“You doing okay?” Ms. Wallace asks, finally abandoning her quiet concern.
“Peaches and gravy,” I say. Ms. Wallace shoots me a concerned look, but Tally actually laughs.
“She’s okay,” she says. Then under her breath, “Peaches and gravy. Awesome.”
If we were in Manhattan, Mom would have taken me to some fancy doctor wearing a white lab coat and an expensive watch. But this isn’t Manhattan. This is Hog’s Hollow. Dr. Sanford, aka Dr. Sandy, meets us wearing old jeans and a silver hoop in his ear. He takes one look at me and orders an MRI, so it’s back in the truck and on the road to Lancaster. Tally calls my mom to give her the update. As soon as Gram and my mom arrive and fill out the paperwork, a nurse makes me lie down in a giant tube and tells me to hold still—“Don’t even breathe.”
When we’re finished, the nurse sends me to the waiting room while she goes over the results with Dr. Sandy. My mom slides over on the couch, making room for me. Tally starts telling everyone what happened, embellishing only slightly when she describes George. “It was like Attack of the Killer Tomatoes!, but with a rooster, not a tomato.” She has everyone laughing as she acts out the whole scene, playing herself, then me, then George. I smile in spite of the fact that I can feel my heartbeat in my face. Dr. Sandy comes in just as Tally is falling to the floor in imitation of me.
“The good news is that everything seems to be intact,” he says. He pulls a sheet of paper from the folder he’s carrying and hands it to my mom. “The not-as-good news is that I’m fairly certain Penny has a mild concussion.”
“That’s not so bad, right?” Tally asks, standing up. Dr. Sandy shakes his head. “Well, that’s a relief,” Tally says. Mom and Gram stand up to talk with Dr. Sandy. I try to listen in, but Tally slides over next to me. “Sorry about today,” she says.
“It’s not your fault,” I say. “Just promise me that the next job won’t involve chickens.”
“Done,” she says.
My mom comes over. “Come on, Penny. Let’s get you home,” she says. “Dr. Sandy says the best thing for you is rest.”
Tally takes my arm as we walk to the car. I’m glad she does because I’m even dizzier than I was earlier. “I’ll call Blake,” Tally says. “Tell him we’re not going to the movies.” We stop beside Gram’s car.
“No, Tally, you should go,” I say. She frowns. “All I want to do is go home and lie down.”
I slide into the backseat. “What about Saturn?” she asks.
My heart sinks when I realize I won’t be seeing Marcus tonight. “I’ll call Marcus when I get home,” I say. That’s not a phone call I want to make in front of a bunch of random people, even if some of those random people are my family.
“I’ll call you tomorrow,” Tally says. She shuts the door and steps back so Gram can pull the car out. She waves and heads toward where Blake’s mom is standing and talking to Dr. Sandy. I lean my head back and close my eyes. Suddenly I’m really, really tired.
I must have fallen asleep on the way home because the next thing I know we’re pulling into Gram’s driveway.
“Look who’s here,” my mom says. I look up, feeling groggy, but as soon as I see who’s sitting on our porch steps, I’m wide-awake. It’s Marcus. I touch the side of my face. A bandage only partially covers my swollen eye. I glance down at my clothes. My Hello Kitty shirt has some suspicious brown stains and my jeans are nasty. I sigh. Whether it’s debris from the bakery trash can or a coating of beach sand, I seem to have a habit of running into Marcus when I’m a mess. I climb out of the car, steadying myself on the door as I stand. Dr. Sandy warned me that I might be dizzy for a couple of days.
Mom takes my arm and walks with me toward where Marcus is standing. “Hi, Marcus,” my mom says. “Guess you heard—” She doesn’t finish her sentence, making me wonder exactly what he heard. Penny, the klutz, finds yet another way to embarrass herself.
“Blake called. He said Penny had an accident.” He looks over at me. “You okay?” he asks. He seems genuinely concerned and not at all grossed out that I look like I’ve been dipped in some sort of sludge.
“I’m okay,” I say. I look past him, searching for Sam, his golden retriever, but he’s alone.
Marcus smiles when he realizes who I’m looking for. “I left him at home. I didn’t think you’d want him jumping on you.”
