Sisterchicks on the Loose (22 page)

“Why do you have Miss Molly inside?” Cammy asked.

“It was too wet outside. Mrs. Lane wanted to hold her.”

I found it hard to believe that Penny “wanted” to hold any animal at any time. Especially something as jittery as a chicken. My guess was that Penny was doing her usual public relations routine to win over skeptical Elina and the rest of her brood.

“Well, look at you,” I said.

“Yes.” Penny bit her lower lip. “Look at me!”

I slowly approached Penny and the chicken. “How are you, Miss Molly?”

“She’s my favorite,” William said.

“Oh, really. How many chickens do you have?”

“Four. Miss Molly is the friendliest.”

“Is that right?” I watched as Miss Molly took friendly little pecks at the skin on Penny’s hand.

“I think Miss Molly wants to go back to her coop,” Penny said with a tight smile. “Here you go, William.”

With a flutter of feathers, Miss Molly made the transfer to William’s arms. “Would you like to hold her, Mrs. Andrews?”

“No, that’s okay. If Miss Molly is ready to go back to her coop, I don’t need to hold her.”

A wicked grin appeared on Penny’s face. “I think Miss
Molly wants you to hold her, Sharon. Go ahead, William. Let Mrs. Andrews hold your favorite chicken. She’s so friendly.”

I shot Penny a glance that said, “I’m going to get you back for this one.” If chickens can sense nervousness in humans, then I’m sure Miss Molly read my thoughts. She wasn’t about to roost in my arms. As soon as William tried to hand her to me, Miss Molly clawed my hand and tried to take off flying around the kitchen with a wild flutter of feathers.

“William, get that ridiculous chicken out of here!” Elina called from the sink. “Tara, please set the table, will you? Cammy, see if we have enough milk in the icebox and pour three glasses for the table.”

William tackled Miss Molly and took her out the back door. My hand started to bleed. Quietly I excused myself and went upstairs to wash out my wound. Penny followed me.

“I’m sorry, Sharon,” she said. “I didn’t think Miss Molly would attack you.”

“It’s not deep,” I said, running my hand under the water. “See? The bleeding stopped already.”

“I have a first-aid kit in my suitcase,” Penny said. “Dave made me pack it. He thought we would need it for blisters. Ha! Won’t he be surprised to hear what we needed it for! I’ll be right back.”

As I cleaned and dressed my wound, Penny said, “Do you think we should make other arrangements for tonight? Obviously we’re a big inconvenience to Elina.”

“I think it would be awkward if we picked up and left now. What if we stay for dinner, and then if it’s still uncomfortable, we can come up with some reason to leave.”

“Okay. No matter what, we’ll call a taxi in the morning and go somewhere else,” Penny said. “Where do you want to go?”

“Where do
I
want to go? Right now, I want to go home.”

“Home?”

In one long, run-on sentence I reminded Penny that we hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast except for a few pretzels on the plane, and I was furious at the chicken for opening my skin, and since we obviously weren’t welcome here, I thought it was absurd for Penny to turn to me at a moment like this and ask where we should go because if it had been up to me, we would still be in Finland, enjoying the soothing tempo of Marketta’s life and eating chocolates at her sturdy kitchen table with the green-and-white tablecloth.

“What are you saying, Sharon? Are you saying you want to go back to Finland?”

“No, of course not. I mean, yes, I would. Someday. I’d love to go back to Finland. But not today. It would make no sense to go back there. All I’m trying to say is that I don’t know what we should do next.”

As an afterthought I added, “Maybe we should pray about these decisions before making them.”

Penny leaned against the edge of the sink. “I have been praying. I thought we were supposed to come here, but maybe I misunderstood. Maybe we were supposed to come to England for something other than my cousin.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. I still want to ask Elina to translate my mom’s letters. Perhaps I can leave them with her, and she can mail them to me.”

“You might find someone in San Francisco who could translate them for you.”

