Penny Dreadful (22 page)

Luella laughed at that. Penny smiled.

“So, if you weren’t walking to school and collecting wood and eating raw potatoes, what
were
you doing when you were a kid?” asked Penny.

“Ha!” said Luella. “Down-Betty was busy with her trapeze and her high wire. She was covered in sequins. She was dancing and hooting and hollering. Up all night. Down-Betty ran away with—”

“The circus?” breathed Penny in awe. She regarded the old lady in the floppy hat with new respect.

“Almost, hon,” laughed Down-Betty. “A crazy kind of circus called vaudeville.” Then she patted the ground beside her and tossed each of them a trowel. “If you really want to hear about it, you girls should make yourselves useful.”

Penny was conflicted. She didn’t exactly feel like sitting and being distracted. She had things to figure out. A plan to hatch. Also, there were the raspberries to pick. But she wanted to hear this story, and besides, Luella was already sitting down.

So Penny sat down and picked up the little shovel as Betty said, “Let’s see—where to begin? I went onstage for the first time at the age of eight. Trained as a juggler, then a singer. Finally I went into the air. Those were good days. Looking down on the world. Music tinkling all in my ears. Lights in my hair. And my stars, was I rolling in dough!”

Penny’s ears perked up. “You
were
?”

“Seemed so at the time, anyways,” said Down-Betty. “Though somehow it trickled away over the years. I’m certainly no millionaire now.” She chuckled as she pulled more mint. “Not that it matters.”

“But you were only
eight?
” asked Penny.

“Sure!” said Down-Betty. “When it all began, anyway. Eight is the perfect age for the stage. Nice flexible limbs.
You heal fast when you hurt yourself. You’re interested in everything. Honestly, if you can’t do a thing at eight, you’ll have a hard time doing it later, what with all the bills and headaches and creaky bones and cumbersome marriages. Life gets too busy for
doing things
once you grow up. We grown-ups often miss out on the very best things because we’re so busy being grown-ups.”

Penny thought about this. “But,” she asked cautiously, “didn’t your parents mind? Didn’t you get in trouble?”

“My parents? Ha! Mama was long gone by then—died of consumption. And Papa disappeared on a freight train when she passed away. Left me with my grandmother. Then Gran took sick and couldn’t keep me anymore, so I landed at a children’s home, which was no kind of home so far as I could see. Things were bad at an orphanage in those days.”

Penny had no idea what to say. This was the saddest story she’d ever heard, and it made her own problems seem small, but the way Down-Betty told the story made it sound like no big deal. The old woman tossed these facts out like confetti: light, small, colorful.

“I’m so sorry,” Penny said. “I can’t even imagine.”

“Nope, you can’t, for which you should be thankful. But don’t cry for me, dearie, I’ve had a grand life. There’s no cause to be weeping about folks long gone.
Life’s too short for worry. Fix it or forget it, I always say.”

“She
does
say that,” confirmed Luella. “A lot. Down-Betty says
everything
a lot.”

Down-Betty laughed and threw a sprig of mint at Luella. “You’re a sassy thing!”

Luella stuck her tongue out.

Down-Betty continued, “You’d hardly think it to look at my scrawny chicken legs today, but in fact, I was the toast of vaudeville. I ate chocolate for breakfast and brushed my teeth with seltzer. I hung around dressing rooms listening to the old folks tell tall tales. I never saw a reason not to do just as I liked.”

“No reason not to do
just as you liked
?” asked Penny.

“Sure!” said Down-Betty. “Plenty of time to be careful when you’re a grown-up, right?”

Penny nodded thoughtfully. Then suddenly she set down her trowel and stood. She put her hands over her head. “Did you dance—like this?” she asked, twirling into a bed of squash.

“Almost exactly!” said Down-Betty, shaking a gloved hand in the air. “Bravo! Now
kick
!”

Penny kicked, and it felt good to stretch. She kicked again. She kicked higher. She kicked the other leg. She didn’t even notice that Luella was staring at her. She closed her eyes and did just as she liked. She leaped and spun and climbed up onto a wall to jump off. She found that the higher she kicked the higher she wanted to kick. She danced and danced, and when she was done, she lay panting in the dirt. It felt very good, like she’d let out all her worries.

“Oh, now you’re reminding me so much of your aunt, I might cry,” said Down-Betty. “You dance with a smile, just like she did when she was your age. Now,
there
was a character.”

Penny propped herself up on her elbows. “You knew Aunt Betty all the way back when you were kids?”

“Of course! That’s where we met. Onstage in a town near here, Chattanooga. I was working a place called the Liberty Theater, a nice place, as I recall. I sprained an ankle turning a pirouette, and your aunt was in the audience. Why, she hopped right up onstage and took over for me. Midspin. Improvised the whole darn thing.”

“You’ve never told me
that
part,” said Luella.

“
You
never asked,” said Down-Betty. She looked at Penny and went on. “From that day forth we were inseparable. She ran away and joined up with us that very night, and we toured together. Understudied each other. When vaudeville died, the two of us took a train out to California and made movies instead. Though neither of us ever became famous—I was too homely, and Betty got
too plump. But oh, we had fun.” Down-Betty appeared to be lost in the past. She stroked the bunch of mint in her hand and sniffed it deeply.

“It sounds great,” said Luella.

“Of course,” continued Down-Betty, “it was, but
these
are the days too. Just different. I love this, sitting here smelling the earth and the herbs. The sun warm on my shoulders and birds in the sky above me. Betty and I spent a lot of years happy like
this
too.”

