A Penny's Worth

by Nancy DeRosa

  “Aunt Bess,” she began, “I can’t believe you’re going back to Florida in two days. What am I going to do without you?”

  Chuckling, she replied, “Don’t worry, there’s always the phone. I’ll always have your back and do you want to know why?”

  “Why?”

  “Because,” Aunt Bess stated simply, “I love you.”

  Feeling calmer, she stood with Winston in front of her apartment building. The damp air was chilling her to the bone, and the lamplight cast weird reflections in the puddles. She heard footsteps. Of all people, Sarah Bentley was walking down the street: she hadn’t seen Sarah out at this time of night for years. She felt the anger rush toward her like a dark spirit.

  Trying to keep her voice even, she called out, “Hey Sarah, is that you?” She didn’t turn around, just carried on walking. “Sarah!” Penny screamed out.

  Sarah halted.

  Legs shaking, Penny crossed the street. “I went on my date tonight with James. Remember?” Sarah still hadn’t turned around. “Why couldn’t you come, again?” Sarah just stood there, silent and unmoving. “Do you even know him that well?”

  Whirling around, Sarah answered sharply, “Of course I do. My boyfriend works in the same office as James. I told you that.”

  “Then how could you have matched me up with him? He’s crazy!”

  “Well, it appears to me that you like a little excitement. I mean after all, you found me so boring. I thought his personality would be a good match for yours. Plus, I know you both have something in common. He loathes reality TV just as much as you.”

  A dozen gobsmacked thoughts and emotions flew at Penny in less than a second. She shouted back, her voice echoing down the empty street, “You knew how awful he was so you set me up with him on purpose. Why did you do that?”

  “So that’s the thanks I get? Oh, how appreciative you are,” she said sarcastically.

  Trouble was brewing in Penny’s head; a barrage of vicious retorts lined up ready to be hurled in Sarah Bentley’s direction. But, as if the dark spirit had run out of “oomph” and departed, a calm thought infused her mind. She said, very calmly, “You’re not worth having this conversation with.” She tugged gently on Bob’s leash and walked in the opposite direction.

  “Oh, and your worth so much?” Sarah screamed, not taking kindly to being slighted so offhandedly. Her fists clenched at her sides, she resembled a posturing barbarian from Braveheart.

  A smile spread across Penny’s face. Sarah would probably stand in the same spot all her life, whereas Penny was walking the other way already. She said over her shoulder, ‘Yes, as a matter of fact I am.”

  “You think you’re better than me but you’re not,” Sarah frothed. She tried again to rile her. “Since I bored you so much, I thought James would be more your speed.”

  Penny chuckled. She could walk away, but she stopped for a moment and turned back to face the unpleasant Sarah. There was something she had to know. “You told me that I helped you change the rut you were in. You actually thanked me for making you look at your life in a new way. I had no idea you hated me so much. You don’t even know me that well. How could you have so much venom toward me?”

  “Why? I’ll tell you why. You think you’re so great, and you’re only a nurse for God’s sake.”

  Sarah’s light blue coat the only contrast in the blackness of the night. Penny was astonished that this woman had put so much time into the manipulation and planning of this date just to harm her. How pathetic, she thought.

  “Bye Sarah,” she said quietly. “I don’t have any more time to spend with you. I have a great day to look forward to when I wake up, and I don’t want to miss it.”

  “Fuck you!”

  From an adjacent townhouse, someone banged on their window in annoyance. Sarah was still standing in a ridiculous battle stance, arms folded across her chest. Penny walked away. She had neither the energy to deal with her, nor the desire. She was tired of battles.

  Chapter 31

  Penny had been signed up for a three-day orientation lecture on the topic of new procedures, along with medical and legal implications in the field of medicine.

  Day one. Walking into the lecture room, she saw the new nurse Michelle Nicola sitting up in front. Penny put a hand on her shoulder and said, “Hi, my name is Penny. Welcome to Wayside.” She could not believe how outgoing she’d become. Just months ago she would never have been the one to approach someone new. But when she wasn’t around family gatherings, she was so much more at ease.