Mom hands me off to Marcus, actually transferring my hand from her arm to his. “Just a couple of minutes,” she says. “Dr. Sandy said you need to rest.” I nod, slightly amazed at how awesome my mom is being. Gram calls hello before disappearing into the house. Mom follows close behind, only pausing once to give me a concerned look. The door claps shut after them. It’s quiet for a moment. I can hear the waves pull at the stones on the beach and the harbor bell in the distance. Then I hear a mournful cry from down the beach. Sam is obviously not that happy with his confinement.
“Poor Sam,” I say.
Marcus shakes his head. “He’s so dramatic. Last night we were out of his favorite chews, so I had to give him a dog treat instead. He acted like an orphan in a Dickens story.”
I laugh, which I realize instantly is the wrong thing to do. Everything gets blurry and my knees get wobbly.
“Penny?” Marcus grabs my other arm to steady me.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I just …” He leads me up to the porch and lowers me onto the wooden bench.
“I’ll go get your mom,” he says, stepping toward the door.
“No,” I say. “I just need to sit.” I look down and start giggling. “I guess I am sitting.” Marcus moves toward the door again. “Really,” I say. “I’m okay.” He looks at me uncertainly but comes and sits beside me. I’m very conscious of how good he smells and how horrible I smell. “I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m sort of gross.”
Marcus takes my hand in his, making whatever I started to say disappear. “Last summer I worked at the boatyard. Just here and there when things got too quiet at home.” I look at him, but he’s looking at the water. I know he means after his mom died in a kayak accident out on the ocean. And how after her death, his dad pretty much just checked out. “I did what no one else wanted to do. Scraped barnacles. Fixed traps. Then one day Captain Steve says his sternman is sick. He tells me the job’s mine if I think I can handle it.” Marcus glances over at me. “You okay?” he asks. I must look as awful as I feel. I smile, careful of my face, which has, thankfully, gone numb. No matter how terrible I feel, I don’t want to lose this moment. Marcus smiles back and squeezes my hand. And I feel a flutter in my stomach that has nothing to do with my concussion.
“I told Captain Steve that I could do it even though I had no idea what a sternman did. I found out pretty fast. I spent all morning dropping traps, hauling traps, and chumming traps while Captain Steve yelled at me.” Marcus shakes his head.
“Chumming?” I ask. “Like fish parts?”
“More like rancid fish stew,” he says. I make a face, making him laugh. “Finally we head back in and I’m standing on the dock waiting for him to get his wallet to pay me. And I hear boots on the deck behind me. Next thing I know, Captain Steve and his friends are dumping the remains of the chum barrel over me.” Marcus makes a face. “Some sort of initiation.” He looks over at me. The look on my face makes him laugh again. “So listen,” Marcus says, leaning toward me. “I spent a week and a half last July smelling like rotten fish soup. You’re not even close to breaking my record.” He reaches up and lightly touches my cheek.
“I’m sorry I can’t help with Saturn,” I say softly.
“Me, too,” Marcus says. He smiles and I swear if I weren’t already dizzy from knocking my head on the ground, my head would be swimming. And suddenly a tiny part of me wonders if he’s going to kiss me, but then there’s a loud thump on the steps leading up from the beach. Followed by a flurry of movement out of the corner of my eye. Marcus turns just in time to stop Sam from launching himself at me. “How did you—” Marcus asks Sam. But Sam isn’t li
stening. He’s trying with everything he has to get to me.
“Hi, Sam,” I say, reaching out to pet him. Sam stops straining immediately and focuses on trying to maneuver his ears under my fingers so I’ll scratch them. I’m bummed at the interruption, but also sort of relieved. As much as I think I would want Marcus to kiss me, part of me isn’t sure I’m ready. Because there’s this tiny part of me that likes looking forward to it, kind of like when Gram bakes cookies and the smell makes me stand over the oven willing the timer to go faster. So as happy as I am when I bite into that first cookie, I sort of miss the looking forward to it. (Of course I do know that there’s a big difference between a cookie and a kiss.)
Mom steps out onto the porch, making me even more grateful to Sam. Because even though I’m sorry he interrupted us, I’d have been mortified had it been my mom. “I hate to disturb you …” she says. Marcus’s cheeks turn pink, making me sure he’s thinking the same thing.
