Sisterchicks on the Loose (6 page)

My better sense told me I should mention people had good reasons for not abandoning themselves haphazardly to God’s mercy, and such erratic trips weren’t written about in the tour books for good reasons. But I pressed my lips together and enjoyed the sensation of once again being in the wake of the fabulous, fearless, flying Penny.

W
ith our enthusiasm elevated
. Penny and I listed our options. A nice but not too expensive, centrally located hotel in Helsinki would meet our needs. A taxi was preferred over a rental car because it could be snowing, and neither of us had driven much in snow.

We went through the tour book, circling potential hotels and finding a phone number for a taxi company. Until we arrived, we couldn’t do much more.

I bent down to put away the tour book, and something extraordinary happened. The clouds, which had cushioned our flight for the past few hours, cleared, and a burst of sunshine spilled in through the window. I turned to lower the window shade and found myself staring
down
on snow-covered mountains. They looked like a row of little girls dressed for their first Holy Communion. They seemed to be waiting for their cue to begin the processional march. I’d never seen anything so pure and majestic.

“Penny, look.”

She leaned over. “I wonder if those are the Canadian Rockies. Or would we be past them by now? We’re traveling north, aren’t we? Into the sun. Our winter day will be short. Canada is so beautiful.”

Penny flitted through a recounting of a story I’d heard many times. I guessed it to be one of her favorite memories since she told it often. Two summers before we met, Penny and Dave rode his Harley from California to Banff, Canada. They lived on moose jerky and cheap beer. She wore the same pair of jeans every day for seven weeks and only had two pairs of undies. She never wore a bra, only halter tops. The skin on her shoulders and upper back had become permanently leathered from the sun and wind. One night, when Penny and Dave were sleeping under the stars, a bear ambled within twenty feet of them. The bear licked the gas tank on their motorcycle and then lumbered into the forest.

I listened with my gaze fixed on the magnificent world beneath my window. The world I was watching couldn’t possibly contain lumbering bears or braless women on motorcycles. From my viewpoint, the world below was perfect in every way.

The serving cart arrived at our row, and we received the lunch trays that were offered to us. I noticed the classy-looking woman across the aisle from Penny as, in a British accent, she asked where she might dispose of her “rubbish.”

I subtly observed the way the woman kept her fork in her left hand after she cut her chicken and then took a bite without switching the fork back to her right hand. She wore a honey-colored knit skirt with a matching sweater. The sleeves were pushed up to her elbows, and she wore a gold charm bracelet on her right wrist that shone on her dark, bare arm. Her skin was as dark as obsidian. I’d never been so close to a person
who was the opposite of pale, blond, uncultured me.

“Do you want my sourdough roll?” Penny asked me, as she examined the meal in front of her. “I’m trying to keep myself to only one bread a day, and I ate half a bagel on the way to the airport. It was stale; I shouldn’t have eaten it. This roll looks much better. But I’m not going to eat it.”

“I don’t care for it, thanks.”

“I meant to ask you earlier, how’s Gloria? What did the doctor say?”

“He’s going to run some tests on Friday.”

“Did you go see her last night?”

“Yes, for about five minutes. She went off on a tangent about how inconsiderate I was being and how she might not be alive when I returned.”

“What did Grampa Max say?”

“He said he thought she would be okay. I asked him if I could do anything for them, and he said, ‘Yeah, you can get outta here for a few weeks and let us fix our problems for a change. It’s time you went and made a few problems of your own.’ ”

“I’ve always adored that man,” Penny said with a broad smile. “It’s too bad Gloria treats you the way she does.”

“It’s not that bad.”

“Yes, it is.”

I shrugged. “I can’t change her, Penny. I’ve reached the point where I’ve decided that she can’t hurt me anymore.”

“Well! That’s a new, improved approach. Good for you.”

“It’s this trip,” I told Penny. “I don’t know exactly what happened that day when Gloria brought over the Styrofoam balls and I stood up to her. But when I saw her last night, I was free. It didn’t bother me that she was still against this trip.’ I didn’t feel guilty at all.”

“Good for you.” Penny opened her small packet of salad dressing with her teeth. “We’ll find a really fun souvenir for Gloria, and you’ll come home a hero in her eyes. You’ll see.”

Penny chatted about her kids as we ate. I listened and kept checking the view outside the airplane window.

The waning sun was already behind us, low in the west. We rapidly headed into the night. Layers of thick, ethereal clouds formed a puffy, pink-tinted comforter beneath us as our 747 rose above it all.

I watched the night come. Or perhaps I was watching us race into the night. Every so often a bundle of clouds would open, and far below I could spot tiny gatherings of light, evidence of life.

Then I saw it. The moon. Round and unblinking, that mysterious silver orb seemed to race toward us, riding an invisible, celestial current. I watched the moon peek in the window at me. I imagined I could feel its cool, steady light, more fierce and determined than the glow of any night-light. The plane banked slightly to the right. I turned my head to keep an eye on the moon. I watched and watched and then suddenly, in a blink, it was behind us.

I silently recited Ben’s favorite nursery rhyme,
Hey, diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle, the cow jumped over the moon; the little dog laughed to see such sport, and the dish ran away with the spoon
.

I looked out the window again and was certain that the moon now was under us. Turning to Penny with what I’m sure was a look of dumbfounded marvel, I said, “Guess what? We just jumped over the moon!”

Penny laughed. “Like the cow?”

“Yes, like the cow. We jumped over the moon!”

The flight attendant reached to clear my tray, and Penny busted up. “Well, don’t look now, but your dish is about to run away with your spoon!”

