with some helpful assistance from my co-author Tanista
Wilton Newberry has long since accepted that maintaining his sanity, in the inane morass of boredom that is Mission City, requires a self-indulgence bordering on lunacy; but even he can occasionally be shocked into something like normalcy.
"Miss Parker, this really is a terribly irregular proceeding. I thought you had promised me, in the very strictest terms, that you would consult me before making any major expenditures."
Penny Parker smiles at him sweetly. "Oh, I know- but I was in a hurry. That nice Becky Grahme, she was going to leave Mission City with absolutely nothing. I had to do something for her. But I will put the money back from my own trust fund, really- I mean, it was practically all my money in there anyway."
Newberry does not quite grind his teeth, but he scrapes them a bit. Giving Penny control over the community theatre funds had been intended as practice; emptying that account in order to buy out a rundown coffee shop is exactly the sort of reason he hasn't allowed her near the main trust fund.
"Of course, it doesn't matter very much, because I'm not going to be here for the next year of performances- and I just don't think there's anyone who'll want to keep it up when I'm gone. But with everyone I like leaving so suddenly, I'm going too! Off to Hollywood. Now, won't that be nice?"
"Miss Parker. I have seen you act, I have seen you sing, I have seen you dance. And in my honest opinion, you'll never be cast in anything except comic parts."
"Comic roles are fun!" Penny says happily. "Of course, since I'm going to be leaving, I'll have to buy a new wardrobe, and everything- and do you know, I was talking with a lawyer from St Paul just yesterday? And he says that you must have misread one of your law books, because I showed him all the legal papers and apparently there's no reason I shouldn't have signing power for all my money now."
Oh, crumbs.
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Everyone's leaving town. Mac and Jacques have vanished into thin air. Ralph Jerico's been brought up on charges, but nobody really thinks he had anything to do with the affair- too theatrical, not his style. Ellen's gone, no one knows where (one favourite rumour has it that she and Mac and Jacques ran off together, in a wild threesome). Jack Dalton's finally prepping for his much-delayed departure.
Becky's going with him. In fact, every last one of her classmates is leaving Mission City, to look for work in the Twin Cities or even further south. Moving on to places with a future.
Like the end of an era; and while Penny's keen to go herself, she finds it awfully sad.
"I mean, I love this beautiful old cafe," she says. "I'd hate to think of it just standing here, all lonely..."
"You're welcome to it," Becky says with a smile. "I mean, maybe it's been home for a few years, but I'm not gonna miss it. Especially now my uncle's gone."
"Don't give up hope. I think the ghosts would have told me, if he'd died," Penny offers helpfully. "And they haven't."
Becky shudders. "Geez. Even if he was a ghost, I'd hope he could find something more fun to do than haunt Mission City. It'd be his idea of hell. Or purgatory, at the very least!"
She looks very serious for a moment, then starts to giggle, much to Penny's relief. "No, I don't think he's dead. I'm sure I'll see him again one of these days. Not that I'd say that to just anyone, you understand," she adds quickly. "It's kinda been our secret."
"Well when you do, will you give him this?" Penny asks, passing her a card along with the cheque. Her confession. Something she always meant to say to Mac himself, one day, but she's not sure when she'll have the chance now.
"Oh, sure."
But instead of putting it safely away, Becky just starts reading it. Right there. Which wasn't the idea at all.
Penny's always taken a keen interest in others' reactions- the better to imitate them in the theatre- and she finds Becky's tightly-compressed lips and the slight hitch in her breath puzzling. Could she have read the whole thing that quickly? Of course she could, it's Becky.
"Uh, I really only meant-"
Becky takes a deep breath, slips the card back into the envelope. "Sorry, habit. But it explains a lot."
Now she's blinking away tears in her eyes. What's going on?
"Becky, are you okay? Did I do something wrong?"
