by Joanna Scott
Penelope’s dad had a color TV. He had a big plastic bowl of a swimming pool in his backyard. He liked fried foods, hot weather, and arguments. He hated Commies and David Frost. But the worst was that pussy heavyweight Muhammad Ali, who was too much of a coward to put on a uniform. This grand old U.S. of A. was going to the dogs. And for those in doubt about the merits of the electric chair, let Benny point out that taxpayers would be covering the Boston Strangler’s room and board through his life sentence — and he was only thirty-five!
But gosh he loved his little girl, Benny’s Penny, as he called her when he was introducing her to his friends. He had a bedroom done up special, painted pink, with stenciled ponies on the walls. So what if she considered herself too grown up for stenciled ponies? He was glad she’d chosen to live with him. He’d bring her out to dinner, and boy oh boy would the waitresses fawn over them both. He even took to going to church once in a while so he could show her off. That’s how he met Harriet Sullivan, who worked as an aide for an elderly woman. She was wheeling the old woman into the sanctuary, the front wheel of the chair got stuck, and Benny was there to lend a helping hand.
Maybe it was having his daughter in the house that prompted Benny to decide that it was time to settle down, or maybe he just realized he was getting old. He courted Harriet Sullivan and early in 1967 asked her to marry him. She was eager to escape the irritable old woman she worked for, and she accepted Benny on the spot. They were married within the month at the church where they’d met, and after a two-day honeymoon in Niagara Falls, Mrs. Patterson arrived in Litchfield with just three small suitcases, which she unpacked slowly, over a period of several weeks, sorting into piles the clothes she wanted to keep, to store, and to give to the Salvation Army. And once she calculated her wardrobe needs, she began to shop.
It was shopping that Penelope would remember best from these years she lived in Litchfield — shopping by mail order with a checkerboard of catalogues laid out on the kitchen table. Shopping in Fenton, until her stepmother decided the stores there weren’t ample enough. And then driving the whole long way to shop in the city of Tuskee.
Thanks to her stepmother, who needed to shop, fourteen-year-old Penelope returned to the city where she’d been born. Though her memories were vague, she hadn’t forgotten how her mother would just start singing in public wherever she was, and people would gather to listen. She remembered feeling that she could never get enough of her mother’s singing, and the memory of her pleasure made her wistful as they drove into the city center.
Trailing behind her father and his new wife after they’d parked her car, she studied the face of every passerby wondering if she’d once known them or if they’d possibly remember her. She thought she recognized a smell in the damp air similar to the fragrance she imagined burning raisins would give off. She wondered if she should try to find the woman she’d been named after, her mother’s friend Penny. She only vaguely remembered her and didn’t even know her married name. Anyway, it would be awkward to appear at her door without notice. The premonition of awkwardness, once it came to her, became more insistent with every step she took. She’d never understood why they’d left Tuskee in such a hurry, but now, knowing her mother as she did, she could fairly assume that Sally had been involved in some kind of foolishness. Her mother couldn’t help but make a mess of things. Her mother had dropped out of school at the age of twelve. She had never heard of Boris Pasternak or Fletcher Knebel, and she was amazed that Penelope could count to ten in French. She shamelessly wore hand-me-downs given to her by her boss’s wife. She hadn’t been able to keep straight where her daughter was supposed to be and when. They might have had a nice life for themselves in this sweet river city of Tuskee if her mother hadn’t been so foolish.
And here was Penelope retracing her mother’s path, walking in her muddy tracks, returning to the place of her humiliation. Suddenly the air seemed unbearably thick at the furrier’s where Harriet wanted to browse. Everywhere you looked there was a dead animal hanging from the rack. Harriet went ahead and picked out a fox stole, one with its silver tail jammed between its teeth. Please please please couldn’t she have it? Benny grudgingly obliged, and while the proprietor was drawing up the bill, Penelope snuck away to wait outside.