  Turning around, the new nurse looked up with a huge smile on her face. “Hi, I’m Michelle.”

  Michelle was beautiful. She had blond shoulder-length hair, light blue eyes, and a sexy pout. Her skin was flawless and her high cheekbones gave her the Milan catwalk look. Dr Bruck, standing next to the podium, was staring at Michelle too. Penny felt a stab of envy.

  Bruck hadn’t approached Penny about getting together for quite some time. When he looked away, she couldn’t help stealing a glance in his direction. Stop it, she told herself sternly. The knowledge of Dr Bruck’s ‘love them and leave them’ attitude had definitely put a damper on her thoughts toward him.

  She almost jumped as her phone vibrated in her pocket, pulsating against her knee. Pulling the phone out of her pocket book, she drew in a deep breath when she saw her parent’s number. The lecture wasn’t even close to starting; she decided to play it safe and answer it. God forbid something is wrong, she thought, I’ll never forgive myself.

  She whispered a timid “Hello” into the mouthpiece.

  Dolores’ voice boomed into her ear. “Penny is that you?”

  Her mother’s angry voice froze her into her seat. Her face must have turned white because Michelle glanced at her curiously.

  “Are you there?” Dolores pressed.

  She couldn’t speak for a moment. Finally, she managed to answer, “I’m here.” She walked quickly to the back of the room and out into the hallway.

  Dolores snapped, ‘It’s about time that I’ve gotten a hold of you. I’ve been calling you at home but you never answer. I figured there was no sense leaving a message, you probably wouldn’t call me back.”

  She didn’t protest; her mother was right.

  “This is ridiculous already, Penny. You’re the one that’s wrong, so why are you trying to turn the tables to finagle your way out of it? You owe your family an apology and then we can all get past this.”

  Penny responded tersely, “Number one, I did nothing wrong.”

  “Are you kidding me? You come late to an important family function and then you have the audacity to not show up to the party following the church. Do you have any idea how embarrassed I was? Do you have any idea what a position you put me in? Everyone was asking where you were and I had to outright lie and say you were sick. Not to mention you disappointed your nephews something awful.”

  Feeling dizzy, she had to lean up against the wall. She hadn’t experienced one of her mother’s onslaughts for quite a while and it hit her hard. She wondered how she had put up with her all these years.

  Nurse Reins was rapidly approaching and she turned her back. She didn’t want her to hear this.

  Penny calmly replied, “I can’t do this right now.” She then said so softly she didn’t know if her mother could hear her, “To be honest Mom, I don’t know if I can ever do this again.”

  It was her mother’s turn to laugh, “What are you saying Penny? Are you threatening me? Do you intend on cutting your family out of your life? We’ve always been there for you. If it wasn’t for us, you would have been alone all these years. We have always given you a place to come to. Remember kiddo, you’ll be the one to suffer. I have friends and family around me.” Her gloating voice floated glibly out of the phone.

  Penny felt the inner confidence she had worked on shrivel and vaporize into nothing. A despairing darkness seeped right through her; she felt like collapsing on the hospital floor, head in hands, and just giving u
p. Her mother was right, she would have been alone all these years, but she was trying her best to etch out a life that was full and rich and gloriously untidy just like everyone else’s.

  She said through gritted teeth, “Look Mom, I have a lecture to attend, we’ll have to talk later. Your daughter, the charity case that does not have anyone except for you, is planning on coming for dinner on Thanksgiving. We can talk about all this then.”

  “Don’t do me any favors.”

  “I won’t come if you don’t want me to.”

  Nurse Reins drew level with her. She pointed to her watch and cocked her head toward the conference room. Penny mouthed she was coming and tried to appear as if an emergency was afoot. She was so nervous and dizzy, she would have liked nothing more than to be admitted to a hospital bed herself, preferably attached to a morphine drip. Between Dolores’ tirade and Nurse Reins’ stern glance, it was enough to send her over the edge.