I don’t know if Penny heard me. She was staring at the shower curtain and seemed to be deep in thought. Or maybe
she was deep in prayer. I cleaned up my first-aid clutter and headed for the bedroom. Penny followed me.

“I have an idea,” she said.

I almost said, “Of course you do.” But my lips were as weary as the rest of me, and they sat this one out.

“What if we visit Monique?”

“Monique who?”

“Don’t you remember? Monique. On the plane ride over here. She invited us to come see her if we were ever in England. And look! Here we are in England.”

“Where does she live?”

“I don’t remember. I have her address and phone number somewhere. Remember? She wrote it on a napkin.”

“Do you think she really was inviting us to visit her, or was she just being polite?”

“I think she sincerely wanted us to come visit.”

I wasn’t convinced. But the thought of seeing Monique again intrigued me. I’m not sure why. Monique was more of a stranger than Elina. It seemed that it had been weeks since we had met her on the plane.

“Here it is.” Penny produced a crumpled beverage napkin from her purse. “She lives in some place called Warrington. Is it very far away?”

I pulled out my tour book and found Warrington on the map. With a sly grin I noticed that Warrington was less than a quarter of an inch east of Liverpool.

“Let’s go to Warrington,” Penny said decidedly.

“Do you think that’s going to be okay?” I asked.

“What, leaving? I think they’ll be glad to have us gone. Except for William. He said it was ‘jolly good’ of me to hold his chicken.”

“But what about connecting with your cousin? Our time went so fast in Finland. If we leave in the morning, you won’t have had much time with Elina at all. That’s what you wanted out of this trip, isn’t it?”

“Bonding with relatives appears to be more of a two-way street than I realized,” Penny said. “It doesn’t appear that Elina and I are driving down the same side of the road, so to speak.”

“That could change.”

“Or not.”

I sighed. “Penny, I just want to be sure you take advantage of every opportunity to accomplish what you wanted from this trip. I want you to go home knowing that you tried your best to bond and all that.”

“Thanks, Sharon. I know what you’re saying, and you’re right. I should try harder to connect. I have an in with William. Maybe I could start there and work my way to a closer connection with Elina. Like you said, this is my only chance.”

Just then we heard footsteps coming up the stairs.

“Hallo!” William appeared at our open door with a chicken feather in his hand. “Would you like to keep this? It’s one of Miss Molly’s prettiest feathers.”

“Why, thank you.” Penny took the spiny quill and gave Will one of her best PR smiles. “Be sure to tell Miss Molly I appreciate it.”

William beamed. “Mummy said to let you know we’re ready to eat.”

“What are we having for dinner?” Penny tapped William on the nose with her feather. “Not chicken, I suppose.”

William looked up at Penny, startled. “No, not chicken.”

“That was a little joke, William.”

His lower lip quivered. He pulled away from Penny and took off down the stairs yelling, “Mummy! Mummy!”

Penny and I looked at each other.

“I’ll go call Monique,” she said.

“Good idea.”

S
weet William
seemed to recover quickly from Penny’s jest about having chicken for dinner. Elina had prepared a one-dish meal she called shepherd’s pie. Although Penny and I both said we had heard of it, neither of us had eaten it before. The bottom layer was ground beef, which Elina called “mince.” The beef was mixed in a thick gravy with carrots and peas and then covered with mashed potatoes and sprinkled with cheese on top.

The meal was simple, but the conversation around the table was complex. Cammy said she liked shepherd’s pie better when her mum used real mashed potatoes and not the instant kind she had used tonight. Tara argued with her mother about a party she wanted to go to over the weekend. Tara seemed to have waited strategically until we, the guests, were present before she brought up the topic. I recognized the typical teenage ploy to get Mom to say yes.

Elina was a stronger mother than I. She remained firm in her “no” despite Tara’s persuasive attempts.

William kept interrupting and was asked repeatedly to wait his turn. When Cammy stood to clear her plate, she said she had homework to do and then reminded her mom that she needed her blouse ironed for school in the morning because they had a special reciting program.