The first thing she noticed was a large spotted cat sitting on the windowsill of the brownstone next door. The cat’s spots were uneven, pumpkin-colored, and blended at the edges into darker fur; he rested on the excess of his body as if on a cushion. He blinked slowly, with obvious arrogance, when Penelope approached. Why, this cat reminded her of the cat she’d once had named Leo, a fat cat with orange spots and a superior manner, yes, just like this fat spotted cat.
As she reached out to pet the cat, she was jostled accidentally by a woman hurrying past, who offered a quick pardon me. But then she was jostled again — deliberately this time, with a jam of an elbow — by the small boy the woman tugged along. The child smiled wickedly at Penelope and then broke into a trot to keep up with his mother, who yanked at his hand. But it wasn’t the boy’s malice that surprised Penelope. It was the song he sang, a loud, almost tuneless song.
Grinning his grin and fading away,
Grinning and fading away, away, away.
Penelope stared at him in furious shock. She knew that song he was singing. It was her mother’s song. It belonged to her mother, only to her mother, not to anyone else in the world. How did the boy know it? He might as well have snatched her mother’s purse from out of Penelope’s hands. The little thief. She wanted to give him a good slug, but he was gone around the corner, and when she turned back to the brownstone the windowsill was empty, the cat had disappeared into thin air, and there were Mr. and Mrs. Patterson coming out of the store, holding hands, Harriet already wearing that stupid fox stole, Benny trying to fold his wallet around a wad of bills.
Seeing how smug he looked with his overstuffed wallet and a fancy new wife at his side, Penelope wondered if she’d made a mistake choosing her father over her mother. Secretly, she was angry at both her parents for making it necessary to choose between them. She wanted to go home, but not to either of the homes available to her.
She felt better after her father bought her a new pair of pink Keds sneakers, and she felt even better when he bought a phonograph for her to keep in her room. She was in a good mood up until the end of the day, when they were driving back to Litchfield and she asked how much Harriet’s fox stole had cost. Instead of answering her question, her father instructed her to call Harriet Mom. She refused, of course. She already had a mom. Think again, Benny’s Penny. As long as she was living in her father’s house, her father’s wife would be her proper mother, with all the authority that went along with the title. Harriet tried to be gently encouraging and promised to spoil her stepdaughter rotten. Benny promised that there’d be no spoiling if Penelope didn’t do what she was told. He searched the rearview mirror for her response. It was then that she experienced the faint awareness of his potential for meanness. But she would have to wait several years before she could come right out and accuse him of trapping her.
Penelope lived in Litchfield for three years, convincing most everyone that she was as average as the next girl and could fit easily into small-town life. She played first string on the girls’ field hockey team at her junior high school and second string on the basketball team, she sang in the school chorus but was never chosen for a solo, she earned a solid B in all her classes, she auditioned and got the part of one of the dancers in the high school’s production of Oklahoma! but missed the performances because she fell and sprained her ankle during dress rehearsal. She had friends and went out on dates with boys, she babysat for her half brothers, a pair of twins born in 1968, she talked on the phone for hours while her father and her stepmother shouted at each other in the kitchen, and on her sixteenth birthday she got her driver’s license. It was her stepmother who drove her to the county motor vehicles bureau, not her father, because by then, the spring of 1969, Penelop
e and Benny could hardly stand talking to each other, having learned through their three years in the same house that they disagreed about any subject that came up, from the bombing of Hanoi to the message of the book of Revelation. They got worked up before anything was even said, so useless and idiotic did each find the other’s opinions, with Benny increasingly convinced by his daughter’s leather skirts and low-cut blouses that she was just like her mother — that goddamn whore, as he didn’t hesitate to point out — and Penelope recognizing that with the birth of his two sons, her father didn’t want her around anymore, she was just another mouth to feed, no more the cute little girl who idolizes you, nope, she’s all grown up, a young woman now and you don’t know how to talk to a woman, not even to your wife, all you do is yell at her like you yell at me, you can’t stand it when anyone gives you shit, you and your fancy car and your Brylcreemed toupee, you hate it when I won’t do what you say, you hate it that you can’t get a decent job without a college education and now with money drying up you hate it that you have a daughter to support, you hate having to do anything for me, you hate watching me go out the door with my friends while you sit around doing nothing, you won’t even change a diaper, that’s woman’s work, isn’t it, you hate women, you hate your wife, you hate me and I hate you so there’s no reason for me to hang out here for another fucking minute, keep my stuff, you paid for it, it’s yours, so long, and I’ll see you in another life.