Marcus stands up, still holding on to Sam’s collar. He reaches his free hand down to help me stand back up. I wobble slightly, making my mom hurry over to take my arm. “Let’s get you inside,” she says. Sam whines and pulls toward me.
“Bye, Sam,” I say, reaching down to ruffle his ears one more time. I look up at Marcus, not wanting to say goodbye to him. “See you—” I pause, unsure of whether I’ll see him before Monday at school or not.
“Let me know if—” Marcus begins, but a seagull chooses that exact moment to screech overhead, cutting him off. I start to ask him to repeat what he said, but suddenly I am so tired I can’t even think straight to string just a few words together. It’s all I can do to wave before Mom propels me inside and the door shuts behind us.
By Monday afternoon, I’m starting to feel like a princess locked up in a high tower. Mom said no to school, so for two days, my life has pretty much been bed, couch, bed. The cool mom disappeared right after Marcus left, replaced by military nurse mom who seems determined to keep me horizontal and silent. Every time I ask if I can do anything other than sleep and stare at the ceiling, it’s the same response: “Penny, you need to rest.” All this resting is exhausting. I was so desperate that I actually begged her to let me go to school. Of course the answer was no. She let me talk to Tally, my dad, and Marcus on the phone for about two minutes, but other than that, it’s been just me and Gram and the cats. Gram is slightly more sympathetic to my plight, actually letting Tally come over after school on Monday while Mom is still at the bakery.
Tally comes in bearing a box of Junior Mints. Well, half a box. “Sorry,” she said. “I got hungry.” She’s wearing bright pink aviator glasses and a matching pink hat. She pulls off her hat, revealing that she’s striped her hair pink, too. “What do you think?” she asks. “Too bright?”
“I like it,” I say.
“We could do yours,” she says.
“I like it on you,” I amend. “So, how was the movie Saturday?” I’ve only been couch-ridden for two days, but I feel like I’ve missed so much.
Tally makes a face. “Blake thought it was awesome. I thought it was gruesome. I totally don’t get everyone’s obsession with zombies. They’re undead and gross and dumb. Got it.” She flops down in the chair near the fireplace.
“How was school today?”
Tally shrugs. “Boring without you there.” That makes me smile. “Oh man!” Tally says, sitting forward. “I have to tell you something.”
“You kissed Blake,” I guess.
Tally makes a face. “Ew. No.” Then she blushes. “Okay, not ew. Just no. We’re barely at the hand-holding stage.” Then she frowns at me. “That was random.”
“Sorry,” I say. “My head—” I gesture vaguely toward my eye, hoping Tally will just assume that I’m still addled from my accident. The truth is, with nothing to do, I’ve been thinking about kissing/not kissing a lot. Tally isn’t buying the whole I hit my head and therefore cannot be responsible for whatever comes out of my mouth excuse, but her news is obviously more important because she lets it slide.
Tally takes a deep breath. “Charity is moving to Paris.”
“What?” I ask. I mean, I heard her. But it’s like someone just told me I won the lottery or I just got picked to fly to the moon. “Really?”
“Okay,” Tally says. “Charity might be moving to Paris.”
She quickly outlines a conversation she overheard while helping her aunt install her new mobiles in the window at Parlin’s Florist. “Poppy and Rhonda were talking about where to hang the dragon mobile when Mrs. Wharton bursts into the shop carrying a vase of flowers.” I make a face. Charity’s mom is not one of my favorite people. “She starts ranting about how she ordered French peonies and that what she got were clearly English.” Tally stands up and starts acting out the scene. “So Rhonda calmly explains that she was lucky to find peonies of any kind at this time of year. But Mrs. Wharton isn’t having it.” Tally makes a face like she’s been sucking on a lemon. “She tells Rhonda that if she couldn’t get French peonies, she should have gotten irises. Because irises are widely recognized as the official flower of France.”
“And everyone knows that,” I say with as much sarcasm as I can muster.
“I know! Rhonda was totally calm. I would have chucked the flowers at Mrs. Wharton and told her to take her business elsewhere.”
“What does this have to do with Charity moving?” I ask.