“What else do you remember about her?” asked Penny.

“Oh, what
don’t
I remember? Funny how, as I get older, I start forgetting to do the dishes and I misplace my false teeth, but I remember all the long-ago stories clear like water. I remember Betty leaving the movies to marry Fred. Though she never took his name. Hoo boy, was Fred steamed at that! There they were, just married, and they walked into the reception hall at a posh hotel in Los Angeles, all ready to make their grand entrance, and some fancy man called out, ‘Presenting Mr. and Mrs. Frederick Dingler,’ all official-like, and your auntie threw her hand up in the air and stomped her foot and yelled, ‘I’ll no sooner be a Dingler than a dingbat! I’m Betty Dewberry, pal.’ And was she ever! Your aunt always did say just exactly whatever popped into her head.”
Down-Betty laughed and wiped a tear from her eye, remembering. “But poor old Fred got over it.”

Penny thought about this. “Then what happened?” she asked.

“Oh, then Betty and Fred left California, hit the road.”

“And that’s when she came here?” asked Luella.

“Not right at first,” said Betty. “They traveled a lot. The Far East and down in old Mexico. They dug for treasure in Cairo, Egypt, which is where they made most of their money. We lost track of one another, as people do, but every year she’d call on my birthday.”

“Treasure?” asked Penny, looking at her spade. “Really?”

“Sure,” said Betty. “She used to say it was the
only
thing to dig for, treasure. She wasn’t much for gardening herself. But then one day they came back here, opened up the old house, and settled down. Betty was mayor for a time. Fred taught school. Just regular everyday living, you know.”

Penny had fallen silent and was digging in the ground thoughtfully.

“What about you?” asked Luella. “What did
you
do all that time?”

Down-Betty got a faraway look in her eyes. “Oh, I
danced mostly, and sang a little. I left California too and moved to Pennsylvania. To dance at a little mountain resort in feathers and paste jewels. Finally I got old and the resorts closed, so I landed in Baltimore, Maryland. For a time I worked in a deli there, a place called Attman’s, where the sandwiches were as big as your head. Then one day I got my yearly call from Betty. She said Fred had passed away, and she wondered if I might like to come for a visit. The visit turned into a year, and before I knew it, I was living here at the Whippoorwillows.”

Penny heard her name echoing through the garden from a distance. “Peeeeeeeeeeeeenny Grey! Where are yoooooooooooooou?” It was Dirk.

Penny tossed her spade aside and stood up quickly.

“Oh, nuts! It sounds like your dad wants those berries,” said Luella.

“Yeah,” said Penny. “We’d better get going.”

Down-Betty smiled. “You’ll find the best ones at the far end of the thicket.” She gestured with a handful of mint. “Have fun, girls. Make a mess while you still can. Good luck!”

“Thanks for everything,” said Penny. “Thanks a lot.”

“Anytime, darlin’,” said Down-Betty. “It’s nice to
have you here. Makes me remember your aunt Betty. My, she must be beaming down on us right now, or
up
, maybe. Hard to guess where the old gal landed. She was a devil in her day.” Down-Betty winked.

Then Penny hugged Down-Betty. She buried her face in the old woman’s neck, which smelled like baby powder and tomato vines. Over the old woman’s shoulder Penny could see that Luella looked surprised, but Penny found that she didn’t care in the slightest. She did
just as she liked
. It was a good hug.

After that she headed off with Luella through the garden to pick berries. As she picked, she waited for Luella to tease her for dancing in the garden, and maybe for hugging Down-Betty. Funnily enough, Luella didn’t say a word, and as time slipped by, Penny realized it really didn’t matter either way.

Once the colander was full, the two girls ran back down the path and around to the front porch of the big house. Penny thumped up the steps to her apartment, holding the berries carefully with both hands. “You coming?” she asked Luella, turning on a step to look behind her.

“Nah.” Luella waved, opening the door to her own apartment. “I’m not in a behaving-for-parents kind of mood right now. But I’ll see you later. And I’m glad … 
you’re feeling better.” She ran inside and slammed the door.

Penny, who
was
feeling better, continued up the steps and through the door and the living room, to set the berries on the kitchen table in front of her mom and dad. Dirk was staring off into space. Delia was reading over Willa’s invitation but looking deflated. She was dressed very nicely, in a crisp white shirt and a pretty red skirt.

“You look nice,” Penny told her mom with a smile.

“Nice maybe, but not nice enough to be a receptionist at the Farmer’s Exchange.” Delia let out a deep sigh, set down the invitation, and chewed a thumbnail. “I didn’t get the job. It turns out you need to know all kinds of computery stuff, spreadsheets and databases. Funny, I hadn’t thought about it being
that
kind of a job here in the country. Even farmers are high-tech nowadays, I guess. I don’t know what we’ll do. I really don’t.” Delia buried her head in her arms. Dirk reached out and patted her absentmindedly on the back.

An hour earlier this might have upset Penny, but now it didn’t. Now, quite the contrary, it was as though the last piece of a puzzle were fitting into place with a firm little
click
. Penny knew now that her parents were out of
inner resources
. It was
her
turn.

She wrapped her arms around her mother just as she had wrapped them around Down-Betty. She gave Delia a big squeeze and kissed the top of Delia’s head like she’d seen her father do.

Delia looked up at Penny and smiled.

BOOK FIVE
I
NNER
R
ESOURCES