The first time he slapped her for her insolence was at the dinner table; in a fury, she knocked over her chair as she stomped from the room. The next time he slapped her, she warned him that she’d kill him if he did it again. So he did it again, right there standing in the kitchen, boxed her hard on the ear before she could stop him. Instead of killing him, she walked out of the house.
Penelope was sixteen, it was the summer of 1969, and she believed not only that she bore no resemblance to the sluttish girl her father made her out to be but that she could be much better than she already was. She agreed with her friends, who in the spirit of the times insisted that they had infinite freedom to choose their own fate and liked to sing together —
Mystic crystal revelation
And the mind’s true liberation…
She wouldn’t let the fact that she had no money of her own deter her. She walked along the shoulder of the road, turned when a car approached, and stuck out her thumb. She ended up hitching a ride with Mrs. Peabody, the cafeteria aide at Litchfield High School, who was driving up to visit her daughter in the city of R.
“That’s funny. You’re going to visit your daughter, and I’m going to visit my mom,” Penelope said. She’d slipped her feet out of her sandals and was resting them on the dashboard, absorbing the coolness from the vinyl.
“We can keep each other company,” Mrs. Peabody said. She lifted her sunglasses and gave Penelope the same look she offered when she ladled out soup.
Penelope lowered her feet back to the floor of the car. “Thank you so much,” she replied, trying to say it in a way that would let Mrs. Peabody know that she really meant it.
And so she came home, returned to the place where she was wanted, where she’d been sorely missed, where she belonged. During their brief visits together over the past three years, Sally had continued to think of her darling daughter as a hotheaded, irresponsible child. But now it was impossible for her to ignore the fundamental changes: Penelope had transformed from a willful little girl into a young lady eager to find a purpose in life. She was as pretty as ever, a natural beauty, though not as eye-catching as she could have been since she refused to wear makeup or the kind of clothes that would have accented her good looks. If anything, she seemed to prefer to mask herself in plainness. But there was something else that made her stand out. She seemed to notice more and to appreciate experience with a great depth of feeling, as though she’d just been released from a long incarceration.
Three long years. Was Sally still hot on that boss of hers? Penelope wanted to know. Well, if hot was the best word… all right, hot would do, sure, that described how Arnie made Sally feel, though really they were like an old married couple by now. He even came by for a visit once in a while and was planning to come for lunch on Sunday, if Penelope didn’t mind.
Of course she didn’t mind that her mother was in love! She’d come home three years older and more capable of sympathy, and with her return she offered her mother a satisfying sense of completion. Penelope was three years taller, smarter, curvier. Three years wiser. Three years closer to being a full-fledged adult. Three years stronger and more desirous of a certain kind of attention. Three years toughened by her father’s insults, and she was ready to take on the world.
She was still young enough to be uncertain about how to focus herself. She tried out different crushes on boys in the same way that she tried out new foods. She worked to make up for her slack habits in Litchfield and took to studying late into the night, long after her mother had gone to sleep. She started drinking coffee and reading the newspaper in the morning before school. She became increasingly absorbed by political causes and helped fellow students draft speeches against the war. Soon she was giving the speeches herself at rallies, standing on the platform in Crescent Park and listing the benefits of peace.
Why, look, that was Sally’s darling girl shouting into the megaphone, making sure that her appeals would be heard above the sounds of wind and traffic. She spoke with passion and eloquence. Why, that was Sally’s daughter stealing the show! So what if the show didn’t involve singing and dancing? It was a start, wasn’t it? You didn’t have to be a fortune-teller to predict that this hometown girl would enjoy a life of renown. Sally, front and center, led the crowd in the applause.