  Sighing, Dolores continued, “Are you having some sort of mid life crisis, is that it? You leave a perfectly good job for no good reason. You’re downright mean to your family. What the hell is going on with you?”

  To her enormous relief, Nurse Reins continued down the corridor. She said quickly, “We’ll finish this later.” She stabbed the Off button on her cell and walked back into the lecture room, her head buzzing.

  Her seat next to Michelle had been nabbed by another nurse. Frazzled, Penny scurried over to a chair right at the back. The sheen of sweat on her forehead made her blink, and her hair felt wet to the touch. I must look a fright, she thought. Taking a compact out of her little duffel bag, she almost gasped at her reflection. I look like I’m out trick-or-treating, she thought as she hastily applied powder to her face. Her lips and throat felt dry as parchment. She popped a throat lozenge and slicked on a quick coat of lipgloss.

  “Hello.”

  Startled, she turned around to find Dr Bruck sitting next to her. She felt grateful she’d slapped on the powder and lipstick just in time. “I thought you were the one lecturing,” she said in surprise. “I was told this talk was only for the new staff.”

  Dr Bruck smiled, and she felt a rush of heat rise up to the top of her head. He’s so sexy, she thought with a sigh, I should just sleep with him already. She felt her face flush again and she wished she had applied extra powder.

  “Doctors must keep up-to-date just as much as you nurses.” He held out a pack of gum. “Want some?”

  She thought, Does my breath smell? She grabbed a piece and popped it in her mouth. She whispered a thank-you as she chewed the mint flavored gum.

  She couldn’t concentrate on the lecture. All these distractions had reduced the speaker to a droning voice at the podium. She tried her best to appear attentive: she didn’t want Dr Bruck to see how agitated she was.

  She began to fidget. Her pocketbook slid off her lap and fell to the floor with a loud clang, spilling the contents around her feet. She glanced at Dr Bruck who appeared uninterested in the mishap. Three beaten-up tampons had come to rest by her left foot.

  Bending down to pick up her belongings, she was suddenly irritated that the doctor had still never addressed her by name. Nor did he offer to help her pick anything up off the floor. He had simply leaned back in his chair and watched as she stuffed the items back into her bag.

  Finally, the lecture was over and Penny came out of it without having learned a thing.

  She walked down the corridor in a lumpen daze, and trudged dejectedly through the rest of the day as best she could. She looked in on Mr Bishop, helped Miss Havins into the shower and set up an IV for a new patient who had just arrived in room 104: an elderly woman with advanced lung cancer. As Penny looked at her chart, her heavy heart felt more burdensome than ever. Mrs Jennings struggled with every breath she took.

  Leaning down, she placed a hand on Mrs Jennings and asked, “Is there anything you’d like? Maybe a cup of hot tea?”

  Her new patient looked up and Penny was struck by how big her luminous, brown eyes were. She sensed that those eyes mirrored a beautiful soul. She decided immediately that she liked this woman; she felt drawn to her.

  “A cup of tea would be nice,” Mrs Jennings replied gently.

  “You got it. How are you feeling? Would you like an oxygen tank brought in?”

  She waved her hand dismissively. “Oh, no, that won’t be necessary. It’s really not as bad as it seems. I’m managing to draw the air into these old lungs of mine.” She laughed weakly. “Do you like being a nurse?”

  She answered without hesitation, “I love it.”

  “You like helping people,” Mrs Jennings said emphatically.

  She smiled as she finished up her work, and shrugged. “This type of work comes naturally to me, and it feels right.” She stepped away from the IV and asked, “What do you like to do?”

  “Rest and read is about it these days. I wrote a few novels to leave behind so I try to rest on my laurels.”

  She had Penny’s interest. “What books have you written?”

  “Have you ever heard of Days Gone By?”

  She gasped. “You’re the Phyllis Jennings? I love that book. I read it three times when I was in high school. Wasn’t it made into a movie?”

  Laughing weakly she answered, “Yes it was, but from what I recall it didn’t do very well at the box office. They didn’t quite capture the book’s essence, and that just drove me crazy.”