"Well, yes and no. I mean, I understand why you did it. I always did think the rabbits were cute, even if they ruin the gardens. Unc taught me how to track game, but he never could get me to go hunting with him; the thought of killing anything makes my stomach turn even now. It's just that-" She stops, swallows. Tears run down her cheek.
Oh, this isn't good. Not good at all. This should be a happy ending, not a sad one. What can she do to fix it?
She reaches over, touches Becky. "I meant well, really I did," she says earnestly. "You gotta believe me."
"Oh, I know you did, Penny. That's one of the things Unc and I like about you. You may be scatterbrained and accident-prone, but your heart's always in the right place. Don't ever change, okay?"
"Okay, I won't. But can you at least tell me why you're so sad? I don't like the thought of you leaving like this, in tears."
Becky smiles sadly, shrugs. "Sure. Why not? Might as well unburden myself of everything before I go. But let's do this properly."
So together they settle into one of the booths, mugs of hot chocolate in hand.
Becky takes a sip, stares out the window. "Unc didn't have to take me in, I know that. Divorced, no college degree, only this old place as a source of income. Not a great way to bring up a kid by himself. And then he got slapped with the last of that stupid lawsuit, and things just got worse from there. That summer- a whole summer I had to watch him, trying so hard to pretend he was all right so I wouldn't be scared. Putting the whole weight on his shoulders, without letting me share the load. As though we weren't having enough trouble already. Unc was hoping the rabbit snares would provide us with protein, but when they were all broken we had to depend solely on what was left in the garden and donated food from the church. An awful lot of white bread."
She grimaces. Penny drinks her chocolate and listens, wide-eyed. She knows they had it rough for a while, but not that rough.
"Anyway, the last straw happened just before school started. One last plate of French toast, and all for me. By that time I knew Unc was practically starving himself just so I could eat, and felt awful knowing I was the reason he was suffering. So I staged a temper tantrum, hoping to trick him into eating."
Penny frowns, remembering how she'd pretended to be mute so her parents would send her to live with Aunt Betty. "Did it work?"
"Yeah, just not the way I was expecting. You remember how much he hated guns before that?" Penny nods. "Well, that incident kinda forced him to change his mind about that, and I guess some other things too. Otherwise he wouldn't have been so keen to run off with that guy, you know? I can't help thinking it's all my fault, somehow."
Penny pats her hand sympathetically. "Oh Becky. You shouldn't feel responsible, not at all. It's not your fault; it's mine, that's why I'm giving Mac the money. I just felt so awful after what happened in April and the nasty things that were said about him and wanted to make up for everything, honest."
Becky just stares at her for a while in silence, causing Penny to worry. Did she say something wrong again?
Finally she shakes her head. "Penny, like I said earlier, your heart's always in the right place. Even if you have no idea of the consequences."
"Sorry for getting you upset like that. I didn't mean to, honest."
"Hey, it's okay. Feels good to get it off my chest, you know?" Becky checks her watch. "Whoops, look at the time. Jack's waiting for me at the airfield and I gotta get to the bank." She takes a final sip, gathers their dishes.
After cleaning them and putting them away she takes a final long look around. There's a funny wistful look on her face, kinda like Mac's when he had an idea. "Huh, so this is it. Home is where the heart is, right?"
"I guess so."
"Well, my heart's not here anymore. But I see yours is, so whatever you decide to do with it is fine with me. Good luck in your career, Penny. Take care."
"You too, Becky. See you when I get to Hollywood?"
"Yeah. Remember me and Unc when you get your first big award."
They share a hug. She feels so much better now.
With a grin Becky hands over the keys, hoists her game bag and shuts the cafe door for the last time.
It's all hers now. Penny looks around and closes her eyes, remembering the past. For a moment it feels like the cafe's still there, and so's she, while the future goes by outside without touching them.
Sort of like a ghost, herself.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"People," Aunt Betty always used to say. "People are basically stupid."
It was her all-purpose response whenever Penny asked her why people did things this way instead of that way, or what the fun was in watching football, or why they couldn't just give away lots of money to all the people in town who needed it.