Penelope Bliss. She was Sally’s daughter, yes, she belonged to Sally. She’d been away, but she was back again, and wow, just look at her. What a beauty, what a sweetheart, the boys would go mad for her, she’d have her pick of the crop. First, though, she wanted to go to college. What a good girl, a bookish, determined girl. Sure, she should go to college. She should learn something useful as a fallback, Sally advised. Even though she wouldn’t need a fallback. When it came to the qualities that would earn her the kind of prominence Sally dreamed of for her, Penelope had a surfeit. She was lovely, poised, and articulate, and she had made up her mind to flourish. And though she hadn’t inherited the special quality of voice that distinguished her mother’s singing, her confidence and determination more than compensated for her lack of musical skills. She was born to be a star.
Except she didn’t want to be a star. It was no secret that Penelope didn’t share her mother’s aspirations for her. After all the years of sullen moods and sudden rages, she’d become a girl empowered by her sense of her own moral conviction. She’d grown independent under her father’s jurisdiction. It followed that she didn’t need him anymore. Soon she wouldn’t need her mother. She already had all those boys to flirt with, a Will, then a Jessie, and then an Abe, all of them with stringy hair down to their shoulders. Sally would have liked to recommend a good shampoo, but she kept her mouth shut. The joys she’d assembled in her life were delicate, and she had learned the hard way that a harsh word could be enough to disrupt everything.
How pleased she was that her daughter had decided to come home. While Penelope figured out how to put her God-given talents to good use, it was Sally’s task to make sure that Penelope understood how deeply she was loved.
Time passed too quickly, and before Sally could catch hold and yank it back, it was January 1974. How did that happen? Penelope had been awarded a scholarship to attend a college downstate, Arnie and Sally were still having their affair, Arnie’s wife, the poor woman, was stone-blind, and Mr. Botelia, Sally’s landlord, became ill with pneumonia and died at the end of the month. When his wife sold the building to a real estate company, Sally was forced to move.
She bought a ranch house a few blocks away on a side street — a small house, just two bedrooms, no garage, and it needed a ne
w roof. Still, it was snug, with an efficient furnace. Sally appreciated her good fortune and never complained. She liked the way the morning sun came into the bedroom and woke her up. She liked the way the cardinals hopped from one branch of the forsythia to another, knocking off the wet clumps of snow from a late winter storm. She liked getting dressed and looked forward to seeing Arnie at the office. She liked the soaking rains of spring and the thunder in the summer.
La-di-da… walk with me… It’s simple to wish… I got you good. She would never stop taking pleasure in the action of singing, even if there was nobody listening. Turn around, Lou, turn —
Hey, Sally, don’t you hear the doorbell? Someone has come calling. Yes, you have a visitor waiting on the stoop, a pale woman standing at a slant, wearing a boxy plaid dress with a green shawl draped over her shoulders, her brown hair streaked with silver and pulled back in a tight bun. Her lips were thin, unpainted, and they stretched like elastic as she blurted, “Sally Werner!”
Sally didn’t mean to imply with her stunned silence that she didn’t recognize the woman standing there. She didn’t mean she wasn’t glad to see her. She wanted to say… she didn’t know what she wanted to say and couldn’t utter a word, she was so perplexed, as though somehow she were suddenly cognizant of an omen’s import even while she was still unaware of its message.
It was June 3, 1974, twenty-seven years to the day since Sally had run away from her childhood home, and Trudy was standing on the doorstep asking her sister, “Don’t you know who I am?”
November 6, 2007
It turned sharply colder last night, and when I went back to the gorge this morning there were wet flurries blowing through the channel. Steam from the brewery smokestacks hovered below the ceiling of gray clouds. The wind came in chilly gusts, and I had to cover my ears with my hands to warm them so at first I didn’t hear the tapping, not until it was close behind me. I turned to see an old man approaching, a little bald man dragging his plastic cane to the side, bouncing the tip against the metal spokes of the rail. He nodded in greeting as he passed me and continued along the bridge. His tight-lipped smile gave me the impression that he was holding back a guffaw, as though he were absorbed by some hilariously impolite thought.