“I can’t iron it,” Cammy said, “because I still have to work on my piece for the program. I haven’t memorized it yet.”

Elina looked at her watch. “I have to make several phone calls before it gets too late. William, when you finish, clear the table. Tara, I need you to wash the dishes.”

“I can’t. I have homework, too,” Tara protested.

“Then why were you watching television this afternoon?”

“That was part of my homework. We have to write a paper on a current event in the news.”

“She wasn’t watching the news. She was watching cartoons,” Cammy said.

“So were you,” Tara spat. “And you were supposed to be memorizing your speech.”

“I wasn’t watching the telly,” William announced proudly. “I was in my room the whole time you were gone.”

Elina’s face kept growing deeper shades of red. I thought she was going to blow a fuse. I felt awful for dropping ourselves into her life the way we had. Penny and I were on vacation whereas Elina was obviously on duty. Double duty, since her husband wasn’t around.

Elina drew in a deep breath. “All of you go upstairs and do what you need to do. Just go. William, don’t forget to take a bath.”

“I’m still eating, Mummy.” William nibbled off a small bit of carrot from his fork.

“Are you going to iron my blouse then, Mum?” Cammy asked.

I jumped in. “I can iron your blouse, Cammy. I love to iron.”

Everyone looked at me.

“I really do.” I sheepishly shrugged.

“She does,” Penny vouched. “I know. It’s kind of strange, but Sharon loves ironing. And I’m an expert on clearing the table and washing dishes. Point us in the right direction, Elina, and we’ll cover the bases down here.”

Elina was slow to respond. She finally said, “Okay, but don’t ever tell my mother I put you to work. I’ll only be on the phone for a few minutes.”

The liberated ducklings scattered with record speed. Penny and I were alone, playing the roles of the downstairs maids. I didn’t mind. I felt it was the least we could do.

We worked swiftly and silently. I don’t know what Penny thought about as she worked, but I loved the feeling of doing what was familiar. Rushing through airports was beginning to grow on me, but this—a kitchen, an ironing board, the sound of bathwater running upstairs—this I knew. My thoughts were of my family. I missed them down in a place so deep in my heart that I don’t think I’d ever gone there before. My love for them never had been tested like this, and I felt an unfamiliar euphoria over having a husband and children to love. I would never view those relationships as ordinary again.

Tasks completed, Penny sat at the table and we discussed our departure options. As soon as Elina was off the phone, Penny would call Monique.

I joined her, still feeling mushy about my family, and said that our experiences already had surpassed my wildest expectations. I was satisfied. I didn’t need any more adventures. “We could take an earlier flight home,” I suggested. Aside from my
desire to somehow get Penny to Penny Lane, I had no other reason to stay on this side of the world.

Penny, however, seemed addicted to new experiences and sat across from me, growing wild-eyed, looking for her next fix. “We have to go and see all we can while we can,” Penny said in a tight voice. “This is our only chance. Life is too short. Don’t you get it?”

“Yes, I get it, and I’m content to do whatever you want to do. So you decide. What’s next?”

“I want to call Monique.”

“Okay. Call Monique, and we’ll visit her and then see what happens.”

Penny’s amber-flecked eyes glazed over. “I also want to go to Scotland. Actually, I really want to go to Switzerland. And Greece. Not necessarily in that order. I always wanted to go to Greece. Have you seen pictures of the Aegean Sea? It’s so blue. Can you imagine what it would be like to go swimming in water like that? Or the Nile River. I always wanted to float down the Nile like Cleopatra.”

“Penny,” I interrupted her stream of crazy travel lore. “Are you listening to yourself? You’re not making a whole lot of sense right now.”

Penny looked at me with a shadow of sadness veiling her cocoa brown eyes. “I want to do everything, Sharon. I want to see it all. It’s like that song back when we were in high school. Remember that song about sailing around the world? I listened to it for weeks after I left Wolf and went home from San Francisco. Remember? Look for gold and dive for pearls?” Penny began to hum and then sang one of the lines about knowing that she would never get to sail around the world.