"Because people are basically stupid, Penny. They think they'd be a lot happier if you gave them a fortune, but not one in a hundred would know how to use it. Just look at those stories about lottery winners! Divorces, misery, all sorts of nonsense. No, it's better to earn it with your own two hands."
"I guess I must be pretty stupid too," Penny had said once. "Cos I think I'd agree with them."
Aunt Betty had just smiled. "And that's why your great-aunt is here to take care of you, honey."
But she's been dead for a year now (though Penny still writes her letters) and...well, she's been thinking about this a lot, since Becky had left.
Only it doesn't seem really fair that her stupidity never makes any difference to how nice her life is. While if people like Mac or Becky aren't clever, they get so much heartache for it.
She's thinking about her Aunt Betty more than usual today, because she's trespassing. The still was always strictly off-limits, but some of the older Missionaries have been joking about whether she won't whip up one more batch of the good stuff, before she leaves. And one of the books at the cafe had listed everything about how to brew alcohol at home. All she has to do is follow the instructions. Just like stage direction.
Only, only...maybe she's just getting what she deserves, for venturing in on ghostly territory.
Because there's something else Mac had told her, in one of his chats. How to tell the difference between lead and iron pipes. And after she'd cleaned off the antiquated piping to find a soft silvery-white metal, that won't attract a magnet, it looks awfully like this whole still's made of lead.
Penny doesn't know very much about lead. But she does know it's toxic.
She sits down on the cellar stairs, scrubbing brush in hand, and has a good long think. Maybe the hardest she's ever had in her life. About this still, that Missionaries have been drinking from for years and years. About her uncle Virgil, Aunt Betty's illegitimate son, who she never knew because he died young, and he had a lot of health problems and was sort of slow. Her aunt would never talk about him except when she was very drunk; and she always cried when she did. How kind and gentle and sweet he was.
She thinks about Becky, and how she'd been forgiven for trying to do right, even though she's done a lot of things that hadn't helped anybody at all. Except for the rabbits.
And she thinks a lot about this town she loves so much, like maybe nobody else ever has.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"I'm not sure I'm following this," the nice lady at the Phoenix Foundation says.
"All my family's money was made by making people alcohol," Penny explains, again. People seem to be needing a lot of explanations today. "But it turns out that the alcohol was full of lead, and we probably poisoned a lot of people, and nobody ever knew. So I want to give away all my money in trust, for Mission City. Cos they're the people who deserve to have it. You can do charitable trusts, right? My lawyer's told me about those."
"Um...certainly. But- I understand you're concerned, but nobody would expect you to give away all of it, you know." (The nice lady isn't a local, but she's been in town long enough to have heard about Penny's scatter-brained reputation.)
"Oh, I know. But I want to. Besides, I've already got more than I should have, anyway- that big house, and a coffee shop, and a salary as manager for the community theatre. I fixed that up first, before I did anything else." It probably isn't quite right she did that, but Aunt Betty would like it. Besides, she's going to work hard at that job.
It's harder to convince them then she'd thought it would be. The Phoenix Foundation staff think she's crazy, and Newberry isn't happy at all. But she doesn't have the Parker blood for nothing; and she holds out stubbornly until they fix it the way she wants.
Just her. And a cafe.
Maybe it's love, for her favourite place in the whole world. Maybe it's a kind of penance, to see what she put Becky and Mac through. Maybe it's a reason to stay on until she can find out whether her fortune will help Mission City any. To see if Aunt Betty was wrong and money really can help people, if you apply it right.
Maybe she just needs to stay until somebody she trusts comes along to take over the cafe. Somebody else who'll love this old place the way she does. She'll go to Hollywood, when that happens; but until then she'll stay here, and try not to fumble people's drink orders. And count her pennies.
Well, mostly.
The first day the cafe's open for business again, full of curious and more than grateful locals, she just stuffs the place full of white chrysanthemums.