases when we bought my cosmetics was a box of tissues.

“I never took those cold pills this morning,” she said once we were settled on the bus. “Mind if I fish them out of your purse?”

“Help yourself.” I handed Penny my shoulder bag while I searched through my shopping bag for a pair of socks. I liked the new clothes I’d purchased. I liked my new underwear, even though I hadn’t admitted that to Penny yet. I especially liked traveling light. I was amazed that I needed much less than I thought I did to function every day. Warmth was the key, and my new socks were a fuzzy dream come true.

Penny slept on the hour-long bus ride with her chin tucked to her chest, her head bobbing as we rolled down a smooth, modern highway. Tall evergreens and winter-bare birch trees shivered as we passed, sprinkling occasional flecks of snow left from the last storm. The afternoon sunlight spread a transparent picnic blanket over the passengers on the other side of the bus. All was leisurely and felt strangely familiar.

I decided that was because of the birch trees. We had eight
birches in our backyard that were at least thirty years old. I knew what birch looked like in every season. I imagined this stretch of road was enchanting in late summer, when these ancient birch trees rustled their leaves in wild applause for the dancing breezes.

We pulled into a full parking lot next to a small bus station. I noticed that the cars were all plugged in. A cord ran from under the hood of every car to a box on a pole, like a parking meter. The sight made me think of the old Riverside Drive-In Movie Theater we went to when I was a child. Every car at the drive-in pulled a sound box on a cord to the partially rolled-down window. Here, the cords went under the hood instead of onto the window.

“I wonder if all the cars are plugged in to keep their engines warm.” I nudged Penny.

She kept sleeping.

“Hey, this is our stop,” I told her. “Wake up, sleepyhead. We need to get off now.”

Penny didn’t budge.

I froze. A terrifying bolt of emotional lightning coursed through my body.

“Penny? Penny, wake up.” I shook her. “Penny!”

“What?” She lifted her head slightly and gave me a snarling glare.

My hand thumped against my chest and covered my heart as if I were about to pledge allegiance. “You scared the patochy out of me.”

“What’s wrong?” She moistened her lips and looked up, squinting.

“We’re here. You fell asleep, and we’re at our bus stop. We’re in Porvoo.”

“Oh.” Penny tried to stand up and had to grab for the seat in front of her. “I went under, didn’t I?”

“Come on. The driver is waiting for us to get off.”

I had to steady Penny as she shuffled down the aisle. As soon as we were outside in the biting air, waiting for our luggage to be removed from the bus’s underbelly, Penny shook her head, breathed deeply, and said, “Okay. Which way? Do you see any taxis?”

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. A little tired. Come on, let’s grab our bags and get out of this cold air. I don’t think it’s doing my sinuses any good.”

We had to ask someone in the station to help us call a taxi. Fortunately, the driver spoke English, like everyone else we had met. Being limited to only one language was humbling.

Penny fell asleep on our ten-minute drive to Marketta’s. The narrow streets were slick in some spots with ice, which kept our speed down. The houses were charming, lined up next to each other side by side like turn of the century town houses. Lace curtains covered thick-paned windows. Some of the slender front doors were painted deep shades of blue or burgundy.

It started to snow as the taxi pulled up in front of a tall, nondescript beige building that looked like an apartment complex but larger than anything we had in Chinook Springs.

“This is it, Penny. We’re here. We’re at Marketta’s.”

“Okay, okay.” She shook her head and opened the taxi door as if she welcomed the cold blast. “How much do we owe you?” Penny paid the driver while I wrestled our luggage to the covered entry of the apartment complex.

We pushed the intercom buzzer and entered the number
of Marketta’s apartment. Marketta’s expectant voice echoed back, “Penny? Is that Penny?”

“Yes, Penny and Sharon.”

“Good. Come!”

A buzz and click caused the front door to open, and we gladly entered the silent, warm building.

“Where’s the elevator?” Penny put down her heavy bags and looked around. “No elevator? Only stairs?”

I hoisted my new, light travel bag over my shoulder and reached for one of Penny’s. “Come on. This is why we took all those morning walks. We can do this.”

Up we went, thighs burning, lungs aching, shoulders spasming. Up to the seventh floor. I thought for sure I was going to pass out.

We dropped our bags by Marketta’s door. I leaned against the wall, catching my breath while Penny dabbed her forehead and flushed cheeks with a tissue. Then she blew her nose. “Go ahead,” she said, motioning to me. “Knock on the door.”

“No, you knock.”

I can’t explain why I said that or what I was feeling at that moment. Yes, I was a little timid about being in unfamiliar territory. But more than that, I felt as if this was Penny’s trip. Her aunt. This was her door to knock on. I didn’t want to take any of it away from her. She was the trailblazer. I was the one who always followed.

Penny gave me a peculiar look, half upset, half confused. Her eyelids fluttered and she said, “I feel …”

Before I could grab her, Penny swooned into a limp puddle on top of the luggage.

T
he door to Marketta’s apartment opened
. A solid woman in her early seventies with short, straight, silver gray hair peered at us in astonishment.

I went down on one knee and was patting Penny’s face. “Breathe, Penny! Open your eyes! Breathe! She just passed out,” I explained. “The stairs …”

Marketta grabbed Penny under her arms and single-handedly hoisted her off the luggage. “Penny?”

Penny’s eyes opened. “Oh, hello. Are you my aunt Marketta?”

Before Penny’s aunt could respond, Penny swooned again, but Marketta had a secure hold on her.

“Take the foots,” Marketta instructed me. “We will go to the sofa.”

I was amazed at Marketta’s strength as she pulled Penny across the floor and the two of us lifted her onto a dark green sofa.

Marketta went for a glass of water. I patted Penny’s face
some more and spoke with her gently at first and then with firm demands. “Look at me, Penny. That’s right. Open your eyes.”

Penny’s eyelids fluttered. “I should have only taken one,” she mumbled.

“One what?”

“Cold pill.”

“Oh, Penny, how many did you take?”

“Two. Two of the blue ones.”

“Blue ones! Penny, you were supposed to take the white ones. The blue ones are for nighttime, and you only need one of those.”

“Oh,” Penny moaned.

I turned to Marketta. “She took some medicine.”

“For sleeping?”

“Yes, for sleeping, but she thought they were for her cold.”

Marketta offered the glass of water. “She will be okay?”

“Yes, I think she’ll be okay. She fell asleep like this once on a camping trip when a wasp stung her. She took an antihistamine to keep down the swelling and fell into a deep sleep. One nighttime cold pill is enough to make a person sleep all night. She took two.”

I wasn’t sure if I was speaking too rapidly or if using words like “antihistamine” would confuse Marketta.

She turned to Penny with the sweetest expression. “Just like your mother.”

I watched with a twinge of tender surprise as Marketta leaned over, kissed Penny on the brow, and placed the back of her hand on Penny’s cheek, as if lulling a child to sleep. “Penny, Penny,” she crooned softly. “You are welcome to sleep as much as you want. You are at my home. Aunt Marketta’s home.”

“Okay,” Penny muttered without opening her eyes.

“You can give me your hello later. Sleep now.”

“Okay. You two go ahead.” Penny’s words came out in slow motion. “I’ll be right back. Don’t wait for me. Tell her about the picture, Sharon. With the fish.”

I knew she had to be okay because only Penny would be half-wittedly networking at a time like this. If she was thinking clearly enough to remember the picture of Marketta and her mom when they were girls, then Penny was fine.

Marketta covered Penny with a crocheted blanket, and we let the antihistamine-assisted slumber fairies complete their interrupted task of carrying Penny to the Land of Nod.

“I’ll bring in the luggage,” I told Marketta.