“I’m getting there,” Tally says. “So in the middle of her rant, Charity calls. Mrs. Wharton puts her on speakerphone. Charity starts yapping about how there’s some big storm in Paris and all of the flights have been grounded. And how she’s done all this packing for nothing and now everything’s ruined.” Tally says it all in one breath, which I’m pretty sure is exactly how Charity said it. “So, Mrs. Wharton says, ‘Don’t worry. There’s another flight in the morning.’ ” Tally says this last bit slowly for emphasis.
“Tally, I’m not sure—”
“There’s more,” Tally says. “So, Charity wasn’t at school today. Charlotte said it was because she was at the airport!” Tally pauses. The fact that Charlotte is her source does lend some credibility to the claim. Until about three weeks ago, Charlotte was one of Charity’s minions. But whether it was because she didn’t like how Charity was bullying me or just got sick of letting Charity rule over her, she left the inner circle. Now she seems to want to be friends with Tally and me. Or at least she doesn’t want to be enemies. It’s hard to tell.
“So what do you think?” Tally asks.
“It seems too good to be true,” I say.
Tally sighs and drops dramatically onto the other end of the couch. “I know,” she says. “But wouldn’t it be awesome?” I nod. A school without Charity always making fun of me, pranking me, and basically constantly trying to make my life miserable? Awesome doesn’t begin to cover it.
“What does Poppy think?” I ask, thinking she might have a less biased opinion of what they heard at Parlin’s.
Tally shrugs. “She told me not to count my eggs before they hatch.”
“Your chickens?” I ask.
“Whatever,” Tally says. I actually think Poppy’s advice is good. Ever since Tally told me about her dad ditching her in a hotel room for three days while he was on tour and how Poppy dropped everything to go and get her, I’ve had even more respect for her. And that’s on top of the fact that she’s an amazing artist and one of the coolest people I’ve ever met.
Oscar, my orange cat, comes in and meows at Tally’s feet. She picks him up and puts him on her lap. I roll my eyes at my fat cat. “He can jump,” I say. “He’s just lazy.” I can hear him purring from where I’m lying on the other end of the couch.
“You’re not lazy,” Tally says, rubbing Oscar’s ears. “You’re just relaxed.”
“Pfft,” I say. “If he gets any more relaxed, he’s going to be unconscious.”
“Okay, girls,” Gram says, walking in from the kitchen. She has Cupcake, her new kitten, in her arms. She’s com
pletely in love with him. He’s super cute, but I like my cats big and sturdy like Oscar. “If Miss Penny is going to go to school tomorrow—”
“Really?” I ask. I’ve been begging my mom to let me go back. She kept saying, We’ll see. That’s usually just her nonconfrontational way of saying no.
“Dr. Sandy said you could go as long as you’re up for it. And your mom said yes as long as you promise to call if you need to come home.”
I start nodding a little too vigorously and have to hide the pain that shoots across my cheek.
Tally grins and jumps up, dumping Oscar onto the floor. “Yay!” I’m smiling both because I am apparently being released from confinement and because Tally is so enthusiastic.
Gram shakes her head. “Never thought I’d see two teenagers so happy about school.” She pretends to roll her eyes at us, but I know she’s amused. She shoos Tally toward the door. Tally offers me a queenly wave before heading home. I give her a royal wave back from the couch. Just as Gram pushes the door shut behind her, the phone rings.
“I’ll get it,” I say, pushing myself up to sitting.
Gram shoots me a hard look. “Stay put.” She walks into the kitchen and retrieves the phone from the counter. “Hello?” I ignore Oscar’s meowing. He gives up after a few moments and leaps onto the couch. He winds his way up to my stomach and starts kneading me, trying to find a place to lie down. I close my eyes, waiting for him to get comfortable.
“Penny,” Gram says. I open my eyes and see her walking toward me. “It’s for you.” My heart starts beating faster. Maybe it’s Marcus, checking on me.
I take the phone from Gram, who doesn’t let on who it is. “Hello?”
“Hey, Bean.”
“Oh, hi, Dad.” I’m a tiny bit disappointed.
“How are you feeling?” he asks.
“I’m better,” I say. And it’s true. The last time he called, I was so woozy, I could barely talk without slurring. “I get to go back to school tomorrow,” I say.
Frosted Kisses Page 2