  Penny was starstruck. She had read several of her books and loved them. Three of her novels had become NY Times bestsellers.

  Shaking her head in amazement, Penny enthused, “I can’t believe I’m having the honor of meeting you. When did you first start writing?”

  Mrs Jennings’ breathing didn’t appear quite as labored so she managed to sit up in bed. Leaning over, she poured herself a glass of water. “I was a late bloomer really. I didn’t start writing into well into my thirties. Then for some reason I felt compelled to write down the stories that were running through my head. And that was that! It was pretty much all I could do.” Her laugh was heartier now. “I never had the attention span for office work. I was fired more times then I’d like to admit.” She sipped her water and settled back down on the bed. “My thirties were a terrible time in my life. I had no skills to speak of, barely any money left, and not a speck of confidence, but I just felt compelled to keep writing. It became so painful because at the end of each dismal day, I would find a mailbox full of rejection letters.” She shuddered at the memory. “My love life was non-existent and I had lost my mother at thirty-five.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Mrs Jennings’ eyes filled with tears. “I still miss her terribly if you can believe that. So here I was in the depths of despair and I was so close to chucking all my manuscripts out the window. I was so disillusioned. For all my hard work, all this writing business was giving back was disappointment and grief.”

  “But you didn’t quit.” She felt a light glow spark in her heart.

  “I was this close,” she held her right thumb and index finger an inch apart, “to throwing in the towel. I felt like, ‘What am I doing? I can’t make this happen, it’s just too damn hard.’ Can you understand?”

  “More than you know.”

  Mrs Jennings’ beautiful brown eyes were gleaming. “So at my darkest hour, when I couldn’t muster up the discipline to go on, I went to my mailbox on a cold and blustery winter day, and what do you know? There was an acceptance letter from a small publishing house that I had sent my work to many months before. I had completely forgotten about it.”

  “Get out,” she exclaimed in astonishment.

  “I’m telling you, that’s how it happened. That was the beginning of everything. From that wonderful moment on, my novels just took off and I never looked back.”

  She felt chills wind up her spine. “Oh, my God, how did you feel?”

  Mrs Jennings’ eyes filled up with tears once again. “All I remember was standing in that dismal hallway with that lett
er in my hand. The happiness I felt was indescribable… I can’t remember getting back to my apartment. I do remember calling my father and screaming, ‘I did it!’ at least a hundred times.” She chuckled at the memory.

  Penny laughed, feeling giddy herself. “That’s such a fantastic story. I can’t tell you how honored and happy I am to have met you. You give hope to all of us common people.”

  Mrs Jennings looked at her searchingly. “Somehow, common is not the word I would think of to describe you.”

  She felt warmed by the compliment. “Thank-you. You have made me believe that good does come your way once in a while.”

  “I feel good just thinking of that time in my life. It was soon after that I met my new husband. I may not be well now but I had received what I wanted in my life. You just have to believe that you will and don’t give up. More importantly, believe in you and what you are trying to achieve, the rest will come in its own time.”

  Tears stung the back of Penny’s eyes, and she tried with all her might to quell them. “Somehow, coming from you, I believe it’s possible.”

  She ran into Alyssa in the hallway corridor. Alyssa informed Penny that a couple of nurses and techs were going out for dinner Saturday night, and can she join them. She accepted with a grin and a heartfelt thanks.

  “Penny, you have the nicest manners of anybody,” she laughed, giving her a quick hug.

  “Is that a good thing?” she asked jokingly.

  Alyssa assured her that it was. “You’re one classy dame.”

  As Penny finished up her rounds, she realized that hope still resided in her heart after all. No matter how hard things got, she had to keep going, one foot in front of the other until she found herself where she wanted to be.

  Chapter 32

  When the local radio station put on the occasional Beach Boys song, she couldn’t help but sing along. Driving to work, she bopped in time and tapped the steering wheel in an effervescent mood. She was tempted to drive around the block again to catch the next upbeat song, but instead pulled smoothly into her parking space. The moment she stepped out, her cell phone rang.