Our little jokes weren’t that funny, but we were so tired they seemed hilarious. We laughed hard, but then I had to excuse myself and stand in line for the rest room. I shifted from right foot to left and looked around at the immense variety of travelers. Did any of them realize we were on the other side of the moon? None of the faces I scanned seemed amazed. I would have to be amazed for all of us. Amazed and delighted and a little bit nervous about being at God’s mercy, as Penny called it.

When I returned to my seat, Penny was engaged in a conversation with the woman across the aisle from her. “Sharon, this is Monique. Monique, Sharon.”

I nodded at the middle-aged woman. Her eyes were clear blue, like two pebbles in a mountain brook.

“She’s from England,” Penny said.

“You’re from England?” I tried to change the incredulous expression that must have washed across my face. Monique was the first Brit I’d ever met. I’m sure it was evident I expected to meet someone more like the Queen Mum or at least someone with a British name rather than a French name.

“Yes, I’ve lived in England since I was sixteen.” With a gracious smile Monique added, for my benefit, I’m sure, “I was born in Jamaica.”

“Oh.” I cleared my throat.

Penny rolled on with her customary openness, chatting as freely as if the three of us were clients lined up under the hair dryers back at Joanie’s Clip ’n’ Curl. “My mother used to tell me that my father was a pirate from Jamaica. She made up all
kinds of gallant stories about him. I never knew my dad, you see, so I liked the way my mom turned him into a hero.”

“I’m not sure my relatives would agree that a pirate from Jamaica should be considered a hero.” Monique’s accent was mesmerizing.

“When you’re six, nothing is better than being told you’re descended from a Caribbean pirate.”

Penny didn’t speak often of her childhood or of her father, who had died before she was born. When Penny was in her midtwenties, her mother passed away, and since Penny had no siblings, she and I became surrogate sisters and our children became adopted cousins.

“My mother was from Finland,” Penny went on. “Sharon and I are on our way to Helsinki. I hope to track down my mom’s sister.”

“Won’t that be lovely for you,” Monique said.

Penny explained about not knowing if we would actually find her aunt, but after all, we were on an adventure.

Monique leaned forward to capture a full view of my face. “Aren’t you the brave one?”

Had Monique caught on that Penny was the instigator of this madness, and I was just along for the ride? I managed a half grin in response to Monique’s insight.

“I suppose it wouldn’t hurt if you had a backup plan,” Monique said. “If you don’t care to spend your entire holiday in Finland, you might enjoy having a look around our bit of country.”

“We just might have to take you up on that,” Penny said. “Our schedule being open-ended and all …”

Monique apologized for not having a business card to give us. She wrote her phone number on the back of a beverage
napkin and handed it to Penny. “If you do make it to England, please feel free to ring me at this number.”

Penny and Monique settled into a pleasant round of small talk that included fingernails, the benefits of vitamin C when combating jet lag, and Monique’s trip to San Francisco. My eyelids grew heavier and heavier as the long night wore on. When the second in-flight movie began, I pulled up the blanket to my chin, leaned the pillow against the window, and slept.

Penny slept a little during the long flight, too, which was helpful because when we landed at Heathrow, we needed all our energy to get us off the plane and onto our next flight.

Monique stayed with us until we parted ways at customs. She wished us well in our search for Penny’s relatives and repeated the invitation to look her up if we ever came her way. I doubted that we would be in England again or that we would contact her. I was certain, though, that her beauty and her gra-ciousness would remain a strong memory for me.

When we reached the front of the line at customs, Penny went ahead of me. I noticed that the customs officer looked at Penny’s passport and then appeared to be singing to her. I couldn’t hear what was going on, but I did hear him burst out laughing.

Penny smiled and nodded politely.

I wondered if it was her passport photo. Was hers as unflattering as mine? Apparently not all Brits were as polite as Monique.

I stepped up to the window, preparing myself in case the customs officer found my passport photo equally hilarious. He glanced up at me for a moment, asked a few questions, and then I was sent on my way to join Penny. She had placed all her heavy luggage on the ground and was taking off her long coat.

“What was that all about?” I asked. “He wasn’t laughing at your picture, was he?”

Penny shook her head and held out her passport for me to see. “I should have expected it. Look.”

I scanned her picture and thought hers was much more flattering than mine. I didn’t notice anything unusual.

“See?” Penny said. “You’re immune to it like I am. Most people are in the U.S. But not in England, I suppose.” A smile crept up her face. “It really is kind of funny, when I think about it.”

That’s when I remembered all the jokes Penny had made over the years about her name. She said the only annoying thing that had come out of her marriage to Dave Lane was that she became Penny Lane.

“I think I made that custom officer’s day. He, of course, had to sing the first verse to me. Thankfully he stopped when he got to the chorus.”

I laughed. I know I shouldn’t have laughed so hard, but the expression on Penny’s face and the craziness of having a man with a shiny badge and a snappy British accent singing to her as she entered this foreign country struck my funny bone. I couldn’t stop giggling.

“I know, I know. Go ahead and laugh,” Penny said. “It is funny. I suppose I’ll laugh later. I’m too tired now to appreciate the humor of this situation. Come on, we better get a move on.”

I reached for one of Penny’s heavier pieces of luggage. “I can carry this one.”

“Are you sure you don’t mind?”

“No, it has to be heavy for you.”

“I really appreciate it, Sharon. You’re right. This stuff is
starting to weigh a ton. If we were on a ship, I’d throw the excess overboard. I bet you’re glad you checked your suitcase.”

“I don’t think it would have fit in the overhead bin. I probably brought as much excess as you did, but I put it in a larger suitcase.”

With each step I took, Penny’s luggage seemed to gain weight. I was perspiring heavily by the time we reached our seats on the flight to Helsinki. Fumbling in my purse, I found a small perfume sampler and dabbed the flowery potion generously on my wrists and the back of my neck in an effort to camouflage the unpleasant odor. In my haste to dress that morning, I think I’d forgotten to use any deodorant.